The O’Fallon Weekly News Team decided to take a road trip this past week. Nathan and I piled into the car early Friday afternoon and drove a bit over four hours north to Hinsdale to watch the first Panthers football game of the season.
Now I won’t lie and say it was a good game. One look at the score will tell you that the Red Devil fans had a bit more of a fun time than the Panthers fans. However, it was a good trip.
I’ve been saying since we launched that sports was the one aspect we were missing and going to that game helped me to process that something I considered a major flaw with the Weekly had now been taken care of. I finally felt like the Weekly was a real newspaper.
I was also glad to take the trip because it gave me a bit of time to get to know Nathan, our sports editor. He’s a good kid. Quiet but with a funny wit. He’s professional and respectful. I couldn’t have been luckier to bring him on board.
After the game we swung through a nearby Giordano’s pizza for some Chicago deep dish. It was really late by the time we left Hinsdale, making our arrival back into the Metro-East even later. I don’t know about Nathan, but I was pretty much dead to the world the next day. These old bones can’t make a road trip like that in one day anymore.
I did see an interesting billboard on my way up to Hinsdale that I am doing a bit of research into. I’ll tease you and say I hope to have more about that in next week’s column.
One last note… Last week in my column I accidentally butchered Nathan’s last name. I incorrectly stated it was Pongee, when its really Poignee. I have no idea where the incorrect spelling came from. I guess that should be an indication that I shouldn’t write these columns at two or three in the morning. Anyway, sorry Nathan.