THE WEDNESDAY FOOTBALL FIX, 1974 WITH LOTTIE & JULIA: As days sometimes thunder by slowly & the years are greased lightning, I find myself recognizing deeds that went by without applause. I find the words in Maya Angelou’s “Continue” both inspiring & convicting, “…to let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer…”. I return to this week precisely 50 years ago & this exact day in this 1week, Wednesday, July 24, 1974, & those two ladies, my great aunt Julia on the left & my grandmother Lottie on the right & like a lot of stories from the South, it involves football & strong women. Every year, whether summer or spring break, we went to visit my grandparents town that bumped the city limits of Birmingham, Alabama, the little town of Fairfield (for you NASCAR fans, it’s right next door to the town the Allison’s & The Alabama Gang called home). That summer, I wasn’t looking forward to the trip, I was 12 & would have rather been playing wiffle ball or at the pool afraid to talk to girls but not afraid to do something dumb thinking the girls I was afraid to talk to would notice. This trip was scheduled for heavy cousin time with Julie, Jennifer, & Anna which made my sister happy but caused me to make sure my tabletop cards & dice major league baseball game got packed. Tuesday was the first big day & my mom, sister Amy, me & my grandmother headed toward Vestavia &….me, the mall and 8 females. Times being different, I went to the bookstore alone for an hour as the girls went their way before we met back at the introverts nightmare, Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor. While under the influence of dairy, I noticed my book purchase had pages missing which Julia found troubling. We marched back to the store, found another copy, & she, SHE, turned every page, all 224 of ’em to make sure they were there. As the day ended & we headed home, my grandmother stopped at Bruno’s grocery. Granny, as I knew her, ran in to grab something quick, something being tickets to see the Birmingham Americans of the new World Football League & unbeknownst to her, my favorite Tennessee Volunteer to that time playing for Memphis, safety & kick return master Bobby Majors & his kicker teammate from my hometown whose father was a coach of my father in high school. She didn’t come out with tickets, Bruno’s only had end zone seats but the next night, with Lottie as determined as Julia & those 224 pages, I sat on the 40 in Legion Field’s old upper back with, depending on who was counting, over 54,000 or 61,000 others, right above “The Football Capital of The South” logo, in what was the highest attended game in the brief history of the league. Julia & Lottie, two ladies that took time to make sure I wasn’t left out, that books were complete & that good seats were occupied, ladies that didn’t get thanked properly in 1974 for a book & tickets I still have & the memory I pull out this time every year with a little more gratitude & that’s worth, as they are, kneeling on the pillow for…