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Sunday, Sept. 22, 2002 - 7:39 p.m. Not a good weekend, football-wise, here at casa Roadiepig. The Illini are 24-point favorites. They gain over 600 yards of offense and still find a way to loose the game, 37-34. The Bears play a good game, win the turnover battle (one of the best indicators of how well your defense played) 3-2, and built a 20-0 lead in the first half of their game today with the New Orleans Saints. They couldn�t stand having a lead, and found themselves behind 29-23 in the final minutes. The offense managed to move the ball down the field to the Saints 17 yard line, but quarterback Jim Miller threw an interception into the end zone with 30 seconds to play to seal the loss. The Bears had managed to win 12 straight games when the final score was less than a 7-point margin. That streak is over. Their luck finally ran out. Friday? Friday was the annual cross-town football game against our two public high schools. I graduated from the team across town, and Codeman will graduate from the school just up the road from us (Lease got her diploma from the neighborhood school, too). So this game always causes mixed emotions for me. I know so many players from each team (having coached many of them at baseball through the years). I want my old Alma Matter to get back where they are competitive. They have �Sucked� (capitol �S�) at football for the past decade, and are just now showing signs of improvement. I don�t want Codeman�s team to loose, because he has so many friends on the squad. He is also the video camera operator for the home games. Like I said- mixed emotions� I wanted to go to the game Friday, but I didn�t want to sit by myself. Lease didn�t want to go for several reasons: she had to get up early to work a half-day Saturday, she wanted to get some house cleaning done Friday evening (and encouraged me to go to the game for that reason), and she didn�t want to sit in the bleachers on the first cool fall evening we have had this year (low of 48� overnight). I was suffering from a mild headache, so I decided I would just stay home and listen to the game on the Walkman�. Lease kept telling me to �Go!�, but I put the headphone son and turned on the radio.
I listened to all the pre-game coverage. I listened to both coaches talking about how this would be the first competitive game the two teams had played in years. I listened to the radio announcers commenting on the huge crowd. And (hey Joleen � I also start paragraphs with the word �And�, too!) I turned the radio off and headed out the door(after giving Lease a kiss, of course. I was bailing on her, after all). I had to park at the discount bread outlet store, a full � mile away. As I approached the stadium, the teams were just entering the field. The national anthem was played by the home teams band as I waited to buy my ticket. And I was in the bleachers, 40-yard line and 6 rows up, just in time for the opening kickoff. The game was a close battle for 24 minutes, with the score Mac 7- Eisenhower 6 at the half. This was about the time when my headache kicked into overdrive. What started as a simple temple-throbber had turned into a full-cranial thumper. I was becoming nauseous, and not just because of the parent behind me who wanted to talk on and on and on about how good his son was playing baseball in some wood bat fall league (a little background on this man-his son was a freshman last year, and this father would stand with the varsity players parents at our games, commenting on how much better his son could play the infield that the schleps that were playing in our games). I tolerate this man, but I get sick of his constant complaining about the upperclassmen. His son is a decent ballplayer, but he AIN�T THAT GOOD! Anyway, where was I? The headache. I stuck around until the game was safely in the home teams hands (I think the final was Mac 35- Eisenhower 12- so that would be three losses for my three teams, for those still keeping track at this point in my entry), and I then tried to make my way back to the Hillbilly truck. That wasn�t easy, because I was now having trouble focusing in front of me because of the progress my headache had made towards making my head explode. My stomach was doing cartwheels inside my body, too. I can�t remember the last time I had such a bad headache. You know what thought popped into my mind? West Nile Virus. Yup, serious headaches are one of the symptoms. I almost never have headaches. I have been sucked on by a few nasty, Off� -resistant mosquitoes in the last few weeks. There have been several cases of the disease locally. I took a quick shower, filled a Ziploc� bag with ice cubes, and went right to bed. I laid on my back for about an hour with the cubes numbing my head. I was really having trouble focusing on the telly, waiting for the boy to come home. Once he did, I turned out the lights and waited for sleep to come. I woke up around 3 am, popped down another dose of Ibuprophen, and went back to sleep. When I woke up Saturday morning, I was fine. It was like nothing had happened the night before. So, the question is: did I have a mild form of West Nile Fever? Am I one of those who only have the mild symptoms? I don�t know. As many dead birds as I have seen around the neighbor hood lately, the virus is definitely in our midst�. You can stop making jokes about me being in the high-risk �elderly� group that are dropping dead from this disease, btw. I may be in my 40�s, but I�m not THAT old yet��.
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