Ned Luce

Well, it was an old-fashioned “butt kickin!” It wasn’t a “red tsunami” or a “red wave” even though they may have come to also qualify as unexpected “butt kickins.”

Nope, it was the annual football game between the Wabash College Little Giants and the DePauw University Tigers known as the Monon Bell Game in Indiana. 

BJ and I had flown to L.A. for a “celebration of life” for my brother-in-law who recently passed away at age 85. As Yogi Berra advised, “Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.”

The schedule for Saturday started with a 9 a.m. family breakfast which was scheduled because one of the four granddaughters needed to fly to UC Davis that afternoon, thus missing the scheduled celebration at 2 p.m. She is a freshman member of the college volleyball team and needed to return for their game against California State University Bakersfield. (It was won by UC Davis.)

There was lots of coffee and remembrances of the recently deceased husband/father/grandfather. 

I noted to the assembled that he was one of the early “Porsche”-obsessed folks I knew since he had owned an old 356 (40 years ago). 

As is my custom, since I had the “floor” and I was wearing my Wabash College sweater, I explained that the Monon Bell game was that day and I was happy to be in L.A. You see, the game is not telecast on any network you may have heard of. It was telecast on ISC beginning at 10 a.m. 

The schools arrange for “watch parties” in taverns around the country and the local “watch party” here in the Pacific Northwest was in Bellevue, roughly three hours away. Nothing was scheduled after breakfast until 2 p.m. for the “celebration of life” event and the “watch party” in L.A. was about 15 minutes from the breakfast at my sister’s. 

With nothing better to do, and being interested in the game, BJ and I decided to head over to the party with our two children who had come with us to L.A. for the celebration. 

We walked up the stairs into the room where 15 alumni of the schools were sitting watching the game. It was late in the third quarter and Wabash was LOSING 35-7. 

Our kids took one look at the score and decided to talk a long walk on Wilshire Boulevard and enjoy the warm California sunshine.

I enjoyed hanging out with two of my classmates from the middle of the last century but did not enjoy the final score of 49-14, the biggest margin of victory for DePauw since 1998. 

I also did not enjoy getting a text from DePauw alumnus and local luminary Terry Umbriet, claiming the $10 we wager on the game every year. 

So, back to my sister’s home for the celebration attended by about 50 folks. The attendees included 20 family members who had been to breakfast and endured my review of the upcoming Monon Bell Game. If there had been a crow nearby, it would not have survived. 

Love a curmudgeon and “wait ‘til next year”!

(Ned Luce is a retired IBM executive and Port Ludlow resident who knows his pigskin pain from the weekend could have been much worse, had he been a Ducks fan. Contact Ned at ned@ptleader.com.)