FOOTBALL SATURDAY

Dear Family,

School has started and so has the football season. We have three grand sons playing football, Paul H., Nate and Douglas. Here is a picture of Nate's team gathering for their game in the shadows of the Wasatch mountains.

Dr. Doug, Nate's father is one of the football coaches which he manages to do when not operating.

I took James and we watched Nate play football. It was fun to watch because Nate plays tough football. He is linebacker and a half back. When he blocks or tackles, you can hear this loud smack clear across the field and the other player is either flat on his back or airborne. He ran a touchdown in, made a great cut and stiff armed a potential tackler. A Mom at the side line said, "that kid is an animal" and when he made the touchdown, there was this shout, "Way to go Wirthlin!" Kinda warmed my heart. He plays with an intensity that is not learned and he reminded me of Rob when he played high school ball. Nat's team won 50 to 0.

Here is a photo of Defensive coach, Dr. Doug and Nate.

After the game, we did treats at Artic Circle and then it was home to watch the Michigan, Notre Dame game on the big screen. Paul F., one of the more rabid Michigan fans, was there and Doug came over...both graduates of a Michigan school.

The tensions and anxiety levels were high and there was nail biting and frequent calls to Spokane where two more Michigan fans, Rob and Jeff got together to watch the game. They are also nutso fans!

It was a great game and when Michigan scored the winning touchdown in the last 11 seconds of the game, Paul went nuts as did everyone in the room. Paul started jumping up and down and at six foot six, I thought he would go through the ceiling. He did this high kicking dance much like the drum majors strutting across the field; I have never seen anything quite like it. When things settled down, we watched that winning touchdown about 50 times again with much cooing and satisfied high fives from the die hard fans.

Then of course we had to stay up and watch University of Utah win their game after watching arch rival Ohio lose theirs. I have never watched so much football in one day in my entire life and felt only a little bit guilty.

Great Saturday... love, Opa