A little late, but still done on time.

My Monday Joy focuses on another day of the week – Friday. Specifically, Friday Night Lights.

No, not the book about toxic sports culture or the TV show that will entertain you, make you cry and fire you up. I’m talking about the regular Friday night football ritual that happens all across the country.

Even though my daughter graduated high school four years ago, my wife and I went to the season-opening game for our local school last week. She serves on our school board, and the game represented the first time the team played on the new turf field.

I barely know any of the kids on the team, but we had an amazing time (even though we left at halftime and the home team lost big) for the same reason we did when our kid was in high school.

We saw some people we know working the concession stand when we got our dinner of chicken finger baskets. The money for that dinner will help support the school’s music program. We saw the new show from our marching band (which was resurrected a couple of years ago after years of low participation). We listened to the two bands compete with each other via their fight songs.

Basically, we took part in an important community event. The relationships and cross-organizational support mean way more than the game. It’s about people coming together. We won’t go every week, but we will probably go back for Homecoming, even though neither of us grew up in our town.