Saturday

It was hard to watch the Buckeyes lose in a close game in the Orange Bowl last night.  I never knew who Clemson was in 1978 when I attended my first game against them in Jacksonsville, Florida.  That night made history.

We flew down to Aunt Florence's house near the Wiki Wachi gardens on the Gulf Coast.  She let me borrow her big Buick to drive to the game.  It was a good thing, because anyone who had Ohio license plates and parked in the wrong place that night got their car trashed or burned.  It was like civil war riots.  Many cars were burned and destroyed.

I went to the rest room first and there beside me was Roger Bernard, the ag teacher I had followed at Blanchester!  We looked at each other like what in the world are you doing here!  He was executive secretary for the Georgia Pork Producers!  That turned out to be the best part of the evening.

As we took our seats we were out numbered over ten to one in favor of support of Clemson.  They had signs like Yankee Go Home and proceeded to harass the Buckeye fans all night.  The threw their beer at us and it felt like real hatred where I sat and watched.

You could see it on the field too and Woody went into a tirade near the end when their famous player intercepted a pass from Art Schlichter and Woody socked him one under his helmet.  It turned out his diabetes was out of control and that wasn't revealed to the world until last night's pregame show.  It brought back all of my memories.  The Civil War hatred was present at the game that night and I am not sure we will be ever over it.  It's been passed down for centuries now.

Any hatred I had was just extreme disappointment.

A football game is supposed to be fun, right?  I was hoping the Buckeyes could vindicate Coach Hayes but that wasn't what this game was about.  I hope the best team one last night.

Have a great day,

Ed Winkle