Parents weekend - and our only time to see S25 until winter break - is in the books. I knew basically what to expect (not much) so in my mind I was also thinking of this long weekend as a little getaway for me and my husband. And it’s good that my expectations were lowered…
We stayed in Greeneville, which is about 45 minutes away from Clemson, but a cute little downtown with some nice shops and restaurants and parks and some good places for us to just take walks and explore. There were very few activities for parents weekend, but we got to go with S25 to the “experiential learning yard” for his construction management major and we talked with one of his current professors (also in charge of advising for the program) and one of the professors that teaches the classes that train the kids for the competitions plus three current seniors in the program. It was good to see and hear what they had to say. That was really all the time S25 had for us on Friday, but husband and I walked around downtown Clemson, had a super late lunch (at 3:30) and went to a volleyball game that was a lot of fun. Then, showing what responsible adults we are, we decided that as adults no one is the boss of us, and we had ice cream for dinner.
Saturday we had the football game, which was at noon. We’d heard nightmares about traffic getting in to town, so we left our AirBnB in Greenville at like 7:30. Of course, therefore there was NO traffic and we got to campus way before S25 was planning to see us at 10:00. That was ok, we had a nice chat with some tailgaters parked next to us for a while, took our time walking to where we needed to meet the boy (we took a scenic detour so husband could see part of the campus he had never seen).
Once we caught up with S25 he took us to where some of his friends were joining a tailgate. This one was sponsored by a bunch of people from one of the boys’ home church. We talked with his friends a bit, but mostly the kids were playing (just forgot the word - you know, the bean bag toss game) so we hung with the adults until it was time to go to the game.
The game was… something. Clemson played terribly and S25 is a huge football fan so this just put him in a super craptastic mood. Add to that it was incredibly hot even not counting the sun beating down with no shade. We were guzzling water and it didn’t seem to help. There were a ton of people in the first aid station, and some poor lady had to be medevaced - it looked like she fainted from the heat or something, then she tumbled down a few levels of the grandstands, eventually getting stuck head down between some bleachers. I’ve been checking the news to see if I can find anything out, but nothing. I hope she’s ok. Anyway, after roasting under the cloudless sky for two hours some clouds came in and just as I was getting excited about a breeze the game got paused for lightening.
Between the poor play and the sun burns we’d all gotten over the two hours we’d been out, my S25 was in an awful cranky mood. We hiked across campus to an open building (most are locked, even for students, on game day) and got a snack (chick fil a milkshakes for all). The biggest benefit of this was that one of S25s good friends stopped in the same place with his mom so we got to spend some time really getting to chat and I felt like I got to know at least one of his people.
Once the game resumed S25 had no interest in returning, so we walked a little to go buy my husband a tshirt, then walked to our car to go over some paperwork we’d brought down, then we brought S25 back to his dorm and that was it. He was in such a mood from the bad game, and so clearly exhausted from the early start and sunburn/heat combo that we decided to just let him try to rest and relax on his own, so we left. His friends had invited him back to the tailgate after the game - they were going to do burgers - so hopefully he went back for some dinner. But if we had stayed longer it would’ve really been pushing it.
I’m bummed to have had so little time with him over the two days we spent on campus, but it was for the best. He needed to get work done on Friday, and he needed rest and time to recharge on Saturday. It was great to see him. Now I just need to figure out how to not be sad that I won’t see him again until December.
