Message Replied To ==========
JOE would have loved this season -- but a grace is that the Miller boys
do not have to paint 109 Yards on all four doors, the trunk, the hood and the roof of his car. And the roof of his house and re arrange all of the landscaping in his yard with 34 - 28 spelled out in plants. ==============================
You know RT 2010 season made me rethink my view of Auburn Football and perhaps SEC football. Always a vociferous fan I was of the belief, and told myself, that it was “not life or death”.
I have since revised that thinking, after the 2010 season, to “it is not death” for now I believe Auburn Football to be life itself, as odd & trifling as that may seem to some.
I am certain that many here will relate to what I write below - with their own kids, fathers, mothers and/or grandparents:
I can tell you that starting about game two of the 2010 season, Little JJ who lived 1,500 miles from his Grandad, knew him little, begin calling Dad at the end of every AU game and each Friday night before such games.
After the game they might talk for a half hour- relieving the highs and lows. Then afterwards they would exchange a flurry of emails. On occasions early Sunday morning Dad would call and ask for JJ and they would talk again (usually Dad and JJ busting on ESPN’s Sunday morning show & coverage or lack there of ). On Friday Dad would give JJ his prediction & the only person more over the top than Dad on such things was JJ- they were peas in a pod- JJ at eleven years of age- and Dad pretty much an eleven year old in many ways himself. Neither of them ever considering defeat a possibility and beating Bama a certainty and the NC, as well, after the 2010 LSU game.
Now Dad was an interesting guy to go to a game with- you could talk about the game during the game- but when the game was on the line- no talking ALLOWED- NOTHING (at live games or later in life in front of the telly).
JJ however, not knowing any better, proved an exception to this at least 50 year rule.
During the Cam back he was on Speaker phone with Dad for the last drive with both of them yelling and screaming (Dad cursing occasionally). The last half of the Oregon Game JJ spent about half the game poised in the door way- afraid to watch and afraid not to. We were watching it in our bedroom (His sister having fallen asleep because of the time on the East Coast) and JJ somehow ended up under our bed half watching, covering his eyes, and panting like a dog and howling on oaccasion. He finally called Dad after the last Oregon Stop (I had him call for my own and his sanity) and JJ was on using his mobile during the last drive.... and whooped it with Dad when Dyer broke his run- and the rest was history. JJ locked the line up for about 20 minutes after the game meaning that no one else could get through causing great confusion in the clan (a family ritual in later years when Dad gave up in person games) was that after games were won you had to call him and get his unbiased analysis which pretty much consisted of Auburn being the greatest team in living memory.
This “Auburn Family Friendship” betwixt these two continued after the season as every couple of weeks Dad would mail JJ a duped DVD of the game- they would watch it and then talk on the phone.
Dad’s last summer was spent planning (and I mean PLANNING like only BG could plan) JJ’s first ever in person Auburn Game with his GranDad. This was planned like the invasion of Normandy as I have written previously. They must have talked three times a week over that summer until Dad got sick.
My point is this- Auburn Football is life, it is not a trifle- it brought my boy and his GrandDad together (one born in 1929 the other born some 70 years later) in something that bridged whatever generational gap there existed or could have existed. My last conversation with Dad was from out of the country, and at this point Dad was somewhat confused (but not confused enough to not know that Bammy Suxed which he mentioned to me) not really knowing where he was or exactly what was happening; but his last words to me were “tell Little JJ to be sure to call me after the game this Saturday”
At the end of his life Samuel Johnson, esteemed Philosopher, Poet, Writer, and Lexiographer reflected to his Scottish Biographer James Boswell on what he regretted most. Johnson, among other things compiled the first English language dictionary (the basis of every dictionary now in use) which amongst other things more, or less, “fixed” English spelling in its present form and was granted a lifetime pension by the King who he counted as his frend.
Boswell wrote that “ I... heard him [Johnson] regret that he had not learned to play at cards; and the game at draughts we know is peculiarly calculated to fix the attention without straining it. There is a composure and tranquility in draughts… which fixes the mind… Triflers may find or make anything a trifle but since it is the characteristic of a wise man to see events in their causes, to obviate consequences and ascertain contingencies your Lordship will think nothing a trifle by which the mind is inured to caution, foresight and circumspection.”
Johnson recognizes that this convivial game of cards (draughts) would have afforded him the ability to relax, relieve tension whilst also gaining insight into human nature and making friendships and that life, as Johnson wrote consisted "not in the large things which occur infrequently, but in the small things and occurences which bring us together with our fellow man in convivial company."
Thus it is with Auburn Football.
WAR EAGLE AND MERRY CHISTMAS!
