One Day To Go.

Music heard so deeply That it is not heard at all, but you are the music While the music lasts. - TS Eliot, "The Dry Salvages"

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It is September 28, 2002 and I am young and very stupid.

The facepaint came from Wal-Mart. From the Halloweeen costume section. Black and gold and caked thickly and not at all right for wearing outside, not at all right for wearing all day, and not at all right for wearing in the sun all day. (I look it up ten years and eleven months later: the mean temperature that day in Orlando is 83.1°F, and the maximum was 91.9°F, but on September 28, 2002 it feels like one hundred and ten). It mixes with my sweat, turns to liquid. Runs into my eyes and mouth. It is salty (is face paint salty before your sweat has melted it?). I am squinting. Not just because the black and gold face paint is melting into my eyes. But also because I do not have sunglasses and am in the east stands. I do not own sunglasses. I am young and very stupid.

At some point (it must be half time, can it be the beginning of the game?) we are on the field. The players jog past: GO KNIGHTS GO KNIGHTS GO KNIGHTS. Some high fives, but soft. (Later this will seem funny to me, but right now it's September 28, 2002, and it doesn't). I'm sweating. The black and gold facepaint is melting into the collar of my t-shirt. It says "Freshman Frenzy!" I have paid $20 for the t-shirt and a ticket and a bus ride to the game. The T-shirt is not a treasured possession, not a holy relic. It probably lasts a year and I probably throw it when I move from the dorm when Spring ends. I wish I had saved it, but on September 28, 2002, I am young and very stupid.

I do not know anything about the team. I can tell you nothing about them. And I high-five them. Later I will come to know more, stories and statistics and apocypha. Right now it is tabula rasa. I can tell you something about the opponent. They are the Liberty Flames and on September 28, 2002 this is an intensely funny name for a football team. In the stands, someone is yelling FLAAAAAAAMERS. FLAAAAAAAMERS. (Is it me? I have mentioned -- I am young and very stupid).

There's no ending I can remember. Later I know that the game began at 6 PM. It must have ended in darkness. But today (it is September 28, 2002) it never gets dark. It is always the afternoon and the sun is always bright (never mind that it must never really have been afternoon) and it is always melting the black and gold face paint into my eyes and mouth. Today I do not appreciate how much this will come to mean. But then again, it is September 28, 2002. And I am young and very stupid.