The Second Saturday in October

It’s not much of a river.

Nothing like that of the typical image one freely conjures in the fertile creative mind, nothing like those full and clear waterways you see gushing wildly way up north, heaven knows it’s nothing like the mighty Mississippi. It’s more of a tree-infested coming together of two slanted slimy banks, a muddy passage where meager waters trickle and stagnate and eventually twist their way on east, and if all the snowmelt from the Rockies fell only this way instead of also toward the west then the river might actually be capable of generating a little consistent flow. But as it appears now it serves primarily as a steadfast delineation, a solid boundary between one American state and another, and to pronounce which side is better depends solely on your lineage or your personal taste regarding just what exactly is cool.

Big-ass money or smart-ass money?

Don’t Mess With Texas or That Arrogant Slogan Implies That You Already Messed on Yourself?

Stevie Ray Vaughn or Michael Hedges?

Tex-Mex or smoky Okie barbecue?

Keep Austin Weird or Keep Norman Normal (truth is Austin aint that weird and Norman’s not that normal).

Devon Energy or Conoco-Phillips?

Wheat or cotton?

Old slow longhorns or young giddy ponies?

Native American or Hispanic?

Hook ‘em Horns or Boomer Sooner?

Matthew McConaughey or Ed Harris? (caution: the answer to this question may reveal a lot about you regardless of whether you are a man or a woman)

Pinto beans or mungbeans? (Ehh… feel free to pass on this one)

J.R. Ewing or Eddie Gaylord?

Okie from Muskogee or The Yellow Rose of Texas?

The Black Mesa or Texas Hill Country?

Thomas Lott or James Street?

Earl Campbell or Billy Sims? Texas fans like to tease about the Sooner’s penchant to cherry pick Native Texans, and both Earl and Billy hail from Texas and won Heisman Trophies, yet the last two Sooner Heisman winners were born and raised within fifty miles of the Norman campus while the last Longhorn winner was some fruit out of California.

October is the one month out of the year around these parts that pretty much justifies sticking around for the other eleven. Blizzards may be rare but ice storms are not and they may in fact be ten times worse, the roads impassably slick and the overhead power lines sagging with a good inch or so of frozen H2O accreted all around them, and if the trees haven’t had enough time to shed their leaves then those branches can crack and there goes twenty years of forested growth. The spring can come early and if it does then be advised that the requisite wind will surely accompany it along with the swirling skies and as the sirens wail you may wonder why oh why didn’t I put in that storm shelter when I had the chance? And the summer… good Lord, the summer can radiate and percolate and oddly mutate all that which lies beneath the brilliant bleached heat dome and naturally there’s no breeze now and it may not rain for days, for weeks, maybe even months.

And when it finally does it never stops.

So yes, please God, bless October with its golden warmth and true blue sky and the comforting fragrance that emanates from the recuperating earth after a busy spring and a trying summer and now, in these cool shaded moments that randomly happen upon us when peace at long last appears at hand, we pronounce our happiness and understand why we could never leave this place, not for too long, not while the green turns to gold and fat pumpkins await the carving knife.

It is finally at this time, at this glorious culmination of fruition and harvest, of warming bonfires and heaping leaves, when a man can taste the earth and drink the air and chant silently to himself we sure as hell better beat Texas.

  

There’s nothing like enjoying a foot long corn dog with a long stripe of mustard running down it while Big Tex hovers above you welcoming one and all to the Great State Fair of Texas. Or gnawing on a turkey leg by Dickel on the grassy knoll just between the crowded midway food booths and the pond where swan boats serenely glide past. And atop the sprawling Ferris Wheel where by chance stopped at the very top you are offered a glimpse of just a small patch of green Cotton Bowl turf with white yard line chalk expertly applied and where you know it will all unfold in only a matter of hours. And after consuming three or four beers and absorbing all that pregame hoopla and basking in unrepented hope the time finally comes for entry into the grand old stadium, and it’s surreal, all that burnt orange and crimson red shoulder to shoulder cramming up those long steps and squeezing yet again into familiar confines.

Three hours later you won’t be feeling the same way as when you entered, you’ll either be loquacious in victory or silently bummed in defeat (or worse). There’s always next year for the losers (yes, eventually they’ll come to realize it) but for the others there’s tonight!

So the Bootlegger’s Boy or Coach Royal?

The north nondescript bank of the Red River or the equally nondescript south?

If and when the Savior returns to claim us all maybe the Almighty can first deliver him into the middle of these narrow clotted waters and we can all just sit back and wait and see which slippery side he decides to clamber up and onto. Until then, feel free to choose for yourself, although for most of us the choice was made a long, long time ago.