Saturday

After all my leaves were raked, I found this little leaf on my front porch.

What makes it strange...I have no trees nearby that are that color.

Perhaps a Canadian Maple Leaf?

The Intra-State rivalry football game was yesterday.   University of Michigan football players came out on the field and while in their pre-game huddle, one of the players drove a large stake in the middle of the field.  This goes a bit above and beyond the antics that go on during the week before, like, Michigan State University has students guarding the big statue of Sparty, because U of M kids like to sneak on campus and spray him with blue paint.  Some MSU students, sneaked onto the U of M campus and in their quad, sprayed their big gold M, with green paint.  All good fun.

Before and after 

Thursday night, the Marching Band Trumpet section

guarded Sparty all night.

My little buddy, Kyle, bottom left, bending over.

The stake however ticked off our coach, who constantly gets rants from U of M players that we are underdogs, and calls us the "Little Brother" in the state--even though we have won 5 out of the last 7 times we played them.

This has gone on for years.  At one time, the U of M sports teams were the best in the country, and they were very arrogant about it.  If you met someone that rooted for them and they asked about your college and you said, "Michigan State", their upper lip would curl, just a bit, and their noses would go up and you might have to take a joke about "oh, you went to the Cow College?"  MSU is a land grant college and used to be called Michigan State Agricultural College.

We called them "The Arrogant Asses from Ann Arbor"--with good cause.

So, after the spike incident, we proceeded to trounce their Arrogant Asses.  What amazed me is, that usually with a few seconds to play, the team that is ahead, if they have the ball, will spike it or take a knee.  It's considered the polite thing to do and, it's rude if you "pile on points", if you are ahead you don't need to throw their loss in their faces. 

MSU was down by their goal line...they could have stalled a bit or tried for a field goal, but instead, our coach told the boys, "If you can take it in--take it in" and with 21 seconds to go, we got another touchdown!!  

We whipped their Arrogant Asses, 35-11.

Their coach apologized to our coach this morning for the stake incident.  This is the same coach who let his quarterback play with a severe concussion.  Me thinks, his days are numbered at the UofM.

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A coach for U of M, many years ago, Lloyd Carr--man of great class, donated a children's wing to the U of M hospital.  It was just discovered his little grandson Chad Carr has a brain tumor and is taking treatment in that very wing.

After the game, both bands came onto the field and together, made this formation.

Here's two of MY kids from Brighton that got to be together yesterday.

Brian Tang, one of my Horn players and little buddy Kyle Hanson, trumpet player.

How cool is that?  Note* The school emblems are always over the band member's hearts.