Entering A New Culture

I'm looking forward to the upcoming NBA playoffs.

Since our move I've made an effort to become a Denver Nuggets fan and temper my lifelong love for the Lakers and all the pro and college and high school hoops teams and traditions of basketball in LA.

I remember going to California Angels games when I was a kid with my dad and seeing large numbers of Yankee and Red Sox fans in the crowd. Sometimes there were more of those folks than there were fans pulling for the home team.

At that point Southern California was full of immigrants from the East Coast who were sick of the bad weather and were looking for better economic opportunities up against the Pacific.

I always thought those people were sort of embarassing and couldn't figure out why they would root for a team from another part of the country.

I understand them better now.

But I'm already three-quarters of the way into my new allegiances. I'm hoping and guessing the Nuggets will make a run deep into the playoffs and I'm just as up to speed on their team stats as I ever was with the teams on the left coast. We're all more adaptable than we give ourselves credit for.

Who wants to enter a new culture by pulling against the home team? Not me.