There are a few occasions in life when you absolutely know that you've crossed a point of no return and you'll never have your youth back, or perhaps that you'll never actually go back home.  For me, that moment was last Friday.  The deadline to renew SU football season tickets.  After my parents finally made the semi-permanent move to Florida I gallantly took over the SU Football season tickets - despite living in suburban Washington, DC.  I couldn't let more than 50 years of family tradition die could I?  Well, a couple of years later I found that I could.  But it was a sad occasion; it was the realization that one of my last links to Syracuse, my hometown and alma mater, was (likely) forever severed.  

When I was a kid my parents and I would drive to a small town in the Catskill mountains in southeastern New York state to pick up my grandfather for SU game weekends.  This Fall ritual, these gatherings were equal parts family and Syracuse University.  

My father started the tradition as a freshman at Syracuse University in the Fall of 1950, just a few months after the start of the Korean War.  He was in the marching band back then, the "100 Men and a girl" (That girl being Dottie Grover - the Orange Girl).  He marched at Syracuse games at Archbold Stadium, and at a Syracuse away game at the Polo Grounds in NYC.  

My father would meet my mother during grad school he was in the Library School (information Studies now) and she was at Maxwell.  Flash forward several years and I arrived on campus, I too marched in the band and had the privilege of seeing many SU football greats in person both at home and on the road...  and met my wife.

Well, at least we'll always have Syracuse... er, Paris.