Archived: It's a family thing, you wouldn't understand

Original Post Date: November 12, 2006
In what can only be described as true family loyalty, Matt and I sold our tickets to the Tennessee game (for FACE VALUE) and spent the weekend at a family reunion in Benton.
As the Tennessee game approached, many people asked me if I was going. As soon as the word no came out of my mouth, there was a yelp of shock, followed by a snort of disgust when I explained that we were missing the game to be with my extended family. Missing the biggest game of the season was not in my master plan, let me tell you. However. The family I got to see this weekend are some of my favorite people on the planet, and rarely are they all in the same state. These are people who have known me the longest and best. My Uncle Lonnie, who when he lost both legs in a car accident when I was a small kid let me tickle his prosthetic feet and would howl with laughter. His wife, my Aunt Joyce, who next to my grandmother is the sweetest woman I know. My Aunt Linda and her daughter Wendy, who know way too much about me. Also, about a million cousins that I grew up with and haven’t seen since we were kids. All of a sudden, we have kids of our own and they were playing together.
The VIP guests at the reunion were my Aunt Phyllis, her son Robbie and his wife Ann, and Robbie and Ann’s kids Chip and Ramey, all from Alabama. We adore this particular branch of the tree and were really excited to see them. We watched the game with them on TV. Ann grew up in Knoxville and is understandably a huge Tennessee fan. We respect each other as ardent fans of our home teams, and for that rare creature that we recognize in each other: women who really, truly love football.
Now, I say we watched the game together, but. Right after Arkansas scored its first touchdown, all of a sudden we were watching The Lawrence Welk Show. WHAT?! Indeed, apparently a large majority of Comcast cable subscribers in the central Arkansas area missed the rest of the first half of the game because their cable went out. We had to listen to it on the radio. The fact that The Lawrence Welk Show was all that was on is just the icing on the cake. Ann and I were about to crawl out of our skins. We do not handle anticipation well. Thankfully, it came back on for the second half, so we had a bird’s eye view of what Lee Corso predicted would happen—the Hogs laid the smack down on the Vols, and all is right with the world.
Well, almost everything. It appears that once again, the BCS has seen fit to punish the SEC for some unnamed sin, and so despite being 6th (and 5th!) in the other polls, we are 7th in the nation in the one that counts. Ah well—just a few more haters to silence. We’re good at it this season. GO HOGS!