Football Mania

Now, I like football almost as much as the next person. In my younger days, I loved going to Patriots games. And at one game, I sat in about the 5th row from the field right on the 50 yd line. Now that's watching football at its best. But, I didn't know what football mania was like till I came here and watched football with Jenia.

Jenia grew up for a long while in the south. Older brother, Mario, is a graduate of LSU and Jenia spent a year or so living near the LSU campus while studying at a gourmet cooking school where she became an LSU fan tried and true. Naturally, having grown up, and later in life lived and worked in the southern states (Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana), one becomes a fan of LSU… AND The Saints. Both Jenia and Kirk have worked in the New Orleans area for several years so they both have a passion for The Saints.

Where the house is currently located is right on the Texas / Arkansas border. The house is in AR but most of the things we do are on the TX side... that's just how it works. So from a sports standpoint, at least for the professional sports, Texas is the one people usually identify with... and that means The Cowboys. I liked the Cowboys especially when people like Troy Aikman, Roger Staubach and Don Meredith headed the team. But down here, even this far away from Dallas, Cowboys rein. That may be the way things work on the outside, but inside this house it's THE SAINTS all the way.

So we've been watching the playoff games and having a blast. Hey, I'm easy - one team or another, it's always fun.

After The Saints won their previous divisional playoff and were now going to play to see if they could win a spot in the Super Bowl, well, things got a little wild around here. We decided we would have a little celebration, with food and drink, and watch the playoff game(s). BUT, one cannot watch playoff games if one does not have a T-shirt or some sort of apparel to support your team. And we didn't have that. So it's a-shopping we go.

Like I said, we are closer to Texas than Louisiana. And all the stores we hit didn't have a thing for The Saints. Some of them did have LSU stuff but Jenia and Stasia have plenty of that. Saturday came and went and we still didn't have anything to cheer our team on - with the exception of some delicious food and drinks.

Jenia was complaining to her parents (who live in Puerto Rico) about not having Saints t-shirts. So dad says.... 'why don't you go to Shreveport.. it's close enough and they are sure to have some.' Well, neither Jenia nor I had thought that through but said yes, we can do that.

Sunday morning was warmer (high 50's) and the sun was shining brightly so we got dress, went out for breakfast, and hit the road to Shreveport. It was a nice slightly over an hour's drive down a 2-lane divided highway for part of the trip. The rest of it was on a 2-lane, narrow country road. Still and all, I wasn't driving so I got to check out the scenery.

The drive was fine and the fields and roads to Shreveport were interesting. There were many fields along the road that were mowed down with just stalks sticking up. Guess they were getting ready to plant something. But, me being the city girl born and bred, didn’t have the faintest clue as to what crop might be going in. Jenia thought sugar cane might be a good guess and they sort of looked like that.

Anyhow, we hit downtown Shreveport and just drove thru it looking for some kind of a mall or Walmart. We drove over a river with a big paddle wheel boat sitting at the dock and promptly put ourselves in Bossier City. I guess Shreveport and Bossier City are kind of thought of as one place and they are right next to each other. Sure enough, after asking directions (we are women after all), we found the Bossier City Mall. And in the first sports store we hit, we found our T-shirts. And this is what we wound up with. Jenia wore her t-shirt to work cause they have things going on there where people wear their favorite team’s apparel.

So here we are all ready for THE big game on Feb 7. Now we will be in vogue when we go to a Super Bowl party with friends from Jenia’s work.