The Football Game

We went down to Mississippi to go to an Ole Miss Football game. Brett was eager to reminisce and show me the life he’d lived for a while. You know I don’t like crowds or loud noises, also, I managed to go to two colleges without football teams, so I knew this was one of those hits you just have to take for the sake of your marriage.

The first thing to delight me was the Mississippi accent. Oh it’s so bouncy and energetic. Coming from Charleston, with our elongated drawl, I was surprised by the rapid fire blast of words that are thrown at your face when someone greets you. Though maybe this was just a trait of Brett's best friend Landon, who picked us up at the airport in Jackson and talked at us the whole way to the tiny town of McComb, a ramshackle place with a poverty rate of 35%. Landon is a giant of a man with a voice that sounds like he’s got rocks clanging around in his throat. He calls Brett by his last name but it's like the word is being shot out of a cannon that grew up in the deep south. Ahzenhar!

“And you’ll never guess, Ahzenhar, member that guy? That guy with the tattoos that don't make any sense? Well they caught him cheatin’. And they caught him doing it in his in-laws bed!” We listened to him talk about all the town scandals for a good hour and half, and he hardly took a breath in between. The endearing part of the gossip though was that it seemed like Landon had to tell us, not for the sake of spreading stories but as though he needed us to confirm his outrage. “That's just not right. Y’all don’t think that’s right do ya?” Before we’d even gotten to McComb, we knew all the cheaters, addicts, inmates, and hoarders, as well as who was ill, who was grieving a loss, and who had a problem being neighborly. “But anyways, how y’all doing? Ahzenhar, you still working for The Man?”

We pulled into Landon’s driveway and unloaded our stuff. Landon’s wife Kristin came out to greet us. “I hope y’all are hungry. I’ve got supper on the stove. Now I know you don’t eat meat,” she told me, “so I’m ona try makin’ lentils.” We spent the evening somehow learning more about the citizens of Pike County who all seem…left behind, somehow.

“Ahzenhar, your wife let you eat meat at night, or are you eatin’ sissy meals?” For all the teasing they did about my eating preferences, which don't seem all that odd back home, Landon stayed aware of my options everywhere we went. “I’m not sure they’ll have anything for Lue there. She needs some protein. Lookater.” Kristen was much less interested in my nutrition over the weekend. It was hard to find vegetables in the restaurants, let alone a protein source that didn’t come from a dead animal. Everywhere we went, the options were meat and bread. “You could just have a bite of sausage and be done with it,” Kristin told me, and then stared at me, waiting for my revelation. One day Landon ordered a salad, “for my health” he said with a grin. It was chicken, bacon, and cheese on a single leaf of romaine lettuce. Even Landon laughed at it. “I guess this is a sorry salad. You know what though, I do love red beans n’ rice. I could eat that everyday for lunch. Dutin’ even need meat.” 

On game day we drove to Oxford and set out making food to bring to a tailgating party. Tailgating, I learned, is where you stand around eating and socializing for many hours prior to a football game, where you then go on to eat and socialize. Kristin prepared assorted meats wrapped in crescent rolls. “You eat pepperoni though, right?” I volunteered to make something as well, though Brett immediately understood it was so that I wouldn't be hungry all day. Naturally I made a fruit and vegetable platter. And it was beautiful. I used every color in the rainbow. I sliced peppers and blanched asparagus, cubed a melon and did cucumbers on the bias. It was a lush and abundant display. I felt great pride towards my veggie tray and hoped it would somehow inspire Kristin.

I’d been expecting a parking lot full of truck bed coolers and small charcoal grills. I figured people would be wearing brilliantly colored jerseys and grease splattered t-shirts.

Instead we were in a massive park shaded by moss-laden oak trees outlined with orderly red brick pathways. The grass was the greenest grass and the sunlight speckled through the trees like it would in a romance movie. There were no gurgling cars or shlubby husbands clinking beer cans. There were tents. Huge tents for each group of gathering friends, like a farmers market. Like an old-money southern farmers market. The tents had chandeliers, flower arrangements, and tv’s showing other football games. The people in the tents were wearing their Sunday best; the men in their button-downs, and women in dresses and heels. “What is this place?” I whispered to Brett. It suddenly made sense to me why, for the first time in our marriage, Brett made me change my clothes when I came out in jeans and sneakers. For the current girl students at the school, the uniform was any short dress or skirt but with all-white cowboy boots. Fascinating. 

We left our crescent rolls and veggies in our base of operations tent, and then bee-bopped around meeting Brett’s old friends. It felt like a Discovery Channel expedition of sorts; this strange fancy tailgating experience, me in a Mississippi ghillie suit trying not to be noticed. I watched Brett and Landon slap and smack the guys they love while Kristin told someone’s wife about the guy with tattoos that make no sense. 

Since I despise small-talk and new people, I mostly loitered around the food tables in people’s tents, hoping to find a fun treat. Ground beef salsa. Bacon-topped rice krispie treats. Sugar, carbs, meat. My stomach grumbled. We were acres from my veggie platter. Perhaps somewhere someone had brought a side of broccoli salad? Coleslaw? Most sides were in the realm of lobster mac n’ cheese. I thought about the people in McComb who probably couldn’t afford to eat lobster. What a difference an hour on the highway made in terms of wealth and ingredients. Even still, the lifestyle basics were the same. 

We circled back to base of operations two hours later. I was ravenous. All the chips and hot dogs and pepperoni crescent rolls were gone. Lone, broken crackers sat atop otherwise empty trays. A spilled dollop of salsa here, a cheese cube there. But shining bright in the middle of the folding table, a rainbow of colors beaming among tan and white burger buns, sat my veggie platter. Completely untouched. Perfectly intact. Not a grape out of place. Frankly it looked stupid - sitting there surrounded by discarded napkins and ravaged casserole dishes. Like most quietly beautiful things, it sat alone, overshadowed by the temporary pleasure of salt and grease. Brett frowned at it, and then set out to eat the whole thing out of spite. Or redemption. Or maybe just to make me feel better.

The following were my questions:

Why?

Do people not recognize these foods?

Is it because they are raw?

Do they only eat them cooked?

Maybe they eat their vegetables cooked within other foods. Like soup.

Is it because it's healthy?

Do the people know about the lack of nutrition in the other dishes?

Does nutrition matter?

Is this an education issue?

Is this a systemic issue?

Am I the problem?

I thought about the day before when I was shopping for the vegetables. I had been stunned when one small bunch of asparagus cost $6. Well no wonder people aren't eating vegetables. Who could afford to? For $6 dollars you could buy a bag of chips and a jar of salsa that would feed 5 or 6 happy grazers. That asparagus could only feed two, who would still be hungry after. At home, in my ritzy town, that same asparagus would cost $3. Why does it cost more in a town with less money?

It made me look around at the tailgating park through “sad goggles.” I stopped noticing that there were only meat dishes available to eat and suddenly noticed all the additional crap food, chemical-y food, the plastic tablecloths, plastic forks, cups, bowls, plates. The excess and the extravagance of it all. The farmers market style tailgating thing seemed like a lot of effort when you could just go a friends house. And why does your tent need overhead lighting in the middle of the day? And then I hated myself for being that person. That self-righteous, tree-hugging, “I can't enjoy this because there is injustice in the world” kind of person that nobody wants to hang out with. “It's a special occasion,” I told myself. “People are celebrating,” but I also knew that wasn't true. Don't they have football games every week? And aren’t you supposed to celebrate after you know who wins? 

Just 100% overwhelmed.

Prior to coming to Mississippi, Brett was trying to explain to me the “point” of a football game. “Well, it's exciting. It's a competition. And you have a team you know. Your tribe. And you have your flags and your chants…” 

For some reason I thought about a medieval, nordic battle of sorts. Big, hairy men running down a hill with axes and horns. While it’s a stretch to compare football to war, I could understand the hope and connection and pride of your little raided village. Of course you would fight back and bring your people to victory.

“... there's camaraderie and lots of surprises…” So maybe if the football games were just a little something going on that people could watch on tv, that would make some sense. That could be fun. But there in the stadium I could only see an industry; a money-making, brainwashing, propaganda “be a man” scheme. 

“... and you get to know some of the players and then you're really rooting for them…” And I didnt want to be thinking these things. I wanted to be another person who understood why all of it was fun. I wanted to be swept up in the action while guzzling soda from a cup so big I have to hold it with both hands. 

“... and there are dancers and music and snacks…” But I couldn't unsee it. It’s way too much. How can we spend so much money on a frivolous feeding-frenzy celebration when an hour away there's a tiny town where no one can afford to buy fruit? What does that say about our priorities? Entertainment over basic needs? Of course not, right?

And this isn't what you're supposed to be thinking about when you go to a football game....but no one ate any vegetables! Why? When did meat become the only food that matters?

“...and if you win, you feel like something big happened to you.” And it isn't the people’s fault. They don't set the prices. They don't want to have to choose between their health and their rent payment. There are plenty of people who wish they could afford nuts and salads and food that will make them feel better. Why does the food that makes you feel better have to cost so much. Should that be a basic right, or something?

“... and if you lose, you feel fired up for next time.” I looked around at the thousands of people shaking plastic pompoms that will go on to clog up some waterway somewhere. It’s some kind of Jumbotron mentality. Build a stadium so big, so packed full of potential spenders that they can't actually see the game they came to watch. Then, we'll just hook up a giant tv for them to watch it on... and just tell them it’s part of the experience. 

I promise I was not a buzzkill. This was all going internally in the background, while I learned the school chant and ate boiled peanuts and made Landon laugh.

If someone had just eaten my veggie tray...