Ah yes. I remember it well.
[pulls up his rocking chair and lights his pipe]
For me it was the Duke vs Kentucky in the NCAA tournament 1992 Regional Final. A minor game in history, to be sure, as any college basketball fan will know.
I was just out of college and working my first job waiting tables at a big deal country club in Williamsburg, VA called Ford’s Colony. They had three dining areas. The formal dining room. The Mixed Grill (an extra ‘e’ for Ye Olde Colonial Williamsburg may have been added, but I don’t remember). And the Men’s Grill (see above parenthetical).
I was working the Mixed Grill in my first job as a waiter, as you had to work your way up to the fine-dining room. Only the Men’s Grill had a TV. The Men’s Grill was called that because, well, only men could eat there, because it was a bar off of the men’s locker-room. And only one dude worked that room. The bartender, Collins. He handled that little dark-paneled, leather-chaired room, and he would order and go and grab food for the men who lounged there, smoking cigars and watching sports TV.
There was no corresponding Women’s Grill. The female members of the country club protested this from time to time. This never went anywhere.
At any rate, I was working a closing shift in the Mixed Grill on the night of this amazing game. I had set my VCR at home, with appropriate time buffering, and was just itching to get home to see it. Duke was my favorite team (I know, @marquac …I know), and I was so excited for this game.
There was no “notification” phone madness to deal with…and avoiding the radio on the way home would be simple. I had let my bartender, Jim Glendinnning, know that I did NOT WANT any scores from the game, and being a sports guy he gave me the nod. The other waiters and waitresses could not have cared less, so I wasn’t worried about them. I’d head straight home after we closed the grill and crank up the VCR.
But that dick Collins kept running in from the Men’s Grill to yell out the scores to the kitchen crew. Which…on balance…I have to say is probably fair. They were probably asking for updates, and not many people have the sports-recording gene. But as the game got late and got amazing, he’d run in and yell even more fervently, because the game developed into a freaking marvel. As I came in to get food for my tables, there was no way to avoid it. So I had to just surrender to it and be a part of the social happening.
I still went home and watched the whole thing.
-xtien