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.
