My mother, a UCLA graduate, changed her allegiance in an instant the day I enrolled at USC. She and my father attended every Trojans home game from that day forward. Family blood may be thicker than alumni water, but that doesn't seem to be the case when it comes to marital relationships.
And I know it very well. My husband, Brad, and I, both divorced and not looking for anyone who didn't exude quality, had begun a keyboard courtship. He was eager, while I was reluctant at best. I refused to meet him for months, having been single for six years and having no interest in sharing anything with anyone ever again. But he said he was willing to wait as long as it took for me to work up the courage, and he would even manage to overlook the fact that my diploma was from USC because he (unfortunately) was a devout Bruin.
Letters went back and forth between us, and since we were both 50 and counting, once I relented and we met face to face, we wasted no time before announcing the nuptials, even though we both knew that football season might be an impediment forever.
We bought rings before our first crosstown rivalry contest, the battle that former UCLA football coach Red Sanders once claimed is not a matter of life or death: “It's more important than that!” he insisted.
We set our wedding date for April, long before we really realized what was going to happen in the fall at the time of the start. While I imagined ourselves reveling in mocking, mocking chatter, snuggled up on the couch, popcorn at the ready (maybe even buying tickets to the big game one day), I soon learned that the civil war on the playing field of Los Angeles was more than we had bargained for. because and, in fact, it would permeate the walls of our love nest.
Brad started it. The first year, I ran to Trader Joe's like a doting newlywed bride to gather fun football food for what promised to be the fulfillment of my dream: enjoying the light banter of frivolous competition in front of the TV on a sunny Saturday afternoon in Southern California. .
As I left the market, shopping bags in hand, I realized that the man I had promised to honor (had I remembered to tell the priest to omit the word “obey”?) had changed my flashy cardinal and gold license plate. from USC. frames for those decorated in the pale baby blue of their alma mater: phew, UCLA Bruins!
Two could play in this game. I threw my bags in the back seat, got on Highway 405 and headed straight to SC Trojan Town at South Coast Plaza. Yes, Virginia, there really is a retail Santa for the University of Pampered Children.
I pulled out my husband's Visa card and quickly placed all the fan items I could carry on it. I brought two suitcase-sized bags with handles full of cocktail napkins, plates, mugs, a king-sized blanket, t-shirts, sweatpants, pajamas, signs, streamers, bunting, socks, hats, sweaters, and my personal favorite, because pretend have symptoms of a stroke every time you hear a refrigerator magnet playing the Trojan fight song.
Keep fighting! Before long, she had accumulated an inordinate amount of dollars in paraphernalia that was sure to bring the house down. Then there was the year USC was favored by a margin wider than the Pacific Ocean, the year the man I thought I'd share my life with decided to clean out the garage and not even watch a quarterback throw. That was the year I ate all the cardinal and gold M&Ms.
Shortly after standing at the altar before family and friends, when we attended a UCLA-USC basketball game dressed in our respective school sweatshirts, we were stared at by a group of rude Bruins. “Oh man,” one of them said to my husband. “Couldn't you have done better?”
Clearly, you can't major in manners on the west side of town. To this day, whenever the big day arrives for a football game more crucial than the Super Bowl, I sometimes find myself getting through it all in the company of Brad's fraternity brother and his wife, a former lead singer. UCLA.
Even though I'm outnumbered and have to sit next to a singer, I handle it with grace despite some tedious enemy rants on the subject of campus controversy, in the style of parents who pay for their progeny to enter college. USC.
I point out that it is an honor to be able to graduate from such a prestigious university, while our Bruin guests argue that those parents wasted their money.
Twenty years after the sacramental union, we'd like to think we've mostly let it go, especially since neither team puts on the stellar spectacle they did in our glory days from 1969 to 1973.
But every time November rolls around, the flag is unfurled in our school colors: half cardinal and gold, half just boring blue and yellow. “A house divided,” she proclaims for all the neighbors to see. So, perhaps to get the truly proper perspective, it's time for us to host a ceremony during which we renew our sacred vows by adding just one more to the list: For better or for worse, for the richer or for the poorer. .and it doesn't matter who wins the game.
The author is a second-generation Los Angeles native and lives in Fallbrook, California. A graduate of USC, she is the author of essays and stories that have appeared in newspapers and magazines, including the Los Angeles Times, Orange Coast Magazine and Newsweek, for more than two decades.
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