Man, Lois and Becky, you'd love this place!
Yesterday evening, begrudgingly at first, the kids and I tagged along with Jeremiah to the first hometown football game of the year-a scrimmage game for the high school. You'll never guess what their totally intimidating, totally fierce and scary mascot is. Hutchinson is...drum roll please...the SALTHAWKS!
Yes, the salthawk is a creature of mythical proportions (literally). If this creature ever existed in history tyrannosaurus' would tuck tail and run, a loin's roar would sound like a mere kitten and you would tremble with fear at the very mention of its name. At least, I think so. Since they never existed and since I've actually never seen one, I can only imagine how mighty and powerful they really are.
Have no fear the salthawks are here.
Okay, enough poking fun. Yes, I realize a salthawk doesn't exactly sound fierce and strong. I will say this though, it sure beats the fighting Zebras! Lincoln High's mascot was the Zebra. It's almost laughable. A bit sad albeit. I realize that Zebras are fierce in their own way. But, for the most part (if not for the whole part) they are pretty docile creatures unless attacked. And maybe that was the point of it, but seriously? That makes it sound like you'd always be on defense and who wants to be a perpetual defender?
Or maybe it's that something like 9 out of 10 times the Zebra gets away to live another day. I can't speak of the salthawks -since, you know, they don't exist and all- to know what their tract record is (speaking specifically in terms of the animal life cycle that is).
Anyway, in all seriousness though, the Hutch High football team has been state champs 6 years running. That's pretty impressive.
What's also impressive is the football stadium. The visitors side, eh, not so much but who needs a good visitors side anyway? You don't want the cheering section for the opposing team to be comfortable. No, you want to stick them on metal bleachers (new and nice though mind you), facing the west so they get the westerly setting sun right in their eyes, beating down on them on a hot hot late summer evening so they are blinded and sweltering and suffering from heat stroke before the game even begins and cannot efficiently root for their team.
Meanwhile on the home teams side we sit in luxury on beautiful concrete bleachers in real seats just like a Dodger game, sun to our backs and shadowed by the massive concrete structure keeping us cool and shaded so we can efficiently root for the hometown heroes sipping soda pop,
This stadium is amazing! And what's more amazing is that football for this town is like better than going to see a movie at the theater. (Okay, maybe not that well liked but anyway...) Either my high school wasn't good, or wasn't as well liked or it's just not something people did for fun (to go watch the game) but I don't remember it like this!
This town loves their football games and people who don't even have kids in the school go to watch...for fun! And admittedly I HATE football, and admittedly we did not want to go, but admittedly, the kids and I had fun!
Jeremiah had to go to learn how to work the food concession stand. I am not 100% positive how it works with the proceeds but something about a bunch of the voc. ed. teachers get a few kids from their classes and work the concession for home games and the proceeds get pooled together to benefit their clubs. Like, Jeremiah's will go to benefit Skills USA. So, it's a wonderful thing and for $3 we got a popcorn and a soda which beats the $18 we paid at the movie theater some months back for a popcorn and 2 sodas!
So anyway, the kids and I sat and watched the freshmen hold their own against the sophomores. Meanwhile Rachel sat entranced by the cheerleaders.
We hadn't been there two minutes when Rachel said she like the Zebras (team). And I'm thinking Zebras? I thought this was a scrimmage game against themselves, why were there Zebras there and are you kidding me that there is actually another team, near Hutch no less, that are the Zebras???? Well no, not exactly.
Bless her 6 year old heart, they were the refs. HA! So I had to explain to her that the people dressed in stripes weren't zebras, they were the people who made sure the game was played fair. She said she was still voting for the zebras. I don't blame her quite honestly. They are the smart ones staying out of the line of fire.
In my personal opinion, some of the cheerleaders of them could take a makeup lesson, others could learn to smile, but overall fun to watch and amazing to see how much more gymnastics these girls know than girls in my day (12+ years ago. If that doesn't make me feel old. Laugh if you will).
Rachel, naturally, wants to be a cheerleader and while there are classes now where 6+ year olds can go learn and be cheerleaders, I think she'd be better suited to learn gymnastics. So I convinced her she needs to to gymnastics class first. She was cool with that.
What was really great was the drummers! The marching band was average size I guess. The gal next to us mentioned how small it had gotten. It looked pretty big to me. The drummers put on a pretty great performance, in my personal opinion, at the closing of halftime.
We didn't end up staying for the senior vs. juniors varsity team. We went to eat pizza instead.
Sitting at that great high school stadium last night with people from town having a good time, chatting, and enjoying themselves, it was fun. I was telling Rachel was a nice evening it was. We're finally getting some bearable temps. I think it was about 82 yesterday evening, with a slight breeze, sun shadowed by concrete and it was just a really good time. Glad we went.
As we sat there I thought how much Becky and Lois would have liked to have been there. Maybe someday they can come out and join us in the Fall and enjoy some hometown football.
Over dinner Jeremiah mentioned the fact that we did well. We take no credit for landing up here, just luck of the draw maybe. Or fate, or will or whatever you want to call it. And I am sure there are a million other towns like this in the US but this place, it's a good place! I'm telling you, we're happy. This place, well, it's great. The people are great, the town is great, the amenities are great. I tell people who don't know Hutch it's got a small town feel with big town amenities.
It's Kansas. I say that with less enthusiasm than I probably should. My preconceived notions of Kansas have not held true. I don't know why when I say Kansas I still don't think of myself as actually living in Kansas, but we do, and we're happy. So, IT'S KANSAS!
Go Salthawks!
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