Homecoming
Today is Malden High School's homecoming football game (they've already lost their first two games), and for that I present this lovely gem of a hair bow. The Etsy shop is another one that no longer exists, TheDepotLakeviewOhio.
Green and gold satin for the Green Wave. Yep, Malden totally ripped off Tulane University. We ripped off Alabama too, as during games the crowd is encouraged to yell "ROLL WAVE!!!" Oh well, I doubt either Tulane or Alabama would care if they knew. Heck, they might even be flattered!
It's ironic, but I have more school spirit now than I ever did in high school. In high school I resented the adulation that the jocks (especially the football players) got. They weren't bad guys like teen movies would have one believe; quite the contrary, they were nice guys and many of them were my friends. But to me it seemed that the football team got everything, and everyone else had to make do with leftovers. I was on the academic team (they call it "Scholar Bowl" nowadays), and we were at the absolute bottom of the extracurricular pecking order. Academics are the POINT of suffering through high school, and yet we still got the shaft. Needless to say when homecoming came around I rolled my eyes a lot and made plenty of snarky comments about dumb jocks getting everything...and yet I almost always participated in Spirit Week. Spirit Week provided occasional opportunities to break the school's dress code (Hat Day, for example), and I pounced on that like a lion on a springbok. Friday was always Green and Gold day, meaning that I usually wore my academic team shirt, which predictably was dark green with the school logo on it.
Note that I said I almost always participated in Spirit Week. By the time senior year rolled around I was over all of it. During Friday of that Spirit Week I wore my black leather jacket and a matching turtleneck (football homecoming was cold that year), my rattiest pair of blue jeans, my highest heels, and ridiculously heavy black eyeshadow. Pep rallies were held in the school gym, the gym had a fairly new wood floor, and the school was particular about high heels on it. I saw this as more pandering to jocks, hence my Elton John-level platform shoes. I participated in the cheers like a good little peon, because if you didn't participate then your whole grade level got disqualified from any sort of incentives that the teachers were giving out during the pep rally. I'd caused enuff trouble that year and didn't want to make any more waves (LOL, that worked out well), but I made my contempt for it all shown with languid, unenthusiastic arm motions and a sullen look on my face. I was sooooo mature, LOL again! I was just sick of it. Every teeny-weeny bit of it. I still wouldn't go back to high school, not if you paid me.
Times change and people grow up, and now I join my community in celebrations when the sports teams do well. But then again nowadays Malden's teams are sometimes actually worth celebrating (they weren't so good when I was in school). This past spring the baseball team did particularly well, and we were all proud of that (I've always preferred baseball anyway), but Malden's heart will always belong to the football team. We call our field "the Swamp," due to the general area being flat, low, and wet during bad weather, and I like that because there's nothing I love more than a good swamp. I still hate the traffic during homecoming, though. I live and work on Stokelan Drive, the same street as the high school, and during ANY home game the traffic is ridiculous. So when I get off work tonight I'm going straight home and staying home.
Tonight Malden plays Charleston, a town over in Mississippi County that's only a hair bigger than Malden. Their team is the Blue Jays, and I hope but highly doubt that we'll kick their rears. Our boys are a young, inexperienced bunch and have yet to find their rhythm, and I know from experience that it'll take a year or two before they DO find their rhythm. Regardless, I'll be cheering the team on. I'll be doing it from home as established above, but I'm still cheering them on.
Be true to your school,
RagingMoon1987
It's ironic, but I have more school spirit now than I ever did in high school. In high school I resented the adulation that the jocks (especially the football players) got. They weren't bad guys like teen movies would have one believe; quite the contrary, they were nice guys and many of them were my friends. But to me it seemed that the football team got everything, and everyone else had to make do with leftovers. I was on the academic team (they call it "Scholar Bowl" nowadays), and we were at the absolute bottom of the extracurricular pecking order. Academics are the POINT of suffering through high school, and yet we still got the shaft. Needless to say when homecoming came around I rolled my eyes a lot and made plenty of snarky comments about dumb jocks getting everything...and yet I almost always participated in Spirit Week. Spirit Week provided occasional opportunities to break the school's dress code (Hat Day, for example), and I pounced on that like a lion on a springbok. Friday was always Green and Gold day, meaning that I usually wore my academic team shirt, which predictably was dark green with the school logo on it.
Note that I said I almost always participated in Spirit Week. By the time senior year rolled around I was over all of it. During Friday of that Spirit Week I wore my black leather jacket and a matching turtleneck (football homecoming was cold that year), my rattiest pair of blue jeans, my highest heels, and ridiculously heavy black eyeshadow. Pep rallies were held in the school gym, the gym had a fairly new wood floor, and the school was particular about high heels on it. I saw this as more pandering to jocks, hence my Elton John-level platform shoes. I participated in the cheers like a good little peon, because if you didn't participate then your whole grade level got disqualified from any sort of incentives that the teachers were giving out during the pep rally. I'd caused enuff trouble that year and didn't want to make any more waves (LOL, that worked out well), but I made my contempt for it all shown with languid, unenthusiastic arm motions and a sullen look on my face. I was sooooo mature, LOL again! I was just sick of it. Every teeny-weeny bit of it. I still wouldn't go back to high school, not if you paid me.
Times change and people grow up, and now I join my community in celebrations when the sports teams do well. But then again nowadays Malden's teams are sometimes actually worth celebrating (they weren't so good when I was in school). This past spring the baseball team did particularly well, and we were all proud of that (I've always preferred baseball anyway), but Malden's heart will always belong to the football team. We call our field "the Swamp," due to the general area being flat, low, and wet during bad weather, and I like that because there's nothing I love more than a good swamp. I still hate the traffic during homecoming, though. I live and work on Stokelan Drive, the same street as the high school, and during ANY home game the traffic is ridiculous. So when I get off work tonight I'm going straight home and staying home.
Tonight Malden plays Charleston, a town over in Mississippi County that's only a hair bigger than Malden. Their team is the Blue Jays, and I hope but highly doubt that we'll kick their rears. Our boys are a young, inexperienced bunch and have yet to find their rhythm, and I know from experience that it'll take a year or two before they DO find their rhythm. Regardless, I'll be cheering the team on. I'll be doing it from home as established above, but I'm still cheering them on.
Be true to your school,
RagingMoon1987
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