A southern Fran Fine

Today, on Tal’s 81st birthday, I took a timeout from the desk and attended a USC (that’s “the” USC, as in South Carolina) football game, a day game on an ideal autumn afternoon. We were up early – before dawn – for coffee, cool air from the open porch door, breakfast. I was able to click through a number of tasks: several notes, my September reimbursement request, our pre-game lunch, an intercessory prayer list and draft of a bulletin for tomorrow’s liturgy. All good and satisfying.

Leaving home at 9:30, it was such a pleasure to be out in the day! Everywhere I looked as we traversed the Ridge on our way to the interstate I saw photographs – peach trees’ fall turning, freshly harvested fields, round bales of hay, corn stalks, soybean plants scattered across the rural landscape. No camera. No time. No matter. We were out of the house together and for a purpose, a purpose not church-related.

We ate our picnic in the car at 6161, our assigned parking space. Not exactly a tailgate! And, were in our seats about 20 minutes before the 12:30 kickoff. I am always amazed at the pageantry and noise of it all as game time approaches and the Carolina players and coaches burst onto the field to the blaring strains of 2001 and the firing of a cannon – especially acute today, I think, because it was such a golden afternoon. Even more amazing is the willingness of the Carolina fans to stop cheering their own players in order to boo the opposing team when it’s their turn to come onto and cross the field to their sidelines. But, that’s another entry for another day.

I must say, however, all that noise was diminished remarkably when compared with one particular fan seated behind us. My first and instant thought at her first shrieked utterance: Is Fran Fine a USC fan? It had to be Miss Fine – or her mother. But, the accent wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t Queens; it was clearly southern – and maybe higher pitched, somewhat more piercing, if that’s possible!

So, at my first opportunity, I took my eyes off the field, feigning a look for someone higher in the stands, and stole a glance. She was an older woman with permed, sort of iridescent reddish hair. And, she was round, her snug, striped top giving her the appearance of a beach ball. And, for three hours she “cheered” almost without ceasing, with advice for the coach, personal instruction for individual players (each one called by his first name) and loud disapproval for the officials’ decisions. All in a voice that would shatter glass.

To be honest, she made my day, that Fran Fine wanna-be, super fan. Unselfconscious and seemingly happy, knowledgeable about the game and passionate, she was in the right place and was doing what we had all come there to do. More important is the fact that she wasn’t drunk, rude or obscene – and at Williams-Brice Stadium, that’s saying a lot. Fact is, if I were looking for demure and sedate and proper decorum, and if I didn’t want to be jostled or inconvenienced or even deafened, on game day I would be the one in the wrong place.

I enjoyed the day, the game and the carrot-topped Miss Fine. With binoculars to my eyes for much of the time in order to follow the ball once it’s snapped and my ears attuned to what she was going to say next, I felt present and in the moment and I felt joy. In the end, and not to take away from Tal’s birthday or from the fine fall afternoon, I think I owe much of that contentment to her.