A Happy City: Black and Orange

 Three minutes before the end of the last world series game, the television under which 20 + students stood taunt started counting down to automatic shut down. The lounge on my dorm floor filled with an anxiety to an extent I have never known. As students pounced to turn the tv off and back on, people cussed and covered their faces as if they too faced inevitable shut down. But the game was restored…just in time to see the last play of the game, to have Giants’ “Dynasty” as they call it restored.

 San Francisco must have been the happiest city in the world this weekend. Not only was it Halloween (a holiday made for the specific breed of San Francisco people) but their team snatched a victory once again. A double feature of black and orange. In the moments after the game, I heard not only the cheering of students around me in the lounge, but echoes from the street of people screaming, cars honking. I chose that night to walk to the supermarket, watching as strangers high fived each other. Smiles were rampant. Already students speculated about whether classes would be cancelled for the big parade.

  I’ve would not call myself an aficionado of any particular sport—I’ve never demonstrated that level of commitment. But I can plug myself in to almost anything, especially when it means the uncontainable excitement of my own city. Sports carry a mystic, magical power that entrances millions—for the weekend San Franciscans worshipped this power, for the weekend they were hypnotized by the seduction of success. So I followed the processional of people to the epicenter of the sports world.

The victory parade, a sacred ritual leading through the downtown streets of San Francisco, brought the players to their real home. As they rode by in the parade my surroundings turned into a torrent of screaming I was sure couldn’t get louder until the next player came along and it did. Fans climbed into trees for views, children clung to edges of buildings. A college student even climbed up a street light, chugging a beer as he swung higher and higher. A woman standing close to me had brought her young son. As Blanco went by, her son anxiously pulled at her shirt, screaming “I can’t see him! Mommy I can’t seeeeee him!” His mother wasn’t listening. Instead she thrust herself upward into the crowd, shouting “BLANCO! I love you! See me! See me!”

Both rain and orange and black confetti fell from the sky that day. It poured actually, but I was gloriously warm, surrounded by an adoring love only sports fans can feel. Confetti coated the umbrellas that surrounded me. I had but to reach up to touch a little bit of magic myself.

This city may make an aficionado of me yet.