Winter brings basketball season, triggers high school memory

Like most everyone, I’m sad to see football season come to an end for our high school teams. This was a hard-fought year for football in Franklin County, and I think we should be proud of our student-athletes for the work they put in.

Now we turn our attention to another cornerstone of high school athletics: basketball.

I think I have mentioned before that my interest in high school sports when I was in high school myself was peripheral at best. I attended every single high school football game – because I was part of the marching band. I also attended a good many high school basketball games, but I didn’t watch very many of them.

I was there to work the concession stand.

Our high school Warrior Marching Band drew much of its revenue from working concession stands for the games. For hours every game day band students would man the small room, open to the hallway adjacent to the gym by way of garage door-style “windows,” satisfying the hunger and thirst of Warrior fans with all the most-loved concession stand goodies.

We would fill small paper sacks with popcorn, slap slice after slice of lukewarm pizza on paper plates and dole out candy and cold drinks like they were going out of style.

I loved every minute of it. Helping the band, serving the people, treating myself to my own slice of room-temp pizza and a package of Reese’s – it was its own kind of adrenaline rush, to keep that concession stand running like clockwork.

Of course, things didn’t always run smoothly.

One night, in particular, will always stand out in my memory.

As a rule, students were joined in the concession stand by a responsible adult – sometimes our director but more often a band parent. On this particular night, our responsible adult had not arrived yet. If I remember correctly, our band director had gone to pick up the pizzas. Myself and two other students were left to begin setting up for the night’s basketball games under our own supervision.

Cut six-packs from their plastic rings, organize candy bars in their boxes, set out stacks of napkins and nacho trays – it should have been fine. Of course, it wasn’t.

My personal favorite part of helping in the concession stand was working the popcorn machine. It was, unfortunately, old and temperamental, but if you held your mouth just right, it was exciting to twist the handle and tip the kettle as all the little kernels were bursting into fluffy bites of salty, buttery deliciousness. All you had to do was add the pre-measured packets of oil and kernels into the kettle and wait a few minutes for the magic to happen.

This time, however, something went wrong. To this day I don’t really know how it happened. But before I knew it, the popcorn machine was on fire.

It wasn’t engulfed in flames or anything – but it was most certainly on fire.

None of us student workers knew what to do.

I have always had a panicky personality. I had a sudden vision of White County High School burning to the ground and me being held personally responsible.

All three of us were reluctant to seek help because we knew our band director would wind up in trouble for letting us run the concession stand without an adult present – but if it came down to getting our director in trouble or watching our school go up in flames, well, the choice was clear.

So we ran to the gym and found the principal, who grabbed the fire extinguisher and squelched the – what in hindsight was really quite a tiny and harmless and not in any way capable of burning down a whole school building – popcorn machine fire.

And we were never permitted to run the concession stand without adult supervision again.

I hope you have a little chuckle as you step up to the basketball concession stand this season to buy a few snacks to enjoy as you sit courtside. Do go out and support our local teams – and our local concession stands.

Just watch out for temperamental popcorn machines.