saturday in mississippi

9.21.26

I spent the weekend in Oxford, Mississippi, and went to the Ole Miss - LSU game. We sat near the south end zone, four of us, plus family and friends of friends. Ole Miss won the game, 32-24. Late in the fourth quarter, when the Rebels intercepted a pass to seal the game, to send LSU and their coach back to hell, I don’t know if I’ve experienced a happier or more cathartic moment in my life that is now 40 and a half years long. And I had a son earlier this year. He may have to go to Ole Miss for college. He is going to Ole Miss for college.

What gracious hosts they are in Oxford. They give you food and drink and ask you where you’re from and what you do and they have nothing but nice things to say whatever your answers are. Saturday was hot, something like 95 degrees in the afternoon and about the same near midnight when the game ended. And they got that humidity in the south. That was all fine. The game mattered too much for any of that to matter. Because the game was the only thing going on in the world. Firework smoke and cheerleaders and red Nike polos and backward visors and Zyn pouches and money-line odds and TV timeouts to sell all of it back a million times over because next week there’s another game and another after that, renew your season tickets today. Well, yeah, sure. Because the Rebels won and when the smoke cleared I think I saw Jesus in the sky. Might have been a prop plane announcing two dollar wells shots until last call. Go ahead, tell me the difference.

Mississippi. Mississippi. Mississippi.