Since I wrote my post ranting about my hatred for Ohio State Football and Wal-mart, I have been receiving many hits from people searching the Internets with queries such as “i hate ohio state website”. I was surprised to see that the most popular subject (aside from people looking for photos of Irish dance shoes and information about knitting legwarmers) is “oh how i hate ohio state t-shirts”. I was feeling badly about misleading all of these poor souls who are looking to express their disdain for Ohio State through clothing, only to find my ramblings. So I created a t-shirt through CafePress.
Click the photo to visit Cafepress.
There are many different styles of shirts available (although I prefer the yellow with blue printing, of course), and I only marked them $1 above the CafePress base price. (Hey, a girl has to pay for her bandwidth somehow.) Hate on, readers.
On-the-spot endorsement from Aidan, who is looking over my shoulder: “Does that say ‘Oh, How I Hate Ohio State’? I totally want that.” And he’s not even a Michigan fan.
On that note, I suppose it is time to talk about a painful subject. The Rose Bowl.
My dad is a U of M alumni, longtime season ticketholder, and Victors Club member. When he offered us the opportunity to purchase tickets, Kyle decided to seize the chance to attend a bowl game. So off to California we went, with $300 less in our bank account. Kyle’s brother generously allowed us to stay at his house, and we offered him two tickets (at face value, of course, because he is family) in return.
So what is it like to attend a bowl game? A lot like attending a regular game, except with more traffic and Darth Vader overseeing the coin toss.
The Rose Bowl (or the area around it, at least) is fairly pretty, as the stadium was plunked down in the hills of the California coast. It’s located in the middle of a residential area, which seemed kind of strange to me. I can’t imagine living amidst that chaos for a weekend. (Unless I was selling bootleg Rose Bowl merchandise in my front yard and raking in the dough.)
Our day consisted of much wandering on the Brookside Golf Course, where we managed to park. We were a group of non-tailgating party poopers, so we had nothing better to do than watch everyone else who had the foresight to bring generators and televisions and lots of yummy food. And the centerpieces…people actually brought centerpieces created with roses in their team colors. (And I thought team-branded flags and tents were big doings.) There were many places where one could purchase official Rose Bowl merchandise, but the number of bathrooms and food stands was paltry, creating crazy long lines. (I heard of a mythical “food zone”, but we never stumbled upon it.)
The game itself was…well, everyone knows how that went down. I received a bit of ribbing from the other fans in the Michigan section for bringing two USC fans into their midst, but it was all good natured. (Nothing like this.) Losing aside, it was a pretty fun time. Except for this guy:
He insisted on standing throughout the game. Not just during plays- he remained standing even through the television timeouts. When every single person in the section was sitting, he resolutely stood. Directly in my line of vision. (Lucky me.) Our little group, joined by some equally irritated people behind us, commenced mocking him until he finally caved under the pressure at the end of the third quarter and sat down (to much cheering). His standing companion buckled much earlier, which prompted Kyle to exclaim: “Hey! That’s great! Now I can see 80 yards of the field!”
More photos of Rose Bowl fun (and other California hijinks) here.
Hi! I'm Denise, a redheaded, knitting, homeschooling, computer-dependent chick. This is where I haphazardly document my life, which I share with my husband and three boys. 
