Your Championship Game Hoodoo Thread

Well folks, here we stand, on the precipice once again, a few steps shy of cresting the peak and putting number 17 in the Tuscaloosa trophy case. It all seems surreal: another chance to repeat as National Champion under Nick Saban after once before accomplishing the feat in the 2011-2012 seasons. And for the second consecutive year, they’ve done it with a new starting quarterback, to boot!

As shocking as the achievements may seem to the outside world, they’ve become commonplace at Alabama…the norm, if you will. Ladies and gentlemen, we are witnesses to a run of college football excellence the likes of which the sporting world has never seen, and likely won’t see again in our days on this little blue marble we call Earth. Enjoy it, soak it in, for these are heady times we now enjoy, heady times indeed. Explain to your children how lucky they are to be a part of this particular time in Alabama football history, as it is a special era indeed.

After our beloved Crimson Tide defeated the Washington Huskies on New Year’s Eve, I struggled a bit with a Hoodoo tale suitable for a championship game. “Why, has OWB’s deep and wide Hoodoo well finally run dry after all these years of spillin’ forth ridiculous stories?” 

Oh, ye of little faith, to you I say “Nay, NAY!” (But that is just my horse impression, please allow me to regain the proper level of decorum and seriousness…there, now we can move forward with our little narrative, I apologize for the interruption.) To ye of little faith, I say “NAY!”, for if there are truths that can be taken for granted in this cruel, cold world, among them are that death and taxes are constants, the Tide will roll, and OWB will muster a yarn from the well-stocked foot-closet of his yesterdays with which to spin a tapestry of ribaldry and tomfoolery for you.

But as you well know, though I delight from the enjoyment you fine folk take in these unsavory tales I offer up each week, the ultimate goal is one of single-minded focus: namely, to appease the wanton hunger of our pigskin patron, Football Loki, so that he may bestow his Tide-turning favor on the men in crimson. Loki is fair, but eternally needy, so we must continue to fuel his favor with stories worthy of shame and ridicule, if we expect him to push our beloved Crimson Tide to victory against so worthy an opponent as the puke-hued Clemson Tigers we face on Monday night. Can I get an amen? (And the choir said, “Roll Tide.”)

So as the Tide ticked off the final seconds of that clock in the first round, I wondered, “What story do I possess untold that can measure the magnitude of test the Tide will face in the Championship Game?” At first, I was truly and duly stumped. I could not cypher the answer. I’d think of a suitable tale, only to consult ye old Hoodoo ledger and find, “Nope, I told that story in prelude to number 16.” or “Nope, that’s the tale that beat LSU in 2014.” Several times I walked through this process before desperation began to haunt my mind. Would I not be able to comply with the simple request of Football Loki to feed his desires for embarrassing ditties? Would I fail my beloved Crimson Tide, a Hoodoo version of Lane Kiffin? (Too soon?) 

I prayed and hoped the answer would come to me in the coming days. In the meantime, I watched Auburn versus Oklahoma on January 2, for once actually hoping the GusBus would run slap over the brigade of assholes that is the Oklahoma Sooners. But as in all things, Auburn proved themselves incapable of excellence and unworthy of my good will, and they took an ass whuppin’ in the game.

In the dwindling moments of that game, I thought to myself, “Good gawd, Auburn sucks…” And then, like Saul stricken from his mount while on the road to Damascus, I saw the light! “Auburn sucks…Auburn sucks…sucks…sucks…AH-HAH! To the Batcave, Robin, for we must Hoodoo!” (Robin is my pet name for my physical endowment, by the way…which is appropriate on many, many levels. I shall leave your minds to wander for a moment…okay, that’s enough now, focus.)

Yes, Auburn sucked. Like a brass-plated bilge pump. But it was not the Institution of Bovine Book-Learning that had registered a remnant of a memory in my mind, no. Rather, it was the word “sucked” that rang the resonant bell (rust covered as it may be) of recollection in my sour-mash-imbibed brain parts. (Bear with me, for it will all make sense soon enough.)

Now first, before I tear off headlong into this tale of woe, allow me to provide a little character development, if you will, for one of the central players in this here Hoodoo get-down. As a younger man, just after college but before starting a family, I kept to myself in large part. I had a circle of drinkin’ buddies of course, and I had dalliances with ladies I fancied from time to time just to keep my needs met. But the primary companion with whom I sought refuge and comfort from the trials and troubles of the day was a beautiful girl named Esmerelda, or Ezzie, as I called her for the sake of brevity (and if you know one thing about OWB, it’s that he cherishes the whole brevity thing.)

She was gorgeous, crafted by the hand of the Maker with elegant lines and a warm disposition. She was always in the mood to visit and engage in whatever foolishness I happened to have up my sleeve on a given day. Somedays, we’d pile in my old ’78 Cutlass and head for Dauphin Island to soak up sun, surf fish, and splash about in the waves in each other’s company. Some days, we’d walk to the park with a backpack and break out a picnic lunch by the lake. There were times when neither one of us wanted to do anything but cruise around west of Mobile in the hinterlands with a full tank of gas, a couple tightly-rolled spliffs, and my cassette collection. Other times, we’d just stay in bed and watch television for hours on end.

It may be important to note a critical fact here that will aid in this particular character study. For you see, Esmerelda was not a lady…well, not in the sense that I may have led you to believe. She was, in truth, an 80-pound albino pitbull.

From the moment I put my two eyes on her, I was in love with her. I still remember how she came into my life. My brother B-Rad was working in the restaurant business, and he had made some rather questionable friends along the way. As anyone who works in the business knows, it literally takes all kinds to keep your local Chili’s or Applebee’s afloat. One such feller B-Rad met shared a common hobby with my brother: specifically, smoking copious amount of hydroponic weed. Let’s call this ole boy J.

Now after knowing J a short time, B-Rad discovered that ole fella lived just around the corner from us, back in the far end of Beau Terra, in a rat-basket house strewn with empty Miller Lite cans, spent bags of Doritos, and ash trays full of bones, butts, and ash. One day at work, J asked B-Rad if he would come by after work, because he wanted his help with something. After arriving home, B-Rad mentioned it to me, and asked if I wanted to ride along. 

“Sure,” I said. Maybe J had some of that fire, and was willing to share. 

We arrived at J’s house, which was an overall shambles, both inside and out. He greeted us at the door, and began immediately walking us around back, where we could see there was an emptied swimming pool. He began to explain.

“So here’s what happened. A couple days before I moved here, I stole this dog….” (That’s never a promising start to a story, amirite?) “I was livin’ in a trailer park, and the guy next door was into fightin’ dogs. I’d see him throw smaller dogs into their pen, and they’d just tear ‘em up, for practice or whatever. It made me sick, ya know? So I seen he had this one younger dog, pretty as she could be, in a cage, and figured she was gonna get the same treatment. For a day or two I fed her treats through the fence, made friends with her. And after that, I just couldn’t see her get tore up and treated that way, so I stole her.”

(Now, I’m not ever a proponent of theft, especially not if it involves a dog. Hell, despite what the Great State of Alabama has to say about it legally, that ain’t theft, it’s kidnapping. A dog is a member of the family, not a commodity that can be replaced. But in this particular case, one can argue there is truly honor among thieves, as J saved Ezzie from what would have been a short life of pain and suffering. God bless the ole toker for that good deed.)

“Anyway,” J continued, “I got her and we moved here, but now I got my girl knocked up, and can’t afford a dog. And my ole lady is scared about havin’ a pit around a baby, you know…gotta find a home for her, remembered you sayin’ you liked pits…”

About the time, we reached the edge of the pool, and I could see her: a snow white, perfectly proportioned American Staffordshire Terrier. Totally white, with a pink nose and eye lids, not a speck of pigment on her anywhere save for the one brown eye that paired up with the crystal blue one. Beautiful dog, lots of life in her eyes despite what she’d undoubtedly seen in her roughly year of life.

Before B-Rad even said anything, I blurted out, “I’ll take her.”

I climbed down in the pool that had been her make-shift kennel and tucked her under my arm. She licked my face, as dogs are more than willing to do, and we made our way to my Cutty.

We bonded instantly. I took her everywhere I went, whether it was up to the grocery store, over to visit with friends, or to the park. At night, after I’d come in a long day of landscaping labor, she’d be waiting to spend time with me and only me, the only girl I’ve ever known who loved me so unconditionally as to embrace who I was as a person and relish it. I’d sit outside in my makeshift outdoor boxing gym at night, intermittently hitting the bag, smokin’, and drinking beers. Keep in mind, this was in a rather rough neighborhood most of you wouldn’t drive through after sunset, even if you were packing. Once as I sat there, lost in a chemical haze and listening to some Floyd beneath the beaming moonlight, I remember seeing Ezzie’s ears perk, that inquisitive look of awareness rising across her face. Then, without so much as twitch of warning, she leapt up, past me, onto the top rail of the chain link fence with a snarl. 

Now, as an OG, no one would ever get the drop on me under most circumstances, as I had high situational awareness and a quick draw. But on this night, I was completely loaded, and it was that dog that saved me, as her sentinelship alerted me to a fellow about to enter my yard who had just robbed the local grocery a street over, who was fleeing on foot through our neighborhood. He was about to jump my fence (and try to do God-know-what) when Ezzie caught wind, giving me enough forewarning to snatch my H&K from its holster in a cinderblock end table and put it in his face. That, and the ill-tempered pit bull coming over the fence, sent the poor fella careening back into the ditch from which he came. 

Excellent dog, Ezzie was. Even better friend and confidant. I’ll have you know, she never, ever, uttered one of the secrets I offered her in confidence…no sir, not a single one. She was as true a friend to me as her coat was white. 

But enough character development, on to our tale…

So, on one particular Saturday in the spring, I had the hankerin’ for a swim. Ezzie, being the accommodating sort, was always up for a dip, as she loved the water. Now, I had a hot date later on that evening with the woman who would one day become Mrs. OWB. We had been out a few times, done a few things of an intimate nature, but I was quickly working my way past the appetizers to the main course, if you know what I mean (and I think you do.) That night would be a slam dunk, as it was a stay-at-home night, complete with a pair of ribeyes (her favorite cut), wine, and a homemade cheesecake I had chillin’ in the icebox. I felt as though my chances were pretty good in regard to scoring some of that sweet lovin’, and a nice, refreshing midday swim was just the thing to cool the searing embers contained within my loins.

With that engagement on the books, I figured there wasn’t time for an island jaunt. Big Creek Lake was overrun with rednecks, probably not very relaxing. Any of the rivers on the south end of the county were too dirty to swim in. Then I remembered a swimmin’ hole we used to hit when I was a boy, no more than a mile walk from the house in a piece of terrain we called “the Gullies.”

Now these Gullies, you see, were created in prehistoric times (not really, it was like 1955) when the Alabama Department of Transportation got the go-ahead to widen and extend a strip of Moffatt Road, otherwise known as Hwy. 98 (or Bloody 98, as the locals would morbidly call it). These Gullies were the source of all of the fill dirt used to erect the road base of that highway project…acres upon acres of ravines, cliffs, and valleys carved from every shade of clay one finds beneath the Alabama topsoil. It was an awesome place, not only because it offered us coastal flatlanders some sense of elevation (with its 50-foot cliffs carved through the clay by the running waters following Mobile’s trademark torrential downpours), but because it appeared as though it had been painted over in watercolor hues of pastel orange, pink, red, yellow, and chalky white. Stands of pine grew throughout it, but by in large, it was a Tatooine-ish landscape that revealed what Alabama looked like underneath when the dark Delta flesh was peeled back. 

On the backside of the Gullies was a solid stand of trees, and through this expansive thicket ran a stream that slid with quickness through the vicinity. It flowed under Shelton Beach Road before moving through an open area with a small beach, then into the woods. Long ago, we had found the remnants of what was referred to by folks as “The Pumping Station.” The Pumping Station (a tongue-in-cheek descriptor to say the least) was nothing but an old bricked-in cellar which at some point had held a pump that moved water for the nearby water works. It was a 12x20 underground room in essence, and tucked back out of sight in the woods, it became a common location for get-downs from all the tail-chasin’ teenage kids in the neighborhood. There was never a time that I visited the Pumping Station that there were not numerous pairs of panties scattered about, along with various items of drug paraphernalia and old Jim Beam bottles.

But it wasn’t the Pumping Station that interested me on this day, but rather that cool stream that flowed adjacent to it. In the past, I had gone there a few times with the neighborhood kids to that spot in the clearing, since the bottom was pretty sandy and there wasn’t a lot of slimy, half-decayed leaf litter there, unlike the more wooded stretch. Sure, it wasn’t as private, being snugged up against the roadway, but that was okay. I was just going to be swimming with my dog anyway, nothing to hide there.

I made bologna and cheese sandwiches for me and Ez and packed them, along with a pair of towels (one for me, one for Ezzie), a radio, a six pack of High Life tucked in an insulated lunchbox, and a dry set of clothes. We set off on foot, since fording the Gullies to get to the swimmin’ spot was half the fun, and being spring, the temperature was still mild.

We made our way into the Gullies and began crossing over. Ezzie was a natural athlete…like many pitbulls, she was an accomplished climber. She could climb trees in pursuit of squirrels, and she had no trouble navigating the cliffs and valleys we crossed over. Not to mention, she was absolutely fearless (another pit trait), and when she saw me preparing, with a running start, to leap from one clay cliff into a sandy bed some 20 feet below (I’d done it before successfully), she tagged right along at full speed without questioning it. Granted, she had no idea how high the jump was, and she was terrified when she saw how far she was falling, but like a trooper, she tucked and rolled her way out of it like a cotdang ninja.

We found our spot, a little sandy beach in the bend of the creek just about half-a-hundred yards shy of the Shelton Beach bridge. Those bologna sammitches were already on my mind, so I figured we’d eat those, drink a deer, then get in the water. 

After wolfing down lunch, I stripped down to my skivvies, and we went on in. Hell with that 30 minutes foolishness, we had swimmin’ to do. The water was cold, tea-colored from the ever-present tannin in south Alabama creeks caused by decaying leaf matter upstream. I waded out into the deepest part of it, which was only about six feet, Ezzie right behind me, flexing her muscle and dog-paddlin’ in place against the current as if working out on an aquatic treadmill. I’d pick her up and toss her downstream a piece just to watch her battle the current to get back to me. It was great, and she took to water like a Labrador, especially this cool, steady stream that didn’t offer the annoying crash of waves that befuddled her on trips to the coast. 

Cars whipped by on Shelton Beach Road, travelers heading from Mobile into Prichard or Saraland to the north (and vice-versa, of course). I noticed the craned necks of passers-by who watched the stark white shirtless man and his stark white dog splashing around in the tributary like children in a backyard sprinkler. I wondered what they thought…as most folks would have considered it unsafe A) to swim in a creek on the fringe of Prichard, B) to swim alone, C) to swim in such a remote location not marked for swimming, or D) to swim alone in a location not marked for swimming in a creek on the fringe of Prichard. 

I had pulled myself out of the comforting current of the cold water long enough to retrieve another beer from my backpack. When I did, I decided to check my phone, and I saw that I had a missed call from B-Rad. I dialed him back.

“’Ay, whats’up?” I said.

“Aw nothin’, just doin’ it up here with Mike-Mike and Big Leebert, tryin’ to find somethin’ to do.”

“Word, word. I’m just down here by the Pumping Station with Ez, figured I’d come on down here and get me a swim in while the weather was nice, drink a few beers.”

“Cool, we might ride down there,” he said. He hollered away from the phone to his counterparts, asking them if they were game. Then he returned to the phone. “Yeah, we goan ride down there, prolly just park on the side of Shelton Beach by the bridge. I ain’t climbin’ no mountains and shit.”

“A’ight, I’ll be here.” It wouldn’t take them long to get there, as I knew they were probably gonna stop by and pick up some drank on the way if they didn’t have it already. Leebert was a big ole dude, but he had an affinity for Boone’s Farm wine, the fruity kind flavored to taste like poor impersonations of famous cocktails like Mai Thai or Strawberry Daquiri. Dude would suck down six or eight of them in a sitting.

I cracked open a col’beer and watched Ez swim upstream to a large slab of half-submerged concrete that jutted up from the middle of the stream a few dozen yards from where I had plopped down on the beach. Good gawd that dog was a determined thing, it took her forever to battle that flow, but she did it, climbed up on that slab and stood there like King of the Mountain, wriggling peals of water from her coat with violent twists and warming herself in the sunshine. 

I let her have her moment of conquest, but was uncomfortable with how far she had strayed away from me. I waded back into the stream and called her back. Smiling, she immediately leapt-from the pea-gravel impregnated slab into the brown water with a splash and hurriedly paddled towards me, covering the 60 or so yards with speed and ease. I beckoned, calling her to me, “Com’on girl, you can do it, com’on!”

As she drew closer, I noticed there was some black hanging from her cheek. At first, I figured it was a piece of floating debris that had affixed to her, and the dark color on her white coat made it stand out. But the closer she got to me, the more puzzled I was, as it seemed to glisten and shine in an unfamiliar way, looked kind of like wet gummy candy.

When she was within a dozen yards of me, I noticed not only did she have whatever-it-was on her cheek, but I could see something similar on the underside of her neck when her head bobbed up with each paddle. Then I noticed the same thing in the middle of her back. She couldn’t get to me fast enough, as I had a creeping sense of revolt that fell over me.

“Hurry up, girl, com’on.”

Finally, she reached me, swimming up into my arms where I could get to the bottom of this rapidly-developing mystery. I ran my finger over the black spot on her back, hoping it would just flick away like any other floating detritus one is liable to find in a creek in south Alabama. But when I touched it, I recoiled…you see, it was slimy. Yuck. 

I brushed over it again, but it wouldn’t budge. It was stuck. So was the one on her face. Likewise, the one on her neck was affixed. I pulled on the one on her neck, and after a little tug, it came loose. I held it up in the sunlight to examine it, and it wriggled. I held it only long enough to see the mouth of it and deduce that it was, in fact, a leech. A LEECH!

I wasn’t sure what to do, but I snatched them all off as quickly as I could and tossed them into the grass on the close-by bank. Didn’t want those damn things in the water with me! I could see the trickle of blood pouring forth from the spots where I’d removed those hateful critters, the hirudin in their saliva acting as an anti-coagulant that kept the flow running wide open, staining the pristine purity of her white fur. 

I was in full panic mode. What was I to do? I’d never had a run-in with leeches in all my days of swimming creeks and ponds in this part of the world. I didn’t have any alcohol, but I did have High Life…that has alcohol in it, right? So I poured it liberally over her wounds from the one I had open in my hand, hoping that the malted hops would somehow carry an antisepctic property that would save my dog’s life from these vampiric demons.

All the while, Ezzie looked at me, perplexed, her head cocked sideways in the pittie fashion, not understanding the look of panic that had erupted upon her best friend’s face. She licked the beer that was dripping from her jowls.

Then, all of a sudden, it dawned on me, your humble (and sometimes dim-witted) narrator. If Ezzie got leeches on her from swimming in this water, then….

I immediately panicked, began itching psychosomatically, it was like fire was racing through my body. I couldn’t get those things off (if they were indeed on me) fast enough. I dropped Ez to fend for herself in the current and let my eyes race over my person. None on my arms, none on my neck. I couldn’t really see my back, but as far as I could reach and feel, there was nothing attached to me back there either. But then again, those parts had not been under water most of the time, so I could not rest easy yet. 

I began to wade out of the creek onto the bank so that I could check my lower extremities. I was still ankle deep when I saw one of the bloodsuckers, a tiny one, attached to my leg right above the knee. I snatched it off and the blood streamed out in a little red rivulet. Another one had attached to the lower calf of my other leg. I ripped it off as well and hurled it into the grass. I didn’t see any more, but there was one more place to check, a sacred place beyond common eyeshot…

I didn’t want to look there, as the thought of such a horrific thing was surely an image better suited for some Eli Roth horror-porn film or other. But the thought of leaving something there, if it was indeed there, for even a second longer was appalling. I had to act.

With one eye pinched shut, I pulled the elastic waistband of my boxers away from my body, and with my one open eye, I peeped down upon my naughty parts. There, attached to me ole tool, was a leech just a coonus-hair smaller than a triple-A battery, just a-gettin’ his jollies at the expense of ole Robin. There was another, much smaller one, lodged in the tucked area between me thigh and coinpurse…had a mouth of raisin-wrinkly skin, he did. Truly terrifying stuff, people.

I did what any red-blooded male would do in such a circumstance…I instinctively snatched my britches off and screamed like a schoolgirl. 

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH,” the sound echoed over the hills, off the cliff walls, and down through the valleys. Wildlife turned away from grazing at the sound, flocks of birds arose from their perches in flight, terrified. Even the trees seemed to gently bow at my horror in the light breeze. 

I ran out of breath, screamed myself dry, took a deep breath, then hollered again, “AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

I stood there, buck-nekkid as the day I was born, swattin’ and flickin’ at my man-parts in hopes that these blood-suckers would somehow get the message that they were unwanted and drop off. After all, the only thing worse than having a leech attached to one’s hammer is having to pull one off of one’s hammer, then watch the aftermath of it all. OH, THE HUMANITY!

But these unkind creatures of the creek refused to cooperate, despite my persistent, uptempo flicking. (I shudder to think what it may have looked like to passers-by from a distance: me, nekkid and flicking my junk while my dog looked on...like some East German internet porno or something.)

Ezzie, well, if she was confused before, she was confused + horrified now. She backed into the tall grass, ass-first, and laid flat on her belly with her chin on her front paws, the way she did when she had done something wrong. She didn’t know what the hell was going on, and frankly, neither did I. I had a leech attached to my pecker. The world no longer made sense.

I decided that I was going to have to do the unthinkable and pluck this demon spawn from my naughty bits. There I was, still naked mind you, trying to pinch this critter off of me beneath the basking glow of the Alabama sun. I elected to do the little one, the groin-rider, first. I ripped it off, and sure enough, there was a trickle of blood in the wake.

Now, it’s worth noting that when I awoke that morning, I had no idea that before the sunset, I’d be faced with the prospect of a bleeding pelinus. I mean, that just wasn’t on my list for the day, really didn’t see things going down in such a fashion. So please, understand my reluctance to witness such a thing – ever – let alone on the very day that I expected to cross the final bridge of intimacy with the woman I was courting. Who gets busy with a unit that has a worm-induced hole in it the size of a bullet wound? Certainly not the germaphobic, critterphobic future Mrs. OWB. Kinda hard to explain that whole dynamic…just no savory way to justify that one.

Finally, I bit down on the proverbial bullet. I closed my eyes, pinched that nasty bastard, and pulled it off. He didn’t wanna let go, either, bastard had staked his claim and all. I didn’t want to look down after that, but my eyes involuntarily forced it upon me. I mean, I couldn’t not look…kinda had to know what I was workin’ with down there.

Sure enough, there was blood…everywhere. It was horrible. I will never forget it.

Now keep in mind, I was standing on the creek bank, nude as a shucked oyster, with a bloody man-part in my hand. Not really my finest moment as a person, and it looked even worse than it was.

It was at that point that I realized I had an audience. The first hint was the eruption of guffaws coming from the roadway. You guessed it: B-Rad, Mike-Mike, and Leebert. There were also cars that were slowing on the roadway to see the unusual scene, though they dared not stop and find themselves entangled in whatever in the hell had happened to render such a nightmare. (“No sire’ee, just a keep on drivin’, but…what the hell?”)

Knowing there was no real way to circumnavigate the truth, and no real reason to with these assholes, I shouted at the peanut gallery, “HEY, SHUT THE FK UP, I HAD LEECHES ON MY PECKER!”

Their laughter stopped. Immediately. In fact, I could see them all making their way back to B-Rad’s Bronco. They got in, and B-Rad barked his tires down, cutting a Julio back onto the roadway and speeding off. Didn’t anybody want any of that action…shit ain’t so funny now, is it?

I wasn’t mad. After all, tending to leech bites on one’s unit is something best done in privacy. I poured some beer on it, wrapped ole Robin up in a paper towel, found my dry britches, and got dressed. Ezzie seemed relieved that we were apparently leaving, and she finally crept out of her hiding place and took her usual posture.

Needless to say, there wasn’t any love-makin’ to be had that night, not by the decision of the future Mrs. OWB, but by my own doing. After all, how would that convo go down? “Uhhh yeah, that hole, it’s uhhh, an old war injury…yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket.” Or maybe “Nah, don’t mind that hole, it’s just a flesh wound, all good.” Definitely not (especially for the exceedingly squeamish Mrs. OWB), “Yea, I was swimming in a creek today and got leeches on me Johnson, no big whup…” 

Our relationship survived, nonetheless. But to this day, I live with the horror of what happened on that fateful sojourn into the Alabama semi-wilderness. Never again have I swum in uncharted waters. It has been a worthy sacrifice, as you never wanna look into yo’ draws and see something attached to your manhood (with the obvious exclusions being applicable). The physical wounds, well…they healed within a week’s time. But the mental and emotional scars…they, my friends, remain.

There is my tale of shame and horror. Football Loki, please take this offering and commit it to your eternal favor, as a rematch with those god-awful orange heathens from “Auburn with a Lake” was not my desire, so vociferous were they in our last meeting. Please give our beloved Crimson Tide strength supernatural. Let Jalen Hurts fall on the Tiger defense with the fury of Thor’s hammer Mjolnir. Let Jonathan Allen repeatedly smite Deshaun Watson and send him to Valhalla. Let the Bama defense stand as rigid as Heimdahl the Impenetrable at the Bifrost bridge to Asgard. Let Bo Scarbrough bring upon the Clemsonites their own gridiron Ragnarok. I ask these things of you, in Saban’s name, amen.

You get it, Loki…Roll Tide.

Your Weekly Hoodoo Thread: Washington edition

Ah, my friends, we have made it! We have traversed the holiday social calendar, we’ve regaled and celebrated our way through the birthday of the little baby Jesus in the manger, we’ve come to this decisive moment in Crimson Tide football history. Finally after a month long lay-off, our beloved Crimson Tide will once again take the field. Glory, glory, hallelujah.

Our men in crimson have earned themselves the right, nay, the privilege, of competing in their third consecutive College Football Playoffs, and of that fact we should all be proud as the Crimson Tide faithful, assembled. I’m not sure why our hopes and dreams hang on the doings of college age young men and their curmudgeonly head coach, but I’ll be damned if I’m not as excited as a virgin on prom night about the prospect of Alabama getting a return trip to the National Championship Game. 

This run we’ve enjoyed under Saban is unprecedented, and as I worked through my weekly pieces leading up to the game, it dawned on me just how fortunate we faithful are in regard to our sporting lives. Alabama has had nine consecutive 10-win seasons, four of which ended in national championships. If the Tide pulls it out this season, that will make five nattys. Five. Reflect on that for a moment if you will…in the dark days of the Mikes, did any of us ever imagine such a reality? I certainly did not, as I thought the days of Bryant were but a shadow on the program, and that Bama wouldn’t be fortunate enough to find the second coming of the Bear. 

We are truly lucky, fans of crimson giants who walk the football landscape and conquer all comers. Heady times, indeed, friends…enjoy them while you can.

Now as you know, in this here space each week of the season, I jot down some foolishness or other, some narrative of wanton youth or ribaldry soured by the biting pinch of authority. After all, Football Loki, our beloved patron, demands a sacrifice, and so a sacrifice we must offer. 

But in this week, I must admit to you, my faithful friends and readers, that I must take a slightly more somber tone. Not that there won’t be humor…as an officially licensed and certified Hoodoo Operator, I am contractually bound to root out the humor and folly in all things no matter how morose. But in this week, at this particular moment, my heart is heavy, friends. I cannot muster tales of ribaldry, I cannot speak in bawdy tones of mistresses deflowered or narcotics freely consumed.

No, a tragedy has stricken the OWB clan in this otherwise-joyous time of frolic and celebration. And I would be remiss if I didn’t take liberty to speak about it here with you, my friends and readers.

Now as loyal readers lo these many years, you fine folk have heard me describe various members of my family, both the loved and the outcast, the wise and the foolhardy. For you see, in my clan (as in many Southern families…you people know that of which I speak), things are, well…complicated. Long ago, when my mother and father split whilst your narrator was but a boy of five, it drove a deep wedge between family members, a schism that only grew wide ‘neath the ever-pounding hammer of time.

I became, through an unfortunate set of circumstances, estranged from my father over the years. In fact, until recently, I had not spoken with him in nearly 20 years. Our relationship, never very fruitful, withered and died on the vine without so much as the quenching relief of a single shed tear from either of us. He was arrogant and unremorseful about the way he had abandoned us, refused to admit any fault in the way things turned out. I, being a younger man full of piss and vinegar, refused to acquiesce without a patent apology and admission of guilt, which is something his pride would never let him muster. 

Though that relationship had long soured, I was still a member of his extended family, and I spent a great deal of time with his parents, brothers, and sisters. My grandmother’s house was like many old-school Catholic households in Mobile’s Cottage Hill neighborhood. With a large brood, there was a passel of young-uns in and out at any given time, a veritable hive of activity most days. There was always an opportunity to visit with one’s uncles, aunts, or cousins while taking in a hot meal, something my grandmother seemingly always had on the stove top. She was a fantastic cook, and her oyster stew is something one cannot find the likes of in any restaurant, even in a seafaring city like Mobile. (For you inland folk, oyster stew is a rich delicacy that must be hand made in well-worn steel pots and injected with a healthy helping of equal parts love and attention.)

Throughout college, I worked near to their house, and had taken on the project of mentoring my younger cousin Bockle, who was himself fatherless and cast out on the sea of manhood, rudderless. Seeing a little of myself in him, I decided I could mentor him, help him find his way, contribute those manly tidbits to his upbringing that would serve him well as he grew into fruition. So each day, after work, I’d meet him at my grandparents’ house and we’d go running, then eat dinner with my grandmother and grandfather.

Now my grandfather, we’ll call him Bernard (pronounced in the Irish tongue as Burn-urd, not that high-fallutin’ Burn-Ard you hear from more Frenchified folk), was one of my favorite people on Earth, and I cherished the time I spent with him and my cousin around the circular dinner table in my grandmother’s kitchen. A WWII veteran who wore his pants up high-waisted and who cussed like the sailor he was (he was a Navy man), Bernard was the terror of neighborhood children who dared cross his lawn or sneak a satsuma from his abundant citrus orchard behind the “old house” as they called it (a one-room affair that served as his and my grandmother’s first home after marriage). He was a gravelly, blue-ink tattoo- marked, leather-skinned badass despite his 5’8” stature, a fireplug of a man who wore horn-rimmed glasses and could tear apart a motor and put it back together in a day flat. Despite his outward demeanor, he was a jovial fellow who wouldn’t even ask neighbors if they needed their yards cut, but would just swing his riding mower over the property line and take care of the job once done with his own plot. 

Now Bernard was a mechanic by trade, a craft he had learned as a member of the Navy deployed on the legendary USS Lexington aircraft carrier in the Pacific theater of World War II. On the ship, he tended to the beasts of the seafaring air combat, namely F4U Corsairs and F6F Hellcats, keeping them in top condition and performing his role as a critical cog in America’s war fighting machine.

He was on the Lady Lex during one of her sinkings. According to his recounting, as he ambled to his battle station on the third level of the superstructure, a Japanese torpedo struck true…the concussion flung him three stories to the main deck, where he landed squarely upon his knees (that injury would be mended some 50 years later with a knee replacement, but he lived with the damage for a half-century without uttering a grumble about it.) Despite that, he fought on in vain before he and his shipmates were rescued as the old lady listed on the high seas.

Later in life, he took great pride in having fought at the pivotal battle of the Pacific Theater, specifically Iwo Jima. He witnessed with his own stone-hued eyes the legendary flag-raising on Mount Suribachi from a landing craft as it muddled towards shore through the turgid water, red with the blood of so many young men unfortunate enough to find their eternal sleep just shy of those volcanic shores. He told me how the iconic photo was a bit of a PR piece, claiming that the first group of men to raise the flag atop the mountain were obliterated by the splash of Japanese artillery shells before a photo could be taken. The group that ended up in the legendary pic, Ira Hayes and that bunch, came after that original team met their Maker on the crest of that volcanic crag.

Though he never spoke publicly to others about the horrors he witnessed there on the shores of that speck of Japanese territory, he would confide small bits of the narrative in rare moments, such as over a pile of jointly-raked leaves, or the recently dissembled brake array of his pick-up truck.

“I hope your generation never knows the things I’ve seen,” he would tell me. “I was your age when I first saw a man blowed apart with a hand grenade. Damn Tojos would surrender with grenades hidden under their arms, pins pulled. When the GIs would go to frisk them, they’d let those grenades fall, saw ‘em kill ‘bout near a whole squad that way one time.”

He'd talk about the tenacity of the Japanese soldiers, about how they would refuse surrender, would hole themselves in Suribachi’s lava-tube caves and fire upon anyone who entered. The practical “American solution,” he would say, was to hose the caves out with flame-throwers, with the terrible screams of burning life echoing off the stone walls. He told me once he could still hear those sounds, slow-burning echoes of those men in the throes of a death horrific, as if it were yesterday.

Being a student of history, I’d sometimes ask him about his experiences in the war that saved humanity. During one such occasion, he told me of a Japanese kamikaze who approached the Lex’s starboard side, humming in low just a few feet below sea level on a suicide run to penetrate the carrier’s aircraft storage deck. Bernard and his counterparts turned the anti-aircraft guns on him (he was a mechanic, but in the heat of battle, everyone had a battle station on the ship, because everyone was vested in that ship’s survival). One of the gunners’ aim was true, and the low-flying Zero peeled down flat onto the surface of the sea a few hundred yards from the ship. Like a flat piece of slate skipped over a calm pond, that aircraft slid over the surface of the water, gliding up to the steel hull beneath Bernard and his fellow gunners. Expecting a surrender, they were instead confronted by “a Jap pilot as mad as a hornet,” who jumped from the cockpit onto the wing, snatched his pistol from its holster, and began firing up at the Americans above.

“We just turned those big guns on him at near point-blank range, cut that ole boy to shreds, nothin’ but pieces that the sharks lit into…” He laughed a nervous laugh, a laugh that evolved into something else when the tears welled up blue and heavy in his gray eyes like glaze. I never asked Bernard to talk to me about the war again, but rather would just listen and take mental notes when he brought it up.

Bernard taught me a lot about what it was to be a man in the absence of his son. You see, not only had my father abandoned me as a son, but he had largely abandoned his father as a dad. He only called on his father when he needed something: an oil change, a cabinet built, a pipe disjointed and unclogged. Otherwise, my father didn’t have time for the old man. It is the way my father chose to live his life, and it's a lifestyle from which I believe he has repented as the gravity of his own mortality sinks in, with cancer crawling insidiously through his body.

Bernard and I, we were just what the other needed. In the mutual void created by the same person, we built a bridge between each other that was wide enough to span the chasm created by my father’s inability to live up to his responsibilities as a father and son. 

In the time we spent together, I learned my ridiculous work ethic from that old man, in part, because he set that example. He’d never ask me to do something he wouldn’t do himself. I can remember in the wake of one hurricane or another, Bernard asked me to come help him rake his yard. I obliged, as he had fed me enough meals in my time on this earth that I had to do something to level that tab. But when I arrived, it wasn’t his yard that needed raking. It was the yard of an old friend, a widow who lived down across Azalea Road from St. Luke’s. She wasn’t any older than him, but without a husband or sons in the area, she had a mess on her hands that she’d never be able to clean. My grandfather promised her that he and his grandsons would get her place straightened up, free of charge. She insisted on paying me for my trouble, but he wouldn’t have it. 

“Boy’s gotta learn the value of hard work, and takin’ care of his elders,” he said. I remember standing by in semi-disgust, as being a child of the ghetto, I was loathe to ever refuse a dollar that was duly earned.

“I sure could have used that money,” I said to him later as we worked. “I got stuff to pay for.”

“You’ll find some other way to get that money, you’re smart. The reward you get for helping folks out is paid in Heaven, don’t worry,” he said. 

Before you go thinking he was saintly and as pure as the driven snow, I’ll tell you that minutes later, he raked up under an azalea thatch full of yella jackets, and the cascades of “gawd dammits,” “sumbitches,” and “sheeyuts” poured forth like cool water bubbling up out of an Artesian spring. That lady got a cussword education as my grandfather slapped and swatted around in her yard. 

I remember as a younger man, the worst whuppin’ I ever received came off of his belt. You see, I’ve always been the family sheepdog. As the eldest grandchild, I was duly appointed as caretaker, overwatcher, and tattler-in-chief for the collected group of my cousins and my brother, as I was deemed “responsible” and “muh-toor.” The older folks would leave us by the pool so long as I was there to keep everyone in line. The little ones were allowed to play in the acres-deep backyard out of sight of the house if I was back there with them. Hell, I was no older than 10, but they trusted me the way a shepherd trusts his sheepdog.

Well, on one occasion, I took advantage of my power. I had wanted to play the Atari in the house, but my cousins Bockle and Linny wanted to play outside. Being partial to her only granddaughter and youngest (at the time) grandchild, my grandmother commanded me to go outside and watch them.

“But I was just gonna…”

“It don’t matter, I’m standin’ in here cookin’ dinner for you, least you can do is watch your cousins for a while,” said my grandmother. Guilt: the broadsword of the Southern grandmother.

I shuffled outside as my cousins jumped on the tire swing.

“SWING US, OWB, SWING US!”

Ugggh. This was getting worse by the moment. As I started pushing them, I could feel the Dark Side welling up in me. I started swinging them harder, and harder, and harder.

“AHHH, TOO HIGH, TOO HIGH!”

I laughed maniacally. They screamed. Teach them to make me come outside. I continued to push them higher and higher while they caterwauled, until…one of the chains inexplicably snapped, dumping my cousins to the ground from the peak of the pendulum arc.

The screaming that ensued would curdle the iciest of blood. Immediately, my grandmother burst from the house.

“WHAT IN THE WORLD?...”

Linny spoke before I could leverage a word in.

“HE PUSHED US TOO HARD AND MADE IT BREAK!”

“Dangit, Linny…so it’s like that?” I thought. Straight up under the bus.

I started to offer my rebuttal, but felt the sting of flat leather across my hindparts unexpectedly. Dazed, I turned to find Bernard winding up for another lashing with that black leather strap of a belt, lighting into me with ferocity while hollering, “GAWD DAMMIT OWB, YOU’RE SMARTER THAN THAT!”

Now, I have lived a solid 42 years, and I can tell you, as a young boy there are few things more embarrassing than one’s grandfather whuppin’ that ass right in front of one’s cousins and every set of eyes in the neighborhood. My face was as red as my behind by the time it was over. 

Afterwards, he told me he had been in his shop the whole time (where he spent most of his time) and had heard the escalation but figured I was responsible enough to stop short of getting anyone hurt. He was disappointed in me, and truthfully, that hurt a hell of a lot worse that the belt-whuppin’ (which itself was quite painful).

Pain. That’s another chapter I could write pertaining to my grandfather, as I’ve never seen a man so resistant to the tug of hurt than Bernard. In my whole life, I only ever heard him shout out in pain a single time, after his knee replacement surgery, as the physical therapist worked to keep scar tissue from setting up in the joint. That fact is even more amazing when one considers that, as a man who in retirement worked with his hands eight to 10 hours per day in his shop, he was constantly banging, slashing, crushing, tripping. 

I remember once, he decided that he was going to begin making toys for his grandchildren in his woodshop. He loved woodworking, his second hobby behind tending his citrus trees. He made templates that resembled a classic WWII-era fighter, the P-51…he freehand drew the stencils and cut them out to spec for assembly and painting on his own little assembly line. I had dropped by for a visit and decided I would lend him a hand. He was running the table saw, and chatting with me casually about the Dolphins, his favorite professional team. A good many of our conversations (when we weren’t talking about Bama) revolved around the Dolphins, Dan Marino, Don Shula, Bob Baumhauer. From the way my grandfather talked about Shula, you’d have thought they were close friends.

“That Don, he is a man of his word, I tell you what. If he says it’s so, you can believe it’s so! Ain’t a better coach, neither, I remember back in ’71 when….”

As he talked, I noticed from my vantage point that he was shaving awfully close to his fingers. But being a good acolyte, I assumed he knew what he was doing, as he’d earned the benefit of wisdom from all his years working with wood. Hell, he’d forgotten more about runnin’ a table saw than I knew.

It was at that moment that a spurt of crimson sprayed across the white plane of plywood. Stunned, it took a moment for him to cut off the saw, but he never yelped out or cried. His only response to SPLITTING HIS THUMB DOWN TO THE KNUCKLE WITH THE TABLE SAW, was as follows:

“Well, gawd dammit, now I’ma have to go to the damn emergency room. Sheeyut.” Just matter of fact. Untucked his ever-tucked white tee, wrapped the bottom of it around his thumb, and ambled up into the house to get my grandmother to drive him to the hospital down the road. 

I, on the other hand, was totally unsettled by the mangled thumb, split like an overcooked sausage at the end of his hand. I wasn’t a squeamish kid usually, but I’ll be damned if the spurtin’ blood didn’t get the better of me that day. I felt my vision slide, my knees got weak, and next thing I knew, my grandmother was standing over me, dabbin’ my forehead with a wet washcloth.

“OWB, OWB, wake up, we gotta get your grandpa to the hospital.” 

Apparently, I had fainted, which of course delayed departure for the emergency room. I expected Bernard to be aggravated to the point of hollerin’. But he wasn’t. He was sitting in the open car door, just a’chucklin’ at me as I sat up. 

“Boy, you fainted over a lil’ blood,” he said. His chuckle became a laugh that persisted throughout the ride to the hospital. After arriving in the emergency room, he told everyone the same joke after showing his wound to onlookers.

“I’m the one split his finger open, and this one over here is the one that fainted, how you like ‘at?” Then he’d laugh. 

No, that wasn’t embarrassing…not embarrassing at all. 

All of these recollections I store in the treasure chest of memory (even the shameful ones), but ultimately, it is Bernard’s love of all things Alabama that shaped my lifelong affinity for the Crimson Tide. He loved Coach Bryant, and it is through his stories about the Alabama teams before my time that contributed to my knowledge of Tide lore. As I grew up, I spent many Saturdays with Bernard, either watching the games or listening to the radio broadcast with him. I’ve watched or listened to more Bama games with him than any other person other than my mother. He’d crack open one of his Miller beers as the game began, and we needed nothing fancier for game day treats than saltine crackers and cheese.  

He was one of the primary drivers of my fervent fandom, as he not only instilled a love of Alabama in my young heart, but he taught me how to be a fan. If Bernard was a fan of something, he was a fan for life. He never bought a vehicle that wasn’t a Ford, because that’s what he liked. He always wore the same style of slate blue work trousers, because that’s what he liked. He didn’t care that people would tell him his brisket was too tough, because that’s the way he liked it. 

With Alabama, he lived through the highs and lows of the last half-century, celebrating the victories, and maintaining decorum in defeat. In victory or defeat, he was ever loyal to Bama, and his fandom and enthusiasm for the season never waned, even in his advanced years. When we’d lose, he was gracious but analytical, pointing to technical errors or low morale in explaining away the loss. When Alabama won, he’d never rub it in with his Auburn friends (of which he had a very few), but he was always confident in the Tide’s ability to win any game.

I remember well the lead-up to the ’92 Championship Game. I honestly believe that Bernard and I were the only two people in Mobile who thought that Alabama would prevail…and I had my moments of doubt after watching Miami march through their schedule, a juggernaut that appeared unstoppable. Alabama was tough and rugged, and that defense was the stuff of quarterback nightmares. Still, many people doubted the Tide had the offense to overcome the Gino Toretta fireworks show that had torched Hurricane opponents throughout the season. But Bernard never wavered in his faith in the Crimson Tide. After hearing scuttlebutt about how Rohan Marley had taunted big ole Rosie Patterson the night before the game, he confided in me that he had no doubt.

“Mark my words, Alabama is gonna kick their smart-aleck asses. Those punks have a reckonin’ comin’, and Alabama is gonna give it to ‘em.”

We didn’t watch that game together, for whatever reason. I watched it at home with my mama, with whom I’ve watched many momentous events in Crimson Tide history over the years, that national championship game being only one of them. But that didn’t mean my grandfather and I didn’t celebrate together. When Rosie Patterson absolutely destroyed Marley with a brutal block to spring Derrick Lassic to the edge, my phone rang almost immediately.

“Did ya see that,” said the voice on the other end. “I told you they done pissed ole Rosie off, that bastard is gonna feel that tomorrow, ain’t he!” Bernard cackled before saying he’d talk to me later and hanging up.

Later on, in that ephemeral moment…the play that wasn’t the play, when George Teague chased down Lamar Thomas and relieved the Miami receiver of the ball, it was my turn to ring the phone.

“DID YOU SEE THAT! Teague ran him down!”

“Sure did, I told you boy, I told you. These Miami punks don’t know what hit ‘em. Roll Tide!”

Good times…I can remember it like it only just happened. 

He loved the Crimson Tide, and his home was a shrine to Alabama’s favorite sons. I can remember watching many a game with him during the glory years of the Stallings tenure, during which he’d tell me how he had always hoped Bebes would return to Bama after Coach Bryant passed. I remember the time I brought my Aubie girlfriend over to watch the Iron Bowl with him. This was a tragic error in judgment, as usually a gracious host, he scowled and growled at her every time Auburn did anything positive (or when Freddie Kitchens did something negative). Together, we suffered through the DuBose era, and talked many times about how Alabama was just one coach away from returning to dominance in the early 2000s.

This is illustrative of the influence this silly game played on a grassy grid with a sack made of hog flesh has on our culture. It is a critical part of our lifeline, of our collective memories of time passed by. Sure, it’s just a game, in one reality. But it’s also something more than that. Here in Alabama, the home of the greatest people on the face of God’s green earth, it is a binder, a cable of common experience interwoven throughout our lives, concurrently and individually. We all share these same collective experiences…these events that transpire between young men on the football field belong to us all and hold shared meaning for those who follow our beloved Crimson Tide. 

But they also have individual meaning significant of time shared with loved ones, conversations enjoyed with friends, moments of jubilation in which we celebrated, bouncing like spun tops while singing the Rammer Jammer and grinning like Chezzie cats. Alabama football is not the canvas of my life per se, but rather it’s one of the many acrylics with which I’ve shaped the colors and contours of the life I’ve lived with those I love. 

While we all share these moments in Tide history in a communal context, so too are there special meanings and memories attached to them. It is the latter (in part) that I’ve recounted to you today in this Hoodoo space usually reserved for frivolity and fun. But today I had a different story to tell, a narrative that I believe many of us who were born in this Great State share. We all have our stories, and what I have relayed here is but one of many.

The reason for this particular writing at this particular time is that Bernard went home to his reward in the early morning hours of December 25^th, on the day celebrating the birth of his Savior, just a week shy of the day his beloved Crimson Tide will take the field in pursuit of another national championship. He had a special love for defensive football, and I have no doubt that this Alabama team was one of his favorites because of their hard-nosed, relentless style of physical play. He won’t get to see them dominate Washington, at least not on this plane. But he did get to witness Alabama’s return to its rightful place at the top of college football, and as an unwavering supporter of the Tide, it’s fitting that the last teams of his lifetime were some of the best teams he ever watched play the game.

I’m thankful for that, to be quite honest. After all, it’s just a game. But it’s something bigger than that to me. Alabama football is the bridge between generations, between races, between the rich and the poor. It is the tie that binds us here in the Great State, whether we are at home wedged in between the Mighty Tennessee River and the Gulf of Mexico, or elsewhere beyond her borders as a member of the Alabama diaspora. It is a thread woven through the tapestry of our individual and collective lives, a kind of shared timeline, and I’m damn proud that God thought enough of me to make me an Alabama fan. Thank you, Jesus.

As I look on to the horizon, I am hopeful that the boys from Alabama have it within them to finish what they started, to drive the final nail in a project they began erecting way back in September. I know my grandfather Bernard is confident they’ll win, as he always was. But in the event that confidence proves unfounded, he’ll also forgive them if they don’t, so great was his love for the Crimson Tide.

Thanks for indulging me, my friends, as I aired out this less-than-humorous chapter of OWB’s ever-twisting narrative in this here Hoodoo ledger. I appreciate your patience, and am glad we too are joined by this crimson tether that links us. 

Now, the time for mourning is over…the time for kicking ass has arrived. To quote the 18^th century Reconstructionist scholar Greg “The Fightin’ Ginger” McElroy, “let’s go be champions, boys.”

Let’s send Bernard out on a win. 

And Roll Tide, old man, I still love you.