It’s a teenage cliche – making out under the bleachers during a football game. Almost considered a rite of passage in most parts of the Western Hemisphere. Unfortunately, neither of us were cool or popular enough to have experienced it ourselves back in the day. As we wandered the local track circuit of your former high school (nearly 20 years after our respective graduations), you lamented about missing out on that particular magic moment. You were a band geek, and girls just didn’t pull guys from the woodwind section underneath the bleachers.
The mental image of a flag bearer sneering at your flute has me rolling, but in all honesty I can’t relate. I attended a French Catholic academy so strict that students were separated by gender during assembly even though it was the early 2000’s. I shudder, remembering how many times I heard “leave room for Jesus” during school dances. No bleacher make outs for me. Not that the austere school environment did me any good; I grew up to be a deviant just the same. We wrap up our walk in comfortable silence, but the seed of an idea has been planted.