The First 100 Days Of Hogtown: A Cheap Seat View from Gainesville’s Newest Transplant
EDITOR’S NOTE: Diehard Gator fans Marsha and Loren Meadows chose to move to Gainesville from Ohio so they could get more sun and be more involved as Florida fans. It has turned out a little different that expected, but they are both delighted in their new homeplace.
By LOREN MEADOWS
GatorBait Member/Gainesville
Since FDR in 1933, the First 100 Days has been the measuring stick for every new presidential administration, business, and in the case of this author, a move from one end of I-75 to the other. So as I look back on the first 100 days of my move to “Hogtown” I find that this evaluation can only truly be measured by what matters most to those in the 352, Gator Football.
When I arrived in Gainesville it came with the promise of Florida sunshine, palm and pine blowing and southern seas flowing. What I soon found that Gainesville -- commonly known as “Hogtown” -- had taken on the more humorous but appropriate name of “Rainsville.”
Coming from Dayton Ohio, as my wife and I longed for evidence of the warmth the state nickname provides, we found that if the sun was not going to warm us on those days shortly after our move, the upcoming football season would bring the sentimental song of “all hail Florida hail,” Soon enough the clouds cleared and the 2021 version of Florida Gators football would dash onto the field with its first two competitions seen as pseudo-scrimmages against two in-state programs with a combined 44 years of football tradition. As the “Boys From Old’ Florida” rang from the voices of the Gator faithful after two victories the dark clouds were brewing again in “Rainesville.”
By this time it was about day 45. I was getting my feet wet, figuratively. I was learning where to eat, how to avoid Archer Road at 4:30 p.m. on a weekday, and, of course, which Publix had the best selections and the shortest lines.
I also found that wearing a Gator shirt at these establishments of local eats and fine produce came expert analysis of what down to blitz, situational play calling, and most of all who should start at quarterback against the defending national champion Crimson Tide. As any football fan I love the banter between us “experts”-- I mean, let’s face it, we all have watched or played enough football to handle the 40 seconds of madness in between the carnage to call a play or handle defensive signals and substitutions, right?
Nonetheless, day 50 in my new city could be described as overcast as it followed the clouds of a two-point loss to the top ranked team in the nation or the warmth of a two-point loss the top ranked team in the nation. At the halfway point you could say the that the pilgrimage to what the self-proclaimed “OhioGator4Life” considers the “holy grail” had been a success. I was learning alternative routes to get home, I dined at Spurrier’s Gridiron Grille (even got to see the HBC a few times), and found that if you don’t like the Publix near you there’s another right around the corner.
I also discovered that the clouds that initially met us when we arrived had begun to circle around our beloved football program. Losses to a school more known for Rupp’s Runts, than Bear Bryant and a lackluster performance against the “Harvard of the South” put a target on those who shall not be named and eventually led to the fate of their gainful employment.
The observation from the cheap seats was “whoa”! Fire who?!! Bring in who?!! It was perplexing to me that less than 75 days into my First 100 Days that the harsh reality of a world where my favorite native New Hampshirite may not make these 100 days with me. Sure, there was the “froze my you-know-what’s” off experience in Baton Rouge, the “Three Minutes of Purgatory” in Duval County and the “What Just Happened in Rooster Country”? Surely my new friends will rally around a coach who mentored our most patron saint and who’s departure almost surely ushered in the age of Saban.
So where are we now? Day 100 has passed and gone (an now so has another HBC) and the city that I call home is cloudy and warm. Like FDR, the priority is taking actions that will require significant decisions that many in the 352 hope will revive not a struggling economy, but a program longing for the roaring 90’s and early 2000’s.
My First 100 days, it turns out has not been enough to make a call on this relocation. For instance, on day 114 Mike White made the sun come out with a win that scratched a seven-year itch. On that day as I walked out of the O’Connell Center I thought to myself. “What will day 376 look like”? As many in “Hogtown” know, we will likely have to ask Oxford, Miss., Eugene, Ore., or Lafayette, Louisiana for their help. Because it is sunny in “Rainesville” and I can’t see a thing.
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