Last night's JMU home opener of the 2009 football season against VMI saw my most cherished record fall.  Not only fall, but the record was destroyed. [caption id="attachment_335" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Big Red at JMU"] [/caption] Football games have been more important to Big Red than any other venue.  Not that football's sales are the greatest--football games don't come close to races--but because it was football games that led me to find my niche in the concession world: that of sporting events.  JMU was the first college games that we handled and have always held a special place for us whether its sales were the greatest or not. This is the fourth season we've been at JMU and the second year we've offered funnel cakes, corn dogs and lemonade.  Corn dogs, historically, sell much better later in the year in cooler weather.  Lemonade, obviously does best in hot weather.  Funnel cakes rock anytime. Since it wasn't overly hot yesterday, nor overly cool last night, I thought my sales of corn dogs and lemonade would suffer.  Boy, was I wrong. [caption id="attachment_336" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Cashier Linda Ling"] [/caption] This is also the second year that Aramark folks have provided a cashier. Last night, we had a freshman, Linda Ling, and for her first event, she was awesome.  Having a cashier, frees Peggy up for serving customers amd keeping up with the lemonade. I never leave the fryers except to fill my pitchers with batter and make more if needed.  We got busy when the gates opened at 5pm and stayed slammed all night until after the game. The end result: we beat our old record for a single football game by over $500.  And, we did it with just Peggy and I working in Big Red. The sad part, I left some sales on the table and the record could have been even better.  I ran out of corn dogs about 2 minutes into halftime.  And, we really needed an extra person to just keep my batter made and pitchers filled.  Neither of those will happen again. [caption id="attachment_337" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Kagen, Engrossed in TV Show"] [/caption] It was good to spend a couple of days with Peggy's grandson, Kagen.  We still speaks some foreign tongue but is getting better with understandable word and phrases.  Saturday morning, he cooked pancakes for breakfast, not bad for a 2 year old.  They were good, too. This week, it's back to Liberty for Big Red as they take on JMU.  A big crowd, and a big night is expected.