My alma mater, Hannibal High School, competed in the Missouri Class 4 state football championship game last Friday against Smithville High School at Faurot Field in Columbia, and I was one of hundreds, (if not thousands), of Pirate fans and alumni who turned out to cheer for the Black and Red. Although the game did not turn out the way we had hoped it would, most Hannibal fans walked away from the stadium feeling nothing but Pirate Pride. I walked away feeling old.
In the week leading up to the game, my social media feeds were filled with posts that included the hashtag #onceapiratealwaysapirate. People posted throwback photos of themselves from when they were students and/or teachers at HHS as well as messages of support for the 2021 football team. I couldn’t help getting swept away in the tidal wave of nostalgia.
On game day, I donned a Hannibal Pirates baseball cap that my dad wore as an assistant girls’ softball coach at HHS in the mid-1980s, and I briefly considered wearing the letterman jacket that I earned as a member of the Pirates baseball team, but the unseasonably high temperature Friday caused me to leave the jacket at home. I saw a lot of other Pirates wearing theirs though, with numerals sewn on the sleeves representing graduation years ranging from 1988 through 2023. There were quite a few from 1990, my graduating class, which was great to see.
Our 30th anniversary high school reunion, scheduled for the summer of 2020, was cancelled due to the pandemic, but Friday’s football game became a belated reunion of sorts for the Class of ’90 (and ’89, ’91, ’92, etc.) A huge group of my friends got together in Lot J before the game for a tailgate party, and because friends from other graduating classes were there, too, it was even better than simply one class’s reunion.
While I had run into most of these friends at one point or another over the years, there were a few there that I had not seen face-to-face in over three decades. There was Dustin, who I had not seen since the day we were scheduled to leave for Marine Corps boot camp in May of 1990, and my friend Matt, who tackled a drunken reveler who had attacked me at Mizzou’s completely out of control “Bid Day Bash” in August of 1990, whose path had not crossed mine in all these years since that night. It was great to see those guys again.
One of the biggest surprises of the day was seeing my dear friend Jessica, a woman who has supported my efforts to be a better writer, family man, and human being over the years. Jessica drove to Columbia all the way from Sioux City, Iowa, to watch the game and spend some quality time with her friends. She gave me one of the best hugs I’ve had in a long, long time. In fact, she gave me three.
The game was a blowout. Hannibal lost 31-0, but that didn’t do much to dampen the positive vibes that everyone in Pirate Nation felt that afternoon. It doesn’t get much better than enjoying a 72-degree day in December while catching up with life-long friends and cheering on a group of young men who put together a 13-1 record and one of the greatest football seasons in school history.
One of the things that stood out to me that day were the grey beards growing on the faces of many of my classmates. The men of 1990 are turning 50 this year, and it seems that 50-year-old men from Hannibal are good at two things: drinking beer and growing facial hair. I don’t drink anymore, but I did arrive at the tailgate party with a full, greying beard. Pondering the grey on our faces, I was suddenly struck with the realization that my friends and I are not kids anymore. We are middle-aged. Not necessarily old, but definitely not young. Many of us are in fact grandparents now.
My god, the last thirty years have gone by in a hurry.
After the game ended, I said goodbye to my friends and drove back to Ashland, replaying the day’s conversations in my mind as I traveled down Highway 63. The warm feeling of nostalgia gradually gave way to a sense of melancholy and a realization that the glory days of high school ended a lifetime ago.
When I got home, I immediately walked into the bathroom and looked at my reflection in the mirror. There should have been a fresh-faced, care-free, high school letterman smiling back at me, but the greying, wrinkled, and bespectacled face of an aging grandpa met my gaze instead.
I shaved off my beard right then and there, and I gave myself a fresh haircut. Then I took a long, hot shower, got dressed, and took another look in the mirror. This time, I didn’t mind what I saw. In fact, if it weren’t for the glasses, I could have sworn that I was looking at Travis Naughton from Hannibal High School. Then I heard my granddaughter laughing in the other room, and the grey hair, the wrinkles, and the bifocals instantly ceased to matter.
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