Game On!

Saturday will be a fun day for my wife and me. Some old friends buy a set of four tickets to University of Illinois home football games each season and invite special friends and relatives to tailgate and watch the game with them. Our game is tomorrow morning.

It is always good to have old friends. Carol and I worked together in the 1980's when we both got paid peanuts to work at a small religious school. Carol's husband Steve, however, worked for Central Management Services in the state -- a pretty nice job. Carol and Steve's apartment was like party central -- always a location to relax, always a welcoming place where the drinks were flowing, the conversations were great and the fun factor was high.

Some thing don't change much, I guess. We start the morning with breakfast at Carol and Steve's, tailgate before the game, watch the Illini usually get their asses handed to them (not this season, though!), tailgate after the game, then head back to our friends' house for post-tailgate drinks, television and conversation. The conversation tends to be slightly different now -- usually topics like medical woes and how our children are doing has replaced the stuff people talk about in their twenties.

The Illini are a 25 1/2 point favorite, boding for a much better result than we have seen on our football excursions the past few years. Oskee Wow Wow!

And JT88Keys -- will you be rooting for the Illini?