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CG
(65.40.52.105) on 10/20/2003 - 9:20 a.m. says: ( 6 views
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"football Saturday is sacred....."
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from Sundays paper......
Football Saturday is sacred, son
Scooch in, parishioners, there's room for everyone.
I know this isn't the sports page - or the religion section, for that matter - but I'd like to deliver a timely sermon here in the middle of the college football season. We can all learn something from this parable. It's sort of an Alabama twist on the story of Abraham and Isaac.
At the end of September, the University of Alabama football team lost to the University of Arkansas in a jaw-dropping, come-from-behind game that went into double-overtime. Alabama looked as if it had the game wrapped up as tight as a mummy's tummy before Arkansas pulled a Lazarus in downtown Tuscaloosa. The final score was 34-31. The rumble of tumbling Skoal cans caused Earth tremors as far away as Eufaula.
Now pan the camera to Pinson, a town north of Birmingham, where an irate 'Bama fan named Joseph Alan Logan, 46, watched in disbelief. His beloved red elephants choked on a hog bone. He exploded into a rage.
Logan, who, some people say, enjoyed a few refreshing adult beverages during the television broadcast, slammed doors, threw boxes and hurled dishes into the kitchen sink.
In the middle of the red-faced tantrum, Logan's 20-year-old son, Seth, decided it would be a good time to ask dad to buy him a new car.
The request probably went something along the lines of: "Uh, Diddy, if you're not too busy right now, I found a really cool '92 Camaro with low mileage that needs new tires and a universal joint, but it's hot, man. Super hot. All I need is $2,450 and somebody to co-sign on the loan. Doin' anything on Monday?"
Seth, according to reports by the Associated Press, had a spotty driving record and had crashed several vehicles in the past.
Father Logan snapped.
According to police reports, Logan went to his car, where he kept a 9mm pistol, as is the custom in Alabama. He went back in the house, put the gun to his son's forehead and threatened to blow his brains out.
The son jerked his head back just before his raging father squeezed off a round. The bullet narrowly missed his noggin and temporarily deafened him. Seth ran next door and called the police.
Crimson Tide-supporting Dad gave up peacefully and tearfully before the SWAT team arrived. He spent the night in the jail and was released later on a bond that probably cost more than the car.
"I know we take football serious in the South," Alabama's Jefferson County Sheriff's deputy Randy Christian told reporter Carol Robinson, "but that's crossing the line."
The father said he was just trying to scare his son, teach him a lesson, reinforce a little home training, clean up the kitchen a bit.
Alabama mystics might say the spirit of the late Tide coach Bear Bryant came down from his viewing tower in heaven and thumped the barrel of that gun so it would miss. True believers might say it was an act of divine intervention. Unitarians may want to gather three Volvo station wagons in Alabama and burn a question mark on the lawn of the Logan house. Auburn fans are still taking the needles and albino rat hair out of the Bear Bryant voodoo dolls.
Here's the point: Life is all about timing. Overtime, middletime and it's about-time, children.
Don't approach a man or woman who is suffering from Post-Traumatic Pigskin Syndrome (PTPS) with a selfish request. Would you approach a postal worker bearing a flamethrower to ask him or her how much it costs to mail a package to Mozambique COD?
Choose your moments carefully. And remember it's football season in the South.
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/entertainment/7030784.htm
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