In December, espnW's weekly essay series will focus on family.
There are a handful of things that can bring my hometown to a standstill, and football is one.
Iron smoke pits welded in the Louisiana countryside. The persisting scent of hickory. And humidity so thick most would forget it's fall.
I'm from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, home of the LSU Tigers and the Southern University Jaguars. My family, all alumni of Southern University and A&M College, has sat in the same seats at every game since the 1980s, homemade popcorn balls and boiled peanuts in one hand and a blue-and-gold shaker in the other.
My dad would bring his portable television, the size of three remotes, so that one ear was always plugged into whatever other game was going on at the same time. Occasionally, he would lean over and make sure I was following the game, pointing out how a pass was incomplete, and giving a few remarks to the guy in front us about how Texas Southern has nothin' on us. He has still not upgraded his portable device.
As a family, we'd pack up our van and hit the trail behind lines of Winnebagos traveling up and down I-10 and I-55 to away games as far as Florida. I would run into most of my high school friends whose parents and grandparents had also made the trek to see their beloved Jags.
Cars were packed to the gills with gumbo, stewed meats, day-and-a-half marinated chicken and ribs, jambalaya, potato salad and red beans. Some even ventured to bring their best BBQ pits, joined to the hitch on the back of their truck, the fire already lit. The tailgating lasted for two days and continued after the game was over.
We second-lined off the field no matter if we won or lost, our shakers and leftover napkins standing in for parasols and handkerchiefs. We waved them above our heads and paraded from every corner, the sound of horns our entrance and our exit. The game was as much about food and celebration as it was football.
Together, we'd witness an entire season pass, from preseason scrimmages to a week of homecoming festivities, and finally, the event that would define it all -- the Bayou Classic.
Last Thanksgiving, we took my husband to his first Classic. The Superdome protruded from the narrow skyline like a gray UFO. Our family had expanded over the years to include grandchildren and husbands, and we all walked in a bit of a messy clump, allowing the children to walk themselves, no strollers. Along the way, we hugged and greeted old friends and familiar faces, because everyone comes out for the Classic. I had not been inside the Dome in years. It was newer, brighter and remodeled. From our seats, I could see fans in colorful shirts -- Southern's blue and gold, and Grambling's black and red.
"I can't believe you grew up with all this," my husband yelled over the crowd. He had not grown up with the privilege of being raised by watching all black colleges compete in football.
Southern lost that year, but we came back strong the next.
This Thanksgiving, we packed the stadium, both teams having had a successful season -- both Southern and Grambling were 8-0. The Classic had sold out again. We would fill all 70,000 seats.
My husband was now in law school at Southern, and running into his own friends and mentors as we entered the Dome. He had even invested in paraphernalia, the jaguar on his Columbia blue and gold shirt clinging to his chest like a Superman emblem.
"Let's go, Jaguars, let's go!" he stood up beside my mom and sister to chant. By halftime, he'd perched my nephew onto his shoulders, both of them eager to see the band we lovingly call The Human Jukebox. Although we lost again this year, a crowd disappointment for us and a victory for them, we second-lined anyway. We spilled out into Champions Square, both teams poking fun at each other while exiting the gates, because, at the end of the day, it is always love.
The next day, over beers and leftover gumbo, I heard my husband wax emphatically to one of my cousins about how dope it was to see nothing but black professionals, students and alums doing well. I knew then that the essence of home had become something bigger to him, and that my upbringing had taught me more than I could have ever imagined.
The soul of the game was in all of us, wrapped in a spirit that had endured lifetimes, our school a mark of very sacred ground.
Candice E. Perkins is is a freelance writer living in New Orleans. She is an alum of the Voices of Our Nation Writing Workshop (VONA) and a graduate of the University of Southern California's Master of Professional Writing program (MPW).