View from the Tailgate: Try New Things

Canterbury and St. Stephen's tailgated on Saturday for CNU's Homecoming game.  It was my first time to tailgate.  Last year I had gotten together a Canterbury Support Team from St. Stephen's to help me brainstorm ways the parish could be more involved in ministry to the students, and one of the ideas that came up was tailgating.  It sounded cool, but I had no clue what to do.  Fortunately the person who had suggested it did know and was willing to help.  As it was too late in the year last year, we decided to do it this fall, and Saturday was the only football game we both had free.  It probably would have been better to try it out on a regular game day - Homecoming was a zoo!  We ended up in the overflow tailgating lot because we came arrived later in the day, but it worked out perfectly.  There was a band in our area, and we got to park under the trees on the grass.  It was much less crowded than the main area.  It probably decreased our visibility, but it was a comfortable spot.

We had a few parishioners from St. Stephen's come hang out with us as well as members of the Canterbury Club.  Everyone had a good time eating, chatting, and enjoying the day. A few of us even went to the football game and watched all the Homecoming activities, including fireworks!  Watching the Homecoming Court walk out onto the field at halftime reminded me of my shining moment of glory at Sewanee.  It's still hard for me to believe that actually happened.

I knew tailgating was a good idea, but I was very nervous because I didn't know how to do it, and I couldn't do it by myself.  I had to rely on other people - who did a splendid job!  And how much easier it was to share the load.  I didn't know it would be so hard to park and that there would be so many people and that parking at the church really was kind of far away while lugging heavy things and not knowing exactly where I was going.  But somehow through texts and FaceBook and everyone bringing something to share, it turned out to be a great event.  We didn't get the visibility that I had hoped for, but we learned a lot and had fun doing it, and now we're poised for next year.  We took the Plaza Prayer Station Sign with us so that we would be identifiable.  We were present.  We tried something new.