MARK MY WORD: KIDS' CREDO IS `NO CANDY, NO GLORY'

When you're 3, the best events are those that come with candy.

That was definitely the case at SEMO's homecoming parade.

Forget the floats, the bands, the dignitaries. It was the candy that made it a mega-event for daughter Becca and her friends.

They eagerly scooped up all the candy thrown in their direction as we sat along the parade route.

Joni stored the candy in the pockets of her sweater so the girls wouldn't pig out and turn into giant balls of gum during the parade. By parade's end, her pockets were bulging with candy.

Becca never had it this good on Halloween. And she didn't even have to wear a mask to get the goodies.

Of course, it's tougher to please adults. You can't just throw candy.

You have to spend millions to get a professional football team and then charge people a fortune to watch the team play.

Our friends Kathy and Jay invited us to the Rams-Falcons game last week. No candy was involved.

Naturally, we left all the kids with a babysitter.

It was Jay's 40th birthday. To celebrate, we ate a huge meal at a Union Station restaurant.

Stuffed to the limits, we formed a human wedge and pushed our way into a MetroLink train car jammed full of other overstuffed Rams fans for the ride to Busch Stadium.

At the stadium stop, the crowd rushed out of the train cars. Fortunately, most people managed to escape without any extra legs and arms in their clothing.

We made our way into the stadium, where virtually everyone was dressed in the blue and yellow Rams colors, except for one guy who had on a red Kansas City Chiefs shirt.

This guy obviously had missed his train stop by a few hundred miles or he was colorblind.

Professional football is serious business. People come to the game with pumpkins on their heads.

Some people were blue in the face, but no one called for the ambulance. The blue was just face paint.

We sat squeezed together in the bleacher section. We were packed in so tightly that we had to start the Wave just to let people get up to go to the bathroom.

The people in front of us had to get up a million times during the game. They had to go get beer, then go to the restroom. Then, it was back to the beer, and back to the bathroom.

Seated in a corner of the end zone we could clearly see what was going on down on our half of the field. But as the teams moved toward the far end of the field, you felt like Christopher Columbus scanning the horizon for sight of land.

Binoculars helped, as did the cheerleaders. Tired of straining our eyes, we could focus on the cheerleaders or those crazy fans nearby who wore those silly Rams-horn hats.

At halftime, 60,000 fans raced to the restrooms so they could stand in line and miss almost all of the third quarter.

The Rams won the game without any extra bathroom breaks.

Being enthusiastic fans, we stayed around to watch the televised, post-game show.

After being interviewed, Rams wide receiver Isaac Bruce took off his blue wristbands and tossed them toward an appreciate crowd.

Kathy caught one of the sweaty things and Jay snared the other in front of my outstretched hand.

They immediately put them on and vowed not to bathe for a week.

The smell of victory can indeed be sweet.

But Becca wouldn't have thought so. She goes by a different motto: No candy, no glory.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.