Have you ever seen the Rain?

Bosco and Tanner were in the front yard barking. Neither seemed overly upset, just excited. Something clearly had their attention. I thought it was because they didn’t recognize my son and me. Perhaps that was correct, but I think there was another explanation. Although unrecognizable to me at the time, it was a foreshadowing event.

My mother decided to stay home. My son, my dad and I packed up my full-sized gas guzzler SUV with the ice chest, fat-saturated snacks, portable table and stadium seats. With totem window flags in place and magnetic helmet stickers on the doors, we were ready to leave. At that moment, there was no thought of the carbon footprint we were leaving; only the Tiger Paw print we were hoping to leave on the stomach of some Mountaineers.

We took the westerly trek down Interstate 85, and there were momentary glimpses of the sun playing hide and seek from behind the clouds. I began to think to myself that the weather was going to hold off, and it was going to be a good night. One of those songs that just kind of sticks in your mind…you know, the ones that you can’t get out of your mind when it finds itself buried within the gray matter….began to hum around in my cranium. Not that I really KNOW the song, just that my son likes to play it. It’s by The Black Eyed Peas and the words are something like: “I’ve got a feeling….that tonight’s gonna be a good night…that tonight’s gonna be a good good night…..”

We tailgated, libated and belly sated ourselves before heading to hallowed grounds. It was a little humid, but otherwise pleasant. The band was circling the playing field as we found our traditional seats. The stands were a sea of orange speckled with navy, with a smattering of yellow in one endzone corner and two upper deck corners. Just over my right shoulder, it was purple.

The rain began as a few drops, which soon turned to buckets. Just as the two teams were fininshing their warmups, the purple behind my right shoulder gave birth to a thunderbolt. The delay was begun.

It was then that I realized why Bosco and Tanner, who don’t live with the same families, were together in my parents’ front yard barking. They were gathering two by two. It’s the only explanation, because the next hour the rains came in diluvial proportion. I was expecting Noah to come floating out of the locker room tunnel, because Jordan-Hare Stadium was quickly becoming a lake.

The students never left. They sang. They shouted. They partied. One student was overheard shouting, “I love a little water with my bourbon”. The stadium sound system belted out Dan Fogerty of Credence Clearwater Revival singing “I wanna know...have you ever seen the rain?” And even after the watershed delay, the students were revved up to a level I haven’t seen in a couple of years. It carried over.

The eagle didn’t fly Saturday night. He couldn’t because of the weather. Instead, I heard that a dove was released to see if he would bring back an olive branch. I'm sure that happened, because Auburn handed that peace gift to West Virginia in the first two series of the game. It was as if Auburn said, “Welcome to Auburn, sorry about the rain, here….take a couple of touchdowns on us. It’s a southern hospitality thang.”

And still…the students never let up. They never sat down. They never quietened down. They were too loose, too wet and too happy to stop the enthusiasm over a couple of hand delivered touchdowns. After all, the night was young, and a coupple of gift wrapped TD's ain't gonna stop the rain that had become their party.

Auburn seemed to get stronger as the night wore on…the crowd seemed to get louder as the clock ticked on….the mountaineers seemed to make more mistakes as the Alabama evening beckoned on….and an orange and blue rainbow seemed to appear on the horizon as evening turned to late night. (O.K., it was a blimp of some sort behind a few lingering clouds, but let’s not mess up a good story).

A game that started out as a continuation of the last time Auburn and West Virginia met, spun on a wet and muddy dime, and became something altogether different. It was as if all those lingering doubts and concerns and leftover feelings of 2008 were washed away. Literally. Auburn’s defense rose up from the mud that was the stadium floor, and sealed a victory with an interception run back for a touchdown.

Oh, sure, Auburn has a long way to go. But this all has a new feel to it. And West Virginia was a pretty good football team.

One of the first things Gene Chizik said after he was introduced as the new Head Football Coach of the Auburn Tigers was, “we’re going to get Auburn back to where it was, to where it should be. But we’re going to build our program the right way, and we’re not going to take any shortcuts.”

Kind of reminds me of what Noah had to say about building the ark. And THAT’S something a couple of dogs can bark to.

WJLaneSR