The first day of fall, falls on September 23. It’s on a Friday this year. It also happens to be the day before the Arkansas-Alabama football game in Tusca-loosa. I say all this only because the heat index is something like 167 and thoughts of fall and football seem relieving. The first Razorback game is September 3, which is 36 days from today, ONLY 36 days. That same night LSU plays at Oregon.
October 8 is an important date. That’s the day my wife and I head to the beach for our annual “Head to the Beach” vacation. We always go in October, for different reasons, the first being that the crowds have thinned dramatically from their peak summer numbers. It’s not that we don’t like people mind you, we just don’t care for bunches of them, like in traffic jams and restaurant lines. The weather in October can be the best of the year, which it was last year, with daytime temps in the mid-70’s.
If you really want to know the truth I’m ready to move to Florida. My grandparents did it back in the early sixties when they packed up their Packard in Conway and drove south to St. Petersburg. Joining them a few years later were my grandfather’s twin brother Ralph and his wife Maxine, who was my grandmother’s twin. My grandfather, John, passed on in 1972, and uncle Ralph and Aunt Maxine weren’t far behind. But my grandmother, Geraldine, who we always called Geri, lived on for years near Clearwater Beach, well into her nineties. “In my little brown house,” she always called it.
My grandfather was a salesman who tried his hand at a variety of things. He never made a lot of money but he is about the sweetest man I ever knew. I was only 11 when he died and in my fading memories of him he was always smiling. And why wouldn’t he be, living in Florida? Uncle Ralph was a salesman also who picked up some extra bucks shooting pool. So if those recent ancestors could pack it all up and head to the Sunshine State, I should be able to do the same. But I better run the idea by Kathy first. Speaking of which, the most important August date will be the 30th because it’s my 31st wedding anniversary. Maybe for a gift she would like a little brown house near the beach.
Then on November 12, for all you Rocky Top fans, Tennessee travels to Fayetteville. Surely by then it will have cooled off.
Last time I saw the Vols play in Fayetteville was 1999. It was a beautiful fall day in the Ozarks and we were sitting in the east stands around a lot of Tennessee fans, who were all very friendly until Clint Stoerner hit Anthony Lucas for a touchdown late to go up 28-24, the same final score they had beaten us by the year before when Stoerner lost that late fumble; from the agony of defeat to the thrill of victory in just twelve months.
I think Tennessee was ranked first in ’98 when we played them and second in the ’99 game. We pulled down the goalposts in ‘99 and marched them down Dickson Street. Well, not me, but I observed with pride as it happened. I do remember walking around whistling “Rocky Top” for a week after that game. Thinking about all that, maybe I’ll move back to Arkansas from the beach during football season.