My SEC Picks for the Week

Kentucky at LSU:   Kentucky should stick to basketball. LSU 45 UK 7

Mississippi St at Georgia:  A close match.  Mississippi State 36 Georgia 27

Auburn at South Carolina:  Another close one which I see Auburn winning.  Auburn 28 South Carolina 22

Buffalo at Tennessee:  Why is this one neccessary?  To soothe Tennessee's hurt feelings.  Tennessee 38 Buffalo 7

Arkansas at Texas A&M:  The Aggies by a close margin.  Texas A&M 31 Arkansas 27.

Alabama at Florida:  A nailbiter. Alabama 24 Florida 21

Mississippi at Fresno State:  Ole Miss 27 Fresno State 15

Administrators and Horseback Riding

Five college administrators, having decided to reward themselves with an afternoon's recreation, went horseback riding.  They appeared at the local stable and asked to rent a horse,

The owner of the stable said, "Five horses, coming right up."

But the lead administrator corrected him.  "One horse, please."

The owner was astounded.  "How can the five of you ride on one horse?"

The lead administrator replied, "Don't worry.  We have whips!"

Marcel Proust on Spending One's Last Hour Alive

In the summer of 1922, the Parisian newspaper “L’Intransigeant” published a questionnaire that included this question:

“An American scientist announces that the world will end, or at least that such a huge part of the continent will be destroyed, and in such a sudden way, that death will be the certain fate of hundreds of millions of people.  If this prediction were confirmed, what do you think would be its effects on people between the time when they acquired the aforementioned certainty and the moment of cataclysm?  Finally, as far as you’re concerned, what would you do in this last hour?”

Marcel Proust answered with these observations:

“I think that life would suddenly seem wonderful to us if we were threatened to die as you say.  Just think of how many projects, travels, love affairs, studies, it- our life- hides from us, made invisible by our laziness which, certain of a future, delays them incessantly.

But let all this threaten to become impossible  for ever, how beautiful it would become again!  Ah! if only the cataclysm doesn’t happen this time, we won’t miss visiting the new galleries of the Louvre, throwing ourselves at the feet of Miss X, making a trip to India.

The cataclysm doesn’t happen, we don’t do any of it, because we find ourselves back in the heart of normal life, where negligence deadens desire.  And yet we shouldn’t have needed the cataclysm to love life today.  It would have been enough to think that we are humans, and that death may come this evening.”

My Religious Preference

At age 18, back in Medieval Times, I started college as a commuter freshman.  And I discovered the sweet mysteries of college registration.

The process took days, literally.  I attended LSUNO, as it was known then.  (Now simply UNO.)  Anyway, there was a formidable set of meetings/convocations/hoops/hurdles to jump through.  My Good Sport Quotient, being an 18-year-old smartass was running on fumes.  The final straw was filling out a bulky pack of file cards.

When I got to one, the Religious Preference Card, the card did not have the exaustive "M/F" dichotomy for sex; but listed:

Sex: ____________________.

So I answered.

Sex:  Hopeful!

Religion:  Pagan

Other answers could have been used; all other than the one requested on the Religious Prefence Card.

In December, I got a call from the Dean's Office.  He called me in to bawl me out for having "a bad attitude."  In other words, a normal 18-year-old.

It took four months before they noticed my answer in those pre-computer days.

Didn't they teach Deans adolescent psychology back then even in those in loco parentis days?

Incidentally, I never heard from the Pagan Student Union.

Types of Geeks

A convenient typology of this species.

Gardening in Alabama, Circa 1973

When my wife and I moved to northern Alabama, we lived in a two bedroom house and got a dog.  We lived next to an older couple,Ray and Catherine, who was very heavily into gardening.

Except on Sunday.  That being the LORD'S day, Catherine insisted that they didn't garden on Sunday, saying that nothing would grow if it was planted or tended then.  She affirmed, moreover, that she would allow no liquor in her house. 

She also had a habit of taking a mid-afternoon nap.  I noticed that while she was apparently napping, her husband sneaked out in the yard to enjoy gardening!

Ray had a really neat storage shed in his yard.  One afternoon he invited me into his shed.  I thought it was a strange invitation, but I went because he was so proud of it!

And I found out why h was proud:  He had a nice quart of Jack Daniel in it; and he poured each of us a stiff one!

That drink tasted damned fine!  And it convinced me that when Baptists go off the straight and narrow, they do it in style!