There is something revitalizing about being back in the City of Brotherly Love on a rain-soaked Sunday when the Eagles are blowing a game in absolutely gut-wrenching fashion. Granted, the NFL didn't have the courtesy of getting it out of the way by early afternoon in the early 2000s. With better weather, we'd have had time to go to the zoo or something.
A little backstory. I moved to the greater Philadelphia area in the Summer of 2002, which coincidentally was the season where the Donovan McNabb led Eagles made the first of four consecutive NFC Championship games. I didn't have any real NFL allegiance at the time, and Philly has a relatively deserved reputation for being unkind to visiting sports fans, so I somewhat passively became one of them. One of them. One of us. I don't think I ever got to fully embrace the pessimism though. Because despite the fact that they lost three of those championship games, then a Super Bowl, and the Phillies were hot garbage the whole time I was there (they actually demolished Veterans Stadium in 2004, a fine metaphor for the organization itself at the time), and the Sixers never quite maximized Iverson's talent, my Philly phandom actually paid off relatively quickly. The Phillies won a World Series a few years after I left. The Eagles have won two Super Bowls. Villanova won two basketball titles, including the greatest NCAA final game in history (I am not inviting discussion on this point). The Sixers have/had a process. Ok, there's still work to be done, but it has largely been a fruitful rooting experience.
Also, despite not being back in Philadelphia for quite a long time, sports kept me connected to the place where I really started to become an adult. After spending 4 years at Marshall, and living at home, I was never really forced to do most of the hard parts of adult life, or even college life. I didn't adapt to new roommates, though the old ones certainly came with their own challenges. I didn't think all that hard about bills or where food was coming from or if I could afford things. I did not have an extravagant life by any means, but I was not struggling. And at the same time, I was not really academically challenged, certainly not by two or even three classes at a time. And Philly changed all that for me at once.
So now, almost 25 years after I first set foot in the area, I was able to come back. To visit my niece. Who moved there to start her own graduate school journey. And that makes me old. But man, was it fun running around the city with her! And let me tell you, she is soooo much adultier than I was at that age. She's all, "Last time I was at Love Park I got free coffee," and "We'll just take the train and meet you." I was all, "I'll stay in my studio apartment and watch Monty Python DVDs and hope someone befriends me." (They did and it was wonderful). We had a really nice visit, or as nice as you can in the remnants of a hurricane. We got to walk around the Reading Terminal Market with an over-stimulated toddler, who loved looking at the fish heads, and had the best two strawberry cupcakes of his life. I had my first real cheesesteak in a long time and some very fine ramen the next night. We capped it off with Emma's neighborhood coffee shop, Milkcrate Cafe, and were on our way.
(Special shoutout to Cindy for meeting us at a Target on Sunday so we could catch up somewhere dry and have a chance at keeping our son happy. It worked!).
All that to say, it was an absolute pleasure to be back. I apologize for every red light I forgot to run through. I'll do better the next time. Until then, Philly...Go Birds. (Please, for the sanity of that city, GO!).
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