Falling Fast For Fleming, Part One

Autumn was in the air that Friday night as Interstate 76 unrolled itself in front of the speeding truck.  From Denver, the highway cut straight north and east across the plains of Eastern Colorado toward Nebraska, seemingly in a hurry to get there although I can’t imagine why.  Dark clouds loomed over the fields and a hard wind buffeted the windshield.  Darkness was coming as the day's last loads of corn were pulled from the fields.  I was already chilled and beginning to grasp the fact that the sweatshirt I had on was woefully inadequate.  It felt like a good night for high school football.

Eastern Colorado is a different world from the one we call home. In fact folks out there feel so alienated from the cities of the Front Range that there has been talk of seceding from Colorado all together.  It’s rural, red (politically) and sparsely populated.  Cows outnumber people by a good margin.  What were us two city boys getting ourselves into?

A Track Meet in Helmets

College football has undergone a metamorphosis over the past few  years.  Playing a spread out, no huddle, lighting-speed style has become the rage.  Gone is the three-yards and a cloud of dust football of the past; in, is hurry, hurry, hurry.  But f or a long time in small towns and tiny hamlets all over The Plains, a hybrid form of fast paced football has been played.  Six man football (traditionally football is played with 11 on a side) was started in Nebraska in 1934 so small schools could play the game so many of us love. Today the game is still played in places like Texas, Montana, Wyoming and yes, Colorado.  If you want to witness it for yourself you are going to have to find a rural area with a small and/or shrinking population, corn or wheat bending in the wind, and tractors, lots of tractors.

I’ve been wanting to do just that for a few years now.  Once, my father-in-law and I drove out to the land of wheat and corn but I had misread the schedule and we arrived to a dark field and an empty hamlet; it was a road game.  This year I invited Kelley (a budding videographer), made sure I was seeing the schedule correctly and made sure the windshield of his truck was clean before leaving town, to make sure he could get a shot of bugs making the ultimate sacrifice.  Alas, the cold seemed to drive away the insects. 

Why Fleming?  I'm not sure to be honest.  I looked at a couple options and ended up driving out there a couple weeks ago on a recon mission.  It was the night after a game and the field was empty save for a couple kids throwing a ball.  I sneaked through a hole in the fence to check it out.  Soon I was barefoot in the cool grass. As the sun went down on a warm evening, I fell in love.  It turned out to be the perfect choice.

Fleming Facts

The town of Fleming, Colorado is on a two lane highway in an area of gently rolling grasslands, almost two hours from Denver.  The first thing you see long before the town comes into view is a set of towering grain elevators rising from the brown fields.  Home to around four hundred folks, Fleming sits along the train tracks that it's namesake bequeathed.  Downtown there is a bank, a bar and grill, the community center, a church or two and little else.  Parking is on the diagonal which I must admit I have a thing for. What do people do, you say?  Well there is farming of course, a prison nearby, some commuting I am sure and of course the school.  If you were born and raised in Fleming there is a very good chance that you could probably get from your house to the school blindfolded.  With all your school years spent under one roof you are gong to wear out a trail there from the day you start kindergarten until the moment you throw your cap into the spring sky.  One hundred and ninety five kids, seventy three of which are in high school make up the K-12 roster. The number seventy three is significant since seventy five is the cut off for 6 man.

Bullish

About a mile before town we pulled off the highway on a gravel backroad to get into the spirit of rural America.  Most of the harvest was done but some corn was still in the fields.  Dust plumed behind the truck and a wind farm off to the north helped reduce our carbon footprint.  We entered the town the back way behind the school and arrived at the field to an unusual sight.  Instead of a crowd gathering for tickets, there was a line of cars waiting to enter a gate and surround the field.  Eventually much of the sidelines would be a parking lot of moms and dads and grandparents staying warm in their trucks and suburbans.  We had a more pressing problem than finding parking, and that was food.  Bully's Bar and Grill is the best option in Fleming to fill that need. Actually it’s the only option.

From the street Bully's seems like a dingy dive bar, but opening that door on Friday night we were hit with the sights and sounds of a very busy dinner hour.  Unbeknownst to us we had come to Fleming on one of the busiest nights of the year, Homecoming!  Needless to say the tables were full and the reservation list as well.  So we settled for a tall table in the bar and a Jack and Coke, if you please.  The bar itself was flush with a row of seated hats, all drinking American beer and playing along with Wheel of Fortune on the television.  The menu carries Rocky Mountain Oysters ($6) and something called Blazin' Balls (I didn't ask). We settled for Steak and Salmon and some people-watching.

The discussion at the bar gripped me.  Topics wandered from dislike for the guys in the Sonic commercials to good hamburgers, getting blood drawn and line dancing. All the while solving each Wheel of Fortune puzzle before Vanna White could touch the right squares.  A loud laugh brought two little heads peeking inquisitively into the room.  At this point I turned to Kelley and said that being accepted and at home in a small town can be really special.  He said he thought I fit in better than he did, which was being generous.  Neither one of us were from around there.

We finished our meal and another beverage and headed down the street toward the bright lights of the football field.  By the time we squeezed through that hole in the fence Fleming was already up six to nothing.

Next time on Falling Fast For Fleming, the smack of helmet on pads and an invite to the dance.