We are getting tantalizingly close to the opening day of the season...the first of twelve precious games. In the meantime we've got some business to sort out. Originally I had thought about lettin' y'all choose your own teams but, why fight against every tyrannical fiber in my being when I can just assign teams by fiat?
So, Adam you get Georgia...the Georgia (White English) Bulldogs.*
A little GunsnRoses to ease you into it. At the 2:50 mark...Sweeeet Caroline!
Their Southern credentials are untouchable. They got the money...they got the fans...they got the facilities...it's the Empire State of The South baybay! They've got Tradition... the hedges, Larry Munson...The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party and they're one half of The Deep South's Oldest Rivalry.
As a clincher, only at Ole Miss will you find more fashionable fans (ironically the worst dressed reader...I mean beyond bad...already has Ole Miss. He's got a graduate degree from the place...Dr. Allan). You can finally break those red chinos out of the closet Adam.
Only drawback is they have rarely lived up to their potential. Given the allocation of resources Georgia not Alabama** should be the Bell Cow of the SEC but for various and whatever reasons it has not been the case. The fact that they've only beaten the Gators, who they used to own with heartbreaking regularity, three times in the last 20 years has not helped.
Their oldest rival may be Auburn and they've got a heated one with Georgia Tech in Atlanta but, it's this game with the Gators that matters the most...matters more than anything else. Pitting me against you...we've been there before :).
Should you accept this dictate..you have to begin all posts concerning the SEC by stating that "Gators Wear Jean Shorts." It's a reference to the atrocious wardrobe of most Gator fans.***
http://www.gatortailgating.com/content/the-real-story-behind-gators-wear-jean-shorts
*This is all very tongue and cheek...obviously you don't have to participate but, why fight it when it's so much fun and there will be so many opportunities to talk trash...why would you pass that up? Plus there's going to be a lot of it here in the coming months..and I just want to give y'all a reason to still log on (that won't be all there is but, it'll show). And there will be give aways...for the person with the first and last team in each division and something special for the "fan" of the team that wins the conference. Probably an autographed screen shot of me flexing my muscles for the blog.
** Speaking of Alabama...do we have a reader from Yorkshire?
*** It's a universal taunt in the SEC now...I'll never forget walking to the car after a loss to Auburn, being harassed by a fella jumping up and down on the roof of his truck waving a pair of cutoffs around. This isn't the funniest taunt though...LSU Fans Smell Like Corndogs...takes that prize.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
Hard at Work - Part 2. On the Frayed Edges.
This week's Fight for Right..."against Psychos and the uf-O's"...ended in Friar's Point.
North of Clarkesdale, up against the Mississippi River, at the scruffy edges of the state, you'll find Friar's Point.
It was after five Friday evening when I followed my colleague into town on what can barely be described as a lane. On one side over hanging tree limbs threaten to completely obscure the forward view...on the other, the fields grow menacingly close to the Purple, Baby Blue, Black and Maroon clapboard shacks.
The closeness breaks at the first intersection on an abandoned building that takes up almost an entire block. Through the vine choked cyclone fence you can see into shattered windows vegetation steadily at work reclaiming the plot...across the street, in a dirt yard sits an old black man in a rocking chair staring through a lazy eye at his fence. A six foot tall fence made of old vehicle and engine parts.
It shouldn't come as any great surprise that those desperate, threatening and disturbingly seductive sounds have roots in a place like Friar's Point.
The place isn't dead. Just before I took that photo a fresh-faced black teenage couple zoomed by on a four wheeler but, the constant presence of the levy reminds you that the town literally sits on the edge of disaster. The place is a material expression of fatalism...
Of course....
...every natural and unholy disaster from yankees to tornadoes have taken their shots at the town.
On the way out I passed two youngish black males having a lively discussion with a tiny southeast Asian woman sitting on a milk crate.
That's Friars Point...that's The Delta.
North of Clarkesdale, up against the Mississippi River, at the scruffy edges of the state, you'll find Friar's Point.
It was after five Friday evening when I followed my colleague into town on what can barely be described as a lane. On one side over hanging tree limbs threaten to completely obscure the forward view...on the other, the fields grow menacingly close to the Purple, Baby Blue, Black and Maroon clapboard shacks.
The closeness breaks at the first intersection on an abandoned building that takes up almost an entire block. Through the vine choked cyclone fence you can see into shattered windows vegetation steadily at work reclaiming the plot...across the street, in a dirt yard sits an old black man in a rocking chair staring through a lazy eye at his fence. A six foot tall fence made of old vehicle and engine parts.
It shouldn't come as any great surprise that those desperate, threatening and disturbingly seductive sounds have roots in a place like Friar's Point.
The place isn't dead. Just before I took that photo a fresh-faced black teenage couple zoomed by on a four wheeler but, the constant presence of the levy reminds you that the town literally sits on the edge of disaster. The place is a material expression of fatalism...
Of course....
...every natural and unholy disaster from yankees to tornadoes have taken their shots at the town.
On the way out I passed two youngish black males having a lively discussion with a tiny southeast Asian woman sitting on a milk crate.
That's Friars Point...that's The Delta.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Radio Grown Folks - "Get Up Daddy...
I wanna hear some Bo Diddley."
He'd hauled himself up on to the bed rail by grabbing my arm. Then he pulled the pillow off my face, I turned toward him and with his nose almost touching mine he says..."COME ON."
That's how my day started. That is my son.
The morning's play list....for your joy and enlightenment.
As always...you're welcome but, thank The Boy.
He'd hauled himself up on to the bed rail by grabbing my arm. Then he pulled the pillow off my face, I turned toward him and with his nose almost touching mine he says..."COME ON."
That's how my day started. That is my son.
The morning's play list....for your joy and enlightenment.
As always...you're welcome but, thank The Boy.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Hard at Work
I meant to post Adam's Georgia Bulldog thread last night and I've got a compelling argument why ISBW should take South Carolina but....I was so busy and loaded down with work yesterday, obviously, that I was just too pooped when I got in last night. That's just how it is in The Delta.
Started in the lovely village of Satartia but spent most of the day in Rolling Fork...Home of this fella...
We'll get back to it...once I catch my breath.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Who's Winning?
The most vivid memories I have from childhood involve Gator football...SEC football. These aren't slide shows of partial images jumbled up with bits of conversation and thoughts that may not be congruous. Nothing is obscured behind embarrassment, lost to boredom or flattened by the years. Just pure...almost cinematic memory. For those games, I know where I was, the sequence of events, the emotional impact of those moments and how they lingered like it's happening now.
Still, there was one mystery about these games that confused me for years...a lot of times it was just me and the radio.
Where was my Daddy?
To be sure, the fondest of these memories are with him. There's a Saturday night in 1983, Florid v. LSU in Baton Rouge...me and him huddled in a corner of my parents bedroom because that's the only place the radio would pick up the game. We strained to hear the call between the static and the vibrating roar of the crowd. It was intense...like two souls in a suburban bunker during the Cuban Missile Crisis desperate for news.
As the game wore on what we could make out wasn't good. The Gators were winning but LSU led by quarterback Jeff Wickersham was driving the ball deep into Florida territory. I was already trying to convince myself that the Gators had enough time to score once they got the ball back when Wickersham dropped back for what was sure to be a touchdown pass...INTERCEPTION. Wilber Marshall, legendary Florida Linebacker and future NFL Hall-of-Famer, had miraculously snatched the ball out of the air.
It's the very last highlight of these clips. I'd never seen it before writing this.
Florida wide-out Ricky Nattiel said "all hell broke loose on the sidelines"...and on Cascade Dr. in Tallahassee. We made such a ruckus that it scared my Momma and she yelled at us from across the house. We didn't care. That moment is still one of the most joyous outburst I can remember.
Then there are moments like this one from 1984...Georgia.
The Bulldogs had moved the ball to the two yard line...first and goal. Setting up one of the most dramatic moments in football...the Goal Line stand. With four chances to move the ball a couple of yards...mentally you concede the touchdown.
I remember every moment of it...the jawing after the first play and how my heart fell when I thought they'd scored on second down...then elation as it looked like a fumble...and the crash back down when they recovered the ball. That was a cosmic sign. They were going to score...DROPPED FOR A LOSS. Fourth down!
I'd been laying on some pillows in front of the tv the whole time...squeezing the pillows, banging on the pillows, beating my head against the pillows. I can still remember the feeling of my coupled fist pressing against my forehead as I instinctively moved into a position of prayer...one more time. I could hear the lawnmower outside and I thought about trying to get Daddy but there wasn't enough time...please just one more stop.
Pillows flew...a moment only dampened by the absence of my Daddy.
I showed him the video the other day. He asked me..."When was that boy...when did that happen?" "Ha..it happened while you were cuttin' the grass."
It wasn't until I got a little older that I realized he just couldn't stand watching sometimes...he just couldn't take it. We bought him a brick at Florida Field a couple of years ago with the inscription..."Who's Winning?". Some of the greatest Gator moments of the 80's I listen to by myself...and as a consolation I got to deliver a lot of good news.
It wasn't always good though...and it's a cold night in the fall of 1982 that sticks out the most. I was sitting in a chair in our kitchen, lit only by a small fluorescent light above the sink..listening as the Gators lost to flippin' Vanderbilt. That was about as low as it could get.
Just one week before me and Daddy were ridin' high as Cheech and Chong. The Gators were ranked 4th in the nation and we were going to Florida Field for the first time to watch the Gators beat up on unranked LSU. It didn't go that way...an unknown LSU back named Dalton Hilliard left that game a superstar and we left broken hearted. Obviously the Gators were pretty tore up about it too...losin' to Vanderbilt the next weekend...flippin Vanderbilt.
BUT...It all helped set the scene for the next year, there's always next year...me and Daddy huddled in the corner around a radio desperate for revenge hearing the words INTERCEPTION..a moment me and him have never really stopped celebrating.
Next up...Adam and the Georgia Bulldogs.
Still, there was one mystery about these games that confused me for years...a lot of times it was just me and the radio.
Where was my Daddy?
To be sure, the fondest of these memories are with him. There's a Saturday night in 1983, Florid v. LSU in Baton Rouge...me and him huddled in a corner of my parents bedroom because that's the only place the radio would pick up the game. We strained to hear the call between the static and the vibrating roar of the crowd. It was intense...like two souls in a suburban bunker during the Cuban Missile Crisis desperate for news.
As the game wore on what we could make out wasn't good. The Gators were winning but LSU led by quarterback Jeff Wickersham was driving the ball deep into Florida territory. I was already trying to convince myself that the Gators had enough time to score once they got the ball back when Wickersham dropped back for what was sure to be a touchdown pass...INTERCEPTION. Wilber Marshall, legendary Florida Linebacker and future NFL Hall-of-Famer, had miraculously snatched the ball out of the air.
It's the very last highlight of these clips. I'd never seen it before writing this.
Florida wide-out Ricky Nattiel said "all hell broke loose on the sidelines"...and on Cascade Dr. in Tallahassee. We made such a ruckus that it scared my Momma and she yelled at us from across the house. We didn't care. That moment is still one of the most joyous outburst I can remember.
Then there are moments like this one from 1984...Georgia.
The Bulldogs had moved the ball to the two yard line...first and goal. Setting up one of the most dramatic moments in football...the Goal Line stand. With four chances to move the ball a couple of yards...mentally you concede the touchdown.
I remember every moment of it...the jawing after the first play and how my heart fell when I thought they'd scored on second down...then elation as it looked like a fumble...and the crash back down when they recovered the ball. That was a cosmic sign. They were going to score...DROPPED FOR A LOSS. Fourth down!
I'd been laying on some pillows in front of the tv the whole time...squeezing the pillows, banging on the pillows, beating my head against the pillows. I can still remember the feeling of my coupled fist pressing against my forehead as I instinctively moved into a position of prayer...one more time. I could hear the lawnmower outside and I thought about trying to get Daddy but there wasn't enough time...please just one more stop.
Pillows flew...a moment only dampened by the absence of my Daddy.
I showed him the video the other day. He asked me..."When was that boy...when did that happen?" "Ha..it happened while you were cuttin' the grass."
It wasn't until I got a little older that I realized he just couldn't stand watching sometimes...he just couldn't take it. We bought him a brick at Florida Field a couple of years ago with the inscription..."Who's Winning?". Some of the greatest Gator moments of the 80's I listen to by myself...and as a consolation I got to deliver a lot of good news.
It wasn't always good though...and it's a cold night in the fall of 1982 that sticks out the most. I was sitting in a chair in our kitchen, lit only by a small fluorescent light above the sink..listening as the Gators lost to flippin' Vanderbilt. That was about as low as it could get.
Just one week before me and Daddy were ridin' high as Cheech and Chong. The Gators were ranked 4th in the nation and we were going to Florida Field for the first time to watch the Gators beat up on unranked LSU. It didn't go that way...an unknown LSU back named Dalton Hilliard left that game a superstar and we left broken hearted. Obviously the Gators were pretty tore up about it too...losin' to Vanderbilt the next weekend...flippin Vanderbilt.
BUT...It all helped set the scene for the next year, there's always next year...me and Daddy huddled in the corner around a radio desperate for revenge hearing the words INTERCEPTION..a moment me and him have never really stopped celebrating.
Next up...Adam and the Georgia Bulldogs.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Three Years...
This is what we been dealin' with for three straight years.
*
Just after midnight on the 6th, his birthday, he fell out of bed right on his head and Daddy ended up on the couch. Just before I gathered my pillows to leave, as he was settling in on my side of the bed, he tells me...
"Momma's gonna sleep for me...there's no spot for you."
Three years y'all...three years.
*The length of everything he measured with his new measuring tape came out to twenty pounds.
*
Just after midnight on the 6th, his birthday, he fell out of bed right on his head and Daddy ended up on the couch. Just before I gathered my pillows to leave, as he was settling in on my side of the bed, he tells me...
"Momma's gonna sleep for me...there's no spot for you."
Three years y'all...three years.
*The length of everything he measured with his new measuring tape came out to twenty pounds.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Hottie Totties and Cold Couscous
In 31 days we'll push the screen door open and step out onto the front porch. Our former lives, which at that point will seem dull and dingy by comparison, will be transformed into a techinicolor world of singing, dancing, adventure and intrigue...High Drama.
It's a world that runs on bourbon, and the vapors of smoking hogs. Ladies it's time to go shopping for a new sun dress. Fellas you may need to get a new tie and if you're in Baton Rouge...you probably need to do both.
Half of y'all know exactly what I'm talking about...and the other half, by now, can probably guess....
For those of you who can only guess (Brits, minus Adam, and the odd...very odd yankee cough:mazesandgarylurker:cough), you are being invited...no you're being required...to participate in what is probably the greatest spectacle in all of sport* - The Southestern Conference football season. The S-E-C.
Over the next month were gonna talk about the game...try and deal with certain elements that are troubling to our overseas friends like pads, the stops and starts, the clock, etc. Talk about the history of college football and The SEC in particular. Give an overview of each team and what will be required of you once you've decided which team you'll be backing. That's right you gotta pick a team to follow so I can berate you every week when the Gators destroy them.
There's only one rule. For those of you who reflexively love the underdog...first one that picks Vanderbilt has 'em all to their self.
Go Gators, Roll Tide, War Eagle, Go State! Go State!, Call the Hawgs...it's time.
*I was in Germany when England and Germany played in the European Cup to penalty kicks...only thing that I've personally witnessed that compares. It makes sense...because these games are at least nominally played between states. The animosity and passion that attends these games is more like that between European and British Isle national teams than professional American sports. The NFL has it's passionate fans but the teams are not as wrapped up with identity as these College teams are.
The NFL Tennessee Titans play in a stadium that holds just under 69,000. The University of Tennessee Volunteers play in a stadium that holds over 100,000.
I know there's that world cup thing every four years...I know but, since our "overseas" readers are really English readers...well you know...
EDIT: Let me save Mazes the trouble...
Vid belongs to ESPN/ABC
It's a world that runs on bourbon, and the vapors of smoking hogs. Ladies it's time to go shopping for a new sun dress. Fellas you may need to get a new tie and if you're in Baton Rouge...you probably need to do both.
Half of y'all know exactly what I'm talking about...and the other half, by now, can probably guess....
For those of you who can only guess (Brits, minus Adam, and the odd...very odd yankee cough:mazesandgarylurker:cough), you are being invited...no you're being required...to participate in what is probably the greatest spectacle in all of sport* - The Southestern Conference football season. The S-E-C.
Over the next month were gonna talk about the game...try and deal with certain elements that are troubling to our overseas friends like pads, the stops and starts, the clock, etc. Talk about the history of college football and The SEC in particular. Give an overview of each team and what will be required of you once you've decided which team you'll be backing. That's right you gotta pick a team to follow so I can berate you every week when the Gators destroy them.
There's only one rule. For those of you who reflexively love the underdog...first one that picks Vanderbilt has 'em all to their self.
Go Gators, Roll Tide, War Eagle, Go State! Go State!, Call the Hawgs...it's time.
*I was in Germany when England and Germany played in the European Cup to penalty kicks...only thing that I've personally witnessed that compares. It makes sense...because these games are at least nominally played between states. The animosity and passion that attends these games is more like that between European and British Isle national teams than professional American sports. The NFL has it's passionate fans but the teams are not as wrapped up with identity as these College teams are.
The NFL Tennessee Titans play in a stadium that holds just under 69,000. The University of Tennessee Volunteers play in a stadium that holds over 100,000.
I know there's that world cup thing every four years...I know but, since our "overseas" readers are really English readers...well you know...
EDIT: Let me save Mazes the trouble...
Vid belongs to ESPN/ABC
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