I cried because I had no shoes. I cried even more when my fiancé came home from Jimmy Choo.
This weekend marks Family Weekend when moms, dads, stepmoms and stepdads invade the Hilltop, while stopping off at NorthPark and Highland Park Village. Don’t cry like me if your wife or girlfriend spends the rent at those places. Just get even, and meet me at Al Biernat’s, Patrizio, Javier’s or Mi Cocina, all great watering holes and great places to eat, freshman or 51.
While officially this is “Family Weekend,” the truth to those who’ve been coming to the Boulevard whenever the Ponies are home is that these home games have always been a “family affair,” even without Buffy, Jody, Sissy and Mr. French.
And this is not limited to our blood relatives, but to those we went to school with, those we watched play football and those we have met while stumbling around from tent to tent.
Our famed Lance McIlhenny will tell you, “It sounds like a wiener” and then cook you a bratwurst. Thanks for pitching one out to me last week, Lance.
The bargain of the year are the season tickets, of which I bought two for $140—the equivalent of four chicken enchilada dinners, four margaritas and the tip over at Javier’s. I can’t recall what the other folks at the table had.
Only at Goodwill can you get a better deal on something useful, but not any more fun and wholesome. I watched kids of all ages walk around, cellphone free, last Saturday.
Walking the Boulevard last weekend I felt like Jay Gatsby, standing there next to a renovated silver Gulfstream party trailer, watching the friendly ghosts of Ron Meyer and DK Perry cavort. And Lance cooking his bratwursts. The Boulevard’s oak trees are full and wide now, just like me after the 29 years since I roamed the Hilltop with the other brontosaurses. A new cozy football stadium hosts games that once were played at the Cotton Bowl and Texas Stadium. At the Cotton Bowl, you paid $5 to park your car in someone’s yard and another $5 to someone who made sure no one broke into it. To Texas Stadium, we rode a chartered bus out and back, the Mustangs doing a wonderful job of filling that place in our heyday, our khaki’d rear ends warming up the seats for the Cowboys, the following day. Lord help you if you had to use the restroom on those long, traffic-snarled rides. I considered renting out catheters.
I was somewhat dismayed by the lack of students at the game this past weekend. And by my fellow classmates’ absences, quite honestly. One SMU buddy said he had to go to a movie. The nicest Saturday evening we’ve had in three months, and the guy makes like a mushroom and pays to sit in the dark. I’ve written the State Department and asked that his citizenship be revoked. After all, he could have come to cheer on the Ponies with me while watching the movie on his iPhone.
Rick Larson is a 1982 graduate of SMU as well as a member of Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity. He has been a stockbroker/investment advisor for 26 years. He can be reached for comment at [email protected]
