And Now, For the Weather...

The weather is a topic most people feel comfortable talking about, in the normal context of banter. "Boy, it sure is nice out here," is a common refrain. Rain, cold, wind, what have you. Even if it's what we *don't* have, we can find a way to work it in. When the wife and I moved to town last year, the rain seemed to pour down every Thursday or Friday. I remember, because I went out to help cover high school football last season, our first as Alabamians. If you didn't know what day it was, you could tell it was toward the end of the work week, because of the heavy rain that always seemed to come down. That hasn't been the case this year, which is OK by me, but I'm told we need rain, since we've not had anywhere near as much this year as last. But it's still gorgeous outside these days. Alabama sure does get a bad rap for the nasty-hot summers, but the fall and spring seasons are really nice.

Weather and football take me back to some fun times as a broadcaster. I have a million stories about covering games and how the weather tied in, but for now, I'll try narrowing it down to a city at a time.

Dateline: Canyon, Texas. Home of the Buffalo Bowl, aka Kimbrough Memorial Stadium, home of the West Texas A&M football team, as well as Canyon ISD schools. The first memory is a cold one-- bi-district playoffs (first round), Randall vs. Frenship, circa 1997. I was the engineer for the FHS radio crew, working on a cold and snowy Friday night. So cold, in fact, that the scoreboard stopped working in the middle of the third quarter. It was still on, showing 3rd and 7 on the 26, home 21, guest 6, but nothing could make it budge. Game officials, of course, keep time on the field, so that's all we had. Score was easy enough, but trying to gauge the time to go was a challenge. It even started snowing again after halftime. I-27 runs just east of the stadium, and you could see the taillights of the snow plows going up and down as they did their thing. Randall wound up winning, as FHS couldn't really do much with the football.

A few years later, I was the voice of the Levelland Lobos, as I came to Kimbrough for LHS/Randall, September of maybe 1999. We got through our pregame show and are about ready to kick off, when the skies opened up and it started pouring. A delay followed, everyone circles around the TV, because the local TV stations were in full-bore severe weather coverage. Soon after, the decision came down to play Saturday. It wasn't about to stop raining, and the hope was that the field would be in better shape by the next day. So I packed up and got in the car and went home in a driving rainstorm. Turned out I was one of the last to get south on I-27 before they closed it down. It's truly a strange feeling to be a broadcaster and not have a game on Friday night, but that's what I had that evening. So I went back up to Canyon the next day, and I'm pretty sure our Lobos were on the short end.

When you're actually in, um, the eye of the storm, decisions are being made quickly, and a lot of changing of plans is done, so at the time, it may not seem too pleasant. But now, I have some fun stories (maybe only interesting to me) to tell, and some awesome memories.

Concession Stands

I've had some trouble finding full-time work since moving to Alabama, which is another story for another time. What I have found, however, is a concession stand gig at Bryant-Denny Stadium, home of the Crimson Tide. I've been at it for six weeks now, which doesn't tell the whole story, since I've only worked three games-- Penn State, Florida and Ole Miss.


The work starts earlier in the week, with the popping of hundreds and hundreds of bags of popcorn. My work has begun Fridays at noon, organizing Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite and water for delivery to our six different stands throughout the stadium. None of which, btw, are close to each other. Different stands get different amounts, based on history. We put the proper amount in the tubs (I call 'em bobsleds) and start moving them on their way. Our base camp is on the club level and not close to much, but it is reasonably close to an elevator. Though said elevator is typically not active while we work.


This means moving five tubs full of 8 to 12 cases (24 bottles to a case) of drinks down the spiral ramp and into position for gameday Saturday. Fighting the tubs is a more accurate way to put it, since the bobsleds don't steer well to begin with, and when you add all that weight, well, it's a workout. The sixth tub is a tag-team effort-- it goes up one level, to the north end zone. One pushes and the other pulls. The entire evolution is done in two hours, though humping that tub up to the north end zone sure seems to take a while.


I should say that while we work, the grounds crew is painting the field for the game. Yard lines, sidelines, midfield logos, end zones, the whole nine yards (thank you, thank you very much). I just never gave it much thought. And for whatever reason, Bama chooses to go with natural grass, when the world is trending toward field turf.

Anyhow, on gameday, we arrive four hours before kickoff to send out the popcorn and ice the pop. I'm responsible for two of the six stands, checking to see if they need more product, more ice, etc. During the game, I don't have much to do. Walking from stand to stand every 20-30 minutes is the hardest part, because the seller and expediter (two-man crews) seem to have it all worked out. Though Saturday for the Ole Miss game, one stand was a person short, so I went and stood a post. It wasn't hot, and with an 8 pm kickoff (yuck) the temps were in the 50s, so we didn't move a lot of product.

At the end of the night, we move the tubs back up to the house, count product and head out. We stop at the end of the third quarter and are leaving about 15-20 minutes after the game ends.

So it's not hard, but it *is* long work. The down side is 8.5 hours of effort when the rest of the football world is watching games, tailgating and drinking chocolate milk. The cool part is being in the stadium for Alabama football for free, and getting paid for it. I've had enough off Saturdays to enjoy as the rest of the masses do, so it's not too bad of a deal.


And I still help with stats at the UAB football games. And I made a decision to work the Ole Miss game and miss the Blazers vs the Miners in Birmingham. It was a painful choice, but the right one, and not because UTEP lost.


It helps me keep my head up during this time in my life-- knowing that I *am* doing something. Not much, but a little. My wife, bless her, supported my going to see the Miners, for whom my love has been well-documented earlier in these pages, but income, no matter the amount, is a good thing.



So I know I chose correctly.

Story Time: Homecoming

Things really haven't changed a whole lot around here... Still going to school, and actually doing pretty well in pre-calc, with a surprising 94 on my second test... Economics is still a work in progress. Still hunting for jobs...

So it's time for a story.

It's homecoming week at the University of Alabama... Ole Miss is coming to town Saturday afternoon. Never been a real big HC kind of guy. It's great for those who enjoy that sort of thing, but the thing I'm looking forward to most is the end of chalking every square inch of campus sidewalk with 'vote for X for queen.' I'll be working my concessions gig on gameday, so I'll see the game, work, and pick up a few bucks in the process.

I remember homecoming at Andress High School my senior year. I've never been a real active sort of guy, getting involved in a lot of activities, etc. But we in the orchestra decided to decorate a car as an eagle, our mascot. We went to Cynthia Vasquez's house on a Thursday night and proceeded to work on a red Oldsmobile with a white, vinyl top. Red and yellow crepe paper to resemble feathers... I don't remember what metal device we tried to rig onto the grill to resemble a beak, but this process took most of the evening-- getting the paper cut up and adhered to the car, coming up with a plan for the grill, etc.

Like I say, took most of the night, 11 or so. came home, went to bed and got after it the next morning, 6:30 or so, for final touches. Turns out that we got to school late with the car, so we were ruled ineligible. Swell-- we thought we had a chance to win whatever award was out there. But someone did drive the car around the track at half.

That weekend was also kind of the beginning of the end of my honors trigonometry career. I had a quiz that morning that I just absolutely tanked. Things kind of went downhill after that. I went to tutoring and everything, but it didn't seem to help. I was a statistician for the basketball team, so I had to get waivers from Mrs. Caldwell to be able to make road trips. The semester final was 10% of the final grade, and I figured out that I needed a 54 to get 5.4 points to pass the course and get my credit. I was never so happy for a 59.

So I never wonder about how much half a point is. Sometimes it's enough. It makes my success in pre-calculus all the more amazing. Have to work my arse off for good test scores, but it gives me a reason to believe that maybe I can evolve and shore up my weaknesses.

The Pink Pagoda in Seoul

I've always been a fan of impressionists. I well remember when Rich Little or Fred Travalena would go on one of those cheesy 80's game shows, and I'd always laugh at their impersonation.

On one of my favorite episodes of M*A*S*H involves movie night in the mess tent, where the projector constantly breaks down. Klinger tries to fix it (in the dark) and a variety show breaks out. There's a Father Mulcahy sound-alike contest, some singing, and what not. And Major Houlihan, before her rendition of "c'est magnifique" is introduced by Hawkeye as, "the toast of two continents and the Pink Pagoda in Seoul." Classic TV, and I laugh every time.

Something else about that sequence is Radar doing an impersonation of Jack Benny. I'm not old enough to know much about his show, but I am a fan of keeping things like that alive, so I have a very limited knowledge through things like this. But Father Mulcahy played the piano and asked, "now, Mr. Benny?"

But Jack Benny's shtick was about always being 39 years old. It's relevant because I turned 39 this week, for the first (and hopefully not last) time. It was a day like any other day-- went to church for a men's group meeting and ran a seven-miler on campus (love the Alabama fall weather!). There are really several things I could say about being a year older, but I remember something my Uncle John said in 1994. He talked about being at an age where he knew he had lived longer than he was gonna live. Passed the halfway mark, so to speak.

That's about how I look at it right now. I'm halfway to 78, which, I guess, is in the neighborhood of the average lifespan of an American male. I guess I've accomplished a few things, and hope to achieve more in the years to come. It's starting to become pretty heavy stuff-- remembering when I was XX years old, thinking of the decisions I made, etc.

There are many more decisions to be made, and soon. Hope they're good ones.