Camp Friends

Every year I come to training camp, I make more and more Redskin fans. To be honest, I come to camp now more for the relationships forged than for the football. There’s a few people that I come to see that are very dear to me… Scott, Niki, Jackson and now Marlee Hurrey. It’s pretty cool to me that some of my best friends on the planet are ones that I made through this website, and that I only get to see but once or twice a year. I cherish those few times immensely. Scott and Amy aren’t here ths year and are sorely missed. Two more people that were it not for geography, we’d see each other 5 times a week. Camp’s not quite the same without our annual tequila night, but I know that we’ll likely just have two next year. 😯 But the list grows longer and longer every year…. Stephen (you know him as Fios or Sippy Cup) is becoming a mainstay in my camp plans. I haven’t seen Grant P. yet because he’s in New York until Monday, but we talk all the time and will catch up with each other before I head back. Terri and Jake haven’t been to practice yet, but I’m sure we’ll catch up with each other before I go… after all… we’ve been doing the camp/lunch thing for four or five camps in a row. Taz and I always love to spend time with Junior and his mom – they’re great people. There’s CLL and Irn-Bru too. Will we catch up this year? Maybe not, but it won’t change our friendships… and I’ll be back soon. Last year we met Ed Gardiner… he comes up from Florida every year, and now it’s just become part of the process to look for Ed in his hat and do dinner together. There’s so many people actually… I could go on and on about the people I’ve met down here when visiting from Canada, and not really make a dent in the list. If I didn’t mention you, it doesn’t mean anything more than I don’t want to type for hours . 😳 But I also wanted to quickly mention the ‘faceless’ or at least the ‘nameless’ friends that I meet down here. Every year there are dozens and dozens of people that I befriend at camp. Some young, some old… the only real common denominator is the Washington Redskins… and that’s what this blog is about. People always ask me why I come to camp to watch what amounts to glorified practice and the answer is really very simple – for the friends that I make and have already made. Yesterday I met four guys in the parking lot of the hotel – they were all decked out in Redskin gear, and being the ‘shy’ guy that I am… I just walked up and struck up a conversation. Before we knew it, we’d been out in the hot sun talking football for over an hour. It turns out that only one of them was really a Redskin fan and the rest were family members along for the ride (two Eagle fans and a Cowboy fan to boot). It didn’t matter that they were fans of the ‘opposition’, we’re all just here to have some good, clean fun and watch some football. It was great talking to them, and I couldn’t even tell you their names. Truth is that I love meeting new people down here. Don’t ever be shy about walking up to me and introducing yourself if you see me. My picture is posted in my articles, my profile etc… so you have the benefit of knowing what I look like… but I don’t know what you look like. So if you see an ugly, long-haired blond dude walking around in a THN shirt… please, come up and introduce yourself. After all, it’s the camp friends that bring me back to Ashburn every…