I did not want to watch “Friday Night Lights.”

I’m a big fan of H.G. Bissinger’s 1990 nonfiction book, which told the story of a northwest Texas football team and its obsessive fans. I also enjoyed the 2004 film based on Bissinger’s book, but I had no interest in a fictionalized TV version.

I didn’t, it turns out, want to go home again.

My family is scattered across the state, from the petroleum-fueled Gulf Coast to the barren West Texas town of Albany to Longview’s piney woods in the east. Football was, is, and forever shall be “it,” especially in tiny communities where there is little more to do than sit and watch cars rust.

Yes, that last statement is overly simplified, just like the one from the person who says, “The only reason you have December, January, and February is to celebrate Jesus’ birth and to mark the time between the playoffs and the start of spring practice.” (I know that statement isn’t true because I spent almost a decade in North Carolina, where people live for December through February because that’s the heart of ACC basketball season.)

Texas was my home state for 28 years. I felt caught in a dead end trap, living in a refinery town where the small world loomed large. It’s a place that offered two post-high school options: Live here and work in the plants, or get the hell out and don’t come back.

Again, that’s overly simplified. But as a young boy, especially one with an ill father who could not be there to show me the ropes, it felt stifling. I was an outsider in my own hometown.

That’s why I didn’t want to watch “Friday Night Lights.” But, traveling back and forth this summer to Texas to see my dad, who was dying of cancer, I purchased the first season on DVD. But why look at fiction when I could see reality in bright, living, humid color?

Then, last weekend, two months after my father died, I saw a few minutes of the Oklahoma-Texas game at a restaurant. I thought immediately of Dad; he refused to miss any UT game that was on, sitting in his chair in his Longhorns coat, a football fan until the end.

After Oklahoma won by 7, I started thinking again about growing up in Texas. The next night, I went and found those DVDs. Four bleary eyed days later, fueled by insomnia and the fictional Dillon Panthers, I’m ready for season 2. And you should be, too.

This show captures the little details of small town life so beautifully – the rebellion, confessions, religion, community, mistakes, and connections between neighbors, family, and friends.

The marriage between the coach and his wife, a high school counselor, feels real. The other characters, all of whom have flaws and redeeming qualities, sometimes in equal measure, are archetypes of those we all know.

This is a show that makes me cringe with realization and smile privately at its reflection: When I’m watching, I do have a little piece of home with me.

Glenn Cook, Editor-in-Chief