First in Ten, Do it Again!

"I've got a 46 inch in my bedroom and a 32 inch in the living room but I am going to swap them before the season starts." This was from the girl bagging my groceries yesterday.

"Uh huh," said the checker. "Less than a month."

I got a little giddy. Football season is upon us. I have a writer friend who says there's no such thing as the off season in Alabama. I wish I could remember exactly what she said because it was very clever, like pretty much everything she says. It was something like recruitment season, preseason, draft and then, of course, The Season.

I love where I live. I love that the women I know love football.

Though our college team alliances are split here under the tulip tree we are all, all about some football. These days we can get started on Thursday night and watch all the way until about midnight Saturday. Kathy takes it into Sunday because she follows pro as well. Stephanie and I watch the occasional pro game but it's really just to watch our former Crimson Tide players.

Wait. Did I say all of us? I did and that is not true. Not anymore. Lesia has joined us. We love Lesia. She is funny, smart, dependable, a good writer. She can sing like a proverbial bird and hold her liquor.

"I just don't get it," she said. "I don't understand the game."

Stephanie and I explained it to her: All you have to know is how to count to four and to ten. The offense has four tries to move the ball ten yards. If they fail, they have to turn the ball over. If they succeed, the four tries start again until they fail or score.

Of course, there are about a million exceptions and nuances, but that it the foundation—what every little five-year-old Southeastern Conference girl learns at her mother's knee. I don't know what mothers in other conferences teach their daughters. Probably to be satisfied with a winning season and a bowl game because a National Championship is unlikely.

Are you ready for some football? And we have a prayer of assimilating Lesia?