Old Friends and Patriots

21st – 25th Sept: days 166 – 170

Most of the western world will be aware of the fact that Nick spent a year at school in the USA. This was 1989-1990 when he was awarded an English Speaking Union scholarship and, after A levels, he was funded to attend a private prep school in Massachusetts for a year, essentially repeating his final year of school. For many reasons that year has been incredibly influential on the rest of his life and was the start of his love affair with the USA.

He made lots friends during that year, but only one, a certain Greg B, has endured. They have worked hard to keep their friendship alive since they graduated in 1990 by having a single drunken night out in a pub in Liverpool in 2000. Now that’s commitment. Greg was on a trip to London and took a train up to Liverpool for a fleeting 18 hour visit. Nick collected him from the station and took him to the pub. I came home from my night shift the next morning to find a moderately shabby swarthy American emerging from his beer coma on the sofa bed in the lounge. And then after breakfast he got the train back to London. This was the sum total of my previous acquaintance with Greg.

By some telepathic connection, after 17 years of no communication, Greg emailed Nick to catch up just as we were considering getting in touch to arrange to see him. Bizarre.

He lives near a typical New England town in Connecticut called Ridgefield with his wife, Gigi, 3 kids, Sam, Ben and Lia, and Chase the labradoodle. The house was in a beautiful hilly, wooded area bordering a state park and armed with Google Maps and directions from Greg we got lost, got found again, managed to manoeuvre the shebang up the steep road to his house and took up a sizeable slice of the driveway. We arrived to a fantastically warm welcome. Nick and Greg instantly relaxed into their old friendship and Gigi was amazing. We were completely spoiled with a full guest suite, fine food, wine, and unlimited access to the shiniest largest washing machine and dryer that I have ever seen. Bliss.

We had an amazing long weekend with them. We chatted for hours and filled in the large gaps in our life histories to date. Gigi was under the impression that Greg and Nick had gone through the whole of high school together not just the last year. (That is an indicator of the impact that year had on them both and how much they talk about it). We ate and drank. We had some outings to various locales. We walked the dog in the woods from the back garden. We watched Ben play American Football (His team won and I also sort of understand the rules now too) We perused Greg’s old photos of them both at school.But the highlight of it all, they took us to a NFL game to see their team, the New England Patriots, winners of last year’s Super Bowl, play the Houston Texans.

Greg’s family have been season ticket holders for the Patriots forever, and the 5 and 1/12 hour round trip drive up to the home stadium at Foxborough near Boston is a regular event. The game, however, is only half the story. The ‘tailgate’ is the other half. They have been doing this in pretty much the same spot before each game for decades too. We loaded up the car with a table, a BBQ, a cooler full of drinks and food and were on the road by 7.45am. At 10.30am we pulled into a large private parking lot about a mile from the stadium and after paying the fee were efficiently parked up in rows with big spaces between them.

The food, drink and equipment was liberated from the car and within 15 mins we each had a Bloody Mary in hand. Chips and dips were laid out and ribs and sliders were grilled. All around, as far as the eye could see, thousands of other folk were doing exactly the same thing. It was amazing, but BOILING HOT. At this time of year it is usually in the mid 60s F, but it has been unseasonably warm and on this day is was in the late 80s; and we had no shade. It was so hot it even curtailed the drinking. Desperate, I know. Everyone was sweating. My wrists were sweating. We walked up to the stadium for the game where it was even hotter.

I was very thankful that I had worn a hat, even if it wasn’t a fashionable one. We couldn’t drink enough water. The concession stands even ran out of bottled water at one point.

The game was very entertaining with 3 hours of stop/start action, which equates to about 10-15 minutes of open play. It was tense in the final minutes as the Patriots were losing, but their hero player the demigod Tom Brady, did his stuff, threw a perfect pass and they scored a touchdown, so snatching a victory, with 23 seconds left on the clock. The crowd went wild and I’ve not heard noise like it.