Welcome To August

Apparently, yesterday was National Avocado Day.

Again, who decides these things? And to TigerBlog, every day is National Avocado Day.

Who could not like avocados? They're really good for you, being high in antioxidants and potassium and all.

Plus, they go with just about anything. In salads. On burgers. With eggs.

Did you know the avocado is a fruit?

TigerBlog isn't sure why National Avocado Day is July 31, but it will be July 31 each of the next two years, at least according to Wikipedia. TB will have to remember that and plan accordingly, though even with no advanced warning that it was National Avocado Day, he still had avocado with his lunch yesterday.

TigerBlog estimates he will eat a lot of avocados between now and next July 31, by the way.

Today is national something day too, probably. What it also is, remarkably, is August 1.

August is a very busy month. There's a lot that goes on in August, as the summer winds down, kids go back to school, college athletic events begin.

In fact, the first of Miss TigerBlog's friends is leaving for school this week. Her name is Nell Webber, and she will be playing field hockey at Boston College, so she is heading out for preseason. The trickle down is that MTB is taking her busboy job at a local restaurant.

As for MTB ’22, she will not be leaving for school this month. Nope. Move-in day here isn't until Sept. 1, so she has exactly one month to go. By then, almost all of her high school friends will have started college.

Also before this month ends, TigerBlog Jr. will have started his senior year of college. How is that possible?

The first mention of TigerBlog Jr. here was back on Feb. 11, 2009. It was on that day that TigerBlog wrote about the time his son, at the age of 11, played the national anthem on his saxophone before a Princeton-Cornell men's basketball game. You can read it HERE if you want to get nostalgic.

Those were back in the days that he was a ballboy for games at Jadwin. He started out with Lior Levy and Zack DiGregorio, both of whom are college grads, and eventually his buddy Matthew, who is starting his senior year at Chestnut Hill College.

In re-reading the piece about the night he played the anthem, TigerBlog remembered how nervous he was. He had to be way more nervous than TBJ, that's for sure.

He actually has a video of TBJ's performance. At one point, Jeff Taylor, who filmed it, zoomed in on TigerBlog as he watched. TB has a great poker face, but he was definitely churning on the inside.

In the end, TBJ's performance was flawless. After he was done, he turned and walked off past the Princeton bench, and got a big pat on the head from then-assistant coach Brian Earl, who is now the head coach at Cornell.

TigerBlog can tell you that having his son play the anthem that night nearly 10 years ago remains one of the highlights of his nearly 30 years of watching Princeton sports.

If you're wondering what happened to his saxophone, he left it in the music room at his high school - after TigerBlog had paid for it. Legend has it that he retrieved it after a few years and then sold it on eBay, keeping the money for himself. TB has no actual proof of this, but he suspects that's what happened.

Anyway, now he's a college senior, of all things. TigerBlog yesterday actually looked up the academic calendar at Sacred Heart and found out two things: 1) school starts August 27 and 2) graduation is May 12.

That would be a Sunday. TigerBlog is hoping that's a busy weekend for him.

That Sunday, in addition to graduation day at Sacred Heart, is also the first round of the NCAA men's lacrosse tournament. And the second round of the women's.

The men's tournament has four games on Saturday the 11th and then four more on Sunday the 12th. What is TB to do if Princeton is playing Sunday?

Hey, if anyone would understand, it would be TBJ.

Anyway, that's for a long time from now. More immediately, for the first time in a long time, this is a true statement: Princeton has games this month.