It wasn't supposed to end like this, was it? This was going to be the year when a more athletic and intense defense and a McNair-helmed offense was going to finish an ugly story started more than 25 years ago. Scores were to be settled. Chapters closed. Colts' blood was to mingle with the same soil to which the old Memorial Stadium was reduced.
Well, it's football, after all, and things rarely follow the script. We were as confident as everyone else that the movie was going to wrap up the way it was supposed to. That joy was at our backs--myself and photographer Christopher Myers--as we floated around the tailgating parties scattered under I-395 in parking lots east of the stadium.
If we all failed at fortune telling, one thing was for sure: this town knows how to have a good time. I mean, a really good time. It felt like Mardi Gras down there. Cheers, laughter, alcohol--lots and lots of alcohol--spontaneous chants, high-fiving...and oh yeah, food. Grills of every size. Sausages. Lobster. Shrimp. Chicken wings. Oysters Rockefeller with American cheese. The bacchanalia started at sunrise and propped up the unseasonably balmy day. So the team lost. So what? The grudge can extend another year. The party--the camaraderie, the good times, the new tradition--lives on.
