We’ve been planning our World Cup watch party for weeks. Every day, it seemed, the people that were going to attend and the place we’d watch our historic thrashing of England changed. Up to the 11th hour, it seemed, the location shifted again. Our friend Andrew — who will join the faculty at East Tennessee State this fall — was going to come up from Tuscaloosa to take in the game. He was going to bring some friends, but at the last minute the configuration changed.
We’d decided to watch at an Irish pub and restaurant, the thinking being that the best place to watch the English play would be with a bunch of Irish. This might have been a possibility in Birmingham, there are a few folks from Ireland here. Instead we went to a place in Tuscaloosa. There were no Irishmen, but plenty of Americans.
The referee in the match might as well have been from England. After going down a goal in the fourth minute, fighting off 11 English players, the officials and our own dreadfully thin backfield — can’t we pull some people of Ray Lewis’ size and demeanor into the program? — we watched the Americans fight their way back to a satisfying draw. That’s a victory for the U.S. and probably a total flop for the English side.
When the game was over the music came on, featuring the perfect draw musician: Jimmy Buffett. You aren’t happy with the draw, but pretend you are. We met a grown man in a Cookie Monster shirt. It suited him, and he was just one of the interesting characters. At one point a horn blew. Not a trumpet or a vuvuzela, but a big Lord of the Rings-type horn. It was a colorful afternoon.
Your current time and temperature.
That was what we saw when we got back in the car after dinner with Wendy. In a related story, it is June.
