For those just tuning in, don't adjust your web browser. This still is my real estate blog. But I also want to write about community items as the opportunity arises (for example, announcements of local events) and last night provided me just such an opportunity.
Arizona State opened its 2006 football season against Northern Arizona last night. One of the beauties of college football is the tradition, institutionalized and organic, inside the stadium and out. Give me someone dotting the "i" at Ohio State or two seniors jumping into the A and U of ASU and I'm a happy guy. Allow me the chance to sing the Arizona State alma mater (severely off key) and I'm complete.
After graduating from ASU in 1990, I spent the next eight seasons watching the Sun Devils from the aerie known as the Sun Devils press box. Two years after I had left, my sister entered school as a french horn player in the marching band and my parents bought season seats. Not long after, they started visiting the College Street Deli for their pre-game meal. I'd join them when I could, but usually had to leave early to get to the press box and pretend I was working for a living.
In 1999 I bought season tickets of my own and the College Street Deli became our regular haunt. There were a couple of not-so-memorable trips to IHOP as my intransigent father refused to eat anything other than breakfast food before an 11:30 or 12:30 kickoff. But for the most part, the pregame meal consisted of two BLT's (minus the tomato, a request that was fulfilled about 27.8% of the time) and a large ice tea. And maybe a Corona. Or two.
When my daughter was born she started coming to College Street with us - her first trip came when she was six months old and her last trip was when she was six. And last fall's visit before the homecoming game was her last visit because, as we learned yesterday, the College Street Deli is no more.
Things had started changing last year when the ownership changed. The same kid I'd watched cleaning tables from the time he was four feet tall was gone after his family sold the place. The security guy we'd always talked to also was gone. There was a fresh coat of paint and a fresh round of co-eds and, well, it didn't quite feel the same.
Still, the ancillary feelings attendant to the location still were present. You still could sit at one of the tables on the sidewalk and watch the fans walk by, both in ASU colors and in that week's opponents. You could hear the ASU marching band as they made their way toward Palm Walk and the bridge across University Avenue, listen as cars honked at the band members on the bridge. For a couple of years the alumni band, an on-again, off-again multi-generational creation, would stop outside and play the fight song.
For someone never much into tailgating (not the easiest prospect given the parking routine surrounding the stadium), the College Street Deli was the next best thing.
I'm not sure why the deli closed - nothing in Tempe remains the same very long. Mill Avenue, once a rather quirky collegiate shopping area, resembles nothing as much as a huge outdoor mall these days. All we need is a Best Buy. What once was grass when I was in school has become parking garages - there is always some building or another under construction. Or maybe it's nothing as sinister - maybe the lease just expired.
All I know is with 2 1/2 hours remaining before kickoff, for the first time in seven years, I left for Tempe without having the slightest idea where I was going. John Cusack had a great line in Grosse Point Blank when he discovered his childhood house now was a QuickiMart. "You can't go home again, but you can shop there."
(c) Jonathan Dalton, 2006 / Jonathan Dalton's Arizona Homes | 
