A Football Gathering



Alabama Throw
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Take this as it is, a girl; A blond girl at that talking football. Really does it matter if the game is all a he-man explanation? Good grief, we have women interviewing the coaches on the field today. This is a thing I notice gets to many a manly man, to the macho man, a women talking to Nick is just not right. I have even heard the comments that someone is feeding them in an earpiece what to ask. Football and fall seems to defiantly make the south go round. My aunt and uncle went to Alabama games in the seventies. This was what only the way upper case got to do. My aunt would dress in the best outfit she could find. In those days dressing up was the way to go to a ballgame. It was the norm for even the crowd at highschool games to be dressed in their Sunday best.
Life is scheduled around football games. The SEC for sure is the foremost topic of conversation this time of year. Each year is different. This year all the SEC teams have won games that they were really not supposed to. Pulling rabbits from the team hats. The South Carolina win was a surprise, but proof to how great a coach they have. Wonder if the nation is going to start hating on South Carolina the way they did when Spurrier was at Florida. In the day Bear Bryant was everyone in Alabama's hero. He was at Anderson's Book store in Florence signing autographs my brother got him to sign a piece of paper and gave it to me. He knew that I was impressed when our aunt and uncle went to the games. He did not get into much, but making money. That was also a good thing for me, because I went to him every day for confection money. After we were out of school if I ever fussed at him, he would remind me how often he bought my snacks at school. My tickets to football games were also funded by my little brother.

 I know a little about football, but it is becoming less fun for me. The reasons are that the men in all of my girl’s life think football is more important than weddings or even funerals. God forbid we get gravely ill or die during football season. Fall is the best time for a wedding also, especially since in our region the summers are so hot. In the fall outside weddings are the best.
My brother did not watch as much football as a kid as I. I watched with Daddy every Sunday afternoon. This was my selfish inner being taking advantage of Daddy sitting on the couch awake. My brother did play in the front yard when he was there. He was not home ever, after he started working in Jay Romine’s hog barn. He was at work the morning that Daddy died. A still small little boy he was working on the Sunday morning his Daddy died on our couch. The short childhood he did have, without working he spent playing any game we could come up with as ruff and tuff as he could make it.
The games of today are becoming just as mean as my brother was to me. Comparing kids to the NFL is a bit over the top, I guess, but we were mean to each other in the front yard. Our hands would be so cold they would turn purple. Maybe we didn’t give concussions like the players on Sunday did, but we skinned a few elbows and knees. Comparing kids to NFL is part of why I enjoy football still somewhat today. I like the big games. I like the one’s I can sit and enjoy without a crowd. Going to the SEC games is a thing I am totally over. A good TV and a comfortable chair is a much better way to watch. There is way to watch that I learned from Daddy that seems simple, but I am simple. One play at a time; First down at a time. That is the way I learned the game. My Daddy taught me the basics of watching the game.
Players in the professional whelm are out to really hurt their opponent. In the games Sunday it was obvious they were out to hurt one another. I can imagine when the ball is fumbled under the pile of players they are pulling each others fingers back trying to break them. Atlanta Falcons player Robinson and Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison were just meaning to knock out the Browns player. A Philadelphia Eagles player hit a Pittsburg player after an incompletion. He suffered a concussion on the play. Robinson reportedly suffered a concussion as well. Robinson was given a penalty. The Coach defended Harrison's hit. They said after Sunday's game that hit also was legal. The league said Monday that Harrison's hit was illegal and should have got a penalty.

Garden Alabama Gnome
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We played in my grandmother’s yard every Sunday afternoon. We played tackle, sometimes it really got ruff. I think brother, sister and cousin football may not be the safest game to play. It started many a wrestling match between the six of us. My brother and I being the two that usually ended up in a downright fight. He was younger and smaller than me, but he always whooped my butt. There were times that I would not give up for nothing. I would repeat over and over, “I am going to whoop you this time, if it’s the last thing I do. I never did win a fist fight with him. He had muscles that were as hard as apples. They looked like Popeye the Sailor’s after he ate the spinach. He had a huge temper and arm muscles to go with the temper. He also in every situation came out smelling like a rose. I was always the one according to the “parents’ per say that started it all. I was so determined to make him look bad that I would yell, quit hitting me even though he wasn’t to get him in trouble. I once threw cotton on his row, to make it look like he was leaving cotton in the row he was picking. He always picked more than me. I got caught, by Grandmother and she shamed me to tears. Cotton, cane, and football all part of my fall season as a child. Now I have lots of food and football on Saturday. I promise myself every Saturday I am not staying in the man cave watching and eating all afternoon. When the field turns blue you have been watching way to long.