Before
the turkey dinner ...
This is the best, the most
enduring rivalry in all the land
By Fran Thomas,
Leomoinster resident and free-lance writer,
works in the Fitchburg Public school system.
On Thanksgiving morning, they will come. Whether the day is
bitterly cold, the field frozen into a 100-yard concrete
slab, and the grandstands rendered planks of ice, they will
come.
If gray skies are flecked with flakes of white, and the
field is filled with snow, still they will come, to stand
amids the slush and fluff.
If it rains, a dank, raw, miserable combination of wetness
and cold, they still will come.
As they always have.
There will be the men -- ex-players, many of them, who do
not sit, but rather ring the field with pockets of
ex-teammates, and in their eyes there will still burn a fire
that has barely diminished whether it has been a few scant
years or decades since they wore either Fitchburg High's red
and gray, or Leominster High's blue and white.
A cast of characters
There will be the raucous students and faculty, fresh from
a day of rallies and frenzied displays of school spirit and
pride. It will be their day, too.
There will be the youngsters, not ready yet for their turn
upon the stage, just starting to gain an understanding of
the tradition, the history, of the moment -- yet still apart
of it, forming memories that will fuel them in later years.
Parents, friends and relatives will stream into the field,
each harnessing hopes that their homes will be the ones
fortunate enough to celebrate Thanksgiving with a victory,
for in truth, though there is always much for a healthy
family to be thankful for, it seems there is so much more at
the homes of the victors.
Newcomers will be there too, commuters who traded a longer
drive for more house for their money, amazed perhaps at the
sheer intensity of it. If they are unlucky, they'll mention
the team their high school played on Thankgiving -- just as
a polite form of small talk, and someone local will laugh
and tell them to watch and see what a real rivalry is.
The reason for this won't be rudeness, though there will be
plenty of that going around that morning as well. It will be
the same reason why legions of fans will flock into
Leominster's Doyle Field, regardless of the weather, just as
they filed into Fitchburg's Crocker Field last year. It is
because for us, there is nothing else to which on can
compare this.
This is the best, the most enduring rivalry -- 114th renewal
this year -- in all the land, and anything and everything
else pales in comparison. For people around here, that is
neither boast nor exaggeration, it is simply true: a fact of
life.
At the heart of it all
For the players, it comes down to one simple thing: There
are many games in which they have played, and maybe many
more in which they will play. But there is only one game in
which they have a chance to make history.
One game to be a hero, immortalized in tradition.
One day to walk away a winner in the latets chapter of the
best rivalry and one of the oldest in the land.