Cover Painting Artist / Brooklyn Nelson / Two Harbors High School / Class of 2026
“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”
Pericles, Ancient Greece Politician – Referenced in “Legacy” by James Kerr
Posted on the wall inside Miles P. Henderson Field House in Canadian, Texas
Chapter 1: 30 Picture Mom
The mother of a young football player awakened before sunrise on Saturday to post 30 pictures Facebook and Instagram from last night’s high school football game. Every town has that Mom. We all know her.
No, not the Mom you’re thinking of. The other one. A different Mom. Not the Mom whose son scored a touchdown last night. Not the Mom of the boy who represented the team at midfield for the coin toss. Not the Mom who sits center-stage in the bleachers for each game.
Look over there—to the far edge of the bleachers. There she is. A bit isolated. Quiet. Not much to cheer about. Her son wasn’t in the starting lineup. He didn’t catch a pass or make a tackle. Her son’s name won’t appear in the local newspaper or online. Her son was in uniform, participated in pregame warmups, then didn’t step onto the field again until the postgame handshake line. Her son didn’t play in the game.
Yet, 30 pictures.
Who is this Mom?
She’s my favorite Mom: “30 Picture Mom”
Pictures of the touchdown makers are great. Achievement deserves to be celebrated. The boom, bam, whack pictures of a boy making a tackle are fantastic. Worthy of honor. The pictures shared by “30 Picture Mom” contain none of that.
You click or swipe from the fifth picture to the sixth, then the seventh. You’re picking up on the vibe by the 17th, the 18th, and 19th. You’ve ripped through all the pictures but pause at picture 30—the final picture. One of several taken after the game. “30 Picture Mom” is standing beside her son. She won’t have to clean his uniform today—there’s no mud on it. There’s no “game ball” in his hand. But in picture 30, there’s something more important in his hand.
It’s his Mom’s hand. Squeezing tight, just like on that first walk to kindergarten.
“30 Picture Mom’s” camera has portrait mode, landscape mode, and—unique for her, future mode. In those images, we see last night—she sees tomorrow. Those 30 pictures convey the emotions of a Mom so damn happy her son is part of something good, something positive, something life-impacting. She knows he’s in good hands—beyond her own. She knows she can partially let go and let others help guide him through this part of life.
Thirty pictures of comforting happiness.
Having no children of my own, I can only imagine the feeling.
I imagine it to be amazing.
Chapter 2: Penance
When a high school football game ends, the scoreboard tells a story.
Our town, this many points.
Your town, that many points.
We win, you lose.
You win, we lose.
Turn off the lights. Time to go home.
The scoreboard indeed tells a story, but it doesn’t tell the entire story.
Neither does the game story in the local newspaper, the brief video highlights on the sports segment of the nightly television news, tweets on “X,” nor recaps on other click-thirsty digital platforms. It’s all much better than nothing. Well-intentioned people staying in their lanes to tell templated stories within the constraints of their medium.
I was part of it.
I’ve written a hundred stories about high school football games. I’ve written the “hero ledes,” cited the turning points, honored the touchdown makers and turnover takers, shined light on “the winners,” offered only shade to “the losers.”
Wide left, wide right, every story missing the extra points—never encapsulating the big picture, never conveying the off-field impacts, never highlighting the vast number of people who enable these games to happen, nor featuring those whose attendance catalyzes inspiration for their future, or those whose emotions are stirred when decades of tomorrows have become a lifetime of yesterdays.
Always missing those things that put unity in community.
This story is my penance.
I previously stayed within the strict journalistic boundaries of the newspaper “stringer” role. It was time to step out of bounds, move outside my comfort zone, and—in the process—be moved in ways like never before by strangers, teachers, students, coaches, elementary school children, military veterans, and senior citizens bracing against frigid northerly winds to wave goodbye to a school bus while waving their team’s flag. Amid football season, life’s seasons presented their virtues at every turn.
This story crosses America from north to south, border to border. It begins where my life began and culminates where the bounce-back from one of my biggest jolts commenced. This is the game day story of two small towns, unrelated, miles apart, stereotypical opposites, but whose cultural fabric is woven with common threads.
This is a story of two towns where happiness still happens.
Five Pictures from Two Harbors, MN
Five Pictures from Canadian, TX
