Friday night’s Big Game between Napa and Vintage highs drew another packed house. Even me.

Most people come for the football rivalry, the pageantry, the fuzzy warm sense of community that comes from nearly 7,000 Napans jammed together on an autumn night.

Not me. I camped out at Memorial Stadium because Cheryl would be there, rooting for her son the tuba player and there would be hell to pay if I weren’t there too.

I mean that in a nice way.

When it comes to prep football, I’m perfectly happy staying home and catching the gridiron results in the next morning’s Register. It’s a lot cozier that way. And the coffee is better.

At Memorial Stadium the seats are rock hard, most of the action is way over there, past the point where I can tell what’s what and the cold sucks the life out of me.

This is true of big games and little games.

No one has ever accused Cheryl of being a football fan. Football is one of an endless list of sports about which she could not care less.

But she is a fan of her son and, by extension, the Napa High Band which during football season has a regular Friday night gig at Memorial Stadium.

Granted, it’s a limited gig. Football players, not tubas, hog the field most of the time.

If you’re in line for a hot dog, you could miss the blood-pumping pomp when the band marches onto the field before the start of the varsity game. If you headed for the restroom at half-time, the band’s field performance could zip right by you.

Cheryl has been going to most of the home games leading up to this year’s Big Game. She treasures those 10-minute half-time shows. She fluffs with pride when her tuba son marches the field.

I made it to one game before Friday’s Big Game. As a measure of my football ambivalence, I didn’t sit on the Napa High side. I sought out the most available seats. Most of my seatmates were Vallejoans.

Napa High was a scoring machine that night, racing up and down the field at will. This was very cool. Unfortunately, the night was cooler.

By the fourth quarter, I began making whimpering noises. The game’s outcome had been decided. The band had done its half-time show. Was there any reason to linger a moment longer under those eerie stadium lights?

Cheryl released me to go home early. Take care of your needs, she said. She, however, would stay to the bitter end to watch the band’s frenzied victory rendition of “Crazy Train.”

Cheryl began going to games alone, timing it so she arrived just before the band’s half-time show. She sat with other band moms who were also without spousal support. They did the chop-chop together, a tribute of sorts to the Napa High Indians.

To me, this was a classic win-win arrangement. I could be at home, protected from the elements, readying myself for early bedtime, while Cheryl, supported by other parents, did her mom thing.

Thus, I was caught off guard when Cheryl put me under a withering gaze one morning and accused me of abandonment. That was her actual term.

Surely she was over-reacting. Shouldn’t the word abandonment be reserved for more extreme situations than missed football games? Such as getting a post card one day saying I’m enjoying myself in Paris?

There’s no mistaking abandonment, she said. She recognized it in her first marriage. She recognized it at Memorial Stadium.

A heavy accusation, this. I didn’t react in a knee-jerk way. I pondered her words.

I wondered how I’d ever gotten myself into this predicament. How was I to know that my fourth quarter vulnerability to hypothermia would come back at me this way?

Yes, I could have gone to those games with her, but I would have robbed her of the company of the mom boosters. Isn’t sisterhood supposed to be a beautiful thing?

In two hours I caved.

Count me in for the Big Game, I said. We’ll come early and stay late.

Boola boola. Chop chop.

Kevin can be reached at 256-2217 or Napa Valley Register,  P.O. Box 150, Napa 94559 or kcourtney@napanews.com