Well, that’s it for football. There may be more games on the schedule, but from here out it is just too damned cold for me, anyway.

Earlier in the day, I thought it was God’s Own Football Weather: bring, cloudless blue skies, and just enough crispness to bring up the thirst and hunger. And actually, it was GOWF, when the sun was out. The tailgating was superb- the Argonaut brought the compact Webber grill, I had a cheese platter, Tony brought the fried chicken and there was a bunch of designer beer from the brewery in which Jake and Dave are investors.

We hooked up in an unusual place- next to the Arlington Cemetery fence across from where the Navy Annex used to be due to the running of the Marine Corps Marathon, a race I did twice, and the last competitive athletic event I intend to enter. It is strange looking at the big emptiness of the site. The last thing left is the security shack at the former entrance.

They are getting the former Bureau of Personnel site (and the Marine Corps HQ) ready for us vets to pass away and plant us where our desks used to be. Next to go will be the road itself. I will be interested to see how that is going to work.

It would be a little weird if it wasn’t ironic. We decided we liked the idea.

Dave was up front, riding shotgun and I was in the back with Tony. I was a relief not to be driving; I could ignore the rules about drinking and driving, and I did not have to do an inventory of my car to ensure that I wasn’t violating any of the peculiar new laws being enforced with such zest in the District and The Free State of Maryland.

Tony was Army, and has a son in Afghanistan, and I was Navy with a son in Japan. We talked about that, and how the parking sucked in the District when he tried to go and visit his daughter. She lives in NW, for whatever reason, and likes the City.

“I’ll take Arlington,” I said. “Besides the usual crap, did you hear about the guy the DC cops went after? They got warrants to search his house twice. The second time the guy’s 14-yearold daughter let 30 cops in riot gear into the house. They handcuffed the adults face down, broke down a bathroom door and dragged the guy’s son out naked.”

“What the hell for?”

“Looking for unregistered weapons.”

“Did they find any?”

“No, hell no. The guy keeps his guns at his sister’s place in Virginia. After three hours they found a twelve-gauge shotgun shell that had misfired. Couldn’t be fired. Oh, that and an empty expended round from a pistol.”

“Just the brass? That is illegal?”

“Apparently it is if you piss someone off.”

“I’ll go you one better. The Maryland Patrol and DHS showed up at the home of a free-lane journalist this summer at 0430 and ransacked the house on a warrant looking for guns. They didn’t find any, but they did take the writer’s files about whistle-blowers in the TSA.”

“Wait a minute- a warrant to look for guns was used to roust a journalist’s files and identify her confidential sources? WTF?”

“It’s getting kind of interesting out there. I remember when the PG SWAT team and the county narcs raided the home of the mayor of Berwyn Heights, shot his dogs and tied him up and interrogated and his mother in law for hours with the dogs laying dead on the floor.”

“Ah, that was a long time ago. Bush Administration stuff.”

“Yeah, what difference at this point does it make?” We all laughed, though there was a hint of unease at the strangeness abroad in the land.

Our host likes to drive across the District to avoid the Beltway, and it is remarkable to see how the bedraggled NE side of town is coming back. It must be a lot safer these days, what with all those SWAT guys available to help the citizens manage their affairs.

When we arrived at the lot and cracked the first beers of the afternoon, the Argonaut already had the burgers and dogs going. The sky was bottomless blue, and the ladies in the crowd were almost uniformly attired in tight leggings, boots and red Terrapin jerseys.

“Only two hours until game time,” said Dave earnestly. “We better get started on this.”

“Roger that,” said Tony.

I light up a Lucky, and looked around to see if any of Governor O’Malley’s goons were around. He made the whole campus a no-smoking area. I thought I was safe, at least for the moment.

I think the Terps lost, later. But of course, that is not the point, is it?

(Clockwise from upper left: Terps crowd is optimistic at the beginning of the game; the Argonaut at work on the Grill; Pete cuts some Croftburn Farm summer sausage, extending his long-severed index finger to demonstrate his expertise at slicing; the Culpeper product was a real crowd pleaser; the mood turns south for Terps fans as the Third Quarter ends, Co-eds in leggings and boots were still optimistic late in the game; Pete and the sausage again, Dave, and center, the shadows grow long on the 2013 Terps season.)

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303