"Touchdown Nebraska!"

 
Source: google.com via Becca on Pinterest


I went to college in a small, Midwest town that wore red on Saturdays, drank a lot of beer, and made fall feel like the only season that mattered. I feel nostalgic for that time and that place more than ever now that I live in NYC where sometimes everything seems foreign and unfamiliar. This longing for college and community was satiated last fall the first time that I stepped into the Husker Bar.

It's just a regular bar in Hell's Kitchen, on 44th street between 8th and 9th Ave and blocks from Times Square. There were tourists walking past with shopping bags and I heart NYC shirts, but as I got closer I saw a giant red flag with a white N in the middle, and I knew that I was getting close to where I belonged. This is how I felt again on Saturday as I watched the first game of the college football season with Nebraska Cornhusker fans new and old. I felt like I was home.

Okay, okay, so I didn't actually go to Lincoln, Nebraska for college. You caught me. But some of my best friends are from or now live in Lincoln, and most of my college friends are big Husker fans. And did I mention how much I love wearing red?? So even though the University of Nebraska-Lincoln isn't technically my alma mater, it's my almost mater, and it has adopted me as one of its own.

The crowd at the Husker Bar is like one big web of random Nebraska connections. You either went to Nebraska, married someone who went to Nebraska, are from somewhere in or around Nebraska, or you once played football for Nebraska. A couple years ago brown haired, all-American looking guy sat down at our Husker friend and official table holder's table and 10 minutes into their conversation she learned that he was Scott Porter, the actor who played Jason Street in Friday Night Lights. He's from Omaha and apparently a huge Husker fan. There was a rumor that this past Saturday, Lady Gaga's ex was watching the game on the second level of the bar. It might have just been a weird looking guy, but still! It could have been Lady Gaga's ex-boyfriend; he is from Omaha! That's how complex this red web is.

It's true that at the end of the day, I'm not technically a real Nebraska cornerhusker, and I'm not technically very sure how football works exactly.. but I love wearing red on Saturdays, drinking a lot of beer, and feeling like fall is the only season that matters. Go Big Red!!



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