Black and Gold, Baby!

So, a funny thing happened when we moved from Taiwan to Pittsburgh: We became Steelers fans. Well, actually not "funny" - particularly not to my hometown Browns fans - maybe "unexpected" is a better word. But, just to try to set the record straight a bit, I was never a Browns fan so, while I did live in Cleveland during my formative years, I'm not as traitorous as I'm made out to be in some of the FB posts of my highschool classmates.

We moved here right at the beginning of the 2009-2010 football season and at first, I was only dimly aware that games were being played and won and lost because I had many, many other things on my mind at that time. Things like learning the ropes at a new job, getting kids registered in school, finding my way around unfamiliar streets, making friends, crying, yes, I remember I cried a fair bit during those first few months in PGH. "More important than Steelers Football?!?" you ask incredulously. And all I can say in my defense is that I was not yet, at that time, enlightened to the joys of Steeler Football.

Well, unenlightened and we hadn't bought our house yet, either. It turns out that if you want to purchase a residential property within 100 square km of the city of Pittsburgh, you need to first sign a Steelers Loyalty Agreement or they won't sell you a house. It's a law. But this was before I'd even heard about any of that.

Then, one Thursday afternoon in the fall of 2009, Jay comes home from school and he's extremely excited. He's the child after all, that when the teacher says, "Now, don't forget children, tomorrow for art class you must bring to school one magenta crayon, a glue stick, some glitter, a letter-sized envelope, and a lock of your mother's hair." The first thing Jay does when he gets home is assemble the necessary items - sometimes neatly tucking them into a ziplock bag - and carefully place them into his backpack so that he won't forget them in the morning. That's Jay.

So he's just about bouncing off the walls when he gets home that day and he keeps repeating, "Black and Gold tomorrow Mommy! Teacher says tomorrow's Black and Gold!" No amount of interrogation on my part can get any details. "I dunno. Teacher just said, 'Black and Gold.'" It wasn't until the next morning when I walked Jay to school and saw the swarming sea of Steelers-clad children, teachers, lunch ladies, bus drivers - hell, even the principal out on the playground. And then there were the "Steeler Nation" banners and Terrible Towels hanging from every window of the school. I look at Jay, "Oh, I get it. Black and Gold."

This year, the brain-washing seems to be even more institutionalized. Jay's wandering around aimlessly singing a tune as he often does and I just happen to catch the refrain, "Here we go! Here we go! The Steelers are going to the Superbowl!!" He has such a lovely breathy little-boy voice that I love to hear him sing. I wasn't aware that he knew the Steelers song however, so I asked him where he'd learned the song. "Oh, they play it again and again and again every day at lunch."

The next day, Rudy starts the dinner conversation with, "So they were playing this Polamalu footage on the TVs at lunch today..." What?!? TVs in the lunch room - that's the first shock - and not only that but the TVs play a continuous reel of Steelers highlights footage?!? Really?!? This is what my tax dollars are funding?

So anyway, there's really not any way to avoid being a Steelers fan here. And, again in my own defense, I do have some solid, concrete reasons to be a Steelers fan:

1. Hines Ward

2. The Bitchin' Black and Gold color scheme

3. No cheerleaders

4. No human mascot

5. No animal mascot

6. Great fans

7. Fantastic sense of community

Oh, and look, there just happen to be 7 things on my list which, as it turns out, just happens to be one more than the number of Superbowls that the Steelers have won. My whole team had their hopes up sky-high when we 'burghed up in our Steelers gear last night and headed over to my friend Allison's house to watch the game.

First off, Jay hadn't been feeling well all day so his status for game day had been questionable from the moment he'd woken up barfing Sunday morning. Nevertheless, I got the mini-egg rolls (our "culturally appropriate" snack for the party) set up on a platter, grabbed the Giant Eagle giant Steelers chocolate-chip cookie and a bag of chips and we hustled ourselves off to Allison's house.

No sooner had we walked in the front door of Allison's home, when the smallest member of my team tugs urgently on the sleeve of my Hines Ward #86 jersey and hisses, "Bathroom! Mom! Bathroom!" I hurry him upstairs where he promptly vomits copiously into Allison's toilet. Very neatly, I add with more than a touch of pride. I have trained him well. Anyway, now's clutch time. After he's all barfed-out and ready to rejoin the festivities, I pull my injured player aside for a serious talking-to, "Look Jay, do you want to leave? Do you want to leave now? It's totally okay if you want to go but look, if you want to go, we leave now. Right now. Because I love you. You know Mommy loves you, right?" Feeble nod. I continue. "But, here's the deal, buddy. Mommy's not leaving after kick-off. Seriously. Go now or stay until the bitter end. Even if, God forbid, there's overtime. So, are you in or out?" He's in. We rejoin the party and he starts wolfing down chips and salsa. I'm dubious about the wisdom of this and so offer up to him a bit of motherly advice tinged with many bad college experiences. "Chew it up very carefully. Just in case you see it again. Know what I mean?" Another nod.

So, the best part for Jay (other than getting to play with and pat a real, live dog) was that a Superbowl Miracle occurred last night. After another fairly large-scale gastro-intestinal event, he continued to chow down on chips and salsa, chicken tenders, chex mix, and cookies all washed down with a couple of glasses of rootbeer. And he was fine. Completely cured. Go figure.

So, in the end, the Steelers didn't win. But we got to spend a thrills-chills-and-spills (luckily not on Allison's carpet) evening with our fantastic new Pittsburgh friends cheering on our team. And, as they say, there's always next year!