Lewis Grizzard Wednesday

Just Walk On By That Gas Station 
  
   
We could walk a lot more in this country. That’s what I said. We could actually walk more. 

If we walk more and drive our cars less, then maybe we could become less dependent on foreign oil so when some sheik of the burning sands decided to take over Lower Oilrichabia, we could ignore him. 

There wouldn’t be any need to send over our troops and planes, no reason to worry about chemical warfare, no reason to bug Henry Kissinger for interviews, no reason to bring up that nasty word “Armageddon,” no reason to have to pay $87.50 a gallon at the neighborhood Texaco, and no reason for Dan Quayle to say, “Please, George, don’t die on me now.” 

I used to walk all the time. Before I got a bicycle, I had to walk practically everywhere I couldn’t convince an adult to drive me. 

If I got thirsty and my mother said, “Walk, it’ll be good for you,” when I asked her to drive me to Cureton and Coal’s store for a big orange, I’d have to hoof it a half-mile to the store and back. 

I even walked all the way to Bobby Entrekin’s house one day. It was two miles both ways. He had invited me over to play cowboys and punk rockers. 

But it was a pleasant, enlightening experience. 

On the way, I saw a dead opossum in the road, I found a pointed rock that could have been an arrowhead, I kicked an empty pork and beans can at least a mile, and I had a lot of time to think about what I wanted to do when I grew up. 

I decided the next time an adult asked me about it, I would say, “I want to star in porno films” and see the look that would bring. 

But after I got my bike and then got old enough to drive, I gave up walking, as have many of us. 

Two of the three times I got married, I drove down the aisle. The other time, I took a cab. 

I probably would drive between rooms in my house, but my car won’t fit through the front door. 

We are slaves to our automobiles and the juice that makes them run and that gets us into harm’s way and allows oil companies to make us all feel like a bunch of dipsticks for what we have to pay for gasoline. 

Let’s all start walking more and driving less. We could start with me. 

The convenience store where I buy pork and beans and copies of the Enquirer is less than a half-mile away. I could walk there. 

I could walk to the Waffle House for my weekly cholesterol I.V. 

I could walk to the video store to rent “Naughty Female Attorneys” and “Debbi e Does Fargo, North Dakota,” neither of which I had a part in, incidentally. 

I could walk to a friend’s house to play cowboys and rap groups, and I could walk to my ex-girlfriend’s house when I forget I am an insensitive, arrogant, selfish jerk and need to be reminded. 

Join me, America. Let’s go for a walk and give Ahab the Arab and John D. Rockerperson a bad case of gas.

Perno’s Goff Legacy

At some point, you knew the day was coming. Fans like Kensington Dawg have wished for this day for a few years.

In a sport like SEC baseball, you are judged against your peers in the now, not the past. And David Perno’s past wasn’t enough to keep his job in the present.

As for his replacement? Greg McGarity should have little trouble attracting a strong field of candidates. You are an hour and change from one of the most fertile recruiting grounds on baseball and compete in the premiere conference in college baseball. 

But what about the one who this coach replaces? What is Perno’s legacy?

To me, Perno is a lot like Ray Goff with a bit better circumstances and without coming up with ways to use the word ‘adversity and character’ frequently when describing his team.

Both coaches are what can be very accurately described as DGDs. Neither were the top choice when they were hired, but stepped into the roles and did as best they could. 

Getting quality players, at times, helped both coaches. 

While Perno’s teams made a handful of trips to Omaha and would have won a national title had a few breaks gone Georgia’s way, Goff nearly won an SEC East title in 1992 – who knows where things would have turned if that would have happened?

And then there was Tech. When it mattered most, Perno’s teams got the best of more talented teams at Georgia Tech. Goff, for his part, knew how important it was to beat Georgia Tech, and it showed. 

In the end, Perno met a similar fate as Goff. The league in which he was in moved forward, and through various factors, he was unable to keep pace.

Perno’s legacy? To me, he is and will forever be a true and loyal Bulldog. That’s a fine approach to be a head coach at a mid-level high school somewhere. But in the SEC, it does not hold water.

To compete for championships at the level of play in the SEC today, though, you need something more than a loyalist who loves the program. Georgia saw some good times, off and on, under David Perno. But it has the potential to see some great times depending on who Perno’s replacement is.

To whom much is given, much is expected. 

Lugnut Dawg

At least the Nerds are creative

Sadly, this offseason has become the offseason of coaching staff (unfortunately) discovering photoshop programs.

Since winning can’t lure recruits in, the Techies have resorted to this very bizarre tactic

Look, convincing players up north to come down south to play is a great plan and all that, but that’s until these players realize that they’re part of the student body at the North Avenue Trade School. 

Bernie Is A Stronger Man Than I

I went over to Bernie’s Dawg Blawg today and saw that he is going to re-watch the SEC Championship Game.

All I can say to that is pour a stiff drink, brother.

I have not watched a single replay from that game.  Everytime it came on Sportscenter that night, I turned the TV off.  I haven’t gone back and watched any highlights on YouTube or from Prsonmike’s channel, like I normally do.

As far as I am concerned, that game never existed.  But it did, and I am still not able to bring myself to watch it, and am barely able to talk about it.  Aside from telling folks in passing “Yeah, that was a good game with a suckie ending,” I have only discussed it indepth with my dad and a couple of friends.  But I had to wait a week to even do that.

So, Godspeed Bernie.  You are a stronger man than I am.

Corbindawg

So Nick Saban HAS To Be Leaving Alabama? Right? Right?

I saw on the AJC’s website today that Nick Saban is selling his Lake Burton home.

Mark Richt sold his Lake Hartwell home a couple of years ago, and if you believed that d-bag Sports by Brooks and the other message boards, then it meant that the Dean of SEC coaches was in fear of losing his job.  He thought that after a 6-7 sseason, he was fearful that he was about to get fired and was dumping the house in the certain event he would be in the unemployeed line or moving on to coach at a school away from the southeast.

As we all know, that was not the case.

Even after the true motivations were revealed,  it didn’t stop the wild speculation.

So, will we hear rumors now about Nick Saban leaving Alabama?  What will the rumors be?  Is Saban going to coach the Dallas Cowboys or New York Jets?  Will he run for Preisdent in 2016?  Will Saban be the next governor of Alabama?

Oh, the sad state of “journalism” in our society.

Corbindawg

Not So Keen on “Free Kolton” Story

When I heard that the Kolton Houston crusade would be played out on Outside the Lines, I was happy. I knew the ESPN investigation news magazine would bring to national light the facts we all know. I just hope that the story is very damning. I hope the letters that Greg McGarity sent to the NCAA, and the condescending responses are shown. I hope that Ron Courson shows the same passion to ESPN he did as reflected in the many Seth Emerson stories about this case. Play some sad music in the back ground, show a crying momma, and have Jeremy Schapp narrate it, and you’ve got yourself the recipe for a story that will make you feel sympathetic.

This whole situation is very stupid. It shows yet another example of how completely asinine the NCAA is, and how they react to situations without any common sense or good judgment.

But on second thought, I hope that the UGA Athletic Department has thought this through all the way.

I still hope the story is very damning for the NCAA…if you are going to do it, do it right. But, how wise is it to mess with an already mad and angry beast?

I don’t think that Mark Richt or Greg McGarity are ever going to cheat. Mark Richt is a man who, after butt dialing recruits accidentally, turns himself on for secondary violations. I have major confidence that as long as he is the head man in Athens, our program won’t suffer the attention of the NCAA that Auburn, Miami, Oregon, USC and Ohio State is getting.

But it doesn’t mean there aren’t skeletons. Mark Richt can’t know everything that goes on. Case in point is the A.J. Green story. The NCAA is like the IRS. When they start looking around, they are bound to find something.

I foresee the interview with A.J. Green going down something like this:

“Hey, A.J., were you in a party in Miami?”

“No sir.”

“Oh, OK. Well that is all.”

“I didn’t need an agent to pay for me a trip to Miami because I was able to afford to go because I sold my private property.”

“Oh really,” as they re-open their note pads, “tell us more.”

Or something like that.

Kind of reminds me of a scene from the political satire Primary Colors. A couple of staffers from a presidential candidate are trying to uncover some dirt about a shady land deal from the front runner, and while they are snooping around they uncover the candidate was swimming in coke (not the soda) in the 1980s.

By the way, Primary Colors is a good movie and I highly recommend it.

My point is, I hope that the Kolton Houston story doesn’t cause the NCAA to have some sort of ax to grind or vendetta. Because if there is one thing we know about the NCAA, they are petty folks who would do something that childish.

Corbindawg

 

Lewis Grizzard Wednesday: Mama Be Sweet

Whenever I left my late mother’s home, and we are talking a period of over 40 years, she would always end her goodbyes with these two words:

“Be sweet.”

When I was a child on my way to a friend’s birthday party, I suppose that meant not to stick my finger in the cake or do a lot of whining and crying.

In my teen years it meant not to steal any hubcaps.

As an adult, I guess now she was beseeching me not to rob a liquor store, engage in any insider trading, and to go out amongst them each day with a smile and agreeable disposition.

I can’t recall sticking my finger into too many birthday cakes, but I very likely ignored the part about no whining nor crying when things didn’t go my way on occasion — such as when I pinned the tail on the donkey’s esophagus.

I never stole a hubcap. Not one.

As an adult I’ve never robbed anything nor have I engaged in much of any kind of trading that was profitable.

But that other stuff — the daily smile, the agreeable disposition — well, I’ve had my failures.

I notoriously have not been sweet to such individuals as waiters and waitresses I’ve deemed slow or unable to service correctly what I considered to be the simplest of orders.

Many a rental car clerk has known my verbal wrath, not to mention motel housekeepers who bang on my door too quickly after the first crow of morning, people I don’t know who address me as “buddy” and liberals.

Yet, my mother’s words, so simple, were so implicit:

Be sweet.

We have recognized the terror that is the violence amongst us today. Television has moved it out front of eating disorders, Satan worship, and women who run with wolves, which is a certain sign it is presently the No. 1 discussable public issue.

The drive-by shootings. Another kid shot dead in the school. The yellow police line tape and pools of drying blood on a mean street on the 11 o’clock news.

The money we will spend, the hours we will study and discuss in an effort to find a solution.

But isn’t it right there in Miss Christine’s words — Be sweet?

We aren’t sweet. The truth is we don’t honor sweet. We don’t even like sweet. Sweet is weak.

Women go to classes to learn not to be sweet.

Men. We’ve got an entire generation of young toughs out there who are drunk and dying on their own testosterone.

Being sweet can get you killed in that group.

It’s a manhood thing. An Atlanta Falcons football player, Andre Rison, decides somebody has challenged his manhood outside an Atlanta nightclub. So he goes to his car and gets his gun.

There’s this “dis” thing. It’s street talk for “disrespect.” I’ve got dis big gun here. Respect me or I’ll shoot you. No. No. Be sweet.

Be kind and be gentle. Be tolerant. Be forgiving and slow to anger. Be tender and be able to cry. Be kind to old people and dogs and don’t cut off any part of anybody else’s anatomy.

Be loving. Be tender. Share. Don’t pout. Don’t be so loud. Hold a puppy. Kiss a hand. Put your arms around a frightened child.

Make an outstanding athletic play and then don’t do The King Tut Butt Strut to bring attention to yourself and point to the inadequacies of the vanquished. Be sweet. The wonders that might do. The wonders that just might do.

I can still hear you, Mama.