Ah… It’s football season and that’s something a man can look forward to.

It’s fall or almost fall or one of these days it will be fall. That’s when a coolness settles over the earth to make us believe we can live here another year this far south. DIDN’T HAPPEN YET. The first game of the season was on the last day of August. Folks, it’s still hot here in August. The first game was oppressively hot and the second game was almost as bad, even though it started at 6:00 pm.

Football season offers a chance to visit campus again and see what the student body looks like. Well, it looked really good, although some of the student’s body was barely clothed. I do believe the outfits become skimpier ever year. Some of the skirts were so short it would be impossible to bend over without exposure. I dare say one couldn’t squat down in a dress that short. What if she dropped something? What would she do, I wondered. Back in my day, we wore sport coats and bought our dates a corsage. I didn’t see a single corsage pinned to anyone’s chest, and I looked pretty hard too!

You can act a little crazy and yell like a fool at a football game as a bunch of big guys try their best to knock the shit out of one another. There was enough testosterone in the air to make a man want to kiss a pretty girl or hit a man real hard. We usually just high-five everyone around us and let it go at that.

There’s more to football than just a game. There’s tailgating. We paid good money as a “donation” to the Razorback Foundation Scholarship fund so we can park in the prime tailgating parking lot next to the stadium. Unfortunately, it was too hot to tailgate during the first game. Only a fool would stand in an asphalt parking lot when it is 97 where there is no shade and drink beer and eat snack food. There were a few fools that day but not very many. Even the die-hard tailgaters hunker down sometimes. The second game was not much better for tailgating either. The temperature was in the upper 90’s but it was late afternoon (actually that’s when it is hottest) and we thought it would start to cool off quickly. What happened was the temperature didn’t plunge, and the humidity soared. The game was in Little Rock, and our parking spot is on a golf course—no asphalt. And, we parked under some trees for a little shade. Nevertheless, because of the heat we had a rather abbreviated tailgating party.

This past weekend that bitch of a high pressure ridge that had been hovering over this part of the country finally crumbled and that allowed some cooler air from up north to move in. So, Saturday was a nice, damn-near perfect day at least at the start. It was nice and cool to start the day and since the game started at 11:30 that coolness was still lingering around at game time.

This was our first good tailgating session of the season. Of course, the time of day kind of dictates what is served. We started out with bloody Marys, which Robert prepared as we were driving into town. That adjusted our attitudes quite nicely and got us in the mood for the game. Only experienced drunks and rabid fans can drink beer early in the morning. The food was more breakfast-like since it was morning. Quiche, bagels and cream cheese, fresh fruit and dip, sweet cinnamony croissants, and of course, deviled eggs. After the bloody Marys we had Mimosas. Woo, Pig, Sooie. Some friends came by. A young man stopped and begged for a deviled egg. We had plenty of eggs so he was happy. We had lots of food and drink as usual.

The game was good because we won. Never mind that the team we played was in a lower division and had not won a game in over a year. We crushed them 24-3. By the time the game was over, it was a teeny bit hot—upper 80’s but not upper 90’s. It was not pass-out-from-the-heat hot, just ordinary hot. I only saw one person near us who fainted.

Now that it has cooled off a little I’m getting a lot more in the mood for football. Woo Pig Sooie