Cardinal and crimson as divisive as Blue and Gray

We had the War Between the States last weekend, as well as the War Between Two States.

The former was the annual Civil War Re-enactment Weekend, while the latter was a weekend visit from my wife’s cousin and her husband from Ohio.

They came up for the re-enactment, but it was also an opportunity to renew a personal rivalry between the Badger State and the Buckeye State.

Steve is an Ohio State alumnus, which he makes obvious every time we see him by wearing some sort of Buckeye apparel — shirt, hat, jacket or some such. I’m beginning to think, based on the evidence that I’ve seen, that every item of clothes he owns has Ohio State on it somewhere.

I have to admit, he didn’t have any of that Buckeye staff on when they arrived Friday afternoon, but I knew it was waiting for me sometime before the weekend was over. I knew because he made sure to tell me as soon as he saw me.

I didn’t greet him with any of my Badger shirts, hats or jackets, but I did have something ready for him.

They were staying with us for the weekend, and I made sure that my Badger throw pillow, the one with the big red “W” on it, was prominently placed on the bed in the guest bedroom for him. I don’t know how well he slept that night, but at least I didn’t see the pillow come flying out the door of the bedroom when he went to bed that night.

The next day, we headed out to take in the re-enactment — Steve in his Ohio State shirt, me in my Wisconsin shirt and cap. Since both of us were basically in red, the divide wasn’t as obvious as the Blue and Gray on the re-enactment battlefield, but the battle was on, nonetheless.

Of course, my wife had on her Ohio State shirt as well. Although she was born and spent her early years in Ohio, she has lived three times as long here in Wisconsin as in Ohio, but that didn’t stop her from joining the enemy in this battle.

We spent pretty much the entire day, from mid-morning to late afternoon, at the re-enactment, which meant that both of us were missing that afternoon’s college football games.

While the Badger game was over first, I couldn’t seem to find anyone on the entire grounds who could tell me how that game came out.

Steve, meanwhile, was getting text messages from his son-in-law back in Ohio via Judy’s cell phone with regular updates on the Ohio State score. It was just one more battle I seemed to be losing.

I’m sure that we’ll go back down to Ohio sometime in the future to visit them — there is that annual sidewalk sale at KitchenAid coming up during Annie Oakley Days next summer that I’m sure somebody will want to go to. Maybe I can rent a Badger bus to make that trip in.