You Really Can't Take Us Anywhere

This Saturday I had a little dilemma, my alma mater Colorado Mesa University (aka Mesa College or Mesa State College) was playing a football game against Emily’s Colorado School of Mines, so I had a little trouble figuring out whom I wanted to cheer for. But it was an incredible Saturday, and since the game was at 1:00, I’m had to go watch. The truth of the matter is that although I went to Mesa, I never went to a football game while I was there, and haven’t been to a Mesa football game since I was a little girl because...

The Mesa vs. Dixie Football Game

Once upon a time when I was a little girl, my cousin was quarterbacking for the Dixie College Rebels. They came to Grand Junction to play Mesa and my entire family loaded up and headed in to watch the big game. Since we were obviously cheering for Dixie we sat on the west side stands at Stocker Stadium, which back then had old school wooden bleachers. There weren’t many fans for Dixie and after the game got started a group of significantly intoxicated drunks came and sat behind us on the bleachers.  They of course were booing Dixie and then they started swearing loudly every time Mesa made a mistake. My Dad finally had enough, stood up, went back and informed the drunks that he had come here with his wife and family to enjoy a football game and that he didn’t want to hear them swear again. At first the drunks were a little belligerent…until they saw all my Uncles standing on the bleachers looking back at them. Shortly after that I remember Mesa making another mistake and hearing the drunks behind us loudly say, “OH SHOOT!” my Dad turned around and gave them a thumbs up.

It turns out that my Dad wasn’t really safe to take to a lot of places.

Once, while sitting in the car outside the Orchard Mesa Market with Uncle Rodney, I innocently remarked about a boy starting up the sidewalk that had been harassing me at school. Daddy nonchalantly placed the car in drive coasted forward a little and ended up pinning the poor 4^th grader against the side of the building and lecturing him a little.

Then there was that summer when the Hell’s Angels rented the duplex at the ranch next to ours, it was the same summer my Dad put a gun rack in his back window and proudly displayed his 0.30/0.30. We never did have any trouble from those bikers.

Another time we were enjoying the spectacle of the Fruita fireworks when we heard a scuffle, wondered what it was only to have that question answered when we heard my Dad roar, “I haven’t hit you, YET!.” Turns out a drunk was picking on his girlfriend and my Dad decided he wasn’t going to let him. Daddy never did hit him, but he did tweak the guys’ nose to get his attention. We never got to go back to the Fruita fireworks…

It was a different time of course, now you get the cops called on you when you show the guy that just flipped you the middle finger the handgun you kept in the glove box (ok, it’s not like he actually pointed it at him, he just showed it to him). Or if you chase down a little sports car that the passenger flipped you off in and turn your big crew cab sideways on the road ahead of them to block them and get out in your dark suits and sunglasses (they were on their way to a church meeting).

Oh for the good old days. The reality is that we can’t stand up for anything anymore. Oh how I long for days like that. Sometimes now when people say, “Why are you so violent Allison?” I really want to tell them to go kiss my big white Lincoln, and then I think “I guess I come by this naturally”.