USA WORLD CUP WATCH PARTY
I was invited by my son and his family to attend a World Cup watch party at Highland Brewery. The United States was playing Australia and if they won would go on to the next round so it was an important game. I thought we would find a table and have a beer and watch the game on a large screen along with Kathy’s sister and her family who were also coming along with people at other tables also watching the game.
The game had already started when we go there, every table was taken and hundreds of people were standing in a frenzied shrieking crowd. We squeezed in and could see only the top part of a huge screen, there were so many heads in the way. So I watched the game on the tiny screen of my iPhone where the players were microscopic. I stood there for a while and then joined the others outside at a picnic table still watching on my iPhone. Everyone had World Cup t-shirts on but the people outside, all dressed up, showed no interest in the game.
I had never been to Highland Brewery before. A large building housed the brewery and the another housed the huge hall with multiple screens where people could eat and drink. Around the building were large picnic areas and a field with multiple volleyball games, a great place for a Friday afternoon outing.
Everyone there could have watched the game better at home in the quiet of their living room with inexpensive snacks and beer in the refrigerator. If you wanted to watch the game, that was the way to do it, not watching it on a tiny iPhone in the middle of a cheering crowd.
But of course is was the cheering crowd that was the reason for being there. We came like lemmings, mindlessly, to be part of a roaring crowd whether we could see the game or not.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 