Just booked my Lambeau Field Legendary Stadium Tour. I'm adding Hall of Fame entry for afterward. It's all part of an upcoming college reunion next month. It was my years in Michigan's Upper Peninsula that made me a Packer fan. It was easy to abandon the Rams and make the switch after my childhood team moved to St. Louis. I've never been to Lambeau but I once finished third in a college cross country meet in Green Bay. Fine memories. It will be nice to not only tour the stadium but attend the Packers-Bengals game a few days later.
In between, there will be three nights in Marquette, Michigan. It's Families Weekend (no longer is it just Parents Weekend). The fall leaves will be a riot of color and I'll pay a visit to Black Rocks on Presque Isle, one of my favorite places on earth. There's a fine trail through the nearby woods, which I'll find a way to run and appreciate. Marquette is on my short list of Happy Places, right up there with Mammoth and London. It's where I nurtured dreams that eventually came true.
I once shared a dormitory floor in Gant Hall with the guys I'll be meeting. I'm not sure how many will be there, but it looks like six or so. We were eighteen when we first met, new to college and a long way from figuring out girls, life, and who we wanted to be when we grew up. My roommate Sean Railton was on the alpine ski team and I ran cross. We didn't get along all that well, often fighting like brothers. But we've gotten tight over the years. We know each other's wives and kids. It's Sean that I'll be road tripping with from Green Bay.
Gant Hall is no more, demolished a few years ago. Otherwise, we would find our way to the third floor like we did a few years ago and wax nostalgic. Our group becomes teenagers once again when we reuinite, busting balls as if no time at all has passed. At some point, there will be dinner at Togo's or Vango's, beer at the Third Base Bar, and pretty much the same activities that made us happy in 1979. We're all capable of buying a nice steak dinner in the fancy restaurants we couldn't afford back then but we never seem to make it to those places.
It's going to be pretty amazing. I can't wait.
One of my closest friends in our group, however, will not be in Marquette. He will be sorely missed. The hate and mistrust that divides our nation somehow crept into our group dynamic. My buddy would rather stay home than engage in some of the inevitable political discourse. Free speech being free speech, things might get heated. That's the way it is with brothers. We agree to disagree but no one is shooting anyone. I watch what's happening in our nation at a remove, believing the rancor is something that can't affect me personally, only to watch it seep like a cancer into a lifetime friendship.
I hope my good friend changes his mind. It's going to be an amazing weekend.