football

OK so the football season is beyond its halfway point, and I know enough about it to know we Raiders are a little better than expected, but not quite up to the level of the big boys, which this year includes Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor, and maybe TCU who we almost beat. I stand by my earlier claim that science and health are showing football to be deadly, at least at the level it's being practiced and played at these days, but I also find that I totally love Texas folks and can't help be drawn in to this Big 12 kind of town, totally involved in these games and their outcomes.

Of course I also have a lurid fascination for Oklahoma State, which received a few million from T. Boone Pickens, spent it wisely, and got a bunch of Texas kids to come up there and turn around and beat all the Texas teams. Oklahoma, too, grabbed our quarterback and made him a star. And it totally rankles all the Texas teams when they get beat by Oklahoma, it's like your little brother beating you at chess. It's unacceptable! But we don't have a T. Boone Pickens, so we have to play by the book, and use real money, and get kids who don't mind living in Lubbock. A tall order!

So to me the low point of the season was when Baylor's quarterback broke his neck and all they could talk about was this young kid who was coming up behind him, now they'd have a chance to have a look at him. All these teams have three or four quarterbacks, and sometimes the one who's playing isn't the crowd favorite, but wait a minute, the kid broke his neck....the article didn't mention whether he'd be paralyzed for life, or just have to wear one of those ugly neck braces around for an eon. I don't want to be so into fandom that all I can do is talk about the next victim.

Yet, like everyone, I look forward to the Thanksgiving Day game, and the rest of our schedule, and though I don't actually watch any of it, I do care. You can't live in Lubbock and not care. If I ever have a couple million to blow, I'll consider it, really. No, to tell you the truth, I probably won't. I wouldn't support that six trillion dollar war, either, except I had to, they made me pay for it. That's the way it is, though, we're all one family. If one of us is out there gambling the millions, the rest of us end up paying for it.