West Coast Offense

Up at quarter after five every morning to milk cows and gather eggs. As a kid growing up on the farm, Ron dreamed about the days when he had a city job and could sleep in to a decent hour. A couple of decades later, living in New Jersey, he was getting up at quarter after five to catch the commuter train into Manhattan. By the time he retired a couple of decades further on, he was sleeping in a whole 45 minutes later, getting up at six to catch the commuter train into Chicago.

Ron happily threw his alarm clock away when he retired back to Nebraska. He would stay up until one or two in the morning, surfing the Web and listening to music. His morning wake-up time pushed later and later, into ten o’clock, eleven o’clock. It took a while for my morning person and his night owl metabolisms to blend, and they did only by my practice of gradually staying up later and later. I still tend to wake up fairly early, thus making myself sleep deprived, but the fun we have together makes up for it.

For a good fifteen years, Ron was the master of his own fourth dimension. The only schedule he really had to worry about was that of his beloved Nebraska Huskers football games, televised every Saturday during the fall. Aside from the occasional eleven a.m. start, morning was irrelevant to him. I, too, enjoyed the Central Time Zone. With the late night news finishing a whole hour earlier, “The Tonight Show” started at 10:30. I was actually awake to watch it. Monday Night Football started at eight, not nine. I had a chance to enjoy a little of it before nodding off.

So then we moved two time zones farther west. For most television viewing, this is a real bonus. East Coasters have to wait at least until nine p.m. for many of their favorite shows to air. I’m cooking supper when Monday Night Football kicks off. Were I still in Fredericksburg, Virginia, I would sleep through most of “Project Runway.” Out here in the Pacific Time Zone, the designers start sniping at each other at six. It’s still light out.

For Ron, this is a problem. An eleven a.m. home start for the Huskers means getting up before nine o’clock, here on the West Coast. And what about all those other college games, a day-long football extravaganza? A true fan, such as Ron, keeps an eye on all actual and potential opponents. Before one Saturday football fest has ended, he knows which games he wants to watch next week. East Coast games that start before noon start airing here around eight in the morning. All the pre-game hoopla begins even earlier.

But I’ve got my X’s and O’s charted. I’ll shake him awake before the sun is very high, prop him up in his chair, stick a cup of coffee in one hand and the TV remote in the other, and head out to the kitchen to start making football snacks.

Ready for some football? Yeah, we’re ready.

Cat Dickens hid his head as the Huskers lost to the UCLA Bruins on September eighth.