Minnesota 28, Western Michigan 23

On Saturday, all the men in my family went to the University Of Minnesota football game.

It was a morning game—there was an 11:00 a.m. start—so we had to get things under way early.

By 8:30 a.m., we had assembled, completed breakfast at Perkins (which, for reasons unknown, has become our Saturday-morning breakfast destination on Saturdays on which we have something scheduled), and were on our way to the stadium.

Saturday was the only football game of the season for my nephew—one game is enough for him—and we left the game shortly after conclusion of the halftime show. It is unreasonable to expect a six-year-old boy to be able to make it through an entire college game. The pre-game festivities, the first half, and the halftime show were more than enough to satisfy his interest. In fact, it is the marching band, with its changing formations, that most intrigues him.

I have no idea how many Golden Gophers games we will attend this season. We shall probably make week-by-week decisions as the season progresses. We have not yet decided whether we intend to catch next Saturday’s contest, a night game with a 7:00 p.m. kickoff.

Minnesota is off to a 3-0 start this season, but no one truly knows what that signifies. Until Minnesota plays a high-quality opponent, no one can judge whether the football program is genuinely beginning to recover from its recent woes.

My mother had a late lunch waiting for us when we returned home: shrimp-salad sandwiches on croissants accompanied by a cold garden/pasta salad.

Everyone stayed at my parents’ house for the remainder of the day and played with the kids.

My nephew is now in first grade, and attends school all day (last school year, his kindergarten was only two-and-a-half hours each morning). By all indications, he seems to enjoy school. My niece looks forward to my nephew’s return home each afternoon, but she is not having problems adjusting to her brother’s daylong absence. Kids are flexible.

My mother made a special dinner for Saturday night: pork roast in pastry. She made two kinds: one stuffed with onions and leeks, and another stuffed with apricots and plums.

She served the pork-in-pastry with escalloped potatoes cooked with cheeses and onions, butternut squash, baby Brussels sprouts, white corn, red cabbage baked with cream and butter, and a tart-yet-sweet apple-cranberry-cherry-raspberry-celery-nut salad.

For dessert, we had a maple cake.

No one starved.