Do you know how big this is?

The sky has been finger painted with pinks, whites, and purples against a dark blue backdrop. The temperature is warm as I sip coffee and stare out of the fifth floor window watching a line of cars make their way into Athens then a group of jogging co-eds divert my attention. College football has arrived.

This is a time of family, friends, stories and traditions. We have done it this way for as long as I can remember. My Dad would bring us to Athens to cheer for the University of Georgia, to tailgate, eat and drink, and to marvel at the beauty of the campus. My brother David and I quickly became more interested in the beauty of the co-eds.

Ah, some childhood activities never fade.

Driving up yesterday, I swung through Madison to pick Jeremy up and after a brief visit with my brilliant daughter-in-law Marie, we sped on into Athens. Chelsea is a senior at UGA and she was waiting on us to arrive.

We got checked into a new room at the Holiday Inn and decorated it with flags, photographs, and this banner thing that Julie bought last year that has bulldogs, “Go Dawgs” and tassels on it. Then Jeremy and I fix ourselves cocktails and toast the beginning of another fall of family.

Don’t get me wrong, we love the Dawgs and for 4 hours once a week nothing else in the universe matters except that they win. It is a wonderful diversion from the rises and falls of life. But this is the time of year that the kids and I are together most every weekend.

We visited our friend Bill to inspect his new room and end up visiting with Matthew and Mike too. We laugh and tell stories of things we have done and make plans.

These are the same people that I came to Athens with in the spring and we ended up getting drunk and a healing began in my life. Walter is nowhere to be found because Bill and Matthew are already talking about doing it again. Not on a Friday night, the game is a 12:00 noon kickoff. Tomorrow night. After the game.

I shake my head and Chelsea and Jeremy and I wander downtown and find a place with sidewalk seating. We order and drink and talk the evening away about all of the things that are going on in life and discuss all of the changes. This year, even the tradition of what we do on game day has changed and we are all in new rooms and trying to figure out where the ice machines are.

We return to the room and continue our conversation when I receive a call from Bill. They are in Flannigans, a downtown bar, and want me to join them. I grab tissue paper and crumble it in the phone to sound like static before hanging up on him. I can’t do that again!

And now I stand, sipping coffee and wait. Kind of like the rest of my life. Chelsea will return soon. Mark, my illegitimate brother will soon show up with his son Nolan and a collection of friends that I don’t know yet. Then we will bounce around the hotel visiting friends that we’ve known for decades.

Then we’ll walk to Sanford Stadium and sing the Star Spanked Banner, yell “Go Dawgs” high-five one another, before returning to the room to do all of the same things that we did before the game.

“Do you know how big this is?” Bill calls me every Friday to ask, referring to the game.

I laugh but the answer is yes.

I do know how big this is. There is nothing better than having a blast with your kids and their lovers and your friends.