Aim's Addition to the FSU Post

Aim's Addition to the Initial FSU Post:

I remember buying watered-down, expensive cokes from the boy scouts. Little did I know that years later I would be marrying one of them.

After the games we would always collect plastic FSU cups which were often filled with Tobacco or alcohol. We didn't care, we collected the filthy cups anyway, piling them way up high.

My parents are die-hard 'nole fans. I recall my dad made us sit through one extremely cold Peach Bowl game in Atlanta, GA where it was a chilling 24 degrees. While all the rest of the not-so-faithful fans decided to leave the game at half-time, we stayed. In order to avoid frost-bite, my sisters, mom and I spent the entire 4th quarter huddled around a heater we found in one of the bathrooms inside the stadium.

My parents taught us to love our neighbors, but that it was perfectly fine to be a "gator hater." Every time the Gators would beat us I remember the phone would ring and inevitably my Aunt Linda would be on the other end calling my dad to gloat.

I remember hanging out around the flag pole talking to my friends through most of the games while I was in middle school. I too remember the sticky walk up the metal garnet and gold ramps towards the nose-bleed section of the stadium. I also remember getting nearly trampled under foot after the games by the drunken fans.

I remember Fred-the-Seminole-head, who is now dead...no rhyme intended.

I remember seeing grown men with no shirts on covered in garnet and gold paint from head to toe, making total fools out of themselves and thinking they still had on more clothes than most of the women in the stadium.

I remember thinking it was so cool that I knew several of the guys who owned and were riding Renegade, and wishing I could ride. I liked watching Chief Osceola and Renegade pace back and forth in the end zone and throwing the fiery spear into the Seminole head in the center of the field. I always wondered why he speared himself.

I remember one of my sisters getting one of those mini-foam footballs tossed up into the stadium from one of the cheerleaders.

I remember doing the wave.

Since I was three years old, we lived a few blocks away from the Bowden's. They still live there in a pretty gold brick house. I would always look over at their house every time I passed by hoping to see them out in the yard, but I never did, not even once. I kind-of felt like I knew the Bowden's even though we've never met.

I remember going to Miami when I was very young for the Orange Bowl. We went to the Orange Bowl Parade and it was incredible. I remember returning to the FedEx Orange Bowl in 1994 for National Championship. This was the most incredible football game I have ever seen. I remember Charlie Ward was the quarterback. We were on our feet yelling at the top of our lungs for the entire 4th quarter. I remember when I thought we had won, and watched all the fans surge onto the field. Bobby Bowden got doused with Gatorade, and then my heart sank when the ref. stated the game was not yet over. I thought we might lose, but we won when Nebraska missed the field goal.

After I had been a registered nurse for one year, I went back to school to get my BSN from Florida State. I knew that when I graduated I would only get a ten cent raise, but still it felt great just knowing I had graduated from FSU since I always wanted to achieve this goal...I truly am a nole!

I remember one night Travis, Stephen and Jacob and I went out to eat at a restaurant in Tallahassee. Travis looked at me with this shocked look on his face, and said, while pointing through the seat, "Aim, Charlie Ward and Warrick Dunn are sitting right over there." They were two booths over from us. When we were leaving we asked them to sign their autographs on the back of our receipts "for our sons."
I remember in 2004 when the name of the football stadium was changed from "Doak Campbell Stadium" to "Bobby Bowden Field at Doak Campbell Stadium."

I remember when they started calling Gene Deckerhoff "Golden Throat." I went to school with his son Eric for many years.

I remember we heard that Ron Simmons was going to be at the Garnet and Gold store in the mall signing autographs. Travis, Stephen and I went and stood in a long line. When we got up to him, he ended up letting Travis sit down next to him so he could talk to him about Travis' Uncle Walter Blount the rest of the time while the rest of the people came through.

We got to meet Andre Wadsworth while he was doing some sort of community service project at Publix. We took his picture with Stephen when he was a baby.I remember losing the FSU v Miami game three years in a row in the last minute due to wide right, left, right (I think).

I will never forget the shocked feeling I felt and the look on Dan Mowrey's face when he missed the field goal again. I remember thinking that could have been Travis, had he not chosen to go on a mission. I remember hearing about the death threats and counseling Dan had to go through as a result. I still wish the media would let it go.

Every year when the weather first changes from hot summer days to cool autumn days, the first thing I think of is FSU football.

I still get really excited every time I hear the booming drum beat from the Marching Chiefs. I will never be able to resist doing the chop and singing "ho-ho-hoa-ho, then go Seminoles, fight team fight, scalp 'em, win."

Thank you Bobby B, it's been a sweet ride!