Freshmen at Large - Stephanie Hodges

It’s October and everyone knows what that means: high school homecomings! I had been so caught up in the whole college mindset that I had almost forgotten that I even went to high school, but when everyone started leaving every weekend to go home for their local homecomings, it all came back.
The only thing I couldn’t understand is why people were actually going all the way home just to go see a high school football game. Who wants to watch a bunch of 17-year-old boys who don’t even shave yet wearing not-so-legit uniforms and playing not-so-intensely when they aren’t even a blood relation? Why would you go see that when you can see Jorvorskie Lane any time?
I never really understood the whole homecoming thing anyway, so maybe I’m biased. I moved back to America my sophomore year of high school, and I had never been to any kind of a football game. So first off, I didn’t know how the sport was played or why people even went to watch it when sports like soccer existed. I was so confused when, on the day of the homecoming game, girls came down the halls wearing massive, dangling ribbon-like wind chimes decked out in our school’s colors. What were they? I was later informed about the whole “mum” thing, but I still thought it was pretty weird that everyone was still wearing them the night of the game.
So maybe the reason I don’t understand why people go back for homecoming is that when I think of homecoming, I think of red and green ribbons, poor athletics and massive chaos and confusion.