Football season is upon us. You know what that means. Unpack your purple sweatshirt and pull the grill out of storage, boys and girls. It’s time for tailgating.

Yes, it’s that wonderful time of year where there’s a beer for every koozie and a burger in every bun. In parking lots and empty fields across America, the football equivalent of Christmas will take place. Only this is better than Christmas, because it happens several times during a season, not just one. So I guess tailgating is more like the Hanukkah of football.

Something beautiful happens at a good tailgate. The weather is perfect. The smell of charcoal fills the air. You’re surrounded by hundreds of people you don’t know, but for this glorious moment, you know you are among friends.

To be a tailgater means you’re part of a team.You delight in that sense of solidarity as you finish your bacon-wrapped-beef just in time to sing the fight song with everyone around you. After all that, it doesn’t even matter if you win in the end. The game? Secondary. The tailgate? Immortal.

But apparently this tradition hasn’t always had ties to football, or any other sporting event for that matter.

An article on the webpage of the American Tailgaters Association (reliable, right?) claims that tailgating can be traced all the way back to the Civil War. According to the article, small groups of civilians would line up their wagons with baskets of food and cheer for the soldiers from the sidelines.

That’s right. Our forefathers were doing just what we do now. Only they dodged bullets while they did it.

This bravery and dedication got me thinking. Americans in the 1860s didn’t need sports to tailgate. Why should we? So, fellow Paladins, I have a proposition for you. I think we can all agree (or at least those of us with souls) that tailgating is the best thing to happen to us. Ever. So why restrict it to football games? Let’s tailgate all year round. Our cheer is, “FU ALL the time,” right?

Just imagine: a crowd gathered in front of Plyler. Dozens of your classmates drinking beer and sharing stats on Galileo and Newton. A man runs by dressed as Bill Nye the Science Guy. How much better would that make your next physics test?

And let’s not limit it to the classroom. CSBT would have much higher membership if they participated in tailgating. Their motto could be: “You may not like our politics, but you’ll love our potato salad.”

So just as the Civil War pitted brother against brother, and your own sick appetite matched cow against pig in your bacon-beef monstrosity, so must we struggle against the tedium of college life.

I expect to see painted faces and big-screen TVs in pick-up trucks on the way to my next Sociology class. After all, college is about experiencing pleasure (and apparently learning stuff) without responsibility. What better way to do that than by tailgating… at everything?

Let me leave you with the words of that great poet, Homer Simpson:  “We’re not here for the game. The game is nothing. The game is crap. The game makes me sick. The real reason we Americans put up with sports is for this: behold, the tailgate party. The pinnacle of human achievement. Since the dawn of parking lots, man has sought to fill his gut with food and alcohol in anticipation of watching others exercise.”