Alexander Kloster, Pass the Hot Dish

In 1997, I drop kicked Judy Bloom across the family room. Judy, named and given to me by my best friend, Christina, was a flowering houseplant. I took very good care of her until the day I sent her pot soaring one way and her blossoms the other. She lived, but Judy Bloom was never quite the same no matter how many stories I read to her about other plucky houseplants just like her who overcame their problems with pimples, parents, boys and being kicked across the room.

In 2005, I jumped out of my chair, waved my arms in the air, and sent my glasses flying until they were stopped by the forehead of my niece, Annie, before landing on her math book. “Don’t worry about it,” Annie said. “You throw like a girl.”

I don’t know what makes me like this.

I’m lying.

It’s Saturdays in the fall. It’s the mascots, the flags, and the jungle drum beat of the bands. It’s the fight songs and the history, the horrible food you eat that wouldn’t dare make you sick on a Saturday, on a football Saturday in the fall. College football is ruthless, mercenary and sometimes I don’t like myself on Sunday morning, but I look forward to these 15 days more than any other in the year.

Sometimes it’s not even the school you attended that you root for. I didn’t go to either of the schools to which I pledge my allegiance. I went to Northern Michigan University. How am I supposed to follow those games? Get out the old ham radio and see if I can connect with somebody doing a play-by-play from his cabin in the woods? So I’m a legacy fan of the Michigan State Spartans and a subway alumnus of the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame, one of the most beloved and hated teams in the world. Both of these programs have century long, bitter rivalries with the University of Michigan.

When my family learned Graham went to the University of Michigan, they started to vibrate like they were on the line ready for the play to start.

“How’s that going to work?” one of them pounced.

“It’ll be fine,” I assured them. “People will accept us! Why shouldn’t an MSU fan marry a U of M fan? Surely there’s no law against it. Is there?”

I won’t lie, friends. It’s been hard. Two days a year an uneasy truce invades our home. On these days, when Notre Dame plays Michigan and when Michigan plays Michigan State, I put on an old-fashioned leather helmet and dash through the house in T-shirts donning slogans so offensive to Graham’s alma mater they couldn’t print them in this newspaper. Graham acts like he couldn’t be bothered with any of it. I yell, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” and he says, “Oh, is there a game on today?”

“That’s the thing about Michigan people,” he informed me in the midst of their fall last weekend to Michigan State, “we don’t really care.”

“Then why do you look like Iron Eyes Cody in a yellow and blue shirt, paddling his canoe through a lake of garbage with the one sad tear running down his cheek?” I accused, in greater detail than I needed to.

“Our colors are not yellow and blue! This is maize!” he told me for the hundredth time.

“Yeah. You don’t care at all,” I agreed, but I knew better.

Win or lose, we feel like participants on Saturdays and part of the audience on Sundays.

College football means something, and the NFL is more like entertainment. For one thing, Sunday Night Football has Faith Hill singing its theme song while tomorrow, when Minnesota plays Purdue, music will be brought to you by kids who took band in high school.

The easy rapport we maintain during pro games is clear in the handles Graham and I chose for our NFL pool: Charles Ingalls and Half Pint. If we belonged to a college football pool our names would be, “I dare you to come over here and say that.” and “You better sleep with the lights on.”

Maybe the reason we get so worked up about it is because the teams we watch on Saturday are really just kids trying really hard. Sure, they’re kids who want to play on Sunday, but most of them won’t. Most of us aren’t going to be the one in a million who plays on Sunday. Sometimes the best we can hope for is a great Saturday with somebody cheering in our section, playing our song, and waving our flag.

Monday morning we go back to fighting one small battle after another. Most of them we win or lose alone, but on Saturday, you put on your colors and sit on the edge of the sofa like the coach is about to call you in. When you win, you win big. When you lose, you lose together. There’s always next week; there’s always next season. It’s not a bad way to spend an afternoon with your family, even if you do have to sit on opposite sides of the room sometimes.

St. Paul resident Alexandra Kloster appears on two Fridays a month. She may be reached at alikloster@yahoo.com and her blog is Radishes at Dawn at alexandrakloster.com.