I remember writing before about how I felt about Manhattan, Kansas when I moved there. It is a real small university town and at that time no one there knew how to spell Vegetarian. Anyways, during orientation I signed up for a host family and completely forgot all about it...until one day I got a phone call. It was from JH. JH introduced herself and asked me if we could go out for dinner. She asked me of my dietary requirements (vegetarian at the time) and decided that I would enjoy salads (which I do not). So off we went to Applebees on a Friday evening. She picked me up, treated me for dinner and dropped me back. She was nearing 50 and a widow of the erstwhile assistant coach of K-States prestigious football team, the Wildcats...Bob Hope. She did this once every month. Offered to take me shopping or just to hang out. She was always courteous and polite and very nice giving me ample advice.
During the college football season, she offered to take me and G to a game. I had no idea that we would get prime seats, and an amazing view but unfortunately neither of us followed the game and sat through the ordeal grudgingly in cold. That was the only football game I had been to till 2012. Later on JH got re-married and moved away to Florida to start a new life and I have not heard from her since...that was 10 years ago...
This past Friday a friend and also a K-State alumni, MR called to ask if we would like to go our school game at TCU and he had free tickets...hell yeah! Babs baby sitter was arranged and off we went together...giggling and full of excitement sporting school gear! Because we went late, the only place we found was among the TCU crowd...but we got there and cheered as loud as we could. We rooted for our team with our mascot Willie the Wildcat, and stood on our feet the whole three hours filled with excitement. For once I did not need coke or anything else to boost my energy. The crowd was electric, both K-state supporters and the home team.
We started to win and the home supporters started to leave slowly...and eventually by the end of third quarter we were standing in the first row...we screamed for Willie to hi-fi with us and could not stop cheering as Wildcats finished the game. We were all so proud and inspired to see our 73 year old coach Bill Snyder do his thing and pull our team once ranked the "most hapless team" to be the #1 team in the country...
Then another amazing thing happened, the team ran close to us giving us hi-fi and fist pumps, I got to shake hands with our Heisman trophy contending QB, Collin Klein and then we took tons of pics with Willie who very nicely posed with all of us...and the rest of the walk back to our car we could not stop talking about the fun we had had...the excitement...
This had been better than the Cowboy's game we had gone to earlier this year...we not only lost but got booed by the guest team in our very own arena...how sad could that be...we left half hour before the game ended and so did most Cowboy's fans...
Anyways, the icing on the cake was when Babs asked me and G when we picked her up, "So did you guys have fun? Tell me about it."
I thought she will get sad if I told her we had fun without her but then decided to tell her everything to build the trust, and to our surprise she was not sad or mad but wanted to see the pics and pestered us to tell her everything about the game. She always keeps surprising us...
So Anyways...I will update with some pics soon...until then have a fun fun fun Deepavali/Diwali.
Love
ART
During the college football season, she offered to take me and G to a game. I had no idea that we would get prime seats, and an amazing view but unfortunately neither of us followed the game and sat through the ordeal grudgingly in cold. That was the only football game I had been to till 2012. Later on JH got re-married and moved away to Florida to start a new life and I have not heard from her since...that was 10 years ago...
This past Friday a friend and also a K-State alumni, MR called to ask if we would like to go our school game at TCU and he had free tickets...hell yeah! Babs baby sitter was arranged and off we went together...giggling and full of excitement sporting school gear! Because we went late, the only place we found was among the TCU crowd...but we got there and cheered as loud as we could. We rooted for our team with our mascot Willie the Wildcat, and stood on our feet the whole three hours filled with excitement. For once I did not need coke or anything else to boost my energy. The crowd was electric, both K-state supporters and the home team.
We started to win and the home supporters started to leave slowly...and eventually by the end of third quarter we were standing in the first row...we screamed for Willie to hi-fi with us and could not stop cheering as Wildcats finished the game. We were all so proud and inspired to see our 73 year old coach Bill Snyder do his thing and pull our team once ranked the "most hapless team" to be the #1 team in the country...
Then another amazing thing happened, the team ran close to us giving us hi-fi and fist pumps, I got to shake hands with our Heisman trophy contending QB, Collin Klein and then we took tons of pics with Willie who very nicely posed with all of us...and the rest of the walk back to our car we could not stop talking about the fun we had had...the excitement...
This had been better than the Cowboy's game we had gone to earlier this year...we not only lost but got booed by the guest team in our very own arena...how sad could that be...we left half hour before the game ended and so did most Cowboy's fans...
Anyways, the icing on the cake was when Babs asked me and G when we picked her up, "So did you guys have fun? Tell me about it."
I thought she will get sad if I told her we had fun without her but then decided to tell her everything to build the trust, and to our surprise she was not sad or mad but wanted to see the pics and pestered us to tell her everything about the game. She always keeps surprising us...
So Anyways...I will update with some pics soon...until then have a fun fun fun Deepavali/Diwali.
Love
ART
