I don’t need to tell you that my alma mater, Wisconsin, plays Michigan in college football on Saturday, and the fate of the planet—or at least my petty psyche—is dependent on Wisconsin winning, preferably by at least 17 touchdowns.
The Journal newsroom is lousy with Wolverines, and I can’t bear the idea of walking in on Monday, having to listen to those Ann Arbor snoots yap on about Jim Harbaugh, the Maize and Blue, and sing “The Victors.” They need to be stopped, and that’s that.
I’m going to be at the game, in Madison, Wis. Me! In the Dadbod flesh! In fact, before the contest, I’ll be speaking on campus, to actual humans in an actual auditorium, in a school event, delivering a lecture entitled “Wisconsin Must Beat Michigan To Save All of Humankind.”
This is a thing that is actually happening—I’m not kidding. I’m really committing to the bit. By now you know there is no joke I will not happily drive straight into the turf.
“ I majored in ambivalence and minored in beer. ”
My bag is packed. I’ve got my Wisconsin jacket, my Wisconsin track top, two Wisconsin ball caps and at least five Wisconsin T-shirts of various styles. In the past couple of years, I have spent at least several hundred dollars accumulating this nonsense, and because of this, I will not be able to afford birthday presents this year for either one of my children. It’s fine: My children are young and easily fooled. I’ll just pull a few back issues of the Journal out of the recycling bin and tell them I got them “fancy art paper.”
This sort of rah-rah, unbridled, wear-it-on-my-sleeve enthusiasm is jarring for me. Until recently, I wasn’t exactly the school spirit type. I didn’t have spirit for much of anything. I was a scoffer, a cynic, a crank, an indifferent bump on a log. I rolled my eyes at any display of passion. I would have never worn a Wisconsin T-shirt when I actually lived in, you know, Wisconsin. I’m not bragging about this; it was kind of pathetic. I majored in ambivalence and minored in beer.
Do you how many Wisconsin football games I went to when I went to school at Wisconsin? Zero! Come on, people. Do you really think I got up that early? (We also didn’t win much back then.)
But getting older does funny things to you. You start eating earlier and talking to strangers on airplanes. You develop strong opinions about comfortable shoes and read spiffy magazine articles about Nantucket. You also begin to feel sentimental for things you never felt sentimental for before—like a university where you spent four years barely paying attention and which you now rabidly defend against all comers, especially ones you work with who attended Michigan.
I guess that’s a part of getting older. We throw ourselves out into the world, try to connect to real things, and invariably, an aging heart returns to places where we felt connected and warm.
I can barely remember the name of a single class I took in Madison—sorry, Wisconsin!—but my closest friends from school are still close friends now. The whole experience feels more meaningful the further I get away from it. I know a lot of you have similar emotions. Even—fine—Wolverines.
That’s nostalgia, of course, and it’s a powerful substance. It’s how libraries—and football stadiums—get built with alumni names on the front door. It’s why 25th reunions are better attended than 10th reunions.
It’s why I’ll be screaming and drinking beer at 11 a.m. on a Saturday in Madison, Wis. Not like I needed motivation. Michigan’s in town, and the fate of the planet is on the line.
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