Grand Time at the Ol' Gridiron (2009)
Originally published as a Facebook Note September 26, 2009. Kingston Stadium (source: tourismcedarrapids.com) High school football on Friday night is a hugely popular tradition in much of America, so hugely popular that it gets along fine without me, which is fine with both of us. However, recently Friday night lights in Cedar Rapids have shown on Robbie and the Warriors, a.k.a. the Washington High School Marching Band. So off we trundled on a fair evening last night, with our Japanese visitors in tow: Teppei from Waseda U. and Nuri from Nagoya U. They were in for a dose of American culture, and they got it. "Exciting," said Nuri. Words hardly do justice to their responses, though. Teppei's English is pretty good, but he's most expressive with his face and variety of vocal noises... think someone with the facial plasticity of Susan Young and the emotiveness of Ron Santo... and every bonecrunching tackle or trip to the concessions stands got a volume of expression...