Small Town's football team is about to play a game against its biggest rival, Small Town Next Door. This is something like the 103rd game, and it's tonight. Both high schools spend all week assigning very innocent tasks to help students show their support for their team, like wearing tie-dyed shirts one day and pajamas the next.
It hasn't always been so wholesome. Kids used to cruise through the rival town and vandalize or honk horns at the least, but temporary curfews have stopped most of that. And kids from one town are not allowed to go to the other town during the day even for lunch at Taco Bell. Small Town kids used to have a snake dance that traveled over a mile through town like a giant crack-the-whip. They would start at the school and snake their way through streets until they reached the stadium, and God help the kid at the end of the whip. After a couple of kids were thrown into cars and broke bones, the snake dance was canceled.
Now all that is left is the big fire. It's a big pile of crap like old crates and pallets and cardboard signs covered with the names of seniors, all constructed under the watchful eye of the fire department. This year's pile was topped with a cardboard cutout of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow for no reason than to watch it burn. Here is what it all looked like Thursday afternoon--it's got to be two stories high.
Last night the townfolk gathered at the stadium as the marching band took the field to play the school fight song and alma mater, and people gave boring-as-heck football speeches. A 94-year-old man who played in this rival game in 1931 received a standing ovation, and the majorettes twirled fire batons. Then we were all dismissed out to the pile of rubble. The senior football players marched out with torches, and the fire was lit. It didn't take long for everyone to back away because the heat was very intense--eye-brow singeing, actually. Here is the fire at its best.
And here is Daughter No. 2 all dressed up funky for her last big fire.
It hasn't always been so wholesome. Kids used to cruise through the rival town and vandalize or honk horns at the least, but temporary curfews have stopped most of that. And kids from one town are not allowed to go to the other town during the day even for lunch at Taco Bell. Small Town kids used to have a snake dance that traveled over a mile through town like a giant crack-the-whip. They would start at the school and snake their way through streets until they reached the stadium, and God help the kid at the end of the whip. After a couple of kids were thrown into cars and broke bones, the snake dance was canceled.
Now all that is left is the big fire. It's a big pile of crap like old crates and pallets and cardboard signs covered with the names of seniors, all constructed under the watchful eye of the fire department. This year's pile was topped with a cardboard cutout of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow for no reason than to watch it burn. Here is what it all looked like Thursday afternoon--it's got to be two stories high.
Last night the townfolk gathered at the stadium as the marching band took the field to play the school fight song and alma mater, and people gave boring-as-heck football speeches. A 94-year-old man who played in this rival game in 1931 received a standing ovation, and the majorettes twirled fire batons. Then we were all dismissed out to the pile of rubble. The senior football players marched out with torches, and the fire was lit. It didn't take long for everyone to back away because the heat was very intense--eye-brow singeing, actually. Here is the fire at its best.
And here is Daughter No. 2 all dressed up funky for her last big fire.
Comments
That looks so much fun.
And as always, daughter number 2 looks gorgeous.
Poor old Johnny Depp, though. Don't you have any local politicians you'd like to burn in effigy instead?
I want to have a big fire, please. You can have the football.
Small town seems so mush like a...small town
The rivalry can get pretty intense in those small towns too....I remember that even dating someone from another town was considered sort of racy...
Great photos.