One fun thing about being a parent is passing down all your favorite sport affiliations to your kids. I was passed down an attachment to the Saints that always helped me bond with family and give me a connection to back home when Katrina wrecked the city. Lindsey has pretty much checked out of sports completely, and so its up to me to pass along affiliations to Finn. Of the few I can claim the obvious one to pass down is Texas A&M: I graduated from college there, its nearby, and best of all his grandparents have season tickets to the place.
The first Texas A&M game that Finn went to was the UMass game in 2022. He was three years old and it was a very rainy day. Nothing really clicked for him as of why we should be there. We went with Tommy and left early, I am pretty sure he doesn't remember any of it. For the 2023 I was motivated to take him to a game by myself to see if I could give him some longer-term memories that are related to what has been an important experience in my life (going to A&M games).
The day was September 2, and the game was vs New Mexico. It was just me and Finn going, and I was pumped about making it a fun experience for him. The only problem is it was the first game of the season, and it was a 6 pm game which means to see any of it would probably take him past his bedtime so it needed careful planning. This was going to the first "trip" I planned to take with Finn so I tried to be meticulous getting ready, making sure we had enough sunscreen and all. Also as part of it there is no good charger between Leander and College Station, and I wouldn't quite have enough charge to get there and get back so I had to work out how to get more power.
We left plenty early to make sure I had the time to work out the details and have a contingency. My plan was to go into Bryan which had a destination charger on the outskirts. I brought him a snack and I figured we could snack and easily charge. The trip there was easy enough, but we hit a problem at the charger: it wouldn't charge. I had to rush him back in the car and we traveled over to the only supercharger in town near an HEB. But it wasn't just any HEB, it was the one that I used to live near when I was in school. After we charged I did my old cut through town to campus and got to see that not much around there changed since I graduated almost two decades ago. It was a lot of fun to introduce Finn to what was once my whole world.
The game itself went well, though I had trouble trying to leave because of how they gatekept the elevator. It was a late game so I wanted to leave before the half to not go way past his bedtime, but they didn't allow that. When we finally got out we got on one of the busses I used to ride back during my time there to the parking spot. This was a real highlight of the trip for Finn, he had such an excitement that everyone on the bus couldn't help but smile at the four year old boy who was just happy to be there. It ended up being a great shortcut back to the car after we were tired of walking for the day, and I got us heading back home before it got too late.
On the way back to Leander we stopped at an Walmart in Rockdale so I could get him a little food. I assumed he would be asleep by then (way past his bedtime) but he was instead pumped to be in a Wal-Mart different than any he had seen before (almost like the early 1990s ones). When I asked him months later if he liked going to the game with me he remarked that his favorite part was this Walmart, which is the exact kind of thing I had forgotten about frankly but is why I wait a bit to type up these stories usually.
At the end of the day it was a great experience taking him that day, and I often look back on it as "one of the best days of my life." As he grows older and I try to fill in the bond between me and him I hope to have more experiences like that, and I hope at least some of them stick with him to be long-term memories like they will for me.
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