DAD’S & STAGES, AN SEC TICKET STORY: In a few hours, people who paid an average of $796.42 a ticket, will see Kalen & Kirby take the stage & pit their 10+ million dollar salaries & million dollar NIL payrolls against each other for the SEC football crown. While that battle in Atlanta is interesting, my mind has drifted to other SEC locales this week.
       Since the time of Pistol Pete & Tommy Casanova, much to my mother’s chagrin, I’ve been a fan of the LSU Tigers. Consequently, the always polarizing & interesting Lane Kiffin has been on my radar. Not because of the fallout from the way he left Oxford but something he said before his decision was announced. He talked about his dad, his stage of life, & how he wished he could talk to him while offers ping ponged from a job he had & a job that wanted him.
      I understood, much too perfectly, what he was talking about. I lost my dad in 2013 & many times, like Mav clutching Goose’s dog tags & asking him to speak, I’ve wished I could hear my dad. Times like this week, when my mom asked unexpected questions & I had no answers or to hear him say he’s pulling for me, he believes in me. The confidence he provided in my chaos, even when I straddled the line of victim & perpetrator of the chaos.
       My hope is that tonight, some son will get as good advice from his father who shelled out just south of $1600 for the two of them to watch the Tide & ‘Dawgs, as I got from my dad in September of ‘76 when he dropped $16 for us to see the Vols & the TCU Horned Frogs. (My allegiance to the Bayou Bengals was split with the Vols through the Majors & Holloway eras & a tad beyond, which doubled my Roll Tide momma’s degree of chagrin with her boy).
      On the way into Neyland Stadium’s 80,250 seat horseshoe, the aroma of frat boys beginning stage 1’s “witty & charming” of writer Dan Jenkins “10 Stages of Drunkenness”, filled the air. On the way out, those boys were at stages 8 thru 10, #8’s witty & charming part 2, nine’s invisible & ten’s bulletproof. We witnessed a Panhellenic coed cookie toss featuring a young man bent over with shaky hands on wobbly khaki covered knees & a sorority girl clutching the ground for dear life with her elbows.
      My dad then said, “…remember, the only things you’ll find after midnight are bad liquor & bad women & the women you can figure out before dark”. Unfortunately for my dad, he uttered this between my 14th & 21st years on this earth, which absurdly coincided with stage 2 of the 4 stages of fathers & sons:

Stage 1- My Daddy can beat up your Daddy.

Stage 2- My Dad is the dumbest man on earth.

Stage 3- Maybe my Dad is smarter than I thought.

Stage 4- I wish I could hear my Daddy say…