We lived a few blocks from the stadium and every year the annual Poly-City football game was held there at 1:00pm. Let me explain the names- Poly was Baltimore Polytechnic Institute and City was Baltimore City College Preparatory School, hence the names Poly and City. The Poly-City game was the biggest thing in town- two powerhouse all-boys high school football rivalries that went back a million years to when our fathers played in that game (my father was a track star at City).
Looking back now, it seems like something out of Oliver Twist- real Dickinsonian stuff. We wore white shirts and a ties every freakin’ day! I was sent home twice in my senior year for having hair that went over my collar. These were all-boys tech high schools in downtown Baltimore. It didn’t get much grittier. The neighborhood was so bad you took your life into your hands just walking to the bus stop (yes, we took the bus!)
I went to Poly and played a little Junior Varisty football until I discovered that playing the guitar was a lot less wear and tear on the body than getting hit by bigger kids who loved to hurt you. Still, I lasted half a season playing for the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute Engineers and actually intercepted a pass against Patterson on a wind-swept Baltimore afternoon in the “dirt bowl” a hellish sandpit where we played all our home games. That was the name of our team- The Engineers. ”Repel them! Repel them! Make them relinquish the ball!” was out battle cry. The school itself had no fields of any kind- nary a blade of grass or even a tree! Poly was solid concrete and brick for blocks around. We had to take a bus to our practice field and play our home games in a pock-marked dust bowl in Patterson Park. I’d get home at 7:00, too tired to eat or do homework. It just wasn’t my cup of tea, but some guys dug it.
It was the Thanksgiving Day Game that brought it all together for every red-blooded American lad. Girls- tons of them- from all the area high schools, neighborhood girls that you’d see on Greenmount Avenue or at Church CYO dances, exotic out-of-the-area chicks brought in by the lure of the big game- I mean it was a plethora! Me and my buddies- Snyder, Danforth, Kirkman, Vinny Vineyard, all of us- with flushed pink faces in the cold air- drinking beer! Smuggled in one can at a time- it was miracle we never got busted. But we’d go up in the stands, drink our beers, and scream our heads off, then try to pick up on chicks. Let the record book show that after a entire childhood of hanging our with those guys- never once were we successful picking up chicks. Never once!
The year I was a freshman at Poly, we beat City in the big game and were nationally ranked- we played in the Orange Bowl for the regional title that year. You had to be there. I was 15 and full of piss and vinegar.
Then we’d all walk back to my mother’s house and have hot chocolale. The smell of my mother’s kitchen on Thanksgiving is one of my greatest memories. I close my eyes now and it all comes back- how excited we all were- what good times we knew- and above all- how thankful we all were. God bless you and have a wonderful Thanksgiving this year- that’s what it’s all about.
Happy Thanksgiving