Freeze Out

Last night saw me doing something I haven't done in 20 years - literally. Sitting at a high school football game cheering on my hometown. It was the quarter-finals of the Iowa High School 1A play-offs and my home town, now the Aplington-Parkersburg Falcons, were taking on the Emmetsburg E-Hawks. Since Emmetsburg is only 75 miles from where my parents live and we were visitng them this weekend, we decided why not? and went to cheer them on. It was seriously FREEZING but we put on lots of layers and my dad & I sat in the stands cheering on our old home team. Lots of clothes & a few cups of hot chocolate and we lasted the game (it helped that because both teams pretty much only run the ball, the game was over in less than 2 hours!).

This year was a little different for the football team. Parkersburg experienced an F5 tornado that wiped out 1/3 of the town including the football field & school last May. While the high school is temporarily located in the middle school in Aplington while it's being rebuilt (and the middle schoolers are at the Aplington elementary & the Aplington elementary is at the Parkersburg elementary WITH the Parkersburg elementary) through donations & a lot of determination, they decided to go ahead and get the football field ready to go in Parkersburg and play football there this fall. I can't imagine what it would be like to play with the rubble & the beginnings of the new school in the background but that's what they did. They were ranked #1 in the state & were undefeated. Pretty much they've been playing for the town and giving them a bit of hope amidst the rebuilding....

Unfortunately, they met their match last night with Emmetsburg (also undefeated). It was a very low scoring game for both teams but Emmetsburg ended up coming out victorious.

I'd say A-P was victorious too - victorious in giving their town hope in the midst of disaster.