Roll Out the Hoopla

[akirlu]

For those in Seattle, NB that this weekend is University of Washington Homecoming, including the homecoming game tomorrow. Travel routes that do not bisect the U District are probably advisable.

For those who paid better attention during their How To Be American lessons than I did, can someone tell me exactly who is supposed to be coming home during Homecoming, and from where (...and why)? I know I was roped into helping with a homecoming float at some point during high school, and still I have no idea what the point in this particular ritual of autumn is supposed to be.

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I wish I'd known about the UW game Potlatch weekend last year, when I tried to get into Seattle.

The Wikipedia article suggests that the word refers to an alumni reunion. That was certainly not the case at my high school. I don't know if my college had a football game called the homecoming game or not (I never paid any attention to college sports), but there was a game to which alumni flocked: it was the annual game versus our traditional rival, held in alternate years at each school. It was called "The Big Game," rather unimaginatively, and featured its own traditions which were rather unlike those of homecomings.

What I was told in high school was that the homecoming game was the home game after the last away game. On reflection, though, this doesn't make much sense, as in any given year half the schools by this rule couldn't have one.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean Potlatch. I meant Foolscap.

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

You went to Cal, did you?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Sports fans call it that. We non-sports types call it UC, or just Berkeley.

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

I know plenty of non-sports types who call it Cal. (Among other things.) I'm one of them.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

And there are people at Worldcons these days who call it sci-fi.

Not in my day they didn't, not very many, not once they'd picked up what was a genuine class shibboleth.

I can provide period documentation that this distinction was observed, if necessary.