Tuesday, April 13, 2004
The Loneliest Building
*this is not my best work. I had trouble with writers block all week. This kind of sucks but read it anyways, and while your at it, email me @ legolasnuumber@hotmail.com so i can know directly what people think*For 6 to 8 times of the year, the eyes of Nebraska are on it. Damn near every person in this state from the hillbillies out west to the businessmen of Omaha are thinking on some level about it. It’s been around for damn near a century. It old constantly rejuvenated and famous. It is Memorial Stadium.At full capacity, it’s a city in and of itself. Thousands of people come to root there team on and drink beer. Drunken students yell. Stoic professionals observe. Younger kids have fantasies of being one of the men on the field below.The men on the field below are becoming heroes. They are playing a game and making themselves legends and the subjective of uncounted amounts of newspaper articles.All these things happen in the stadium. They happen and they leave and the stadium is forgotten until next time.Most of these people never think about or see the stadium; they let it slip in their minds.Slip in the way that the athletes 'fame' fades away, the stoic business men die, the students move on and the young kids get fucked up, and their ideals die.There lives become darker, and this is what happens to Memorial Stadium.It becomes dark. When it’s forgotten, people walk by the doors, but nobody cares. They may think of it in passing, but they will never see it like I have.From my headquarters on Able 11I have seen the stadium in a way never see n by the majority of the husker fans.I have walked by when the stadium is at its most forgotten. At 3:00 in the morning, when most people are asleep, I have walked by and seen windows dark. Darkened and unused for months at a time. Windows that are dirty, and very rarely given a proper cleaning.On the Westside, there are to giant windows. In the rare event these are on, they look like two yellow, angry eyes. Eyes that speak. Speak to anyone and everyone who walk by.Eyes that say: “You’ll be back. You’ll all be back. And when your back, I will be waiting.”Waiting is all that this stadium does for 9 months at a time.From a heightened distance, on a misty day, with just one light on, you can sense the sorrow of being forgotten drifting from within the stadium.A single light, with a beam made visible by the clouds.Inside the stadium, is memorabilia from the golden age of the huskers. There are old footballs, old uniforms and old national championship trophies. Things that are forgotten now, just like the stadium is most of the year. It is a shrine, to the long dead and the long forgotten. Events that have since transpired never to happen again. Old huskers probably come by once and a while. Not the big ones. Not the Scott Frosts and the Eric Crouches.The Paul Fujions and the Chris Bassets. These forgotten athletes probably come around once in a while, look and sob. For they will never be thought of like this.I think about them sometimes. I think about the stadium. How it would feel to be used and forgotten so easily. Forgotten and alone…I think of the stadium, for it surely cries.And I could almost cry with it, for sometimes I feel like the stadium.I think we all do.At any given time in our lives, an event can happen, big or small, and make us feel abandoned and alone. We can go, for what can feel like months, feeling alone. If anybody ever saw the stadium like I have, they would know what I’m talking about.This stadium can also serve as a warning also. The function of the stadium is to make men gods, if only for a little bit. To achieve momentary immortality.But what happens when your time is over….Some move on to bigger and better things. They are not bound to be forever known as “that husker player.”Then there’s Johnny Roger. Number 20.Since the 1970’s he has been known as the jet. Forever delegated to the task of hearing “man woman and child that put ‘em in the aisles” everywhere he goes. Forever know for a few lucky motions on a field over 30 years ago.The stadium weeps. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it. I pity it.Reading this is probably the first time any of you thought of the stadium in a long time.It only makes perfect sense. The stadium is hollow, and a life in sports is hollow. People work hard, they train, risk injury, they hurt others and what do they get from it?After they peak, the lucky ones go on to endorse foot creams and sneakers. Most just fade into the past.Many just cling onto their faded glory, and take it to their graves.And this hollowness is reflected back by the stadium.It’s bitter at its forgotten status. It is sad for its ignored fate. I’m stunned to get up close with the stadium. The amount of money they spend on it is incredible. The entire thing is designed to be first class. But it’s only used at most 8 times to its full capacity. Sports is a paradox, one I can’t wrap my mind around I guess. It seems so illogical though. Effort on the field effort off the field and for what? Some faded glory and some skanky groupies.How twisted.This logic is the inevitable result of a low amount of testosterone.Regardless, I think my logic flows fairly fluidly.I’ll never be in the stadium again for a football game. This I vow. I vow to never see it at its most used time again. However, I will visit it, during its forgotten times, for I feel empathy for it. I will be the one to give it the attention it deserves. For on some level, I believe, we are all the stadium.We are the loneliest building.
posted by Dan # 12:38 PM