Football and New Year's Day go together like team names and their mascots. Not really. The whole team name/mascot thing confuses me. I have never understood why my alma mater is named 'The Crimson Tide', as if there might be confusion about some other team with the same name. How does a team named after red water (which has always sounded a little sinister to me, like blood or dangerous algae) have an elephant for a mascot? Oh I get the whole legend thing, but why didn't someone stop and say "Wait a minute! That makes no sense. Maybe we should call it one or the other? We could be the 'Crimson Tide Sharks' or the 'Stampeding Elephants'!" Elephants in Alabama never made sense to me either, but I love and respect elephants and no one else has one for a mascot.
Frankly last night the tide ebbed. In fact it was kind of like when the water is sucked out from the shore before a major rogue tsunami thunders in and drowns all life. There were no thundering elephants at the end of the Sugar Bowl last night. They were taken down by buckeyes.
'Buckeyes', now there's a name for you. No stampeding herd there. Not even a snarling beast. When I hear 'Ohio Buckeyes' my mind's eye sees the Ohio fans pelting the opposing team with acorns, or worse, one of my favorite peanut butter and chocolate candies. Seriously, autumn in Ohio must be as difficult to walk around with all those buckeyes to step on as the family room after the gifts are opened on Christmas morning and the kids received Legos. Why would you want to remind everyone about that? Thankfully The University of Alabama (there is that capitalized 'The' again. Is there another?) doesn't call itself the "Sweet-gum Balls", though those nasty buggers are all over the place down here.
The Crimson Tide may be my alma mater but I live and work in Auburn Alabama. My three sons attended Auburn. Two of them crossed over to the 'dark side' for their graduate studies. We support both football teams except on the Saturday after Thanksgiving when my boys consider themselves 'Tigers' all the way. I like Big Al, but I am in love with Aubie. He's hands down the cutest of all the college mascots. His head wagging and silly antics will make anyone smile, except maybe an LSU or Clemson fan. But we should give them some slack. They can't help it if they have tigers of their own that aren't as cute. However, Auburn has their own legend about a war eagle. So why weren't they called the 'Eagles' or the 'Raptors'? In this the two schools have something more than their home state in common. Or maybe it is because they are both located in Alabama. We like to have nicknames down here. What we don't have here are badgers.
Badgers are nasty animals. They are mean. They are a relation of what we call 'polecats' in Alabama. We don't want any in this state.
We do have ducks though and this morning I realized I have a new appreciation of them.
Quack, quack!
Eve
Frankly last night the tide ebbed. In fact it was kind of like when the water is sucked out from the shore before a major rogue tsunami thunders in and drowns all life. There were no thundering elephants at the end of the Sugar Bowl last night. They were taken down by buckeyes.
'Buckeyes', now there's a name for you. No stampeding herd there. Not even a snarling beast. When I hear 'Ohio Buckeyes' my mind's eye sees the Ohio fans pelting the opposing team with acorns, or worse, one of my favorite peanut butter and chocolate candies. Seriously, autumn in Ohio must be as difficult to walk around with all those buckeyes to step on as the family room after the gifts are opened on Christmas morning and the kids received Legos. Why would you want to remind everyone about that? Thankfully The University of Alabama (there is that capitalized 'The' again. Is there another?) doesn't call itself the "Sweet-gum Balls", though those nasty buggers are all over the place down here.
The Crimson Tide may be my alma mater but I live and work in Auburn Alabama. My three sons attended Auburn. Two of them crossed over to the 'dark side' for their graduate studies. We support both football teams except on the Saturday after Thanksgiving when my boys consider themselves 'Tigers' all the way. I like Big Al, but I am in love with Aubie. He's hands down the cutest of all the college mascots. His head wagging and silly antics will make anyone smile, except maybe an LSU or Clemson fan. But we should give them some slack. They can't help it if they have tigers of their own that aren't as cute. However, Auburn has their own legend about a war eagle. So why weren't they called the 'Eagles' or the 'Raptors'? In this the two schools have something more than their home state in common. Or maybe it is because they are both located in Alabama. We like to have nicknames down here. What we don't have here are badgers.
Badgers are nasty animals. They are mean. They are a relation of what we call 'polecats' in Alabama. We don't want any in this state.
We do have ducks though and this morning I realized I have a new appreciation of them.
Quack, quack!
Eve
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