THERE ARE FEW moral lessons to be learned from everyday life People are born, they die. Often they hurt each other. Sometimes they kill each other, on purpose or by accident.

Every so often, the awful absurdities of human behavior force themselves on us, defying all attempts at distanced rationalization. Saturday's Game was one of these times, as example of how surreal life can become when we ingest too much alcohol and succumb to the madness that goes by the name of school spirit.

Saturday was the last time I will help tear down a goalpost, and I will never look at a football game the same way again.

* * *

I enjoy tearing down a goalpost as much as the next guy, and remember fondly the dismantling and the sinking in the Charles of the open end uprights at last year's Game. So, as the seconds ticked off late in the fourth quarter. I made my way down the stairs of Section 24 to the endzone. Egged on by healthy doses of rum and bourbon, I gradually let my sophomoric muse--so prized by aging and increasingly senile Yale and Harvard alums--take control.

Some of the same faces were there Saturday. I high-fived a Harvard comrade as large chunks of loose turf flew over my head. Two feet away, on oafish prep was scuffling with the Yale security guards, who had begun to realize the fertility of their presence.

"You going up on the post?" a classmate asked, placing a manly slap on my shoulder.

"Naw, I'll just pull, thanks," I answered.

"Well I'm going to fucking rip that fucker down and we'll carry it all the way to the Charles."

I laughed, shaking with a day long buzz.

By t-minus-five seconds, the crowds pressing behind us became too much to bear, and we surged towards the object of our frenzied lust.

I did not get there in time, and instead watched from below as the crossbar teetered over my head.

Give me a step-up," a determined celebrator demanded.

Two guys and I obliged, giving him the honor of being the first man up.

There was a crack, cheers, motion, somewhere in the midst, a crack, a different type of crack, and an almost drowned-out cry. The corner of the post was cased down inches from my back, and, as I turned to stand clear, a girl by there, prone--dead or alive I didn't know--but red, very red, and everything about her matched the colored grass we were standing on.