2002 Georgia@Alabama. 19 years old. Night before game day, met up with a girl. Never went to sleep. Left on the five hour trip to T-town in the wee-hours in the morning with no rest. (Stupid, stupid, stupid) Fell asleep at the wheel near Opp, lost control off the car but luckily didnt crash. Took a nap in the car. Radio went out...had to drive in silence.
Got to Tuscaloosa and attended ESPN game day. Hot as fudge. Realized I left my wallet in car, had to walk all the freaking way back to get it. Decided to vacate my perfectly fine parking spot (stupid, stupid, stupid) to go to a fast food place. Obviously, parking place wasnt available when I got back. (Imagine that) Had to re-park in another zipcode.
First time buying scalped tickets. Didnt know how to play the game. Overpaid....big time. Got to the stadium...now blazing hot. Excited but flashes of fatigue from no sleep. Bama is outplayed all game but Charlie Peprah gets a late pick-six to put Bama up. Stadium explodes. Band is loud. Dreams coming true. Then Georgia quarterback David Green does one of his patent late minute scoring drives. We loose. Freaking sucks.
I'm obligated to play music at a church the next morning. So I can't get a room and sleep. Have to drive back to Florida. Not sure how I'm gonna do this. Forgot where I parked...took hours to find my car. Start driving home. Take a wrong turn somewhere. Get lost. Too sleepy to drive further. Stop at an abandoned gas station somewhere on the outskirts of Montgomery (stupid, stupid, stupid) pass out in the car for a while. Woke up to a homeless looking black guy knocking on my window. I roll down the window. (Stupid, Stupid, Stupid) and he ask if I have drugs to sell him. I say no. He ask for a ride to his friends party. I'm too scared to say no so I let him in the car. (Stupid, stupid, stupid)
Dude notices I was at the game. He starts talking Alabama footall with speech tone and mannerisms commonly associated with people under the influence of crack cocaine. Boy knows his Bama football though. Astonishing. Leads me down a dirt road. I'm scared as #badword#. We end up in an outdoor party complete with lights, a dj, lots of whooping. I'm the only white guy there. Dude gets out. Thanks me for the ride. I go to take the dirt road out. Car in front of me stops blocking me in. No kidding, four black dudes get out of the car. I make my peace with god. I'm about to die somewhere outside of Montgomery driving back from an alabama game I should have never went to.
I'm wrong. They had a flat tire. They signal me to go around them. I dart it back to Florida now wide the #badword# awake despite having a grand total of maybe 1.5 hours of sleep in about 48 hours.
Get home sometime after 6:00 am. Don't have time to sleep. Have to get my stuff ready to do music at church. Get to the church early. Take about a 30 minute nap, that kind just long enough to piss you off. We start to play...equipment malfunctions (not on our end) we have to abbreviate the set. Not a great show.
Now I have to go to work. Luckily only a 6 hour shift this night. Still...dont know how I'm gonna make it through. So sleepy...that kind where it hurts to talk. Somehow make it through. Too sleepy to make the,drive home. Pull off at a beach access and pass out.
It was bad enough that some days when I was in Army in boot camp or deployments I'd say, "hey...I survived that stupid trip to Tuscaloosa, I can survive this."
Oh....and Ive hated Georgia ever since. Fewer things bring me more joy than the Tide beating them.
