Virtual Couch-Burning
Well, my bro did it again, staged a great party with a surfeit of food and just enough drink (unless you consult my sisters-in-law). And because we’ve blamed him in the past when OSU has lost to Michigan, we need to give him a lifetime service award for delivering FOUR WINS IN A ROW! But before we could party down, he put me to work on various projects. Most had to do with setting up his back yard for the party, but we also had to go out to his little woods in the back (back behind the pond that he dug and stocked with fish) and secure a couple of deer stands. He had offered their use over the Thanksgiving weekend to his boss and son, and it wouldn’t do to have either of them nail his buck by crashing down onto them in a negligently-erected deer stand.
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You see, my brother got my dad’s hunting and fishing genes, the ones that Dad realized had missed me during our early, fidgety sessions in torpid summer afternoon boats and freezing predawn duck blinds in and around the Maumee River. My brother now has a wonderful property to pursue both activities, if he chooses not to venture out to the numerous venues available for those activities in the Low Country.
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All of this, of course, was just extended foreplay for The Game. And, maybe it was because there was less at stake, or maybe because it was a noon kickoff instead of a night game, but we were a lot less frenetic this year than last year. Still, it was a very satisfying outcome, even though Tressel decided to win the game by sucking the oxygen out of the stadium instead of setting off an arsenal of offensive fireworks. Can’t help taking perverse delight in these images, however:
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Yep, those girls are a-cryin’. Boo-frickin’-hoo.
I know we seem to gather as a family a lot, which is sort of amazing considering our disparate geography. We’ve come to enjoy each other’s company as the advancing years have reduced the significance of our age differences (10 years oldest (me) to youngest). And the frequent sight of us serves to remind our mom how glad she is that she didn’t have a fourth.
