Established/ing Community

In the aftermath of the most improbable playoff win ever, I give you a new blog post.  Fitting too, as this is about a community embracing a football team.

Look it was clear that Ohio State was the better team last Monday night.  Oregon did not play well enough and that game was really never in doubt.  But ever since the playoff field was announced the greater-Portland area - pretty much the whole I-5 corridor - felt the Duck fever in the air.

 Everywhere you go around here, people are all in on college football anyway.  During the playoff, it was ramped up.  Even the Oregon State Beaver fans were all about it to give Oregon a little shine.  For 10 days after they drubbed Florida State, the news would dedicate several minutes a night to the Ducks and the championship game.  The Oregon governor made a bet with the Ohio governor - something about owing him beer and Tillamook cheese - about the outcome of the game.  More Ducks merchandise popped up everywhere.  Everyone is all about it.  EVERYONE.   The roads were basically unoccupied during the game.  Okay, that's not entirely true as on Championship Monday the game starts smack in the middle of rush hour.  But still, the entire population of Portland seemed to be en route to somewhere to watch the game.

Despite the huge letdown, it was really cool seeing a community embrace football like this.  A lot like Baltimore when the Ravens are in the playoffs.  Which is often.  I rarely made it to Baltimore during the playoffs, but when I did it was definitely an awesome vibe.  It happened once to us in D.C. a couple years ago, but it's hard to remember.  The Ducks and the Beavers are everything around here.  The Seahawks are very popular, and that contingent is alive and well since they are wining.  Still, it's nothing like rooting for the college teams.  Even though they are intense rivals, Beavers fans rooted for the Ducks in the title game because it was good for Oregon.  It's sort of a bizarre way to look at it.  I never root for fellow conference members when they are in a title game just to make the conference look good.  But that's just another subtle difference out here.  The state is all in.  Unfortunately, it just didn't pay off.

In other news, I think I finally made some friends!  They (they being a lovely man-woman couple) happen to be from the good ol' DMV but who cares?  This is still in the early stages, so nothing is for certain yet.  They could delete my number from their phones anytime.  But we had a lot of fun at happy hour on Friday.  See now that I have a real paycheck (albeit not sizable), we have the ability to go out to the occasional happy hour or bar event and enjoy the company of others.

I met them at a small movie theater that was still showing the third Hobbit movie.  There were maybe nine people in there on a Monday.  Anyway, the only reason we connected was that I was wearing a Terps shirt and she was wearing a Ravens shirt.  We talked for like a half hour outside the theater.  I mustered enough courage to ask for their phone numbers.  As luck would have it, they agreed to meet up with us at a bar we could walk to.  We had a great time.  Four hours of happiness later, I would say we have a pretty good foundation for a friendship.  I'm on my way to fulfilling my New Year's resolution of making friends!  Funny how the first non-work friends I make are from back east, but you know, pretty much everyone is from somewhere else.  But this is good!  I'm happy about it.  I'll update you on how it goes.  Ideally, I will establish yet another set of friends soon.  Call it networking if you must.  I'm about to take over this city.

Okay, that's all for now.  Soon I will post about something else.  Probably Serial, the podcast that took the country by storm.  Hope all is well!