Pigskin stitches

(Note: I met this lady by chance, and couldn't resist telling a snippet of her story.)

Margery doesn't know much about football--and as a semi-retired seamstress, she doesn't care to learn about it now. Yet, heaped on the floor in Margery's otherwise fastidiously clean living room is a pile of football jerseys.

Margery has been stitching the names and numbers on the jerseys since the NFL team first brought their annual training camp to her town in 1997. She's meticulous about every stitch.

"It's not the sort of thing you do while you're watching tv at night," she told me. "It's a lot harder than it looks."

But despite all the attention Margery gives the black-and-orange jerseys--as important as it is to her that they look just right--she has never seen the jerseys on the playing field.

She readily admits that she has never watched the team on tv--or in person. She says that the team has never offered her a ticket--but that's fine by her.

"It wouldn't matter if they gave me a pile of tickets this high," she said, indicating something about waist-high. "I still wouldn't go. I don't like football."

She says her granddaughters would like to go see a game sometime, though--along with their dad. As for Margery, she's content seeing those numbers up close every summer--on her sewing machine.