Common Ground

He was sitting at an outdoor table on High Street in a relaxed manner that I remember so well.   My breath caught in my chest at the first sight of him.  His legs were casually outstretched with no regard for the crowd of people bustling to make their way down the sidewalk.  He too was enjoying the win. I noticed that his wavy, grey hair was a tad too long as usual.  

“Maybe you can cut it for me when I come for a visit?”

 He was wearing the scarlet and gray jersey that I had bought him several Christmases ago.  A large yellow mustard stain was splayed across the crisp white number forty-five on his chest. 

“Do you have anything that will get this out?” he would say with a sheepish grin each time something like this happened.

The broad grin on his face crept into the corners of his eyes when he looked up at me from underneath his OSU ball cap.  And then he was gone, instantly replaced by a stranger who just happened to look remarkably like my father. 

The stranger held my gaze for a moment and nodded in my direction.  I smiled back taking notice of the obvious differences now.  The missing square jawline. The slightly wider set eyes.  I quickly searched his face for the familiarity I had seen seconds before but the moment had passed. 

I continued down High Street being jostled along by the masses and thought about my Dad.  He would have loved this day.  The crisp air, the sunshine, the crowd and the stadium.  And the win.  Oh yes, most certainly, the win.

He used to call me after every Ohio State game.  Win or lose. 

He would ask, “Did you see that play?” or “Can you believe what happened?” or any other series of questions that were launched at me that I really wasn’t expected to answer.  “Yes, Dad” and “Uh, no, I can’t believe it” were my responses whether or not I knew what he was talking about.   I found it easy to converse in a language that I barely understood.

The language of football has always been lost on me.  My interest in the game was never about yards or downs.  It was simply a connection to my father.  As a small girl, I would snuggle up on his lap on game days excited because he was excited.  And surprised when a play went wrong and I toppled to the floor as he jumped up in eager anticipation.  He would quickly scoop me up, encircle me in his strong arms, and then settle back down with a big grin, “Did you see that play?” 

I would listen as he clamored on about players and statistics, never really taking stock, yet nodding my head in agreement. Happy to find common ground to share with him. 

People are around for only a short time.  The ones you really love seem to be around even shorter.  It’s good to find some common ground with them,  even if that common ground is 100 yards long with goalposts at the end.