Vegetable Soup

First of all, I must apologize to each and every one of my faithful readers who sit on the edge of their seat waiting for that weekly dose of intellectually stimulating creativity called my blog. To both of you, I apologize for not getting this done sooner.

As for the rest of you, well, let’s just say I have been a little busy, (Here’s where I enumerate on the last few days activities) like the fact I had a delayed flight on Friday evening and didn’t get home until after midnight, had to drive four hours on Saturday which was also “Apple Annie Day” at our church, taught a Sunday School class and helped with “Trunk ‘R Treat” at the church last night, and flew to New York this morning. Now it’s lunchtime, and finally I get to write.

I’ve read just about everything written over the last few days regarding the demise of the Auburn football team. Add to that watching how Georgia dismantled the LSU secondary, and Alabama kept Tennessee from being able to move the ball at all, and knowing that they comprise 50% of what is left on Auburn’s schedule, and I’ve had to take a dose of pepto-bismol and scratch my head to come up with something positive to write.

The week that was drew my memory back to 1971. That was the year when John Denver had a breakout album entitled “Poems, Prayers and Promises.” In that album, a song that he wrote with Bill Danoff and Taffey Navert bolted up the charts to #2. The song was entitled “Take Me Home Country Roads.”

As opposed to the words “Almost Heaven, West Virginia”, seeing firsthand how the Mountaineers Gold Rushed their way over and through the Auburn Tigers during the second half of Thursday night’s ballgame, was anything but heaven. I do recall, however, crying “take me home country roads”, because we just wanted to get the hillbilly out of there.

But rather than regurgitate what most of you saw on television, I want to share with you some vegetable soup….a hodge podge of tidbits from the week that was, to the week that will be.

My dad, my son and I flew to Pittsburg and drove to Morgantown on Wednesday afternoon. Thinking we probably ought to ride over to the stadium to check out the parking, roads, etc., we checked into our hotel and headed to town.

Now Morgantown is no metropolis. It's a stretch to call it a small town. So one would think that it would be easy to find the football stadium. Noooooo. Finding the football stadium was anything but easy, and more like confusing. It is not really on campus, you can’t see it from two blocks away, there is no parking, a major hospital sits just beyond one endzone, and the hospital shares parking with the stadium. It is built in a valley between two little hills, and that is why you can’t see it. All of the surrounding parking is by permit only, so for us visitors, finding a place to park was almost impossible. We found a guy who was selling parking places for $20 behind his store, and we took it.

There is one other thing there is none of….places to eat. At least not in walking distance of the stadium. Or at least as far as we could see. We happened on a small pizza parlor hidden in the corner of the building where we parked, and ate pizza, which as some of you know, is my least favorite food. Maybe in my much younger days I chased too much beer with pizza (as opposed to vice versa). Today, all I have to do is smell it and I start getting heartburn. Anyway, they didn’t sell beer at this pizza parlor, and you couldn’t get a refill on your coke. They did have a bathroom, though.

We went to Tiger Walk, which the security for WVU had never seen anything like. Their Robo-Cop and a few pimple faced kids in yellow jackets tried to control the crowd, but it was of little use. Tiger walk was close and loud and old men jumped in front of my son to get close to Aubie, blocking my son's view, which he had staked out 2 hours earlier. I should have known then that we weren’t all on the same team-page that night.

Our tickets were in section 97, and Auburn had a large following. The space between seats is larger than at Auburn, there is more knee room, and most of the Mountaineer fans around us were very cordial, but there was one quite drunk young hillbilly who was totally belligerent and kept cussing in a very foul way. Even the WVU fans around him told him to shut up and sit down, which he didn't do.

As for the game, well, I don’t need to go into that.

As I said earlier, our flight home was delayed for three hours, which was a fitting end to our road trip.

I also mentioned earlier that I have read an awful lot of stuff, or maybe a lot of awful stuff….since I got home. I was talking to a gentleman last night at Trunk R Treat who used to coach football, and in fact coached in college for a while, who said, “it’s kind of weird that your future as a coach is all wrapped up in what some 18, 19 and 20 year old kids do.” I guess it is.

One thing I read that was quite interesting came from The Auburner. It showed games won since 2000. Auburn is the third most successful team in the SEC, just behind LSU and Georgia. And if nothing else, that is something to celebrate.

A few other comments…there is nothing better than taking a road trip with your dad and son, regardless of the outcome of the game. I don’t think I ever want to go back to Morgantown. This is a new week, and the Reverend Houston Nutt sits on the horizon. To which I say, Just Beat Ole Mrs.

War Eagle!
WJLaneSR

Gold Rush

They were called 49ers. Not because they played football in San Francisco, but because the year was 1849, and a fever was crossing America called the “Gold Rush of ‘49”. Covered wagons and ships descended upon California in search of easy gold.

But the easy gold was nowhere to be found. Oh, there was a little gold in the riverbeds, but the amount most found was barely enough to buy supplies and food to keep on looking. A typical miner spent 10 hours a day knee-deep in ice cold water, digging, sifting, and washing. It was backbreaking labor which yielded less and less.

But this was the gold rush.

Camaraderie was all but gone by 1850, as 49ers who expected to find their fortune in a few days found themselves digging and digging for month after month, year after year, with nothing to show for it.

But this was the gold rush.

Out of despair, many 49ers turned to poker and other forms of gambling in hopes of snagging a quick fortune that had evaded them during the gold rush. When this didn’t work, many turned to crime. Many just gave up their dream and went home back east.

For most everyone, the gold rush was nothing but despair, dejection and disappointment. And so the gold rush came to an end.

Thursday is supposed to be a gold rush. That is what the West Virginia Mountaineers are calling for. They want the game with Auburn to be a “gold rush” game…with all their faithful wearing yellow. They have a fevered pitch about them. Kind of like the mining 49ers.

If Auburn plays defense as they are capable….if they run the ball with conviction….if they don’t make mistakes….history might just repeat itself. Their gold rush might just end in despair, dejection and disappointment for the home mountaineers.

Let’s send them “back east” where they belong.

War Eagle!!

WJLaneSR