Long suspected of rocking the Houndstooth beneath the dense billows of smoke and pillar of fire which conceal Him wherever He goes, God came out of the cloud yesterday and ended all speculation as to His true colors (Crimson and White) before the season even started.

In an Ocular Fusion exclusive, special correspondent Mike the Redneck caught up with The Rock of Ages over a few slabs of ribs at Dreamland BBQ in Tuscaloosa last night following His press conference at The Walk of Champions which featured a spectacular bolt of lightening that simultaneously struck the statues of Bear Bryant, Gene Stallings and the spot reserved for the new monument to current Head Coach, Nick Saban.

The Creator of All Things was incognito, sporting a low-slung Bama cap, Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses and a #22 Crimson Tide jersey, and was doing His best to kick back and blend in with the regulars–a difficult task considering His retina-burning luminosity which kept seeping out of His armpits and eye sockets and shooting corona-like laser beams onto the party of four from Eutaw at the next table.

MTRN: Lawd? Lawd? Is thahutt really you, Lawd?

YHWH: Shhhhh! Try to keep it down a little, wouldya? I’m trying to be inconspicuous.

MTRN: Heh, wellll, good luck with thahutt! Let’s start off with the kwestun thahutt I knoze on evrabody’s mind: Why now? and Why the Tide?

YHWH: That’s two questions, but that’s okay. Why now? I just wanted to let everybody know up front before the opening kickoff Thursday night where I stood so I won’t have to put up with the usual deluge of prayers and petitions. It’s not that I don’t care about what’s on my children’s hearts. It’s just that all those desperate “Sweet Jesus, Save us!” prayers and “Hail Marys” aimed my way at once on 4th and long late in the 4th quarter put up quite a racket. A god can’t get any sleep under those conditions.

MTRN: But you ain’t s’posed to sleep, is you?

YHWH: Well, off the record, say would you turn that thing off?

MTRN: Wellll, of course! (crosses his fingers beneath the table)

YHWH: (leans across the table and whispers conspiratorially) Off the record, I do take some cat-naps sometimes, okay? No worries though, I’ve got y’all covered with legions of angels–my best people, in fact–when I’m out cold. But when you’re as eternal as I AM, you gotta get a little rest. Frankly, one day millions of years ago just doesn’t cut it.

MTRN: Wait, I thought it wuz 6,000 years ago. Did Pastor git it wrong ag’in?

YHWH: He meant well, bless his heart. As to the second question, I think it’s been pretty apparent, even to Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, that with four straight National Titles for the SEC I’ve been spending a fair amount of time down in Dixie in recent years. I’ve always had this thing for oppressed peoples, and with the NCAA acting more uppity than Pharaoh and The Crimson Tide writhing under its thumb all these years, y’all got my attention more than the others.

MTRN: So you hurd us after all! I thought you wuz a homer for Tebow.

YHWH: Uh, yes, I “hurd” you. Timmy and Urban represented ME well for a while, but they started going a little Hollywood there in the end. That’s why Timmy bowed his head and cried in Atlanta and Urban ended up with one helluva case of indigestion. (Heb.) (12:6)

MTRN: I thought thahutt un’ had you written all ova’ it. Lawd, I’m assumin’ Hotlanta tweren’t the first time you up and stepped in during a krucial moment. At what point did you first in, inter, interve, uh, make a difference? Lawd? Laaaaawd, are you thar?

YHWH: Enough of the theatrics, okay? I’m sitting right across from you, for Pete’s sake. Come on, think about it–two blocked field goals in the 4th quarter against Tennessee? How often does that happen?

MTRN: Is you sayin’?…

YHWH: That’s what I’m sayin’–that was ME. Or some of “my people” at least. Cody can’t jump worth beans. He never laid a finger on either one of those. Go back and look closely at the tape.

MTRN: Lawd have mercy! If you don’t mind me askin’, which one of “yer people” wuz it?

YHWH: Clarence. He’s been spoiling for some action ever since he rescued George Bailey.

MTRN: I always liked that little feller! Now let me git this strait–The Tide gonna RE-pete as BCS Champions, raght?

YHWH: You heard, uh, “hurd” it here first. But it won’t be without some Red Sea Moments along the way. In fact, there will be one very low time, a period of great tribulation and gnashing of teeth, before the Great Throng of Beer-Bellied Tailgaters shall drive their RVs through the crashing waves and park on the other side of the Quad.

MTRN: A “one-loss” BCS champion–ain’t thahutt sumthin’! Mind tellin’ me which un’ we gonna lose?

YHWH: Even I’M not in the loop on that one. I delegated that task to Jesus and he’s not telling ME.

MTRN: Is Mark Ingram gonna be okay, Lawd? LAWD? LAAAAWD?

YHWH: Sheesh Louise, I said keep it down! He’s going to be fine. I taught Dr. Jim Andrews everything he knows, and he taught that young disciple of his that did most of the work. And I was right there in the OR hovering over the two of them, just like I do in one of those kitschy, black velvet paintings that you can pick up at the flea market in Cullman.

MTRN: Oh God, yesterday Nike unveiled them thar new “Pro Combat” unis. They did. A lot of us Old School folks wuz a little worried thahutt they wuz gonna up and mess with success and change too much, but I have to admit, they come out lookin’ raght smarhutt. I’m assumin’ you had yer giant hand in thahutt un’ too, raght?

YHWH: Oh, absolutely. Gabriel and Michael handled most of the new styling details–those two are quite the natty dressers!–and The Grim Reaper designed the players’ gloves since he’s really into flashing signs. The houndstooth on the numbers and helmets, heh, well, that was MY idea.

MTRN: Nice touch, Almighty! Speakin’ of houndstooth, do you eva’ see him up thar’?

YHWH: Him?

MTRN: You knoze, The B’ar.

YHWH: Of course, that Him. Oh sure, we hang out all the time. There’s a Starbucks on the corner of every street of gold, and you can find us in one of those most mornings, kicking back with a steaming free trade cup o’ Joe, reminiscing about The Good Old Days.

MTRN: Sweet Jesus, now thahutt’s some really Good News! One more kwestun, iffin you don’t mind. Them thar Barners–they not gonna take to kindly to you pickin’ us ova’ them. What you gonna say to them when they start complainin’–and you knoze well as I do thahutt’s ain’t gonna take long.

YHWH: I’ve spent some time thinking about that, don’t think I haven’t. I think what I would say to them is, “I have heard your pleas and smelled your so-called ‘fragrant offerings’ rising up from your barns and cow pastures down on The Plains, and you have been found really, really wanting.”

MTRN: Wow, thahutt’s strait and to the point.

YHWH: Tough, redemptive love. That’s just the way I roll–for eternity.

MTRN: You and Jesus and The Holy Ghost on the same page on this un’?

YHWH: Red, it’s just like the theologians have always said–or at least since the Council of Nicaea–we’re all in this together.

MTRN: Jehovah God, thanks for takin’ the time to have a little sit down over THE GREATEST, MOST LIP SMACKIN’ RIBS IN THE WORLD!! prior to the start of the season. I knoze yer a busy man, er, not exactly a man, but you knoze whuttamean. Roll Tide, SIR.

YHWH: Roll Tide, my son.

__________________________

In other preseason SEC football news, the Auburn Tigers were forced into their indoor practice facility yet again after a cloud of locusts so dense that it blocked out the sun descended upon the campus for the second day in a row.

Lee County, Alabama Extension Agent Bobby Joe Raines is perplexed. “There jist ain’t no scientific explanation fer it. We tweren’t supposed to git any locusts for another 10 years. This has Crazy Old Testament God written all ova’ it!”

Roll Tide, Roll.

Of kindergarten and college, that is. I’ve seen the evidence on Facebook: “Oh, ever since (insert beloved child’s name here) was born, I’ve been dreading the day we would send him/her off to kindergarten/college. I can’t believe how time flies!”

The New York Times has weighed in as well, documenting the rise of “parting ceremonies” on college campuses designed to give parents the not-so-subtle hint that it’s time to “hit the road” rather than hang around for a week at a local hotel and show up on campus each morning to escort Little Junior to class to check out the suitability of his professors, not to mention the laundry room to make sure he knows how to insert his “Action Card” into the slot and separate whites from darks.

And if you don’t believe me, listen to this Tweet from a college professor friend of mine at my own alma mater (Hail!): “HU freshmen parents: I know it’s great to be at Harding but please go home. We’ve got it from here.”

For the record, Eyegal and I are not known for being “helicopter parents.” Number One Son has nominated us for the “The Least Involved Parents in the World” award which I’m guessing he meant as a compliment although it looks a little funny at first glance. That translates roughly to “Find your own way, boys, but whatever you do, don’t wake us up at 2:00AM to bail you out of jail.”

So far, we’ve only had one relatively mild violation of that rule.

Two of ours are out of the house and off to college and only boomerang back occasionally to pet the dog and ask for money. Number Three Son is starting to pick up on the hint–probably best conveyed by his parents’ passionate embraces in the kitchen while he begs for dinner–that “ya know we love ya to pieces and all, but this whole ‘empty nest’ thing is sounding better and better so could you step it up please, because your mother and I got plans.” Completely on his own, he decided to enroll in a program that will enable him to take classes at a local community college while finishing up his senior year of high school. If all goes well, he’ll have around 20 hours of credit and a diploma come next May.

Seriously, though, sometimes our kids do need a little help navigating The Road of Life and Eyegal and I are glad to help out and play the parental GPS–from a distance, by cell, text or Skype, and before 10:00PM.

But every now and then, you gotta go all Special Forces and break bad on some heads.

Case in point, when we took now college sophomore Number Two Son to his orientation at the University of West Florida last summer we tried ever so hard to “stay out of his bidness.” He was thinking that he might want to major in psychology (just like his parents!) and that he wanted to consider a health career such as physician assistant. He was a little skiddish about taking a pre-health science course his first semester, so we told him that we thought he should take Psychology 101 right away to see if he liked the field and save biology until the spring semester. You know, basic, common sense advice, the kind his parents are known far and wide for.

When the time came to register, parents were kept at a safe distance from the entering freshman so as to avoid too much meddling, and off the greenhorns went, lining up in a chute like cattle at the slaughter house. As far as I can tell, the conversation between Number Two Son and his so-called “advisor” went something like this:

No. 2: “I think I’d like to major in psychology and maybe be a physician assistant, so I’d like to take Psychology 101 but no science my first semester since that kinda freaks me out a little.”

Advisor: “That sounds like an excellent plan. Let’s see what we have here…hmmm…I know, let’s put you in Botany 101! I took Botany 101 my first semester and absolutely loved it!”

No. 2: “Uh, isn’t that ‘plant stuff?’ Do you think I need that to be a PA?”

Advisor: “Yes, it’s all about plants and yes, most definitely, you’ll need it to be a PA. Which, by the way, what exactly is a PA?

No. 2: “Beats me. Okay, if you say so, I’ll take botany. But what about Psychology 101?”

Advisor: “All those sections are full. Sorry.”

No. 2: “But, my parents are going to kill me. Are you sure I can’t get into Psychol…”

Advisor: “Have a good semester and welcome to West Florida!  NEXT?”

You get the picture. And you can imagine our reaction when we picked him up later that afternoon and laid eyes on his printed schedule.

With Number Two rolling his eyes and cringing in the back seat, Eyegal and I donned our Black Hawk helicopter helmets and night vision goggles and swooped down on the registrar’s office (thump, thump, thump!). As we flew into the kill zone, uh, I mean, the room, the rotor wash sent papers and hair flying in all directions.

Well, actually Eyegal entered the room and I stood in the hall and guarded the door. She’s much better at that sort of thing than I am. Woe be unto anyone who messes with one of her babies. “Mama Grizzly?” Ha! Eyegal makes Sarah Palin look like a cuddly koala.

Needless to say, the schedule was “fixed” (well, waddya know, there is an opening in Psychology 101!).

All this to say that sometimes you gotta hover a little–but not for too long.

As for you long-suffering professors and college administrators, suck it up. The fact is, that just because you’ve got more letters behind your names than alphabet soup has noodles doesn’t mean that you always know what you’re talking about.

Besides, last time I checked, you need our money, which I guess, makes us your customers.

And the customer is always right.

Dr. Tom Little was one of those rare breeds who actually lived what he believed, putting flesh and bones–and blood–to all those words. Rather than yammering on and on until eyes glaze over in “here we go again” ennui, he looked around at the things that were askew and out of balance in the world and then went forth and actually did something about it.

Dr. Little was an optometrist and the leader of a group of medical relief workers in Afghanistan that was mercilessly ambushed and executed in a remote valley north of Kabul recently. The team was working with the Christian relief organization International Assistance Mission and had just completed an eye care clinic for indigent Afghans.

They were a motley crew: Christians of various stripes, local Muslims who were serving as guides and trying to earn extra money for their families, and one unaffiliated “secular humanist,” general surgeon Dr. Karen Woo, who had left behind a cushy job in Great Britain and whose winsome humor, adventuresome spirit and penchant for colorful headscarves were the talk of Kabul–especially among eligible bachelors.

They were returning from their trip when they were tracked down and confronted by one of the armed bands of militants so common in that area of the world. According to Tom’s widow Libby, it wasn’t the first time that had happened. In past instances, Tom and his teams had been able to negotiate, perhaps offering their AK-47-carrying interlocutors some artificial tears to remove the specks of dust from their eyes and conducting an eye clinic right there on the spot.

This time they were not as fortunate. Except for one survivor who successfully begged for his life, each was executed, either by bullet or grenade, one by one.  The Taliban claimed responsibility (though no one can be sure), accusing the group of “proselytizing” and “spying,” citing Bibles and “spy gadgets” found in their possession.

I had never really thought of an ophthalmoscope that way before, but I guess there is some truth in it.

Tom Little was no naive idealist or pampered professional out on a little foreign jaunt to relieve his guilt and boredom. He and his wife had moved to Afghanistan in 1970s following seminary training and raised their three daughters there, surviving the Soviet occupation and rise of the Taliban along the way. He became an optometrist in a roundabout, back door sort of way. The son of an ophthalmologist in New York, Little had worked as an optician and learned basic exam techniques in his father’s practice and was naturally drawn to the work at Noor Eye Hospital in Kabul. Over the years, he learned rough and rugged third-world optometry by the seat of his pants. Even without a professional degree, he ironically became a leading “authority” for eye care in Afghanistan.

In his late 50s, Tom Little returned to the United States and enrolled at the New England College of Optometry’s accelerated Advanced Standing International Program in Boston, which is designed to get foreign-trained medical doctors, optometrists and overseas workers “up to speed” with U.S. standards of care. Little received his Doctor of Optometry from NECO in just two years, graduating in 2008, and returned to Afghanistan hoping to use his training to further the breadth and quality of eye care available in that country. He had always been “Dr. Tom” to his grateful patients, but now it was official.

I think it is important to remember Dr. Tom Little, Dr. Karen Woo and the other Westerners and Afghans who together died a lonely and gruesome death, their only “crime” being that they cared for people who could neither see nor attain the even the most basic medical care. They were not all on the same page in matters of religious faith, but they shared a common goal–a love for hurting people and a burning desire to set the world to rights. When their blood spilled, it was all the same color.

Yes, remember them, and consider well this story as we near the end of our long, hot summer of discontent when so many preachers, politicians and pundits, from the comfort of their air-conditioned caves, weigh in on the propriety of an Islamic community center housing a small area of worship, open to all, designed to promote understanding and good will among various faiths, being built near Ground Zero in lower Manhattan.

And know this: There is not a single one of those preachers, politicians and pundits–no not one!–who is worthy enough to kneel and lick the dust and blood from Dr. Tom Little’s boots.

An optometrist (OD) employed at an ObamaCare-affiliated medical clinic (the one with the new Death Panel drive-thru window) is apparently fed-up to his eyeballs with all the incessant yik-yak from his patients, the constant sniping and backstabbing from co-workers and the drowning deluge of mind-numbing emails, bureaucratic buzzwords and meaningless acronyms (MNEMBBMA) raining down from his overlords on Mt. Olympus.

The OD–OMe! OMy!–has apparently quit his job and gone optical.

Police will identify him only as “Mike the Eyeguy.” According to a department spokesperson, Dr. Eyeguy has apparently been showing several signs of cracking recently. Area opticians have told police that over the past few weeks he has been transposing “minus” signs for “plus” signs, and vice versa, resulting in blurry eyeglasses and a spike in Huntsville metro area traffic accidents. In addition, other local eye doctors and health department officials have noted a recent epidemic of permanently-crossed “googly eyes” resulting from Coke-bottle lenses allegedly prescribed by Dr. Eyeguy.

One patient even said that when he complained about the blinding brightness of the light on the examining scope, the rogue OD, who was frothing at the mouth and quietly humming nursery rhymes to himself, turned the illumination dial all the way up to “11″ and suddenly erupted into peals of “BWAHAHAHA” evil scientist laughter.

Early reports indicate that when this morning’s first patient, who already had crystal clear, better-than-perfect 20/10 X-ray vision in both eyes to begin with, complained to the OD in a small, grating voice which sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard that his vision “still just wasn’t quiiite good enough” and commanded him to fix it “NOW!”, something snapped.  The OD has now taken several hostages and is reportedly threatening to use industrial-strength dilating drops and send them out into the bright sunlight without those little cheap, flimsy paper sunglasses.

In a rambling manifesto posted on Youtube, “Mike the Eyeguy” aired his grievances. The following is a portion of the transcript from that broadcast:

“I QUIT THIS STINKIN’ JOB! I’m madder than HECK, and I’m just not going to take it anymore! You think it’s torture when I ask you “Which is better, one or two?”? Try locking yourself up in a small, dark room and asking that same question–over and over and over–for 20 plus years and listening to all your whiny “Gee doc, I can’t tell a difference” CRAP and see if you don’t suddenly up and go rogue too!

And come on, stop turning on the waterworks just because you can’t see small print anymore and need reading glasses! GEEZ LOUISE sometimes you just get OLD, okay? That’s life–deal with it, and don’t expect me to FREAKIN’ FIX EVERYTHING!

Okay, look, just give me what I want and nobody gets blinded. I want a nice severance package (with health insurance) and President Witt’s (or is it Nick’s?) private plane to take me to Tuscaloosa. Once there, I want a bed with a Tempur-Pedic ® memory foam mattress set up in one of those snazzy new sky boxes in the South end zone at Bryant-Denny, a mini-fridge stocked with Dixie Light beer, and a new job as team optometrist for the Crimson Tide. Oh, and an inflatable moon bounce birthday party with all my friends. What few I have left, anyway.”

Police officials are still hopeful that they can end the crisis with no shots fired.

A police captain clad in ninja-gear said, “We hope we can take him alive. He’s Church of Christ, so we’ve asked some local ministers to come down and pipe in some good ol’ fashioned, eardrum-bustin’, tent-revival preachin’ with megaphones–we think we can guilt him out. If that doesn’t work, we’ll try a little “carrot and stick;” in his case, a large cup of scalding hot McDonalds Premium Roast coffee–just black, please–tied to a string and dragged down the hall.”

In other Alabama “take this job and shove it” news, a flaming ultra-libruhl socialist law professor at conservative bastion Faulkner University went off the reservation yesterday. Clad in a Batman t-shirt, Lucky Brand blue jeans, fuchsia high-top canvas Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars and sporting granny glasses and a nose ring, the leftist-wannabe barrister cussed loudly at his class of profoundly naive and impressionable 1Ls, causing many of them to reach for the cell phones and call home crying to their mothers.

He then challenged them all to quit school too and join him in a sit-in at the student union to protest the upcoming appearance at the school by former half-term governor of Alaska and now mega media star and American Evangelical sorority sweetheart, Sarah Palin.

Temperature taunting occurs when friends in more moderate summer climes such as Seattle, New Hampshire, Michigan or Malibu post some ironic and sarcastic taunt on their blogs, Facebook or Twitter pages about how “godawful” their high-70s/low 80s/low humidity weather is and “However are we going to survive this heat wave?” or some such nonsense. If it were football season (and yes, Roll Tide, our boys reported for practice yesterday), these so-called “friends” would be flagged for a 15 yard penalty and loss of down.

I can think of several two-word retorts in reply to such contemptuous and gratuitous provocations, none of which I can publish here since this is a PG-13 blog (most of the time). But suffice it to say, we Southerners accept, even embrace, being slowly roasted like overcooked beef left too long in a crock pot.  It toughens us up and tempers our souls, burnishing us into a lively and colorful people who serve as rich grist for gritty, gothic stories that become instant New York Times bestsellers. Yankees may not wish to get drunk, sweat, shack-up, make love, marry, divorce, murder and remarry–all the while praying fervently to Jesus–at the same rate as we Southerners, but they do seem to enjoy lining up and paying big bucks to read all about it.

As our young men don their pads and helmets, an older man rolls up the sleeves of his white, long sleeve, pinpoint cotton dress shirt and loosens his skinny black tie at the end of his work day. From time to time, he has glanced out his window and watched the Hispanic landscape workers, their sinewy, well-muscled arms quivering from the violent rattle of mowers and gas-powered trimmers. Occasionally, they reach up and wipe the beads of summer sweat that glisten like small diamonds on their brows and merge into rivulets of rain that run down the creases of their leathery, brown jaws. They never seem to grimace or complain, and he admires their strength and endurance in the face of such hard labor. He reaches up and wipes his fingers across his own brow, finding it to be clean and dry like usual. He wonders if all the doctoring he does in the air-conditioned comfort of his office can truly be considered an “honest day’s work.”

He stands at the back door to the parking lot and hesitates to cross the threshold, knowing full well that when he turns the handle and tugs it will be like dipping his head into a steaming hot tub and drawing a deep breath; the first inhalation of liquid hot air will fill and sear his lungs, nearly drowning him. With a sigh of resignation, he steps into the sultry sauna, head bowed and braced against the brow-beating sun, and scurries quickly across the sizzling asphalt toward his car. It occurs to him during this short walk that perhaps his so-called life is a mere cosmic prank, that he is not really a rational, upright man, but instead a lowly, crawling ant fleeing the intense scrutiny of a mischievous 12-year-old boy with a very large magnifying glass. He parked in the long, morning shade of a large building, but the shadows have long since burned away, and despite leaving the windows and sunroof cracked, the car’s interior is a broiling inferno. The tan, leather upholstery is sun-baked, cracked like a parched desert floor in several places from years of exposure, and he wishes he could roll back the clock to 2002 and opt for the much-cooler cloth.

He sits on the hot seat just long enough to turn the ignition key. After he starts the AC, he steps back outside as the first wave of cooler air begins to push and disperse the heated gas through the open door and windows. A minute or so passes, and he sits back down, feeling the burning leather hermetically seal his back against the bucket seat, and quickly closes the windows and door to trap the cooling atmosphere for the drive home.  Off he goes, turning the car by gingerly touching the scalding, tightly-stretched leather of the steering wheel with the tips of his fingers, hoping it will cool off soon so he can grab onto it like he’s supposed to.

Once home, he parks in the garage and quickly closes the door. He slowly peels his sweat-soaked back from the seat and enters the house. The 25-year-old air conditioning unit is struggling to keep up, but it is still soothingly cool inside. You would think after surviving the drive home that he would quickly strip to his shorts and put on a fresh, white t-shirt, pour himself a cool drink, sit back in his recliner with the remote and call it a day.

But no, our man is not done yet.

Instead, he puts on his black and gold Nike trainers, along with his Dri-Fit shorts and top, and heads out the door for a 4-mile run at the height of the heat. He doesn’t venture far from home, sticking to a tightly-wound neighborhood loop instead of the customary out-and-back route–just in case he runs out of gas. His high-tech running threads work their wicking magic for a while but are soon soaked completely through and cling to his middle-age frame in unflattering and revealing ways. Dri-Fit or not, the fabric was never designed to absorb and disperse such a large lake of humidity. As he plods steadily along, he tries to sort out and solve some of the problems of his life, which compared to the torrid air, suddenly seem smaller and more paltry. People in air-conditioned vehicles pass him on the street–some smiling, some frowning in disapproval–and he nods in return, as if to say, “You see? It’s not that bad. We can do this.”

Oh, but it is bad, very bad, especially toward the end as he struggles to stay upright and keep his eyes straight ahead, tearing and stinging as they are now from the steady stream of hypertonic saline solution seeping into them from beneath his soaked hatband.  He stumbles past his mailbox at last and leans over, heaving up and down like a blacksmith’s bellows, his hands on his knees in the universal posture of athletic surrender. He instinctively heads for a sliver of shade, but there is no relief to be found there, so he punches in the code and wobbles inside and opens the garage refrigerator where stores of soothing liquids, purchased in bulk from the local Sam’s Club, are kept during the hot months, readily available to weary, wayfaring pilgrims, both coming and going.

He grabs a low-calorie Gatorade (he prefers the classic, 1970s lemon-lime or orange) and heads straight to his bedroom where he strips and hangs his sweat-soaked gear on the closet doorknob. He leans against the bathroom counter, his head tingling as if penetrated by thousands of pins and needles, sweat dripping in a steady, metronomic cadence onto the carpet. His heart is pounding madly against his chest like a wild bird–an old, proud eagle, he thinks–boxed in and battering against the bars of a tiny cage.  With some effort, he manages to unscrew the cap to the Gatorade and raise the bottle to his lips which are now coated in a sticky, white film. Instantly, he feels his body core temperature drop; the cool, soothing fluid douses the five-alarm fire which rages deep inside his gut and shoots its flames upward into his esophagus. After a few minutes under a cool shower, his temperature falls further and his heart rate returns to near normal. The cobwebs in his head begin to dissipate and are borne aloft, floating away on the cool breeze created by the rotating blades of a ceiling fan. He finally begins to feel that he may live to run another day.

Another day down in Dixie, that is, where everyone is running hot and a little tired. But come November, when the temperature drops and his breath starts to form puffy, frosty clouds in front of his face, the man will once again glide along effortlessly and smoothly, and even on occasion break out into a genuine, bona fide trot.

As for the temperature taunters, soon their boys will line up across from our boys on the gridiron. With the strength and endurance that can only be forged in the fiery furnaces of a Deep South summer, our boys will knock their boys down on their collective asses and make them quit. They will, to put it frankly, beat the living….out of them.

Do I have to say it? You know what I mean–that place that is purported to be perpetually and intolerably hot.