We’ve been waiting for our trip to Ann Arbor for the big game weekend for
a long long time. Joe's 40th was the original inspiration. And then, the
weekend finally came.
First, we kicked it off with a kick butt Thanksgiving celebration at Kyle and
Emily‘s house. The meal was ridiculous and their new kitchen was beautiful
and the kids had a ball shooting each other with laser guns and playing
Madden. The ladies made a quick and secretive exit, stage right, out the door
and over to Valley West Mall for some early Black Friday shopping.
We all woke up at 6 o’clock on Friday morning and made the dash to the
airport. Fortunately, the lady at Friedrich';s coffee started the trip out with
the perfect tribute to our older brother Joe, for whom this trip was to honor.
Kyle went to the coffee line 1st. Joe followed right behind, and when he
stepped up to the register, the lady asked if he was Kyle‘s dad. For the rest
of the trip, Joe was the butt of thousands of “daddy“ jokes whenever we had
the chance.
Cary pulled every string he could to get us seated in “the comfort zone” on
the plane to give himself some extra post operative leg room. The trip was
unremarkable, except for my tech savvy brother Cary introducing me to the
Matrix and showing me how to remodel a website or two, and also the eight-
year-old sitting right in front of us who decided to puke his brains out
immediately after landing...Kyle and Joe nearly followed suit.
We took Tony’s first Uber West out of Detroit on I-94 to Ann Arbor, and
dropped off our bags at Scott’s place...props to Cary for finding a great place
to stay.
Then we hit up the Jolly Pumpkin on Main Street where Joe killed a Walleye
Po Boy and Cary ate Tofu for some reason. The big Cary food joke the
whole trip was a desperate search to look everywhere to try and find some
dessert on a skillet since apparently he can eat at least two of those in one
sitting.
After lunch, we went to the greatest store in the whole planet, Mden... The
only place the Coppola brothers could stand to shop for more than 30
minutes. Some key purchases were made, then we walked across the legal
campus and through the magical Dennison engineering Archway.
Next, we hit up the Brown Jug restaurant, where we all rekindled a deep
passionate love for Matchbox 20. Kyle the historian was kind enough to re-
tell the story of the Brown Jug for those of us more ignorant of Michigan
lore.(me)
Once we had stuffed in a few hundred extra calories, Joe was nice enough to
take us on a tour of all the athletic facilities around the campus. We could
spot the team in their Friday evening meeting at the indoor football practice
facility. I loitered, but didn’t get arrested. We then made it into
Schembechler Hall, where we saw some cool memorabilia including Kyle’s
discovery of a 100-year- old iron nut cup that he really seemed to have a
fondness for. I befriended an actual Wolverine, and then Cary saved me
from accidentally barreling over it. We did get to see the players filing out,
and Joe pointed out Ty Isaac and Devin Bush.
Kyle, the Uber king, then got us a ride to Scott’s place where we got settled
in and watched some of the Iowa vs Nebraska football game.
After awhile we hit up Ashley’s for supper, where Cary and I ate burnt
chocolate chip cookies that they’d left in the oven for 20 minutes too long
because the night crew had never had a request for dessert before. If
someone could please just find us a skillet this never would have happened.
Then, it was time to scratch our competitive itch, so we walked to Bab’s. On
the way, Joe, Cary and Kyle were shocked and awed when I ran into a
fellow SAE brother and busted out a top secret covert greeting, and the other
guy responded accordingly. Cool as the other side of the pillow. Once we
got to Babs, we dominated the Golden Tee machine. Joe and Kyle still owe
Cary and me $3 each for that victory.
When we decided to leave, our Uber driver was delayed, so we were just
chilling out on the Curb on a cool Ann Arbor night. A group of half-wit
youngsters in black leather jackets walked by, saw all our Michigan gear,
and decided to take a shot at us. The ringleader spouted off sarcastically,
“Hmmm, who are you guys cheering for, Ohio?” To which Joe responded,
ya, who are you cheering for, Team Leather?” While at Kyle';s house for
Thanksgiving, we had voted Cary most likely to start a scuffle on our trip,
but this little incident brought that into question.
Back home, Cary talked us into watching some horrific TV show called
Black Mirror. I watched 5 minutes, had seen enough, and checked out,
much to Cary’s disappointment. Joe stuck it out, although I’m pretty sure he
sucked his thumb until he got to sleep. Actually, I think he was doing OK
until he overheard Cary speculating whether Scott who was still one thin
door away from us might actually be a serial killer, then he got nervous and
barricaded his bedroom door.
The next morning began with an air of excitement, which was only
amplified when Kyle’s loudspeaker started playing the Michigan fight song
at 7 AM. It was Gameday, and we were all stoked. The forecast was 43°, so
we put on a ton of layers, and headed down Stadium Street toward the Big
House. It was a beautiful sunrise, it was fun seeing everyone set up for the
big tailgate. Eventually, we took an Uber to the Starbucks across from
MDen and had breakfast and coffee.
Afterwards, we headed down State Street toward the field. We saw some
great architecture on campus, the student union, and of course a drunk kid at
a party house who decided to jump from a second story window with
nothing but a picnic table to break his fall...all before 9:30AM.
Ann Arbor was electric, shining in all its splendor, with fans decked out and
filling the sidewalks and the Quickie Burger bursting at the seams.
Fox Sports was on the scene, Matt Leinert had received plenty of makeup
and Dave Wannstedt at least a gallon of hairspray.
All in all, we must have walked about 320 miles in the 48 hours up to this
point, including poor Cary just a couple weeks out from his knee surgery
who looked like he’d stollen a weather balloon and shoved it down his left
pant leg by this point. Nonetheless, he was a tough trooper. He texted his
buddy Todd, who he met drinking red stripe in Jamaica, who walked up the
hill to meet us in his maize and blue suit which made him look like he was
The ringmaster of the Michigan circus. Walking with him was past running
back Vincent Smith. We had a nice talk with them for a few minutes and
then we proceeded to the fancy Regent tailgating area to the northwest of the
stadium. There we ran into Dave Jung, whose brother is a wealthy
benefactor for Michigan, who was standing with Devin Gardner. Yes, Kyle,
you spotted him first. We loved getting a chance to meet Devin, and get
some photos taken. He said he appreciated hanging out with us big lads
because he usually sticks out in a crowd due to his size.
After that, we watched as the bands came through and the cheerleaders, and
watched the buses pull up and drop off first the Ohio State team, followed by
Michigan.
We went into the Big House and Joe led us down to the tunnel in Section 1,
where he pointed out some points of interest. We watched the pre-game
preparations and build up for about 90 minutes before game time. The F16
flyover was pretty sweet. Despite the brothers telling me we were double
digit underdogs in this game, I tried to encourage hope for an epic upset. The
first quarter made us all believers in that possibility, as we started off 14-0. It
was an exciting game. We definitely got our money’s worth. And, we were
in it the whole way, with lots of opportunities to get er done. A few bad
calls and several John O’Korn overthrows were particularly painful,
however. Joe buried his head in his hands and appeared to be working on a
bleeding ulcer during several of those moments. Worst of all, despite
several heartfelt and generous offers, no one would eat a piece of my
pepperoni pizza.
The 31-20 defeat smarted, maybe even more than Cary’s knee as we walked
back up Stadium to Woodland Drive.
We mourned for a while, being lazy back at Scott’s place, and eventually
made a reservation at Webers at 7:15. That dinner was exactly what we
needed to end the trip back on a high note. It was one of the most memorable
and outstanding meals ever, with everything from escargot, to scallops, to
steak, to lobster, to 5 different desserts...and the best part was, Dad picked
up the bill! Cary liked his truffle cake so much that he ordered another one,
which led to the waitress crowning him the best eater she had ever served.
We sat and had some nice talks for awhile when we got back home, despite
some dangerous gastrointestinal outbursts. I educated the group about Louie
Lamour by reading a few pages of the story of the inseparable and invincible
Sackett brothers before we all crashed.
Sunday morning, we were at the airport bright and early. Cary once again
went right up to the gate to petition the nice lady there for a seat with extra
leg room. She denied him, but then changed her mind later while she was
assigning Joe and I our seats. Joe responded with, "Thank you so much,
he'll really appreciate that since he just had leg surgery. To which the lady
said, "Oh, well then, he can't set in the exit row if he just had surgery." We
tried to petition her that he's still a very strong and capable lad, but she saw
him walking back up to the desk behind us and commented that he was
walking a little goofy. Unfortunately, Cary was close enough to hear this,
and was a little miffed, and explained to the lady that his feelings were hurt
by her mean comments and said "I'd like to see YOU walk." Fortunately, despite
this last close call, no punches or Chicago shivers were thrown on this whole
trip.
All and all, it was a phenomenal trip, and lifetime memory. It was priceless
time with the brothers. And, even though he's getting older, we all think
Dad really enjoyed himself.
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