saturday in mississippi

September 21, 2026

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 about 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. The adrenaline from the final minutes of the game is still with me 36 hours later and thousands of miles away from the south end zone. I am still high.

Mississippi. Mississippi. Mississippi.