No wonder sleepy Jean was confused by Homecoming.
We’ve managed to avoid this cultural phenom for 5 years but our boys are in a new school and middle child was elected to the Homecoming court so Mrs B had to accompany him onto the “football” field at half-time during Homecoming game whilst my role was restricted to accompanying him to the suit shop to buy an outfit he’ll never wear again! I did “stick it to the man” a little bit by ensuring middle child wore a tartan tie on the night but this mild rebellion was only met with “nice plaid dude!”
The principal of the school is a Welshman who used to live in Culter so we share a bemused confusion in regards to this bizarre Fall ritual but embrace all that it brings in the true spirit of immigrants drinking deep from the well of the American dream!
Basically Homecoming is a Home “Football” (can we just call it HandEgg from now on) game where every high school takes an entire week to celebrate the popular, good-looking and athletic kids whilst simultaneously and unconsciously making the awkward, chubby ones wish they could go to sleep for the entire month of October and waken up in time for Halloween and the inevitable bucket loads of processed sugar.
Our Homecoming game had extra significance this year as it was also the night when our new school football field and stadium was opened. If you ever wonder how serious they take school sports in Texas, the new facility cost a whopping $2.7m dollars but hey it is the same specification as the Dallas Cowboys pitch so it seems like a fair price all things considered! Further adding to the “holy mackerel” factor of this new set-up is the fact that the school raised the entire amount in one night at a gala dinner! I was there, sitting on my hands, watching high rollers pay $100,000 to get a brick named after them and one dad generously pay $28,000 for the opportunity for his little girl to have a sleepover in the school with her chums!
Homecoming has many traditions which not surprisingly, get the Texas treatment in these parts. “Mums” started off as a simple gift of the pretty chrysanthemum flower from a boy to a girl on the night of the Homecoming dance but they have literally sprouted all kinds of strange attachments from teddy bears to iPods and the girl now gets to wear an abomination that has to be hung around her neck on a rope the likes of which I’ve only previously seen on the deck of a Peterhead seine netter!! It’s hard to describe these “mums” to those lucky enough never to have had to make or wear one but it’s basically the size of a small child and the weight of a wet duffle coat that’s been rolled in a sandpit! I’ve never worn a “mum” but I can relate somewhat having been rolled in a sand-pit wearing a wet duffle coat but that’s another story and the subject for a future article or therapy session!
Another homecoming tradition which I was rudely awakened to, is the act of TP’ing the house of your school pals. A few weeks ago, I woke up at 5:30am on a Saturday morning and went downstairs to get a coffee only to see four scoundrels in our front yard covering our cars, bushes and house in toilet paper! I quietly opened the front door and wearing only pajama bottoms I gave chase to these little vratches! They scattered in every direction as I was screaming “who are you?” and “what do you want from us?” Unfortunately for them, they forgot to lock their getaway car so I took hostage a school backpack complete with ID and a MacBook Pro laptop, a wallet again complete with ID and a payslip identifying the 3rd of 4 culprits. Another guy lost his shoes whilst running so I pretty much had them over a proverbial barrel!
Anyway, they never came back in a hurry which gave me time to unload a box of Chocolate Krispies into their car and let down one of their tyres. This slightly backfired when they snuck back to their car and I saw them race off before they realised that they were running on a flat bereft of their bags, wallets and shoes! Had they crashed with a flat tyre, the consequences of their tomfoolery and my subsequent lawsuit would have been significant and disproportional to the prank so thankfully they came back unhurt with the car in one piece.
I had also left them a note addressed to them using their full names stating they would get their stuff back once they had cleaned everything away and demonstrated sufficient contrition and regret. They complied and I’ve either scared them away forever or created an unquenchable reputation where the challenge will be to outwit the crazy, unhinged Scotsman every other weekend. Time will tell but if the latter turns out to be true, at least I won’t have to buy lavvy roll ever again!
Follow George on twitter @georgebooth73
George Booth was born in Aberdeen and grew up in Gardenstown (a.k.a. Gamrie). In 2010 he moved from Aberdeen to The Woodlands, Texas with his wife Gillian and their three children. George spent over 20 years of his career in the freight industry and is still involved in a non-executive capacity but in mid 2015 he started working as Pastor of Development at Church Project.