YES, I AM STILL HERE peeking out of the newspaper’s window on Main Street and I have mailed a letter of deeply sincere condolence to any and all persons unfortunate enough to be fans of Auburn University football.
I watched the ‘Iron Bowl,‘ Saturday in the dim hope of seeing someone beat Aladambamba in football. Auburn had Aladambamba on the ropes the whole game.
Until the last 90 seconds. That’s when someone in SEC headquarters flipped the Tide Miracle On-Off Switch which used cosmic forces to let Aladambamba tie the game; then win the rivalry in overtime.
The thing is, I knew all along it would happen. I should have bet my allowance on it. I expected it from my painful experience as the #1 Fair Weather Razorback Football Fan.
Something always happens to us just as we are about to hoist the trophy or take a knee in the Victory Formation.
A penalty here; a fumbled punt there. Something always happened to enable the other team — usually a hated rival or a cupcake opponent — do a victory prance and make hateful hand gestures toward weeping Razorback fans.
Thank goodness it didn’t happen a day earlier when Arkansas somehow managed to snap a five-year losing streak to the doggone Missouri Tigers, so I knew the bad Karma would jump on someone else’s bandwagon and ruin their day. Bad Football Karma never completely goes away and it always lands on the underdog’s bandwagon.
Oklahoma State ALWAYS manages to lose to Oklahoma in the rivalry they call ‘Bedlam.’ Honestly, OU beats OSU about as often as the Texas Longhorns beat the Hogs in the old SWC — 4 times to 1.
So, when Okie State outlasted the OU jinx; and Michigan kept a mob of fans from lynching Wolverine Coach Jim Harbaugh in the Ohio State rivalry game, I knew that Auburn was in trouble.
It is heartbreaking that the kingpins in the SEC headquarters let Auburn get sooooooo close to victory before flipping the Tide Miracle On-Off Switch. But that’s just the way they are. Hateful.
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ANIMAL CRACKERS. Heard from — Claudia Westfall has gently but officially chastised me for attempting to sway travelers away from visiting Australia. “Shame on you!” she wrote. “Shame.”
She claims that she and her son visited the Land Down Under years ago and NEVER, NEVER saw a spider like the one I wrote about in a previous helpful column. In the column I warned persons to stay from Australia because of the presence of the most poisonous spiders, frogs and snakes in the world.
The people in Australia are very nice, Claudia wrote, and besides, the innocent little Koalas “more than make up for the spiders!”
Thats another reason to stay from Australia, Claudia. I had no idea that Koalas are poisonous.
The only reason I would ever visit Australia is if the country sponsored free nose and ear hair clinics for deserving seniors.
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TRAFFIC MIRACLE. We’ve gone a whole weekend and no one has run over the downtown Christmas Tree. There have been some mighty close calls, including several scary incidents Saturday night when a group of teenage deer hunters — nine-point bucks strapped to their pickup truck hoods — made close passes by the tree to see if the deer antlers could snatch a decorated plastic bottle off a limb.
Naturally, the presence of such a stationary target on Main Street got me to thinking that the city could re-assign its Official Downtown J-Turn Enforcement Officer for Christmas Tree protection duties.
That would be possible IF the city only had an official Downtown J-Turn Enforcement Officer.
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PLEASE GET the Covid-19 vaccine. You got the smallpox vaccine as a child. You’re probably also vaccinated against polio, pneumonia, measles, chicken pox, lockjaw, shingles, etc., and those vaccines did you no harm. Be a good example.
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HEARD FROM. During the Razorback game, Friday, someone texted me a picture of the Razorback Marching Band’s Majorettes in glittering red outfits. Twirling fire batons.
Life can be grand.
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THINGS I LEARNED from the Redneck Book of Good Manners: Always identify people in your yard before shooting at them.
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WORD GAMES. The twins: Slick and Slimey. I think they were in the 11th grade with me. I heard they were sent off to reform school after the football season.
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HE SAID: “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.” Steve Jobs, inventor
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SHE SAID: “I truly believe that everything that we do and everyone that we meet is put in our path for a purpose. There are no accidents; we’re all teachers – if we’re willing to pay attention to the lessons we learn, trust our positive instincts and not be afraid to take risks or wait for some miracle to come knocking at our door.” Marla Gibbs, African American writer and tv producer
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SWEET DREAMS, Baby
