I'm 74. As far as I'm concerned, all the good "college" bars - Larry's, North and South Heidelberg, are gone. The strip - High Street from 11th to 18th, has gone corporate. The best places seem to be off of Olentangy River Road between King and Fifth. Champps is busy, but the food includes great burgers, good selection of beers on tap and the decor is your basic Buckeye football nostalgia tour.
The lone student bar worthy of the name, The Varsity Club, still stands and if you want to see it just for shits and grins hit it on Friday. Come game day it will be the fire warden's nightmare.
Downtown has found new life around the hockey arena. Lots of bars and sports bars in Short North and this area. Don't know if anybody your age still goes to German Village, just south of the freeway. Schmidt's Sausage Haus would be a good place to catch a lunch if you're in early on Friday.
Early September is usually pretty mellow, so if the night is rain free and you feel like exploring you might want to hit Bucket of Nails in Gahanna - big beer garden runs along a creek (pronounced "krick" in Ohioese). Not too many old farts like me to ruin the view. I like to go there to see the ladies guys in their 30s bring along (The sun still rises for those of you who have read Hemingway).
On campus you should catch the new student union - glitzy, corporate - what can I say? Walk a block North of the union and you will be on the edge of the Oval, sacred ground to all Buckeye alums - and yes, you can walk on it without some faux Nathan Bedford Forest sabre-waving aggie-corps nut job screaming at you - at the far western end of the Oval stands Wiliam Oxley Thompson and his library. The WOT is a national repository library which is a BFD, but I don't think you're here to do research so take the elevator up to the top floor, wonderful views of the east and west parts of the campus from the reading room up there.
About 50 yards south of the library is Mirror Lake - in the 60s we boasted it was the world's only rubber-lined lake. The warm spring that filled the lake (think outsized swimming pool, the use of 'lake' is the very definition of 'hyperbole') reeked of sulfur. That's since been cured. By the time you have arrived the Mirror Lake site will have been turned into a carboniferous era forest in an effort to keep students from jumping into the lake before the Michigan game. Rumors that the student body has been designing a giant bush-hog tractor to take out the carboniferous forest are just that; rumors.
Now then, do you plan to tailgate or do you plan to go to Hineygate? If you decide to tailgate: a) get there early b) take a six-pack of Grolsch c) tell the lot trolls that you need to speak to "Scooter" d) give Scooter the Grolsch and he'll tell you where to park for free.
When tailgating do keep your beer in a plastic cup. Why? The Columbus swat team will be on maneuvers. They are trained to Waffen SS standards and come with self-propelled mass incarceration - litigation wagons parked nearby for speedy delivery to the downtown drunk tank.
The origins of the current CPD were founded in the union-busting days of the 30s and hardened in the student protests of the 60s and 70s. They do not take kindly to edumacated fools with a bit of liquid loudmouth propelling them along. Play nice as they are not afraid to let loose with brute force.
Your other choice, Hineygate, is open air with big movie screens playing other games on an ESPN feed. The crowd tends to go for Bud Light and Coors Light, but there's always a tent selling real beer on the lot. Don't try and bring your own beer into Hineygate, Do not try and take a beer out of Hineygate. (See previous paragraph regarding Columbus cops) A battalion of port-o-lets awaits your contributions. Don't know how late Hineygate runs, but it sure beats trying to get back to your car and trying to get anywhere in post-game traffic.
Now then, drink more beer or get in your seat prior to kickoff? If you want to know what gets Buckeye fans going you'll need to be in your seats about 20 minutes before kickoff. That's when TBDBITL takes the field with the ramp entrance and Script Ohio. I'm guessing the Boomer Sooner band will be here too, so maybe a half-hour prior for the whole she-bang.
Don't go home without purchasing your very own Muck Fichigan or Ann Arbor is a Whore T-shirt. There will be a line of merchants from High Street to the Olentangy where such fine football accouterments to your fall wardrobe can be procured.
The fact that Ohio State is now on a semester schedule means that school will be in session. Such was not the case when Texas came to town and many student tickets ended up in the hands of fans of Wrestlemania and the Mullett haircut. Horns fans continue to bitch and whine about their treatment before and after the game. I don't know if they're a bunch of thin-skinned Dallas suburbanites, or if the crowd was in a mean mood, but usually guests are treated with respect - Michigan excepted.
That's it from this ol' coot's POV. Enjoy! and if you want to know what life was like at Ohio State in the 60s, may I modestly suggest purchasing my novel, The Class of 67. Available in hardcover, paperback or on-line from Amazon or Barnes and Noble sites.
