Worthy of Pause

Google, for better or worse, tells me how you came here. Having been through one Wasco Week on this blog, I know that people all over the country and all over the world will search phrases like "Wasco Shafter rivalry" this week and spend some time with the past. Perhaps your nephew is playing in the game, or the smells of browning grass and fallen sycamore leaves took you back to your playing days. Perhaps you swung the Tiger or tossed a General onto the bonfire. You've sung the songs. You've heard the nervous clatter of cleats on concrete, the snare drum ricocheting around the parking lot. It has happened already and it is, I think, a remarkable thing, worthy of pause.

Update: Reading this again with some sleep (yes, you really can sleep when you're dead), I thought "pause for what?" I guess what I was trying to get at while hardly able to bring myself to come out with it, is that Shafter people can be grateful for Wasco because the rivalry is a good thing. It connects scattered people to home and football to life. As horrifying as the thought of being a Wasconian is, they are lucky compared to those with no rooting interest at all. Win or lose, for all of us the game matters.