Samu's Redskins Road Trip Adventure 16 Games & Mo'

Samu’s Redskins Road Trip 2010 - Lions Game #8, Pre-Game

Now those are some Tigers! I walked up from my hotel around 9:25 amup Washington Street about seven minutes to get to TIger Stadium, right next to Ford Field where the Redskins were scheduled to play at 1 pm. TIgers Stadium was incredibly well done.
Oh my! The first parking lot I saw, adjacent to Tigers Stadium and a block away from Ford Field had four small groups there for early tailgating,
a dad playing catch with his son, a guy from Michigan and his friend from Toronto, who I talked to for a while, and two other groups. Pretty empty, albeit 9:32 am. I gathered that the lots on the other side of the stadium was where more of the tailgaiting was conducted, but it was a bus ride away.
I walked to the adjacent lot and received some light heckling from a guy with a group of fervent fans leaning against the corner of the fence of their lot.
Brent, Andrew & Sam
I told them about my Redskins Road Trip and my Museum, and they seemed duly impressed. We talked for a while. THey invited me to have some Labatts Beer and some really good, spicy chili, made by Brent’s (the one in blue spandex) dad. They were very cool and hospitable, but I had no idea what a tailgating site I had stumbled on, for they were the “Honolulu Blue Crew.”
They put hexes on me, but every time someone came to the growing tailgate and gave me a hard time or gave them crap for associating with me, Sam, the smaller guy on the right would say, “Hey, he’s got a Museum!” thus dispelling the insidiousness of me being a Redskins fan.
Brent playfully terrorized unsuspecting Skins fans. WHen they looked back, he would look at his watch as if he was an innocent bystander, When they turned back, he would do a cartwheel right behind them.
We were able to patch things up after he terrorized me.
All of a sudden, a band of rhythm devils were set right in front of our corner tailgate!
Mr. T, Bert & Ernie banged the beat.
A lion who looked like a bear pounced in to dance a jig.
Some other freaks dropped by, yes, besides me.
And others stopped. What better way to scare the fans than to bring the Redskins back to Detroit?
I zipped to the box office to buy one of the over 8000 unsold tickets which resulted in a blackout much to Val’s dismay.
Immediately after getting a sweet seat seven rows up in section 117 for $78, I saw the great Lions Hall of Fame cornerback, Lem Barney sitting in a booth signing autographs. There were only 15 people in the line, so I figured it was a no brainer. Barney looked as cool as Alan Toussaint in New Orleans.
Barney got to know legendary singer Marvin Gate, when Gaye tried out for the Lions in 1970. Gaye did not make it, but Barney went on to sing backup vocals on one of the classic songs of all-time, “What’s Goin’ On?”, for which Gaye and Barney received Gold Record awards. The huge bonus for me was realizing the color photos he was signing for free featured him and one of my all-time favorites, Redskins running back Larry Brown. SWEET!!
My good friend John and Cathy have a cousin in law who became the director of a group called the Detroit Pride, a group of young ladies who have become cheerleaders and are attending Lions games and rallying support to pressure the Lions into having official cheerleaders, which they have never had in their 77 year history. John put me in touch with the director Stacey, who told me she should be easy to find, “Just look for the 16 smokin hot chicks!!”
I found them.
Almost made me want to root for the Lions.
The Detroit Pride is not looking for new dancers, they barely showed an interest in me, but they are looking for financial contributions since they are buying tickets to attend the games this year, have bought uniforms and are trying to run a pro outfit, which costs money. Join their facebook group, and send them some love!
Samu trying to garner some influence on one of the referees before the game.
Samu with Stacey, the Director of the Detroit Pride and John’s cousin in law