Georgia Florida Week

Is there anything better than this week? Think about it, all year during the off-season we talk football and wonder if the season will ever arrive. Then comes the beginning of Spring practice and we can actually go out and watch the Gators practice. Three weeks later it is time for the Orange and Blue Spring game and we get to see the freshmen perform and a few of the starters. Just as an aside you think we aren't fans? Sixty six thousand came to the Spring game, that is just about double what the University of Miami draws to an actual game. Then comes the long, slow, foot dragging summer that never seems to end. Finally, and I do mean finally, the September weekend rolls around when we kick it off. Usually there is little doubt about the outcome but, it is still Gator football. Following weekends are filled with anticipation of opening Southeastern Conference football, with us, Tennessee is first,(with their lame brained coach.} Afterwards it is game on for the rest of the season. But, there is nothing like Georgia week, especially when you are ranked number one and the hated Dawgs are having a bad year. Does it get any better than this? I don't think so.

The other night I heard someone say that we are going to lose a lot in graduating seniors and they are already worried about next year. Are you kidding me? Next year? What about this year? Man oh man, I want to just enjoy now....you know the present time... Ranked first in the country and seventeen straight wins, the most in school history...how can we be thinking of next year? I never want football season to end, especially this year. In truth I think this is my favorite week of the year. Yep, for me more than Christmas. The kids are gone raising their own children and the holiday present I want is a victory over those folks in silver britches with the red and black jerseys.

Now the down side. We (the Gators) have a lot on the line, the Dogs? Not so much. The Bulldogs would like nothing better than to ruin our season. I am confident that we are the far superior team but I have seen a lot of these games in Jacksonville and not all come out as expected. The older fans, like myself, know that you cannot be certain of the outcome. There is way too much emotion on the line. A stadium evenly divided with forty five thousand football fanatics on each side, teams fired up with memories of past humiliations, it is an electric atmosphere. I can't wait. Just walking through the thousands of fans in RV"s, tents, and smelling the barbecue and hearing the (mostly good-natured) verbal jousting is great fun. With all the rides, flags and team colors, it seems more than a college football game. It is more a combination of a State Fair, October Fest, and a maybe, a medieval jousting match.

Yes indeed, it is Florida Georgia weekend and as Michael Buffer says "LETS GET READY TO RUMBLE!"

From a distance it looked like beer.

This picture was taken in the Joshua Tree National Park the day after Florida defeated Ohio State in the 2006 National NCAA National Football championship. The park has an amazing variety of plant life and animals. Every curve you round appears to be a completely different landscape. Some of the larger boulder strewn fields will remind you of pictures taken on the moon, then around the next corner there are acres of white, onyx, crystalline rocks with pointed spines. The Joshua tree, for which the park is named, is an eerily beautiful plant growing almost straight up with only the top portion having what appears to be a combination of Spanish bayonets and fronds. We were there at sunset and all around us some of the distant mountains seemed to turn blue as the sun was setting behind them. While others still in the fading sunlight, were orange and red. All in all, it was a beautiful afternoon and evening.

I had went there to see the site where Gram Parsons was cremated. What a great story! Gram Parsons was, and is, an icon in Country/Rock music history. In the beginning he was a solo act. Later he played with the Burrito Brothers and the Byrds. He wrote some amazing songs and more importantly he discovered another music legend, the "Gray Goddess" Ms. Emmylou Harris. Rumor is they were involved romantically, but in any case they recorded some wonderful tunes together. Gram and his manager loved the Joshua Tree Park and made a covenant that which ever died first, the other would bring his body to a location in the park and cremate the remains in the park they both loved.

Little did they know how soon their pact would be tested. Gram died a few months later in his mid twenties. His manager got an early morning call from a distressed girl that awakened to find Parsons dead in her bed. The best bet was a rough night of booze, cocaine and sex overwhelmed his heart. Anyhow by the time the manager reached the hotel the body had been picked up and was at the Los Angles Airport awaiting a flight to Louisiana for burial. To make a long story a bit shorter, the manager rented a hearse from a hippie commune and he and one of the members drove to airport and pretended to be transporting the body to the plane waiting on the tarmac. After stealing the body,they carried it to the agreed upon spot in the park. His manager soaked the coffin in gasoline and burned it. Later, the manager said there was a hell of a secondary explosion. He said, "We failed to allow for the amount of alcohol Gram still had in his body." Is that a great story or what? A few years ago they released a movie entitled "Grand Theft Parsons." If you haven't seen it, check it out.

I talked with an old and dear friend of mine today. He and I have stories we can only tell in each others presence. Without our cross verification, no one would believe most of them. Come to think of it, even with our attesting to the truthfulness, a lot of folks still do not believe us. He reminded me of one time we were going to the races at Sebring. My wife had strenuously objected to my going, I seem to recall something about "if you go I will kill you" or something like that. Anyhow, we were driving toward the highway and suddenly a car came driving across a grassy median and thru a row of shrubbery headed straight for my new corvette. Luckily the Vette was nimble and we managed to avoid the wife attempting to carry through on her threat. I don't remember much of that weekend or any other time we were at the twelve hours of Sebring. We wre young and in our natural prime and we did have some times. There were four of us that ran together, Wayne, Floyd, Lee and myself. Only Lee and I are left, Floyd and Wayne left this world far too soon. Neither of them saw sixty, so you can imagine how surprised I am to still be here.

My friend, Lee Simmons was a marine at the siege of Khe Sahn, we were air traffic controllers together in Miami before the PATCO strike and in San Juan when we were rehired. I was the Best Man at his wedding in Puerto Rico, (an event that deserves it's own story) Suffice it to say the entire ceremony was in Spanish and at that time Lee only spoke English. After the vows were over, I said "Hell Lee, you don't know if you are married or have reenlisted in the Marine Corp." We have been friends for almost 40 years. It was good to talk to you today, and no I am not going to tell the New Orleans story. Yet.

Messing with Perfection

This beautiful football weekend was the first time I wished I had the Musstang back. What a glorious time for a convertible. I know the front spoiler was too low to the ground, the motor's rumble a bit too loud and I do prefer an automatic transmission. (I know, I know, I am old) But on a campus in Late October, there are worse things than having the top back on a Rousch Racing designed, Red Mustang.

Saturday night in Starkville was a great college football atmosphere. Mississippi State has made numerous improvements to their stadium since my last visit in 2004. They have the largest and best video screen that I have ever seen. Crystal clear and a great sound system. Before our game they had the Tennessee vs Alabama game on. What a great idea, the fans can come early, get to their seats and watch another SEC football game. Great idea.

The game itself? Didn't like it so much cosmetically, but hey, it is a conference road win. Every Gator fan knows how tough it is in this league to go into another team's house and beat them. All in all, it is great to be seventeen and zero. The State fans were fired up and ready. As an aside, I still do not know how they are permitted to bring in those damned cow bells. I mean they are thousands of them and they are deafening. Artificial noise makers are banned by the Southeastern conference, so what is up with that? They say tradition, but I say to hell with that. What if our tradition was to bring air horns and when the other team had the ball thirty or forty thousand people blew their horns? Think the commissioner would permit it? Me neither. And if you think they are loud in a stadium, let some drunken fans ring them on a bus to the game. Deafening, painfully deafening.

Ya'll all watched the game so I am not going to try and make this a sports column. I will leave that to the nay-sayers at the Gainesville Sun. Just a thought on Tim Tebow, the finest college football player to ever strap on a helmet. I believe Tim came to Florida a better quarterback than he is now. Every attempt to change him has been counter-productive. The young man was the leading passer in the history of Florida high school football. As a sophomore at Florida, he lead the nation in college football passing efficiency. Put simply, I believe he has been over-coached. My thought is this; Coaches have a preconceived idea of what constitutes good passing mechanics and exactly how a quarterback should throw. However,Tim Tebow is a once in a lifetime player with unique physical gifts. He can make unbelievable throws because of his superior physical gifts. A coach looks and say if he can do that using unorthodox methods, what could he do if utilized "good passing" technique? The answer, he doesn't do as well. The attempted alterations and changes to his natural motion is simply too much to think about. He was far better when he was just reacting and having fun. If he were my son, I would say "Tim, just go play forget everything else and just be yourself." Because when he is just Tim Tebow...he is simply the best that has ever played the game.

Memories of Starkville circa 2004

Now the question is this...how shaky is my resolve that Florida will win tomorrow's game? I was last here for the Ron Zook debacle. You remember, when our Gators lost to the same team that had that same year been beaten by the Division II Maine Black Bears? Not Grizzlies, not Polar Bears but Black Bears? During the morning, while driving to the game, I had been informed of the result of my ill fated candidacy for the National Presidency of our Union, I lost by thirty seven votes. The young man that called me with the election results started our conversation by saying, "Larry, great news! you carried the Southern Region by a 7 to 1 margin and had a landslide win in the Alaskan Region." I said, knowing full well I was not talking to the sharpest knife in the drawer, "So I won?" He said "No, She did by 37 votes." Alas, my hopes for doing far less work, with even more time off and for more money were dashed. What, you thought I was altruistic?

Arriving in Starkville that year we found the fan base of Mississippi State resigned for the coming beat down. A common refrain from the wearers of the Maroon was " Hey, please take it easy on us, save something for Georgia." And while we were magnanimous in our verbal responses, inwardly we were confident that Custer had came out better at Little Big Horn than their team would with the Mighty Gators. Didn't quite work out like that, I left that Stadium as depressed and angry as I can remember. However, after the game our coach, the aforementioned Mr. Zook, on his post-game radio show took my anger up a notch or two when he said "I am proud of our team they did everything I asked them to do." I was livid, almost screaming at the radio, "Did you ask them to lose? huh Ron, did you ask them to lose?" But then I remembered a bit of poetry..."Be still my heart and cease repining, behind yon cloud, the sun is still shining. Some days must be cold and dark and dreary." The sun was indeed about to Shine, on Monday Zook was fired, later Coach Meyer accepted the Florida job over an offer from Notre Dame and all was soon to be well in Gator Nation.

BBQ Joints and Alligator Farms

Can anyone tell me why there is never an alligator farm that is the biggest in the State? or City? or the South? Why is every damned one of them the "Biggest in the whole wide World? Think about it. While you're at it, why is every BBQ joint posting awards and reviews claiming they have the World's best BBQ? I mean if you have the best BBQ in Mississippi, ain't that pretty darn good? But noooo! it has to be the best in the world. Just something else to drive me closer to the edge.

We tried to end run the weather today by driving North to Atlanta, then I-20 to Birmingham and through Tuscaloosa to our hotel in Columbus, Mississippi. For the most part it worked but added a Little more than an hour to the trip. We encountered light rain leaving Atlanta and then about twenty miles West of Atlanta it turned into a downpour. Fortunately, it only lasted for about an hour and more fortunately that wasn't my segment to drive. Timing folks, gotta have it. I thought all in all her driving was admirable and I am sure my finger nails will grow back.

Anyone remember the song "Am I Fool Number One"? The opening lyrics went something like, am I fool number one or fool number two? Well, in traffic I changed the lyrics to "Are you moron number one? or moron number two?" How many other drivers have been killed by fools like you? I know the number is far from being small, but until now, you are the biggest moron of all. (close quotes with apologies to Brenda Lee) That directly reflects my opinion of an ever growing number of drivers with whom I unwillingly share the road. I don't have time to go into all of the stunts, hair raising tactics and just plain stupid episodes of driving we encountered on this trip. Suffice it to say that I called 911 to report a drunken driver on I-75 before we were twenty five miles from home. When he continued to swerve from the right shoulder to the left median, I thought "why the poor man must be ill." Jeannie said that what I actually said lets call the police before this damned drunk kills us. (expletives deleted)

Anyhow we made it here and checked in without any problems. In the lobby we met a guy from Hattisburg, Mississippi, he is a huge Gator fan. He is here with his wife and three young sons. He told one son, who appeared to be about six years old, to show us what you do when you meet another Gator fan. The boy began doing the Gator chomp. It is sad that as football grows more and more expensive colleges are pricing many families out of the opportunity to see their teams play. It may turn out to be a marketing mistake to disregard cultivating the next generation of fans and boosters.

We ate at a local landmark, "Little Dooey's BBQ" Great food, every bit as good as advertised. Jeannie had catfish and hush puppies, I of course, judging by the name of the place, had pulled pork. The sign said BBQ, right? Everything, even the catfish was great. Hey wait a minute, did I say as good as advertised? I take it back, it was really, really good but not the best in the entire World. But definitely real good.

Today is the pre-travel day before the eight and one half hour trip to beautiful Starkville, Mississippi. What in hell were their city fathers or founders thinking when they named the place Starkville? Talk about a tough place to recruit football players. How they get a kid to come there instead of Gainesville, Baton Rouge, Columbia, Nashville or Athens is beyond me. It is not near anything and has nothing to recommend it to a testosterone filled eighteen year old boy looking for adventure. Well, there are the co-eds. Mississippi has produced some striking young ladies and as I remember beautiful girls are fairly important to young men. (and old men)or so I have heard.

We will leave around eight in the morning. The question is do I follow mapquest and go through Alabama via Montgomery and then West or do I choose the slightly longer route via Atlanta and Birmingham. Google tells me the Atlanta route has far better highways but I am yet to drive I-75 when construction wasn't a significant impediment. What has the world came to? I am actually debating over two navigation systems that I did not know existed a few short years ago. Then, of course, I can simply type the address of the motel in the GPS and follow the instructions. Heavy rain is forecast along the whole route.

Enough of the travel talk. Oh and by the way, the good looking baby in the picture is my first Great-Grandchild. Am I proud? You bet I am. My son, the baby's poppa, tells me I should be proud because without me none of this would have been possible. I believe that my dad, his dad and his dad's dad live on through all of the children, grand children and now great a grand child. My dad died in Viet Nam before he ever saw his grand children. It is left to me to also look for him. He would be proud of them and they of him.

A letter to my oldest friend

June 19, 2008

1:50 PM

Response to Earl Vaughn's E-Mail



Earl,



I appreciate the music; I have been a big Tom T. Hall fan for a long time. I heard him once say that his middle initial "T" was an abbreviation of his middle name which was also Tom. Thus, his name was Tom Tom Hall, I don't know if it is true or not, but if it's not, it oughta be.

You mentioned that I seem unhappy, or to be more precise, "disgruntled." Disgruntled is probably too mild a term to describe my feelings about the world in general. The adjective I would pick is cynical, followed closely by amused resignation.

With all my heart I believe the Country is on the wane but the bright side is the Country will become what the people that wanted change deserve. Better them than me, and thankfully it will be them.



One of the reasons that I see little hope for us is based somewhat upon my years as a Human Resources Director. One of the first positions I had was in charge of Broward County employee testing; The United States Justice Department required that our entire county workforce be balanced. In other words we had to have the same percentages of minorities and women as the county. To accomplish this requirement we had to adjust written test scores based solely on ethnicity and/or gender. Any written or physical test which were given, had to have the same number of eligible minority or female applicants as the number of white males who passed the test.

We had to establish passing points for all written tests based upon the results for each minority or female group and then scale all of that particular group's scores accordingly. This system is called “test weighting.” IN order to have a sufficent number of minorities I once had to set a passing point at 38 percentile for one group and 86 percentile for another group taking the exact same test. Are you still following this? Hence, a person making an actual score of 39 would pass with an adjusted score of 74. The white males, with far higher grades, may have a person make an actual score of 85 percent but because of a “weighted” score, fail the exact same test. In other words the white guy answered more than twice as many questions correctly as did his minority counterpart. Yet, the white male failed and the minority passed. Neat system? you bet, fair? No way.

After all of the tests were scored, we ranked candidates by their adjusted or “weighted” scores and selected police officer and firefighter candidates based upon those scores. No one taking the tests was ever told the tests were adjusted because it would "appear" that our testing system was "unfair" and worse, it would indicate that some groups scored less well than other groups.

Stay with me a second, lets just suppose that the selection process for athletics were conducted in a similar fashion. For example, if I ran a hundred yard dash in twenty seconds, under test weighting, the timer would tell me I ran it in ten seconds. Then another person, from a different ethnic group, runs the same distance in nine seconds but the timer would tell that person that their time was twenty five seconds. We would all wonder why our team was so slow when our recorded times were so fast.

I think most folks would agree that it would be silly and dishonest to lie to people about their performance, particularly in something as trite as athletic competition. But, if that is true, why does it make any sense to use weighted testing when selecting those involved in life and death professions?

As an aside, all of us were “astounded” when many of the candidates, with artificially inflated scores, later had problems in performing their assigned job tasks. It was even more inexplicable given how well they had performed on their entry level examinations.



The United States Department of Justice mandated this testing practice to enable employers to meet established goals, not quotas. It is a mantra in human resources that thou shall not use the word quotas, it is far too insensitive. The goal was to have a workforce that reflected the racial makeup of our county. Kind of like the "ethnic balance" of the workforce in the National Basketball Association huh? A quota is illegal, a goal is not, unless, alas you fail to meet the goal. In our case, the Federal fine for failing to meet the goal would have been $50,000 per week. A few years later the Justice Department was sued by a white job applicant who claimed discrimination based upon race. Only then did the Justice Department discover that employers routinely used test weighting in employee selection. This was the same Justice Department that had not only designed the system, but also went into federal court and mandated that it be implemented. Now their story became, and I quote, “We are dismayed, weighted testing is blatantly unfair and we demand this outrage be stopped.” With a giant sigh of relief employers complied.

Heck, it is a lot easier to score a test once and not have to re score them using the Justice Department formula to weight the scores. Subsequently President Clinton came into office with his new Attorney General, the ever lovely Janet Reno, the system was reinstated. Luckily they changed the name, it was no longer weighted testing, it became "enhanced testing." Cynical? Why on earth would I be cynical?

I mean pick a football team based on "weighted" forty yard dash times, weights lifted, and disregard previous work experience and go compete against those who use the traditional method of player selection. Oh, and then your team must be fifty percent women, eighty percent white, twenty percent Latino and have disabled people. Think you will win many games? Me either, but that is the current American work place. Wonder why the Chinese and every other civilized country is beating our brains out in world trade and commerce? Could it be? No that is not politically correct, and we can't ever be insensitive, even when it is God's own truth.



But to give the devil his due, the testing process worked splendidly in Miami. They only had 83 police officers indicted for drug trafficking, racketeering and murder. For that particular group, all entry level testing had been suspended. You see Miami also needed to balance the work force. In their case the reason the testing was suspended was simple. The written tests were in English. Couldn't do background checks, too many minorities tended to have criminal records. Fortunately for the citizens of South Florida, the criminal court system had interpreters.

When I was rehired to be an air traffic controller in 1998, I had a chance to see the impact on my profession, air traffic controller. Disastrous is not too strong a term. People controlling traffic who had never flown, could literally not tell a Piper Cherokee from a C141 Star lifter and some had failed radar training three or more times.



Alright, enough of this whining about the world according to Larry. Things I like in no particular order are; college football, San Francisco, New Orleans and leaving Puerto Rico.



Among the things I love are; lyrics by Kris Kristofferson, songs by the Eagles and Credence, my friends, family, cold draft beer, my former job as an air traffic controller and leaving Puerto Rico.



Actually, I am one of the luckiest people in the world. I have survived a lifetime of abusing my body and whatever is left of my mind. I have had a multiple cardiac by-pass operation. I have been blessed by the friendship and love of so many wonderful people. I have seen things I never even knew how to dream about. With my own eyes I have seen my children, grandchildren and hopefully soon, my first great grandchild. I have seen an Alaskan volcano erupt, seen and felt the earth move in a quake. I have seen just how vodka clear water can be over coral reefs in the Virgin Islands. I have seen bullfights in Madrid, skied mountains in Colorado, fished for Salmon in Alaska, and the sunset in Key West. I lived to see my team, the Florida Gators, win a college football championship, back to back National championships in basketball, Muhammad Ali fight and Hank Aaron hit home runs. I have sat in Nashville bars and heard country music like it was meant to be sung and I have stood in the Ryman auditorium, the Mother Church of Country Music and heard Vince Gill sing. I even married the first girl I ever loved, although it did take awhile. And how did that turn out? Moving right along, did I mention, I once saw Puerto Rico fade in the distance



I don't think that I am actually all that angry. Maybe I am a bit like the quotation on Robert Frost's tombstone, "I seem to have had a lover's quarrel with the world."


Your pal,

Larry.