My husband is a proud graduate of the University of
Oregon. For years I have had to endure
eye-bleeding green and yellow apparel, middle-of-the-night football games on
obscure cable channels, threats to abandon family holidays for Rose Bowl games,
and inappropriate fight song lyrics.
There are no limits to his shows of allegiance. He wears ducks on his tie, the official
university seal on his watch, and bright-green bottomed Sperry Top-Siders.
A multi-generational Oregonian, my husband’s ancestors traveled
to the Pacific Northwest in covered wagons on the Oregon Trail. As birthrights go, I suppose it would be
unfair to begrudge him his loyalties.
What I cannot understand, however, is the animosity that falls between
him and his brothers over colleges. Only
one of the four is a graduate of the rival school—Oregon State—and yet they
maintain a united four-against-one battle to the death for institutional
supremacy. Like the “other” Civil War, this
is a conflict that divides even kinsmen.
I tend to regard schools by the evolutionary superiority of
their mascots. Tigers beat Bulldogs,
hands down. The Ibis takes flight to
escape the Gator. A Leprechaun has
better luck than a Wolverine. Crimson
prevails over Big Green (for reasons that require no explanation). By what standard can anyone claim that a Beaver—a
giant rodent, for G-d’s sake—outranks, outclasses, or outruns a slick-feathered,
fighting water fowl? There is simply no
contest.
Ever since the Beach Boys harmoniously urged fans to “be
true to your school,” college alumni have shamelessly defended their almae matres to the exclusion of reason. It is an excuse to don tribal garb and act
like a barbarian. Years of civilized
culture be damned, my team will kill yours or die trying. So it was no surprise when my son—the oldest
child of my loins—took up the battle cry, heading to Eugene to fight the good
fight in the name of his father. I sat
silently as the next generation assumed the expected behaviors, applied the
garish clan colors, sang the fight song, and drank the Kool Aid.
All these years, I was mistaken in thinking that this was
simply a family war. Apparently, there
is some magnetic substance in the Oregon water that polarizes people against
one another. It has a long
half-life. So today, while my son was
running errands and enjoying his brief vacation in our small New England town,
he was shocked when a Lexington police officer pulled up behind him with lights
flashing. Terrified, my son pulled over,
hoping the officer would drive around him and keep going. Unfortunately, he did not. He pulled up behind him, lights still
flashing, and got out of the car. My son
fumbled around the car he had not driven in eight months hoping he could produce
the registration. He feared that his
driver’s license had expired.
Rolling down the window, my son did his best to hide his
fear, looking the officer squarely in the eye in the way we taught him. The officer flipped his ticket book open and
asked the critical question, “Do you go to the University of Oregon?” “Yes,” my son admitted, his usual school pride
reduced to regret under the specter of a policeman’s eyes. What is it about a police uniform that makes
you feel guilty?
“I went to Oregon State,” the officer replied, thinking this
needed no further explanation. In any
other circumstance, my son would have taunted him with impunity. “Too bad you couldn’t go to a good school,”
he said to himself, silently. Outwardly,
he maintained his deferential pose, hoping that his choice of school was not,
in itself, a violation of Lexington law.
The officer let him go with a warning: “Go, Beavers.”
As he walked in the door, I could see immediately that
something was wrong. My son was still
trembling from being pulled over for the first time. He could not shake his
anger at the officer of the law who used his official capacity to terrorize and
taunt a rival. “If it’s any consolation,”
I said to my poor son, “he has to look at himself every day of his sorry life
knowing he’s a Beaver.”
“That’ll do it,” he said.
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