Notre Dame Football from Juniper Road

 

NBC did not broadcast ND's first football game of the season.  It was streamed on Peacock and we chose not to subcribe just for that game.  So I listened to ND radio on my phone  in the bedroom while Jim watched other games on TV in the living room of our South Haven condo. 

 At 5 pm, he asked if I wanted a glass of wine and I declined to have it alone in the bedroom.  Jim said I could bring the radio broadcast into the living room.  He hates listening to games.  I think it is because he feels a loss of control!  Later I found out he was not happy with my exclamations of joy and disgust emanating from the bedroom.  

ND pulled it off in a game that should not have been so close.  The new quarterback was sacked six times.  It was not pretty but it was a W as Jimmy Valvano used to say during his Wolfpack days years ago.  (32-29 over Toledo)

We were concerned about getting back that night into our rental house on Juniper Road which is usually one way traffic heading out of ND's campus post game.  So we stayed in South Haven until 7:30--1 1/2 hours after game time--and then headed home.  There was no problem heading towards campus at 8:30 so we were fine.

Sunday we observed chalk lines on the neighbor's lawn where they must have sold parking places.  The lease for our house specifically said that we were not allowed to use our lawn for football parking.  

Preparations for the home game were underway early in the week as we saw rows of Joy's Johns at the edge of parking lots all over campus--not just near the stadium.  There were signs telling people how to access their mobile tickets--a first game without paper tickets.  I wonder if the usual scalpers were at their places on Angela Boulevard this year.  Apparently the stadium was not full--60,000 in attendance instead of 80,000.  

We will see what happens next week when Purdue comes to ND.    We have a special hang tag that is supposed to allow us to move around campus streets but if the streets are one way into campus pre-game and one way out of campus post-game that will not make it easy to make our usual Saturday grocery shopping trip.  We will be able to watch the game on NBC and we might take in some of the pre-game excitement and rituals on campus.  

Go Irish! ---------------I walked outside to get rid of the garbage and heard music. It was the ND band practicing in the fields across Douglas Road and it was the Irish Fight Song I was hearing!