YES, I AM STILL HERE peeking out of the newspaper’s window on Main Street and I am writing this on the Monday morning, six days before the Razorbacks open their 2022 football season, and I have already jinxed the Hogs.
I’m so very sorry.
I confess that before I went to work, Monday, I hung my faded Razorback banner outside over the front door for the whole neighborhood to see. I’ve had the banner a long time — you can’t even get one like it anymore.
I took it down during the Chad Morris debacle and swore it was stashed away for good. But victories over Texas and A&M last year emboldened me go looking for it. I finally found the blasted thing, and hung it for the rest of the Sam Pittman resurrection year.
It stayed up for a few more months because I am also on the Muss Bus. And a Dave Van Horn fan.
This year I swore I wouldn’t put it up because it would surely jinx the team. I could not resist, however, and so it hangs at its once-accustomed place.
As I said, I am so very sorry. See the last sentence of this revelation.
I was trying to remember the first time I saw a Razorback game. My father took me and some of the older boys to see a game with Rice at War Memorial Stadium. Believe it or not, Rice was still a power in those days. I think the Hogs either won or tied the Owls. My most vivid memory is of our alltime great linebacker ‘Little Thumper’ Wayne Something intercepting a Rice pass in the end zone. Maybe someone will remind me of Little Thumper’s real last name.
Now I remember. His name was Wayne Harris.
I have been present for some great Hog football wins.
•The time we beat USC and they went on to win the national championship.
•When we beat Texas for our last game with them as members of the SWC.
•Beating LSU and Les Miles at WM Stadium.
And some losses:
•to UCLA and to Tennessee in successive Cotton Bowls.
•‘That’ 15-14 loss to the ‘Horns. Sigh, I still can’t write about it.
Sigh, again, I have seen my last Razorback game in person. Nowadays you don’t show a ticket to get in; somehow it’s in your phone.
I don’t do that stuff because I am a geezer and I am also the #1 Razorback Football Fair Weather Fan.
If I went to an actual game I wouldn’t be unable to leave the tv and go outside the stadium until the on-field crisis was settled.
You wouldn’t believe how many times I have saved the Hogs by going outside.
And one last thing. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could see and hear the home team’s band, and oogle the majorettes?
Can I get banned for writing that in ‘Mine Creek Revelations?’
Nice to see that the Outlaws and Hornets opened with wins. It had to be especially enjoyable and satisfying at Mineral where the Hornets struggled through a winless year last season.
Whups! I just got an email from Sam Pittman asking me to enter the Fan Transfer Portal.
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THINGS I LEARNED by opening email: The hardness of the butter is inversely proportional to the softness of the bread.
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ANIMAL CRACKERS. One of the lovely sights of summer is that of large monarch butterflies fluttering their way to Mexico.
An article in ‘Birds & Blooms’ says that the insects live only 4-5 weeks, and it takes four generations to complete migration to their mountain in Mexico where they’ll breed and begin their round trip leg to the U.S. The ones that make it to their Mexican mountain are rewarded with an 8-week lifespan.
On the way south and back, the butterflies lay their eggs only on milkweed — a vanishing plant, unfortunately. The butterfly eggs become caterpillars which eat ONLY milkweed before transforming into the orange and black beauties.
The article notes that somehow the migrating horde finds its way back to the same Mexican mountain tree from which their ancestors launched their return trip to our environs. I have no idea how or why they decide as a species that it’s time to head again to Mexico. I’ll bet that climate change messes with that.
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WORD GAMES. Here are two more words that go together in some context: Four and Twenty. That’s the number of blackbirds needed to make a decent pie. Would you eat a blackbird pie?
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HE SAID: “Infuse your life with action. Don’t wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen… yourself, right now, right down here on Earth.” Bradley Whitford, actor and producer
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SHE SAID: “Work hard for what you want because it won’t come to you without a fight. You have to be strong and courageous and know that you can do anything you put your mind to. If somebody puts you down or criticizes you, just keep on believing in yourself and turn it into something positive.” Leah LaBelle, Canadian singer
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SWEET DREAMS, Baby
