High, and (still) dry

When anon I realized I hath not blogged in a span of nearly twain fortnights, I didst recall yon erstwhile days wherein my nimble fingers wouldest blog daily.  Erelong didst I question why I had just useth "fortnight" to describeth time.  But in nowise finding any answer, and whereby I am unable or unwilling to continue in my present manner of writing, do I ashamedly present the following scantily clad entry.

The election has come to an end.  The Electoral College has spoken.  I call for all Americans to now come together and enjoy a few weeks with no political ads, because one thing's for certain: Campaigning for 2016 will begin all too soon, if it hasn't already. 

In case you somehow managed to miss the election results, allow me to fill you in.  We here in Boneville USA voted for the status quo.  That is, to remain a "dry" municipality.  (Do people in the rest of the country even know what a dry city/county is?)

Chant with me.  Four... more... years... four... more... years... of no legal alcohol sales within the city limits.  More chanting.  No... we... can't!   I read somewhere we are the largest "dry" city in the state.  Kind of a quirky claim to fame, er, something, wouldn't you say?

But all is not lost.  For my state is one of several to have a petition started for us to secede from the Union.  That's right, ye Scallywags, tonight we're gonna party like it's 1861!

Oy.  That really is the facepalm of all facepalms.

But ere ye think we've all gone mad down here and have Sean Hannity piped into our homes 24/7 (was that redundant?), there comes this bit of news: Nick Saban received dozens of write-in votes for President in the state of Alabama.  (I said "in" not "of.")  Twenty-two votes in one county alone.  And suddenly everything is set back in order.

His wife even received a write-in vote for circuit clerk in one county.  And no, it wasn't my county.  Although I can't promise it won't be next time.  Let us raise a toast... Uh... on second thought, it's like a seven-minute drive to the nearest beer store.  So scratch that.  We'll have to settle for a virtual fistbump.  *makes explosion sound with mouth*

Speaking of football, I am sure some of you were concerned about me following Bama's first loss of the season.  Let me just say that your concern is appreciated, and very much warranted.  The past three weeks have been an emotional seesaw.

After the LSU game, I was on a three-day high.  Or what I imagine a high to be.  I've never really been high, at least not in the drug-induced-brain-altering sense.  Once I got a splitting headache from being around a guy who had obviously been smoking pot, but I don't think that counts.  Anyway, had you tested the levels of dopamine in my brain following that game, I would surely have been stripped of all my Tour de France titles on the spot, assuming I had won any, or owned a bike whose tires were not perpetually both flat.

It seems almost not possible that the football season has passed so quickly.  I guess time flies when you're in a near-constant state of anxiety interspersed with brief moments of relief.

And if ever I need to get away from the stress of it all, an afternoon walk with Nephew Bone does the trick.

As autumn wanes, we talk about things like why Uncle Bone can't crack just one pecan by itself, where does this road go, the importance of finding just the right stick, and "Ooo, look!  A helicopter!"  You know, the important stuff.

These moments are among my favorite.

I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving.  And on that note, I'll leave you with four-and-a-half minutes of not-entirely-politically-correct classic sitcom gold.



"Educated in a small town / Taught to fear Jesus in a small town / Used to daydream in that small town / Another boring romantic, that's me..."

Road Trip: Knoxville

The third Saturday in October.

To any football fan around these parts, that phrase means one thing: Alabama versus Tennessee.

To any non-football fan around these parts, it means you do not schedule your wedding on this day if you have any family or friends and would like for them to attend.  Actually, in some parts of Alabama, especially near my house, that last rule applies to any Saturday between the months of August and December.  But I suppose that's neither here nor yonder.  Also, no one was getting married Saturday.  I just threw that in as a helpful tip.

Axl and I decided to make the drive up to Knoxville to watch our beloved Crimson Tide (hopefully) roll over the Volunteers this past weekend.  Now, for those not familiar with Axl, here's everything you need to know: He self-tans, sings in a community chorus, and once lost the heel off his boot as we were leaving a Bama basketball game in some sort of real-life Mentos commercial gone horribly wrong.

(Hmm, I wonder if I should check with him before revealing the self-tanning thing?  Oh well, no time.)

He also has near-constant road rage.  So naturally, he drove.

Now I was a bit nervous about the trip, not because of Axl.  Well, not entirely because of Axl.  But because this was my first true trip into enemy territory.  I'd been to a couple of games at Vanderbilt, but that doesn't really count.  Football at Vanderbilt is kinda like going to a t-ball game.  It's fun.  You chat with your friends in the stands.  It's cute to see the kids out there missing the ball and falling down.  But no one really expects much.

But Tennessee?  That's a whole different story.  It's the definition of a rivalry.  It's Roll Tide versus Rocky Top.  The Bear versus General Neyland.  A vibrant, gorgeous sea of crimson clashing against that hideous, nausea-inducing orange.  We may have been on the same side in the Civil War.  But not since.

However, I must say all the Tennessee fans I encountered were as friendly as could be expected.  A couple of them were so nice, in fact, it makes me almost feel bad about the nausea comment.  Almost.

It also helped that the crowd was probably 40 to 45% Bama fans.  (Yes, I can guesstimate within five percent.  It's one of my many useless talents.)  I had a crimson-clad compadre sitting next to me and two more directly behind me.  Every time I would start to high-five the blonde sitting behind me, she'd full-frontal hug me instead.  And far be it from me to infringe on other fans' rights to celebrate touchdowns however they so choose.

The football stadium sits on the bank of the Tennessee River.  And while the stadium itself is a bit of a rathole and looks like it may not have been renovated since the Nixon administration, the area around it is quite scenic.  The World's Fair Park is a pretty area right near the stadium, as well. The World's Fair was held in Knoxville in 1982.

(FYI, it's taken every ounce of what little self-restraint I have not to refer to it as Knox-vegas this entire post.  You're welcome.)

Something else you need to be warned of should you ever attend a Tennessee Vol game:  You will hear "Rocky Top" roughly 127 times.  Before the game, during the game, after the game.  Even when there are 30 seconds left in the game and your team is annihilating Tennessee 44 to 13, the band will strike it up.  They have ruined what truly was one of the most venerable bluegrass songs of all-time.  Some sporadic eardrum bleeding is normal.

As the final few minutes wound down in the game, most of the Tennessee fans had long since passed through the exits, leaving the stands covered in crimson.  Such a sweet sight.

There's always a kinship one experiences when one encounters other Bama fans.  I would guess that is true for fans of most sports teams.  But when you're in enemy territory, that bond feels ten times stronger.  It was neat to experience that for the first time.

The drive home was magnificent.  Fall had come to Chattanooga.  I've always thought it a picturesque city anyway, such immediate and drastic contrast between the bluffs and rock faces of Lookout Mountain and the river meandering through the city below. The colors just amplified its, uh, picturesque-ness.

At one point on the trip, Axl and I found ourselves singing along in our best falsettos to Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive."  Which may seem odd to some.  Or, most.  I've forgotten my point.  Oh yes, I remember now.  It was good to have a testosterone-filled guys weekend away.

I suppose there are more stories I could share from Road Trip: Knoxville.  There was the Tennessee fan in front of us who I dubbed "Eighty Proof," because he was openly drinking his Crown from the bottle.  (Alcohol is "not allowed" in SEC stadiums.)  There was Axl and I arguing like an old married couple over the thermostat in our hotel room.  He sleeps with it on 50!  Fif. Tee!  And there was the waitress at the Waffle House who seemed to have no qualms showing us her chest tattoo -- both halves. 

But you know what they say: What happens in Knox-veg... Well, you know.

"Give me an 80-proof bottle of tear-stopper / And I'll start feeling I forgot her / Get a little loose and lose her memory..."

Christmas comes anew

There are several "Christmases" throughout the year enjoyed by the avid college football fan.  Dates, games, and events we all look forward to with near-deranged anticipation.

There's National Signing Day.  There's New Year's Day -- though it has lost a bit of its sacredness in the past several years with the proliferation of the number of bowl games.  And there's the national championship game, if your team is fortunate enough to be in it.  

Then there's the day when the preseason college football magazines hit newsstands.  *rubbing hands together*  (Do they even still have newsstands?  It just flowed so much better than "the day they hit the Kroger shelves," which is where I bought my two.) 

That day was Friday.  The first of June.  At once, I had weekend plans. 

As I hurried out of my friendly hometown grocery store, it was all I could do to keep from giggling.  (There's no way to make that sentence sound manly, is there?)  Anxious to get home and unwrap my new treasures -- the shiny, glossy covers; that "new magazine" smell; and of course, the information!

Four hundred forty-eight pages in all.  Schedules, rosters, rankings, statistics, analysis, predictions.  Because how would I survive without knowing how many returning starters Boise State has (it's nine, if you're curious) or who was rated the 8th best offensive guard in the nation?  You're right, I wouldn't.

I'm giddy as a schoolgirl backstage at a Justin Bieber concert.  And just as vulnerable, by the way.

Hopefully, this will be enough to get me through until the next "Christmas" -- the first Saturday of the college football season, which is exactly 90 days away.

It has been said that football is religion in the South.  I suppose that could be debated.  However, I can testify that our lower-case messiah was once greeted with a not-so-holy kiss.

Mainly, I just try and enjoy each of these special days as they happen.  Because as we all know, Christmas only comes a few times a year.

"So I'm moving to New York / 'Cause I've got issues with my sleep / Looks like Christmas came early / Christmas came early for me..."

Superfan & The Rooftop Caper

For some reason, the 8-month-long wait for college football seemed to drag on even longer than usual for me this year. Maybe it was the constant negative off-season news about college football -- which is kinda like having your friends bring up your ex-girlfriend every single time you're around them. It makes you think of her and miss her, all the while knowing you can't have her. Or maybe it was the complete dearth of anything interesting on TV this summer. I mean, how much keeping up with the Kardashians can one guy do? (I think I'm going for the record.)

But alas, now that the happy season is finally upon us, and my September love has returned, I was able to make it over to Wolfgang's to watch the Bama/Penn State game this past Saturday. Events transpired that day to necessitate a blog entry. This is that entry.

Firstly, at halftime we meandered outside to toss the football around. Because this is what guys do. Deep down, most guys really believe that we're not that far away from athletic glory. A minor tweak here, a coupla better decisions there, a few less donuts and potato chips, and that could be us on TV. This is why we do things like throw football in the yard. We're not out there to have fun. We're working on our form, perfecting our spiral, so that if that call should come some day (I dunno, that they've started an over-40 flag-football league?), we'll be ready.

So anyway, after a few minutes, I decided to try punting one. I kicked it pretty good, but kinda forgot I was wearing flip-flops. Well, my right flip-flop went even higher than the ball. It landed on the roof of their house, and never came down.

My shoe is on top of the house!  This could ONLY happen to me.

Perhaps most disturbing of all was that I had inexplicably taken my trusty spare pair of flip-flops out of my car. So there I stood, helplessly one-shoed in the front yard, as everyone laughed.

Well naturally, Wolfgang didn't have a ladder. So LJ broke a rather large branch off a tree. Then I, standing on the rail of their front porch, used the branch to "sweep" my flip-flop off the roof.

Can we say redneck?

Important side note: Completely overlooked amid all the madness, that was probably the best punt I've ever done.

The other thing that struck me from the weekend is a bit more personal and difficult to talk about. Are you sitting down? Because I'm not sure you're ready for this. But I think I've become a bit of a sideshow for my friends while watching Bama games. I've sort of suspected this from the Darryls for awhile now. But Saturday when Mrs. Wolfgang said she could "sell tickets to watch Bone" pretty much confirmed it.

You might recall my constant-state-of-anxiety-with-small-moments-of-relief habitude of watching Bama games? So I yell. And sometimes call the players/referees/announcers names. The muscles in my neck and back become one gargantuan monkey's fist. And I may or may not have been hoarse by halftime.

I'm sorry, but it's true. Fourteen times a year, seemingly mild-mannered blogger Bone Kent suddenly turns into Superfan.  Poor play and lack of execution are my kryptonite.

I did come across an interesting poll (on a Bama website) that asked which emotion was stronger: the elation of victory, or the agony of defeat? Over 70% said the agony of defeat. Yes! And for me, it's not even close. So that made me feel some better. It gives me hope, that maybe there are more out there like me.

Back to Saturday, by the 3rd quarter -- once the game was pretty much decided -- I had settled down somewhat. This was when the girls thought it would be hilarious to make fun of me. So they started yelling after every play. Look, I don't mind people having a little fun at my expense. I can and do laugh at myself. Often I'm the only person laughing at myself -- usually right after I tell a joke. But I felt their attempt was lacking.

I tried to explain to them the reason their yelling wasn't rising to my level was that they weren't really feeling it. That they'd never cried over a game.  Deep down, it has to mean something to you. It has to hurt your soul when Bama makes a bad play. You have to suffer every single play for the Crimson Tide.  In the end, it's all worth it for those few brief seconds of relief, er, victory.

I'm just so happy it's back!

Is happy the right word?

"I may be disturbed, but won't you concede, even heroes have the right to dream.  And it's not easy to be me..."

A wedding and a funeral

The Darryls have passed away.

Time of death was around 2:15, Saturday, September 25th. That's when the onset of wedded bliss stole the last gasps of air from Independent Wolfgang. Though honestly, Independent Wolfgang had been on life support for quite awhile. I mean he hadn't played golf since the spring, for crying out loud.

And without two Darryls, you really have no Darryls. It'd be like Bert with no Ernie, pancakes with no syrup, B.J. with no The Bear. Maybe that's why LJ didn't show up for the wedding. He claimed he had to work. But I wouldn't be surprised if it was all just too much to handle.

So RIP Darryls. It's the end of an era, and thus closes an entertaining, if occasionally disturbing, chapter of my life. But this is not my misty-water-colored-memories ode to the Darryls post. Oh no, that will come later, after a period of mourning. Besides, like I (would have) said in my wedding toast (had they asked me to make one), "This too shall pass."

In the end, I wasn't asked to be a groomsman -- there were no groomsmen. But I did attend, largely because the chapel was about three minutes from my place. And since I know many of you were deeply concerned about me possibly having to miss the Bama/Arkansas game, I have prepared a rudimentary timeline for you of the day's events:

1:45 PM - Arrive at chapel, see Wolfgang outside, pose for picture. What? No, I'm not family. Apparently I wasn't supposed to be in that picture.

1:47 PM - Enter wrong door. There were girls in dresses in there. What were they doing? I don't know. I heard giggling. Were they laughing at me? Hard to say. Close door.

1:48 PM - Find correct door. Enter and take seat near the back and at the end of the pew in case a quick exit becomes necessary.

1:50 PM - Have espn.com's gamecast pulled up on my Blackberry ready to go. I thought headphones would be too obvious. Seriously rethinking that right about now.

1:59 PM - I began to grow fidgety. When is this thing going to start? Why do weddings always start late?

2:00 PM - Music starts. Ah, that's what I'm talking about. Let's get this show on the road and get this poor bastard married off.

2:09 PM - Why is the unity candle song always so long? Everything is done, then the couple are standing there awkwardly for two-and-a-half minutes waiting for the song to end. All you're really doing is giving both of them time to rethink their decision. I mean, how long does it take to light three candles? Fifteen seconds. They should play Taps. That would be about the right length.

2:14 PM - I think about the parking lot. If someone has me blocked in there will be a crime committed today. Probably more than one.

2:20 PM - I do! And the congregation shouted "Hallelujah!" Or just I shouted, with my inside voice.

2:22 PM - What's this? The preacher is making some kind of announcement. The bride and groom will be back in a few minutes? In the meantime, entertain yourselves? OK, that's it, I'm outta here!

2:23 PM - Crap, here they come.

2:28 PM - Thinking I still have time to get some wedding cake, I work my way towards the reception area, and manage to nonchalantly break into the cake line, in front of the flower girls.

2:33 PM - Shake hands with Wolfgang. Wave goodbye to the bride. Simultaneously.

2:38 PM - Get home, turn on the TV, which I had purposely left on CBS in order to save precious seconds.

2:39 PM - They haven't kicked off yet! Vern Lundquist's face never looked so beautiful.

2:40 PM - 6:00 PM - A constant state of anxiety, interspersed with outbursts of cursing, table-banging, and brief moments of relief. (You'd think I was the one getting married.)

So to recap: Wolfgang got married. I was there -- for a little while. My coffee table is still in tact. And the Darryls are dead.

At least I have Nick Saban to console me on a weekly basis.

"Another chapter of my life its over. No, I'm never gonna feel like that again. Time's rushin' by me like the wind. Never be as young as I was then..."

On cases of interfaith marriage

I have a crisis.

You remember my friend Wolfgang, right? The Darryl who just got engaged? Well, as soon as he started dating this girl -- we'll call her Joy -- I began dropping subtle hints. Things like, "Just don't get married on the day of an Alabama game." OK, so maybe not so subtle. Whatever.

So when he texted me "she said yes" I texted him back, presenting him with three different Saturdays that Alabama was off this season and told him to pick one. I thought it was a helpful gesture.

Naturally, he (or more likely she) goes completely off course and picks a Saturday when they have a game. And a pretty big one at that, against Arkansas.

Sigh.

I don't understand. Bama only plays twelve (regular season) games a year. And this year, one's on a Thursday and another is on a Friday. So that's only like ten Saturdays you need to avoid. Is that too much to ask? Am I being unreasonable?

I even went out of my way to make a special exception and said that if they had to get married on the day of a game, then I would allow them to get married on the day of the Duke game. Even though that went against my entire being and everything I have been raised to believe. And that still wasn't enough. So you tell me who's being unreasonable.

What do they think, "don't get married on the day of an Alabama game" is just something folksy that people say in passing but don't really mean, like "good to see you" or "you better save for retirement?" That these stories about parents who didn't attend their child's wedding because it was on the day of the Alabama-Tennessee game are fables?

No. They're real.

They're passed down from generation to generation for a reason. And that reason is, so that you don't put innocent fans like myself into situations where we're forced to reveal where your friendship falls on our list of priorities. And it's not even so much your friendship, just your wedding.

LJ and I were discussing the situation during a sultry round of golf a couple of weeks ago when he informed me, "I think the last time Wolfgang got married, it was on the day of an Alabama game." Hello! You'd think that'd be a bad omen, wouldn't you? (Also, side note: Another bad omen? The Omen III.)

There is a sliver of hope, however, as they still haven't decided if they're having a wedding or just going to the courthouse. But I did get a text: "Hey, if we have a wedding will you be a groomsman?"

How did I respond? Well I, um, haven't exactly gotten around to replying yet. What? I don't deal well with hypotheticals.

What do I do? Can I really not go? What's the worst that can happen -- I'll be ostracized from the community? I gotta be honest with you, I'm not sure how much a part of the community I am in the first place.

I don't want to become known as the world's first groomsman-zilla here. But if these people are going to openly flout the rules, they are going to have to live with the consequences.

And this is precisely why it's never a good idea to marry outside the religion.

"Your best friend Harry has a brother Larry. In five days from now he's gonna marry. He's hopin' you can make it there if you can, 'cause in the ceremony you'll be the best man..."

In a summer swelter

I think I finally understand what that song means. Well, that line anyway. Well, that part of that line. If ever was a summer swelter, we are in it. All except for the minor detail that it's not quite yet officially summer. I golfed yesterday, was already glistening with sweat on the first hole, and by the end of the round my shirt was like you had dipped it in water.

We're in another one of those stretches of twenty days of temps in the nineties and heat indexes normally reserved for the surface of Mercury. I have a standard line that I use in times like these: "Cold enough for ya?" It gets a laugh like a tenth of the time, but it's a decent conversation starter. OK, maybe decent is too strong a word there.

Of course, leave it to me to get a cold in the midst of all this. How does that even happen? I caught it on a Wednesday night and kicked it by the following Tuesday.

Being sick did give me additional time to realize there is nothing to watch on TV. Not any sports I'm very interested in. Not a Newhart rerun. Nothing. Just the World Cup. When is that over? I want my ESPN back. I can get into pretty much any sport you throw out there -- curling, Australian Rules Football, I've even watched the National Scrabble Championships. But soccer? I'm sorry, it's just not happening. Oh well, just 77 more days 'til football season. And I'll be asleep for like 15 of those.

I wish I could blame my being sick for my lack of blogtivity. But let's face it, I've been mentally lamenting -- if that's possible -- the excruciatingly slow death of my blog for awhile now. I want to write, but either I have no inspiration or I get sidetracked playing Family Feud on Facebook while singing along to Rob Thomas on iTunes. (I can't believe I just admitted that. The Family Feud part, I mean.)

I need discipline. Someone to say, "Bone, you can't go out to play until you've done your homework." By "go out to play" I mean "retreat further from social interaction by playing games online." And by "done your homework" I mean "written for thirty minutes."

I thought about re-instituting my Blogtober rules for June, but decided I'd wait until at least August, as Blogust sounds better than... well, whatever Blog-plus-June would be. On the other hand, Blogust also sounds a little like one of the ten plagues.

We shall see. Meanwhile, if you Boggle online, hit me up. I'm "Bone" or "Roll Tide" on the 4x4 board.

Finally, I'd like to close today with a Father's Day anecdote. I had contacted Dad's wife earlier this week for some possible ideas for Father's Day gifts, hoping maybe to surprise him. That went something like this:

"Have you heard him say anything he might want or need for Father's Day?"

"Yeah, there are a couple of things he's mentioned."

Alright! I'm thinking. She continues.

"The band on his underwear tore the other night and he was going to buy some new ones but I told him Father's Day is coming up and the kids might get you some."

Short pause to wait for response. There is none.

"He wears the white briefs."

"OK. Anything else?"

"He also needs some of the Mach 3 razor blades."

Sigh. OK, first of all, I'm not buying tightie-whities for anybody, especially not anybody related to me. Second of all, this is exactly the same thing Dad asked for last Father's Day, except I think he also wanted batteries last year.

As the week wound down, my sister and I were still void of ideas, so I decided to just call Dad and ask him directly if there was anything he wanted.

"Ya'll don't have to get me anything. Just keep being my kids." His usual response.

"Dad, it's Father's Day. You know we are going to get you something, just as we have every Father's Day, lo, these many years."

"Well, I guess I could use some new underwear. Mine's got holes in them."

Audible sigh.

"I wear the white briefs."

Yes, Dad, I am aware. Some of my most vivid childhood memories are of you walking around the house at night in ONLY those white briefs. Everyone's father does that, right? Actually, you know what, don't answer that.

"Alright. Is there anything else you can think of?"

"Oh, you know what, there is something else I need."

Finally! At long last!

"Ya'll can get me some of those Mach 3 razor blades."


"Man, it's a hot one. Like seven inches from the midday sun..."

Cloud Ten

Christmas came two weeks late this year. Thursday night, exactly two weeks after Christmas Eve, the good St. Nick (Saban) delivered a national championship to every Bama boy and girl.

Needless to say, I was on Cloud Ten. Zoomed right past Cloud Nine. I mean, Cloud Nine is nice for being in love and things like that. But this -- this is more than just a simple matter of feeling an elevated sense of attraction to one of the other humans due to increased amounts of dopamine and serotonin in the brain.

This is a never-ending quest. Something I'd waited seventeen years for. My life's work. The result of all my years of worry and anxiety (with occasional, fleeting moments of relief and elation).

Since I had waited seventeen years for this game, I decided to watch it with those I'd spent the majority of those seventeen years with -- the Darryls. They're pretty used to "how I am" during the game.

The game was a bit of a roller-coaster, as most are. Bama got off to a slow start and fell behind 6-0, but it was still early so I wasn't suicidal... yet. Then the Tide dominated the 2nd quarter on their way to a 24-6 halftime lead and happy days were here again. I texted my sister at halftime:

"Are you happy?"
"Yeah. Our offense looks bad but we are winning. I wish McCoy was in though..."
"Wrong answer!!! You haven't won anything yet. You gotta act like the score is 0-0!!!"
"Sorry, Coach Saban."

Apparently our team thought this was the Super Bowl and that there was going to be an extended halftime show featuring The Who, because they never came out of the locker room in the 3rd quarter. Texas closed to 24-21. My phone rang, repeatedly. I didn't answer. With one quarter to play, I was inconsolable.

Coincidentally, I'd told someone before the game that in four hours, I'd either be utterly inconsolable or in a state of euphoria. There was no in between. Thankfully for those who have to put up with me on a semi-regular basis, the Tide turned in the 4th quarter. When Bama's Eryk Anders sacked the Texas quarterback, forcing a fumble that effectively ended the game, the euphoria ensued.

Final score: Bama 37, Texas 21.

Cloud Ten.

And let me just say, I've scarcely felt better in my life... without the aid of medication and/or a woman.

When something happens that means this much, how does one react?

You think about your momma, as good Southern boys should. You wonder how many times she has said "Thank you, Bear" and at what point she started crying.

You think about her and the other Bama fans who grew up with the Bear. And how the past seventeen years must have felt like a hundred to them. You're happier for them than you are for yourself.

You go somewhere, anywhere, to be around other Bama fans. The local Academy store opened at 11:00 Thursday night selling national championship shirts and caps. By the time they closed at 1:30 in the morning, over 2,000 people had bought merchandise.

The national championship trophy was on display Sunday at the Gardendale Walmart. (You couldn't make this stuff up.) No players or coaches were there -- just the trophy. An estimated 6,000 fans showed up to see it and have their picture taken with it. Hundreds more were turned away because the viewing was only scheduled to last three hours. In case you're wondering, I was not in either group, though I have no reasonable explanation why.

And you celebrate. This Saturday, an official celebration will be held at Bryant-Denny Stadium. The first 50,000 fans get a free poster, which I take to mean they're expecting over 50,000. I'm leaning towards going to this.

After all, any day in Tuscaloosa is a good day. No matter what cloud you're on.

"They got a name for the winners in this world. I want a name when I lose. They call Alabama the Crimson Tide. Call me Deacon Blues..."

A Trans-Siberian update

I'm sipping on my second cup of hot chocolate of the evening, listening to Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Anytime I hear someone say how nothing good came from of the fall of the Soviet empire, I remind them of TSO.

Sometimes I get really into the music and start pretending I'm conducting the orchestra with a series of emphatic arm movements. I don't know if I'm conducting correctly. But according to Wikipedia, "There are no absolute rules on how to conduct correctly, and a wide variety of different conducting styles exist." So I would venture to say that I'm pretty close.

Occasionally, it gets so intense that I go straight from conducting to playing air guitar behind my head, then I transition seamlessly into air piano. It's a sight to behold. It's like Slash meets "Flight of the Bumblebee" meets Billy Joel.

As you may have heard by now (or read in the comments to my last post), my beloved Crimson Tide are the SEC Champions in football following a 32-13 victory over the Florida Gators. We also had the first Heisman Trophy winner in school history. 'Tis a good year to be a Bama fan.

I'm trying to enjoy this incredible run of success, I really am. Things are going so well. Maybe a little too well? It's making me nervous. I don't like to be the favorite, the talk of the town, the cat's meow, the bee's knees. I'd rather be the cat's hack, or the bee's thorax. I'm much more comfortable being the underdog. That's probably why one of my favorite cartoon characters was Underdog. Also, I like Eric Cartman, Handy Smurf and Rocky (of ...and Bullwinkle fame).

Now it is on to Pasadena to play for the national championship. Bama's last national championship came in the 1992 season. Then, I was nineteen -- full of hope, dreams, and theoretically, a future. Now, I'm thirty-six -- a solitary man with a messy apartment who sits online playing Scrabble, swapping pictures with friends of nieces and nephews, and mostly avoiding interaction with the other humans. Football is all I have. OK, so it's always been all I have, but it wasn't so obvious back then.

Between now and then, it looks like Bone's 5th Annual Festivus For The Rest Of Us will take place. This, despite my perpetual indecision and general disdain for committing to things more than three days out. The past couple of years, I've been thinking maybe this is the year I won't do it. Then invariably, people start asking about it. First, it's one person. Then two. Then -- well, two's pretty much all it takes. By that time, I've begun printing out the lyrics to Silver Pole and reminiscing about Festivi past.

And so, in the immortal words of Frank Costanza, "Festivus is back! I'll get the pole out of the crawlspace."

"There'll be meatloaf, maybe pizza, at the Festivus meal. After grievances aired, hearts are heavy. Then it's time for feats of strength, it's Frank Costanza's big scene. Festivus won't be o'er till someone's pinned..."

Thanksgiving revisited

I was googling "can you put tennis shoes in the dryer?" last evening when it hit me, I should probably look into getting a life. But more than that, I needed to blog. So here goeth.

It may seem odd, and a bit late, to blog about Thanksgiving on the Thursday following the holiday, but perhaps it is closer to keeping with tradition than you think. I mean, do you really think the Pilgrims got up Friday morning and blogged? No, they got up early and waited for the morning news courier to ride into town so they could get the latest on the John Alden horse-accident scandal -- aka the story that "rock"-ed Plymouth. (Source: Bone's Revisionist History of the 1600's: Vol. 34.)

Alden claimed it was a private matter, but there were too many questions. I mean, who's going for a ride around the village at 9:15 PM? Unless your name is Paul Revere and the British are indeed on their way, it's a little bit odd. And an auger in the bridle? How does that even happen?

Thanksgiving with the Bones may not have been historically significant nor had as much media coverage as some, but it was no less special. Breakfast at Dad's has become the tradition for Thanksgiving morning in recent years. It sort of has a "Breakfast At Wimbledon" ring to it, and is every bit as classy. If we had our own reality show, you would have learned on this week's episode that the Bones prefer their eggs scrambled and Mountain Dew is the beverage of choice.

For lunch, I went with a bit of non-traditional fare, enjoying some Chef Boyardee Beefaroni. It wound up being just enough to tide me over until dinner at Mom's. The menu there was turkey and ham, dressing, cranberry sauce, green beans, macaroni & cheese, cucumber salad, corn on the cob, coleslaw and mashed potatoes, with strawberry pretzel for dessert. (Once again, no cherry pie. I bet Marie Callender's family had cherry pie.)

Friday was the annual Alabama/Auburn game, also known as the day you don't schedule your wedding or funeral, that is if you actually want anyone to show up. (Personally, I don't believe you should schedule them on any day when there's a game, but then again I was raised strict orthodox Bama, so I'm old school like that.) The good guys pulled out an exciting 26-21 victory, turning Black Friday into Crimson Friday, and making my momma cry.

It's so easy to take for granted these holidays, time with family, and always having plenty to eat. But Thanksgivings and Christmases seem to get here faster every year. And they never last long enough. Already it's December. I swear I don't know where the years get off to anymore.

I just remembered one more little anecdote from the weekend. After Breakfast at Dad's, he and I were in the garage putting a new hood lift support thingy on my Jeep. He gave me his annual ya'll-don't-spend-too-much-on-me-for-Christmas-this-year speech. Then waxing philosophical said, "Son, the older you get, the less important gifts become. What I really appreciate about the holidays is all of us just getting to spend time together."

Which I took to mean that Santa will not be bringing Bone a new laptop this year.

"Eat that turkey all night long. Fifty million Elvis fans can't be wrong. Turkey lurkey doo and turkey lurkey dap. I eat that turkey then I take a nap..."

Don't be happy, just worry

Do you know what it's like to have no control over a relationship? You're anxious and sick to your stomach all the time. And even when you have a good day, you worry about what might go wrong the next time. Do you know what that's like?

Well, I sure do. I saw this quote online last week and found it really appropriate for my situation:

"What happens to you when you're like that is that you don't enjoy what you accomplish because you live in a constant state of anxiety with small moments of relief. And that's something that just doesn't change."

The quote is from one, Nicholas Lou Saban, relatively unknown in relationship guru circles but somewhat of an expert on the 3-4 defense and pattern-matching pass defense. Upon reading it, I immediately copied and pasted it in an email to Axl with the subject line "THIS is exactly how I feel...EVERY GAME!" I'm referring, of course, to my relationship with Alabama football.

"A constant state of anxiety with small moments of relief." Nothing could sum up my experience of watching a Bama game better than those ten words. I basically said as much last year, when I wrote that watching a game was "95% anxiety, 5% elation and relief." In hindsight, I may have overestimated the elation and relief percentage.

Saturday's game was an exercise in frustration. We couldn't score a touchdown. By the 4th quarter, I had pretty much stopped cheering. Everyone around me was cheering, but there I stood with arms folded, completely sick about how we had played on offense. I even asked my sister at one point in the 4th quarter if she was ready to leave because, quote, "I'm tired of watching this. This is pitiful." And this was when we were WINNING 12 to 3!

I also invoked a new rule mid-game Saturday, telling my sister I was no longer cheering for field goals. I want touchdowns! Then I forgot and cheered when we hit a 50-yarder in the 4th quarter.

"I thought you weren't gonna cheer for field goals," she asked, ever the observant one. And that is when I, ever the master of making up the rules as I go, wrote and passed the first amendment to the Field Goal Act of 2009.
"Oh... alright, I'm only cheering if they're fifty-plus yards or game-winners."

Why does it always have to be like this for me? Can't I just be happy that we scored at all, that we're ahead in the game? Apparently not. If we're not looking particularly good doing it, then I'm griping about the problems we're having and "well we might beat Tennessee, but if we play like this we'll never beat LSU."

But it's the coach's job to worry, not mine. I'm a fan. I should be enjoying this. So why do I continue to go through the same thing, every game, every season, every year of my life?

Things had been on the verge of turning disastrous Saturday night. Leading 12-10 with seconds to play, our opponents lined up to attempt what would have been the game-winning field goal. Then, as my mother would say (and probably was saying) the Bear looked down on us. Our defense blocked the field goal as time expired and sent everyone in crimson home happy.

Well, maybe not everyone.

All I want is complete and total domination for four quarters and for the other team not to score. Is that too much to ask?

I suppose maybe there's a 12-step program for people like me. The problem is I really have no desire to get better. I wouldn't know how to act without this thing to care about and pour every ounce of my emotion into. Sure it might be unhealthy, but I need this! And let's face it, with my deep-seated mommy issues this is more than likely the only kind of relationship I will ever know.

"And it makes me think there must be something wrong with me. Out of all the hours, thinking somehow I've lost my mind. I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell..."

Ten fingers none the poorer

As Blogtober passes the halfway mark, I've managed to write every day except one. I didn't get home from the Bama game until after 1:30 this morning and was just too worn out to try and write. Maybe I can write an hour or more tomorrow to make up for it. You know, double up on my prescription. That's always worked really well for me with pain medication.

Parking is always an issue at the Bama games. The place we'd parked the past two years was turned into an RV lot a few weeks ago. So at the last game, we paid ten bucks to park over a mile away from the stadium. Thing is, I have a little issue with paying for parking, more specifically, paying to park over a mile away from the event. I adhere to the George Costanza theory, which is loosely translated (or exactly as he said it word-for-word): "It's like going to a prostitute. Why should I pay, when if I apply myself, maybe I could get it for free?"

So through talking to a few people and Google-mapping the area, we found a new place to park yesterday, for free. And mostly legal.

Last night was also the first cold-weather Bama game. The low temperature was in the upper 30's, which was a problem for me because I couldn't remember how 38 degrees feels. It's been so long since last winter, plus how often am I out in the cold for four or five hours? Two, three times a year, max? Thus, I wasn't sure what to wear.

What we need is a program where you enter the expected temperature and wind speed along with how long you're going to be outside, and it would tell you what to wear.

For example, I'd input 38 degrees at 10 mph for 4 hours, and it would spit out: "ear muffs or a toboggan, gloves, wool socks (preferably Argyle), thermal underwear, long pants, and a long-sleeved shirt under either a sweatshirt or a stylish cardigan." (Speaking of, whatever happened to The Cardigans? Love me, love me, saaaay that you love me...)

My device could be called the Outfit Forecaster. Maybe I could somehow combine it with my Outfit Flow Chart of a couple years back. That would seriously cut down on the amount of mental energy I expend each day trying to figure out what to wear. Then I would have more time and energy to spend pondering important issues such as, well, whatever happened to the Cardigans.

In the end, I think the ensemble I chose for the game worked out OK, except that I didn't bring any gloves. Also, the band of my thermal underwear got a little itchy. Sometime during second quarter, one of my fingers started going numb. (This had to do with the gloves, not the underwear.) I looked down and all my other fingers were flesh-colored, but this one was a scary yellowish-white.

I might have had a brief, mostly internal panic attack. I'm too young to have circulation problems! How will I blog?! I showed it to my sister and she said, and I quote, "You're probably gonna get gangrene and your finger will fall off. You should have put plastic bags on your hands. Didn't Dad ever teach you anything?"

Fortunately, I returned home with all my digits. And now I remember quite well how 38 degrees feels. In mid-October, nonetheless.

Welcome to Alabama: The new North Dakota.

"This evening has been, been hoping that you'd drop in, so very nice. I'll hold your hands, they're just like ice..."

As autumn stirs

Autumn arrived on a Monday this year, not according to some number on a wall, but just as she always does, with a familiar and unmistakable change in the air. A certain chill which serves notice that while winter may not be imminent, it is also not all that far away.

Autumn is a reminder. First, of autumns gone before. Then, of itself, of all the things that autumn is--windy days, a high school football game, Halloween and Thanksgiving, trees surrendering their leaves in grand displays of oranges, yellows and reds as the Earth slowly falls to sleep.

The autumn wind seems to stir up a rustle of memories. I think of Homecoming dances and driving my Ford Escort to school, rolling yards and backyard football games. I think of camping out, singing every song we could think of, and no one complaining when I broke into my beyond bad falsetto to sing "Sherry, Baby." I think of girls I knew and almost knew. And I think of jumping into big piles of leaves as a kid, and Thanksgivings when everybody I loved was still here.

Every year has one and only one, that first day of chill in the air when summer finally relents, knowing its hottest days have been spent.

There's a comfortableness. And yet something nostalgic. It's nothing you can grasp or hold in your hand. Just something you feel, and know, without being able to explain.

Summer is freedom--sunglasses and a smile. Winter is harsh and lonesome. Spring holds promise of things new and fresh, and the hope of something better.

But autumn?

Autumn remembers.

"The last time I saw her it was turning colder, but that was years ago. Last I heard, she had moved to Boulder. But where she's now I don't know..."

Here comes the sun

Riddle me this: Somewhere in Alabama today, a three-week-old child asks, "What's that in the sky, Dad?" "That's the sun," is the reply. The child had never seen it. Smart kid? Well, he was talking at three weeks. On the other hand, he didn't know what the sun was. Also, the dad was the child's mother. So maybe not so smart after all.

The sun finally came out here today, for the first time in three weeks. Thank goodness, too, because the constant cloudiness and gray was starting to fool my body into thinking it was winter. Which would have put me in danger of catching a case of the non-seasonal Januarys. Which is rare, not to mention more resistant than the regular Januarys.

How bad has it been? During a recent performance of Annie, when they got to the line "The sun will come out tomorrow" an angry audience member stood up and yelled, "You lie!"

Twenty-two consecutive days with rain combined with the Darryls each somehow acquiring a girlfriend has also cut into my already less-than-sterling golf game, er, social life. And when you add to that the fact that football is now on TV every night of the week but Tuesday and Wednesday, well let's just say that I don't get out much.

This makes it all the more difficult to understand how I missed the season premiere of The Office last week. Fortunately, you can watch everything online now, which precludes any need that I might have had to purchase one of those newfangled DVR players, for now anyway. Is this a good time to admit that I may or may not still use a VCR to record things on occasion?

It's hard for me to commit to very many TV shows at one time. They're like girls. I can only handle so many. There's a long-term obligation involved, not to mention the emotional strain some of these shows put on me. I watch Mad Men and Burn Notice when I remember, which usually winds up being about once every three weeks. Always The Office. And then parts of General Hospital during the day. I can't commit to any more. Pretty soon I've spread myself too thin and no one's happy.

Getting back to the Darryls, what is up with the girlfriends? I watched the Newhart series finale. I don't recall the Darryls ever getting married. Did I miss something?

Maybe it's time for me to spread my wings, move to Seattle and have my own show, a la Frasier Crane. It would be a spin-off--a reality series about Larry trying to make it on his own, sans the Darryls. It could be called Just Larry.

Is this the end of life as I know it...with the Darryls? Would you cry? Will I?

Stay tuned.

"Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear. Here comes the sun. Here comes the sun. And I say it's all right..."

Let the screaming commence

It has been eight months since I stumbled out of the Superdome and onto those enticing streets of New Orleans in my Julio Jones jersey--naive, distraught, and in search of guidance.

Eight months of work, sleep, golf, sleep, fantasy baseball, sleep.

Eight months. Almost as long as the human gestation period and twice as painful.

But at last, it is here: the start of the college football season.

College football to me is the creme inside a Double Stuff basketball and baseball Oreo. It's like the part of Oprah where she tells you to look under your chair and find out what she's giving you for free. (I don't know what the rest of the show is for anyway.) It's the time in a Dexy's Midnight Runners concert when they sing "Come On Eileen." It's like fast money on Family Feud.

When I was little, I would sit through twenty minutes of face-off questions, bad guesses and Richard Dawson kissing people just for five minutes of pure unadulterated exhilaration. I used to wonder why there wasn't a show that was all fast money. They could call it Just Fast Money. Where have you gone, Mark Goodson?

Let me see if I can explain a bit better.

For eight months out of the year, I am mostly just coasting. Just kind of existing. Some days it's hard to tell if I'm even alive. Sure, I may take a couple of trips to the beach, play countless rounds of golf, and feign interest in socializing with others, but these are really just ways of passing the time until football season.

But for these next four months? I'm happy. I have a life. I'll hear from friends I rarely if ever hear from the other eight months of the year. Because that's what football does. It brings people together. And it gives me something to talk about with people with whom I evidently have nothing else in common.

Allow me to close with one last anecdote.

For me, college football is the roller coaster of the sports amusement park. Sure the ferris wheel, swings, and water rides are nice. But people don't drive a thousand miles to ride the swings. They drive a thousand miles to hop on Kingda Ka.

You scream, you cry, you try not to pee yourself.

That's college football in a nutshell.

"These people 'round here, with beaten down eyes sunken smoke dried faces so resigned to what their fate is. But not us, no never. No, not us, no never. We are far too young and clever..."

The time I boycotted ESPN (for one day)

You know that girl you keep breaking up with? At first, you start to miss her and do anything to get her back. So she takes you back, once maybe twice, but it's never quite the same. Then after a couple of times, you just don't care anymore. The very sight of her makes you nauseous. Her voice makes you want to jab a toothpick into your pupil and see what oozes out. You start to avoid her calls hoping she'll eventually fade out of your life completely. You can't believe you ever thought you loved her in the first place.

Brett Favre is that girl.

Let me tell you a little story. Every day of my life since we first got ESPN on our cable, circa 1981, I have done three things: breathe, sleep, and watch ESPN. (Shower? No, I've skipped a lazy Saturday here and there. Sorry, but it's true. Eat? Nope. See "stomach virus of 2007.")

Today, I can no longer say that. Because yesterday, I boycotted ESPN.

Why? Because I'm sick of hearing about Brett Favre. And I knew that was all they would be talking about. Oh yes, if Favre stubs his toe, ESPN has a reporter at the scene. Brett got a bad peach today at Joe's fruit stand? They're on it. Brett woke up feeling all emotional this morning? It's their top story.

You know what I wish? You know how when you're watching a game and some spirited (and possibly nude) fan runs onto the field, they never show the fan on camera so as not to give them the attention they so crave? I wish they would do that to Favre. Oh, you're coming back? You're not coming back? You're working out shirtless at some high school in Mississippi? We. Don't. Care.

Of course, that'll never happen. Which is why I was reduced last night to watching Nutella commercials, reruns of Married...With Children, and the episode of South Park where Cartman starts a christian rock band. ("It worked for Creed.") Thank goodness I had the forethought to only impose a one-day boycott.

Maybe if my afternoons didn't revolve around ESPN, this wouldn't even be an issue. Oh great, now I'm over-analyzing my own empty life. All because Mister Center-Of-The-Universe can't make up his ever-lovin' mind.

And it's not like I'm not sympathetic to indecisiveness. Au contraire. Heck, this morning I spent five minutes trying to decide whether I should wear this shirt or my other clean shirt. But this has gotten ridiculous. I don't need a play-by-play of every single thought and inclination Brett Favre has and every little thing he does.

That's why there's Twitter.

"Set me free, why don't you, babe? Get out my life, why don't you, babe? Cause you don't really love me. You just keep me hangin' on..."

National Signing Day

Yesterday was National Signing Day. It's the day that high school seniors announce whether they'll be coming to play for Bama or not next year. It's a big day around here. Some people have even been known to take off work.

One local headline I saw yesterday read: "Make Signing Day A National Holiday." And while there's absolutely no truth to the rumors that I started that grass roots campaign, I could not agree more. It's hard to imagine that workplace productivity was very high yesterday. I had four or five browser tabs open most of the day. I was emailing, texting, and watching live press conferences online.

National Signing Day is the college football equivalent of Election Day. Rivals.com is my cnn.com/politics. ESPN2's Todd McShay and Tom Luginbill are my John King and Bill Schneider. Unfortunately, there is no football recruiting equivalent for Campbell Brown.

Around 2:30 PM, word came down the pike that the battle for 2009 National Recruiting Champion was down to a two-team race between LSU and my beloved Crimson Tide. It all hinged on one final announcement. The #2 rated running back in the country. He was scheduled to announce his intentions at 4 PM. Say it with me. Yes. We. Can.

What follows is a crude timeline of the events occurring between 3:54 PM and 4:12 PM yesterday afternoon:

3:54 PM - My sister calls. She has the link for the live press conference online, but it's blocked from her place of employment. "Watch it and let me know what he says."

3:55 PM - I log into the live feed. There is a counter that says there are currently more than 15,000 people watching online.

3:56 PM - The female portion of Kywana IMs me. She's watching, too.

4:02 PM - The press conference still hasn't begun. My sister calls again.

"Has he announced?"
"No. All I see is a table, five empty chairs, and a bunch of microphones."
"Oh. I read online that his mother's car stalled so that's why it's running late.
(At this point, I cannot express to you the pride I feel about my little sister.)

4:03 PM - I am a giant bundle of nerves. I call Axl just to have someone to chatter to.

4:08 PM - People start arriving at the table. The press conference is beginning. The counter says there are now more than 23,000 people logged on.

4:09 PM - My sister beeps in. I click over and stay on the phone with her. Blood is thicker than water. Here it comes...

4:10 PM - "YES!!! YES!!! YES!!!!" I begin to yell as he makes the announcement that he is "gonna roll with Alabama." Booyah!

4:12 PM - Axl calls. "What happened?" Whoops, forgot I was on the phone with him.

And so, for the second year in a row, Bama wins the recruiting national championship. Not quite the same as the real on-field national championship, but something to cheer about nonetheless.

OK, I'm off to google image Campbell Brown or something. We now return you to your regularly scheduled February sports programming of Winter X-Games and the NBA regular season.

Yawn.

"If we took a holiday, took some time to celebrate, just one day out of life, it would be, it would be so nice..."

Now entering sports purgatory

The Super Bowl is over. (How's that for a snazzy opening line to catch your attention, pique your interest, and leave you salivating for more?)

I just couldn't get excited about the game this year. No Brady. No Mannings--even though I root against them. No America's team. No perfect season on the line. No gratuitous luxury box shots of Kim Kardashian. (Even though I prefer Kourtney but she's not currently dating any NFL players that I know of.)

Don't get me wrong, it turned out to be a nice little game. But still, the Cardinals versus the Steelers? Maybe in years like this they should change the name from Super Bowl to the Best We Have To Offer Bowl. Or the As Good As It Gets Bowl. Jack Nicholson could have been a guest commentator. You can't handle the truth, Al Michaels!!

Anyway, returning to the line that titillated your senses to begin this post, the Super Bowl is over. We now enter February, or as I like to call it, sports purgatory. Football is over. Fantasy baseball doesn't start until April. Basketball isn't relevant until March Madness. And... did I mention football is over?

It has been said that in the South there are but two seasons: football and spring football. I understand and appreciate the sentiment. But calling spring football a season is kinda like calling the cute girl who smiled at me at a red light yesterday my girlfriend. It's wishful thinking and in the end leaves you with a hollow feeling. Not to mention some girls get all hostile about it.

I've been trying to fill the empty spaces. Last week, I watched some tennis--the Australian Open. I like tennis. It's probably among my top thirty sports to watch. But there's only so many times I can watch Serena Williams pound another hapless opponent into submission, or Andy Roddick fall short yet again. Plus, apparently Sharapova is injured. Would it kill them to scroll that across the screen continuously instead of letting me watch three hours of Macros Bagdhatis versus Novak Djokovic before mentioning it?

One thing that always amuses me about tennis is the little "sorry about that" gesture that every player gives anytime a ball clips the net cord. The entire match, they're rocketing 120 mph serves at each other, grunting, yelling, occasionally cursing the chair umpire. But let a ball clip the net cord, and suddenly they turn into gentle lambs with that little apologetic wave. Sorry about that. I didn't mean for the ball to trickle over the net. Actually, my original intention was to permanently embed the ball in your eye socket with my ferocious forehand.

Another undertaking that I have... undertaken to fill the current sports abyss is to try and lead the Chicago Bulls to the NBA Championship on Tecmo NBA Basketball. That's right, the ol' Nintendo. That seemed like a perfectly normal way for a 35-year-old male to kill some time.

The season got off to a rocky start with a loss as I had to refamiliarize myself with which button was jump/shoot and which button was pass/change defenders. Since then, I am on a 30-game winning streak, as evidenced in fig. 1.1 below.


(fig. 1.1: Bone rulz)

Our next game is against the Miami Heat. And I think we all know what that means. That's right. The Heat feature the formidable inside/outside combination of Glen Rice and Rony Seikaly. Oh, did I mention it's the 1991-92 NBA season?

I'm helping the Chicago Bulls relive their glory days! Craig Hodges has been raining three's like it's 1991. Oh, right, that's because it is. Just fifty-one games to go in the regular season. I figure I should be able to knock that out by Valentine's Day.

Two days into sports purgatory, and this is what I have been reduced to.

"Time slips away and leaves you with nothing, mister, but boring stories of glory days. Hey, they'll pass you by. Glory days, in the wink of a young girl's eye..."

Thirty-six reasons to be thankful

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It was a perfect weekend here. Thursday was Thanksgiving (you know, in case you somehow missed that), I took off work Friday, I golfed, and I attended the Bama game on Saturday.

But there could have been a massive cranberry shortage causing them to cancel Thanksgiving. Golf could have been rained out. I could have had to work over finishing up my TPS reports. And it still would have been perfect.

Why? I can answer that question with two words and two numbers.

Alabama 36, Auburn 0.

That's right. The magical mystery season continued Saturday with a thrashing of our cross-state rivals. They're calling it the Beatdown In T-Town. And who am I to argue? Nothing short of Jason Morgan leaving General Hospital could have made this weekend anything less than perfect.

To fully convey what the Alabama/Auburn game means to persons in this state would be impossible. For many years, the success and tradition of the Crimson Tide served as a source of pride for the state. College football is king here. "Are you for Alabama or Auburn?" is literally a more popular conversation topic than discussing the weather. Why, I posed that very question to a cute waitress at my favorite theme restaurant this past Friday night. When you add to that the fact that you are playing your in-state rival--whose fans you have to see Sunday morning at church or Monday at work--suffice it to say that it's a big game.

Alabama and Auburn first played one another in football in 1893, without helmets!!! (Oh, wait a second. Apparently no one played with helmets back then.) The teams played eleven times between 1893-1907, before a dispute between the schools caused the series to end. The teams would not play again until 1948.

During the forty year hiatus--which by the grace of God I was not alive for--several attempts were made to resume the series. At one time, Alabama's Board of Trustees was against the resumption, saying that an Auburn-Alabama rivalry would lead to an overemphasis of football in the state of Alabama. Hmm, ya think?

When I was but a lad, and Alabama would beat Auburn, we would load up in the car and drive to a sporting goods store thirty minutes away. There we would stand in line with anywhere from thirty to fifty other fans waiting for "score shirts" from the game to literally roll off the press.

The "score shirts" would obviously have the score of the game, and usually some really cheesy slogan. The one that sticks out in my mind for some reason is "No Sugar Bowl Cause The Tide Did Roll." (cringe) And we bought these. And wore them. Proudly.

Nowadays when we beat Auburn I'm just exorbitantly happy. And if we lose, I typically go into my room, bury my head in a pillow, and refuse to answer the phone or have any contact with the outside world for two or three hours. I'm so glad I've matured over the years.

As I stated earlier, to fully convey what the Alabama/Auburn game means to the people of this state would be impossible. Though perhaps the following scene can shed a bit of light.

One of the popular outbound routes from Tuscaloosa is Highway 13. It's a two-lane road that winds around curves and over hills. Over about a sixty-mile stretch there are maybe four gas stations, a couple of roadside diners, and not much else.

Coming home Saturday night, there was an uncommon sight in front of one of the diners. Out near the road, in the light of one of those yellow portable marquee signs, two women and three children were standing. Thirty miles from anywhere, at 8 o'clock at night, there they were. Just standing and waving at the train of cars traveling home from the game.

We honked as we passed by. Because though it might be impossible to put into words, somehow we understood why they were out there. And as strange as it might have seemed to someone else, to us it made perfect sense.

"Go roll to victory. Hit your stride. You're Dixie's football pride, Crimson Tide..."

The man in the red suit

I intended to post this yesterday, but I never could get it to come out right, so I decided to scrap it. Then when I went running tonight, instead of counting my steps to 100 and making sure I took exactly five steps on the short bridge and eight on the longer one, all I could think about was this post. I came home and wrote it, though I'm still not sure it came out right.

The first thing you notice about the man in the red suit is his outfit. The bright red coat, pants and tophat would stand out almost anywhere. But especially so on a steamy afternoon near summer's end, at a football game. That is when I first saw him.

Everyone else wore shorts or at least short-sleeves, except for the man in the red suit. He walked alone and at his own pace, a bit slower than the rest of the crowd. He seemed to be the definition of the phrase "in his own world."

Almost subconsciously, I filed him away in my mind as just an eccentric old black man. But as the weeks passed, I came to realize the man in the red suit was fairly well known around town. Or at least recognized. A couple of people even knew his name. And I began to ask questions.

Everything I know about the man in the red suit comes from things others have said. He draws a check from the government. He is always behind on his bills, but he pays them the best he can. No one seems to know if he has any family, but they have witnessed him speaking to his imaginary friend. And of course, there's the suit. No matter the season, no matter the weather, there is always the suit.

Casually and not really expecting an answer, one day I asked why he was the way he was. The answer came back in a single word.

Vietnam.

It was spoken as if that one word should explain it all away--the curious attire, the imaginary friend, the struggling to make it on a fixed income. As if I am to accept it as that's just the way it is.

Vietnam.

And with that, my view of the man in the red suit forever changed. Instantly, I had great respect and admiration for him. And albeit from afar, I felt a certain compassion for him. Anytime I see him now, it touches a soft place in my heart.

I also grew much more curious about the man in the red suit. I wonder about his life. I wonder if he has any family. When the fighter jets fly over before kickoff, does he get tears in his eyes like me? I wonder what he thinks about. Then I'm thankful I don't know.

Most of all, when I think about him struggling to pay his bills, I can't help but wonder if the country he risked his life for has turned its back on him.

A few weeks ago, I spotted the man in the red suit inside the stadium. He was sitting just a couple sections over from us. The crowd began to do the wave and I watched anxiously to see if he would participate. He didn't stand up, but did raise one arm as the wave passed by. I smiled.

The first thing you notice about the man in the red suit is his outfit. And that's OK. I think he has more than earned the right to wear anything he would like. But if that's all you notice, you're missing a lot.

On gameday, many fans put Bama flags on their cars. They fit on the side windows and most people have two flags, one on the driver's side and one on the passenger's side. At the most recent game, I saw the man in the red suit in his car. (Out of 92,000 people, we had parked in the same lot. Go figure.)

He had a Bama flag on one side.

And an American flag on the other.

"Some stood through for the red, white, and blue, and some had to fall. If you ever think of me, think of all your liberties and recall, some gave all..."