My Return to The Swamp

At the behest of my older brother and blog founder Joaq, I am submitting for your reading pleasure and sleeping aide the story of “My Return to the Swamp” You know that good things await you when you’re over 100 miles away from Gainesville in the crisp of the morning and the car astride you on the Florida Turnpike has a huge “Swamp Bound” sign on its side. As I rode with Joaq attired in our defiant (more on that later)orange and blue shirts, I was reminded of the adrenaline generating force of the Chattooga River pushing our whitewater raft towards the thundering rapids that awaited us. Now let me digress to tell you why our Orange and Blue attire was defiant. For those of you who are not yet familiar with the demi god that has been bestowed upon the Gators, Urban Meyer- it appears that he not only a football prowess, but also an artist who uses a unique medium to express his creativity. He regularly applies the denizens of the Gator Nation as pigments that paint his orange and blue canvas AKA “The Swamp”. On this particular Saturday Urban had decreed that white would be the color of choice for painting his Swamp. However, yours truly (and his other brother Darryl) decided that resistance was in order and refused to be assimilated. As you might imagine, our bravado wavered as we neared The Swamp and saw that our fellow denizens had all been happily assimilated as Urban’s white pigments. When we grew increasingly concerned that the Swamp forces would eject us and I couldn’t shake the thought that we had seats on the very top row next to the outer wall of The Swamp, I took secret comfort in remembering that I was wearing a white t-shirt under the orange shirt that Joaq so graciously had provided me. Being the loyal brother that I am, and thinking that Joaq was not wearing a white t-shirt, I fought my urge to jettison the orange shirt and spent much of the first quarter holding on tightly to my seat lest I suffer a Monty Pythonish ejection over the top of The Swamp wall. But I’m getting ahead of myself. While still en route to G’ville I suffered a bout of nostalgia requiring a dose of contact with my old Frat house roommate, Worthless Worm. I employed my cell phone and the miracles of modern technology to erase three decades of history as the voice on the other end exclaimed “What’s Up Frax?” As if awakened from a 30+ year long dream I gave the obligatory response plagiarized from the good old days of SNL “Is this the party to whom I’m speaking?” After a long discussion involving complex logistics, time, and space, we resorted to the universal solution for bodies that are moving in convergent but different directions, at varying speeds, and hope to converge at some point – “Call me when you get there and we’ll figure something out”. As usual it worked – but I’m getting ahead of myself again. As we approached the familiar confines of the epicenter of the Gator Nation I was thrown off by an unfamiliar name on an otherwise familiar Law School area, at which we would soon be tailgating. It appears that if you have had a building named after you; some bozo can come along with a sufficiently large boatload of money and outbid you for the naming rights. Even if that bozo is someone nobody likes and you are too dead to counter their bid (as is the case in the renaming of the UF law school). As soon as I’m done with this blog I’m starting the campaign to prevent the renaming of the Washington Monument to the Bill Gates obelisk. OK back to The Swamp story. After spending a most pleasant couple of hours with the bright and pleasant future of our country, under the shade of Spanish moss covered Live Oaks, and discussing everything from hurricane path prediction models to the virtues of environmental engineers, it was time to leg the final part of the trek to Mecca. The orange and blue brothers approached hallowed ground of The Swamp, propelled by the white rapids (they were rapids before they became pigments) composed of citizens of the Gator Nation, the nervous excitement of the looming waterfall at the end of the rapids returned to my veins. Unfortunately, instead of the waterfall we were now facing a climb to row 90 of The Swamp with a recurring warning from the loud speakers that I would probably be dead from heat stroke within three hours. Ah, the Swamp. All the color and pageantry of college football in its greatest glory – slightly dampened by some very dark and ominous clouds overhead and a very whitish hue as decreed by Urban– well, at least we weren’t dying of heat stroke. When the dark clouds released a torrential downpour that chased us all back to the entrails of the Swamp (all except my conspicuously blue clad brother) I turned to the sardine next to me and said “don’t worry Urban has connections that go way above the coaching sky boxes and he is making deals to ensure an on time and dry start to the game.” I had no idea of my power of prediction until… exactly on cue the rain stopped with just enough time to allow us to get back to our seats and watch the sun peak through as the Gators hit one of the many lousy kicks they would kicking this Saturday. A football pundit later said that the sky high kicks that barely made it to the Rainbow Warriors 20yd line were intentional – yeah right! Not only did Urban have a rain shower cool down The Swamp right before kickoff, he made those dire warnings of death by heat stroke seem silly by ordering just the right combination of drizzle and breeze so that The Swamp was swathed in a cooling mist throughout the afternoon. After I finish the name retention campaign, I am contacting NOAA so that they stop this passive nonsense of trying to predict where hurricanes are going and hire Urban to tell the hurricanes where to go. (Pun intended) About the Game- You already saw Jason’s game analysis as posted by Joaq on the blog yesterday – Here is a different take: True the Gators won big; true the Gators didn’t pull out all the stops; but what the Gators accomplished, after several failed attempts, was to win a game without relying on Team Tebow to pull off the win. For the first time in two years Urban forced the Gators to win a game using running backs gaining yards with up the gut plays. The Gators were also lucky that the Rainbow Warriors had difficulty completing passes to some very open downfield receivers. I’m sure that’s been noted by the Bulldogs, Tigers, and assorted other wildlife. Regardless of what the pundit said, the Gators had better find someone who can send a kickoff into the end zone before we play a team with an offense that will take advantage of starting their drives on the 35 or better. Well, I’ve bored you enough and besides I’m plum out of that poetic wax stuff (my brother got most of it in our family); and with all these her-acanes and his-acanes coming at us- we best get outa here- So I’ll be back later if the good Lord willing and the creeks don’t rise. Say a prayer for New Orleans and our Gulf Coast dwelling friends that are about to get walloped by his-acane Gustav. Go Gators!