So, walking down High St., it was impossible to go a city block without passing porches loaded (and overloaded) with people, all of them drinking and cheering, with endless renditions of "Hang On, Sloopy!" and "O-H!" "I-O!" The game doesn't even start until 3:40 p.m., and yet everyone is out on their lawns, porches, and the streets, and the drunken enthusiasm has begun.
The open containers of alcohol have been blatant tonight. On my way home from CVS, I counted no less than a dozen people leaving private residences or their cars carrying open bottles and cans of beer. The irony is that I worried about getting a police officer's attention when I left CVS with an open bottle of Diet Pepsi!
Errands will take me far from the campus area for most of the day. I am thankful for this, since I wonder if the enthusiasm of a crowd which is stoked already, when kickoff is still 14 hours away, can be dialed down once the game is over. The outcome of the game really has no bearing on what a crowd--especially one fueled by alcohol and fan adrenaline--will do. At OSU, people will riot as a way of celebrating victory, as happened in 2002 when the Buckeyes defeated Michigan (see below picture). In 2002, one of Jay Leno's Tonight Show monologues said that the first duty of the then-new Department of Homeland Security was "to protect Americans against Ohio State football fans." (Seeing Homeland Security's stellar success at capturing and killing Osama bin Laden, as a Columbus resident I am thankful Leno was only kidding. Bin Laden would have to text-message his GPS coordinates to Homeland Security before they'd even be remotely capable of capturing him.)
Aftermath of the OSU-Michigan game of 2002,
downloaded from http://www.dipity.com.
People are just as likely to take to the streets out of frustration when Ohio State loses a game. This is impossible to predict, and I'm not predicting that the partying I saw tonight will lead to a disaster tomorrow evening. In fact, the overall atmosphere (I shudder away from the word vibe--it's a cliché I should avoid like the plague (get it?)) of the street seemed to be festive and fun, more like the Undie Run Scott and I happened into last spring.
That hasn't always been true. When I first lived in Columbus, in 1985-1986, there were many nights when I would be prowling the bars on High St. (many of which have long ago been razed) and would have a feeling that the street just seemed ugly. There was a hostility and bad feeling that seemed to be in the air, almost like static electricity, and as much a part of the air as the carbon dioxide. I didn't feel that it was directed at me personally, but it was on those nights that I would still get drunk, and prowl in vain for a one-night sexual encounter, yet I would be doing it with my guard up, or as on alert as you can be when you're getting hammered. Those would be the nights I'd take a cab home instead of walk, or would go straight home after the bars closed, instead of trying to find an after-hours party. My wariness paid off. I didn't pick up The Dispatch the next morning and find out that I had just escaped a full-scale riot, but at no time was I beaten, mugged, or pickpocketed. I often think that maybe I was such a careless--if not outright sloppy--dresser that many a would-be thief thought I was too broke to be worth rolling.
In my entire drinking career, I was never cited for open container, because usually I was pretty conscientious about not carrying open containers of alcohol in public. The closest I came was my last quarter or two at Ohio University, when the school began to crack down about where alcohol could and could not be consumed. In the dorms, you were permitted to drink and serve alcohol in your room, but it was forbidden in any of the public areas.
An R.A. almost cited me for this once. I was propped on my bed late one fall weekend afternoon, reading and drinking a beer, when I thought I heard someone knocking on my door. (I lived on New South Green, in a single room.) I had called out "Come in!" but no one turned my doorknob. A little frustrated, I got up, opened my door, and went out into the hall. It wasn't until I saw my R.A. staring me down that I realized I had carried the beer can out with me. She let me by with a warning, but I realized I should have taken the nanosecond necessary to set the beer down on my desk before I stepped from the sanctuary of my room.
Many people groaned about this new policy, but we all knew the alternative was a dry campus. (The president of O.U. would have been lynched if that had ever become law, I'm sure.) Even if I had been a teetotaler at the time, I would have thought this ridiculous. It made no sense that the powers that be were proposing that it was okay for you to go up to Court St. and get blasted, and then stumble back down to your dorm and vomit in the hall or (as happened in my residence hall more than once) in the shower, but sharing a 12-pack with your legal-to-drink friends while watching videos in your room would be verboten.
I'm probably worrying for nothing. I doubt many of the people I saw tonight will be sober by game time, and if they are, they will be hungover and in no condition to continue. As for me, I have something to do that will consume most of my morning. At noon, Susie and her friends from Girlz Rhythm and Rock Camp are performing at the Hot Times Community Arts and Music Festival in Olde Towne East. She and the others will be on the grounds of the Columbus Health Department (formerly the Ohio School for the Blind), and I'll be on hand for the performance. I give you fair warning I'll be posting pictures of this in the blog later this weekend.
Where you'll find Susie and friends come high noon,
240 Parsons Ave. (corner Parsons and Main.)
Unfortunately, I will be missing the "Burn No Sacred Books" Day service at church, a service that will both honor the memory of the people who died on 9/11 in 2001 in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, and counteract the lunacy of Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center in Florida and his plans to mark the anniversary of this tragedy by burning copies of the Koran.
The third event I am sorry I will miss is God's Family Reunion, in the parking lot and property of Faith Believers' Ministry in Mineral, home of the Feed My Sheep pantry that I visit with Jacques on those rare Mondays when I am not working. I have known about this since spring, and was planning to take Susie to it, but her services are needed at Hot Times.
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