Monday OYSTERS

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Quote of the day:

In 1781-82 after a series of guerrilla attacks that seriously weakened his army primarily in South Carolina, British military commander Lord Charles Cornwallis decided to retreat from Camden, SC and go to New York and join Sir Henry Clinton. Included in the retreat was British cavalry commander Colonel Banastre Tarleton, the most brutal and therefore the most hated man in America. Tarleton said “Yes we are withdrawing, but we will come back and get “The Gamecock” (Thomas Sumter) but the devil himself will not be able to capture “The Swamp Fox.” (Francis Marion).

                                   Tom and Football

There has been much ado about college football teams and their coaches in the last few weeks. I have a friend in Baton Rouge named Tom that is the most dedicated LSU fan I have ever known. This man has held a variety of highly skilled jobs in the world of finance and academia. He is brilliant and I struggle to stay at eye level. In addition to his worldly skills he is a cartoonist, is occasionally on stage at Phil Brady's Bar in Baton Rouge playing a guitar and singing his own compositions.

I also have seen him in action many times at The Sandshaker Lounge on Pensacola Beach where a several of us gather around Mayor Bob and indulge in song and ale. My friend can hang with anybody, me included.

We had been discussing why some fans expect their college teams to come up to their expectations and get really bent out of shape when they don't. He used the analogy of a play. The fans (audience) are not the producer (athletic department), nor a director (coaches), assistant directors (trainers, etc) and not part of the cast (players). My friend says that even though the fans (audience) has bought a ticket to a poorly performed play they do not have a right to hire or fire anyone. They have the right to bitch and complain but that is all. But if they keep on buying tickets and complaining about the performance and the personnel they are less than balanced. He and I agree that anyone that allows their mental well being to be influenced by people (favorite team) that he does not know personally needs to reevaluate their lives. He also blames the concept of entitlement that pervades our society today as a contributing factor. In other words, people are spoiled and pout when they do not get their way. The younger generation has not been allowed to deal with disappointment in their upbringing and when it happens they are lost and start whining. Over in Baton Rouge there were people that wanted Les Miles (head football coach) fired because LSU went 8-4 this year. The mighty Gamecocks went 3-9.

Here is the best part. My friend did an analysis of a college football game when it came to efficiency and value. His research revealed this. The average play in a football game lasts about 6 seconds...some longer some shorter but this is the average. There are about 120 plays per game. The game is scheduled for 60 minutes, not counting half time and “times out” and changing sides of the ball after each quarter. Each play has 25 seconds to begin after the referee whistles the ball ready for play and on many occasions this time is exhausted. The end result is that you actually only see about 12 minutes and 24 seconds of actual football. In this short time you see all the running, passing, kicking, punting, tackling, pass defense, laterals, etc. The rest of the time you are seeing the referees in conference among themselves, the coaches in conference with other coaches, players and referees. The players in conference among themselves (huddle), TV announcers and “color men” describing what we are seeing, a plethora of commercial ads and delays of the game to allow for them. All of this boils down to most teams in college having a 12 game schedule lasting from September to December...this means that in the span of the 4 month season the average fan sees about 2 hours and 24 minutes of actual football. That is about the length of “The Outlaw Josie Wales” which I watch in one sitting with one bag of popcorn. My friend has been a fan of LSU for 30 years and to my knowledge he has not missed a home game or saw the team on TV every game on the road if he was not present. He acknowledges that he has seen just a little over 74 hours of actual football in those 30 years. These figures may be a bit off but not by much. This makes all the groaning, grieving and breast beating about your team seem a little misguided...doesn't it?

A while back I had planned to go on my bi-yearly visit to Pensacola Beach, Florida for a month. There was a problem with my car and it looked like I would not be able to go. A good friend that was the owner of a Corvette and a Jeep Liberty offered the Jeep to me for my visit and I accepted. After the end of the trip I brought the Jeep back to her condo which was in the very center of downtown Greenville (Broad and River streets). Her location is also very near a church that cares for the homeless. After I dropped the car off at her parking garage I called a friend to come and take me home. I had a few things in the Jeep that I put into a garbage bag and went outside to wait on my ride. As I was standing there bag in hand and an obviously homeless man came toward me with an banana sandwich dripping with mayonaise. He stopped in front of me and said “Have your eaten today?”...and pushed his sandwich toward me. I was baffled for a second until I realized that he thought I was homeless because I was standing on the sidewalk with a garbage bag but he was willing to share his banana sandwich with me. Think about this, y'all...who is taking care of who?

This Date in History December 7

1941 At 7:55a on Sunday of this date 355 Japanese aircraft launched a surprise attack against the United States naval and air forces on the Hawaiian Islands. Earlier President Roosevelt had talked with the Japanese Emperor about Japan signing an alliance with Germany and Italy who were ravaging Europe. Roosevelt knew that Japan would not withdraw from the so-called Axis so he ordered all oil and scrap metal to be withheld from Japan making it very difficult for that country to manufacture the tools of war. Roosevelt knew this and was expecting an attack by the Japanese but he did not know where. Australian coast watchers reported that a large Japanese fleet has been spotted heading south down the Malayan peninsula and the target appears to be Thailand. This turned out to be a diversion and the real target was the Hawaiian Islands that were going to be attacked by a Japanese task force sporting four aircraft carriers. This whole scenario was planned by the brilliant and Harvard educated Admiral Yamamoto. The attack came in four waves. First came the fighters to suppress any American fighter counter-attack, second came the torpedo planes and finally the dive bombers. There was no American counter-attack. Nearly all of American fighter-bombers were destroyed before they could get off the ground. The Japanese attack was a complete success. They had destroyed 17 ships and nearly all of the American warplanes on the Islands. Fortunately for us, three of our Hawaii based aircraft carriers were out to sea and escaped attack. For reasons known only to the Japanese, they could have occupied Hawaii or sailed on east and attacked the west coast of the United States but they did neither and sailed on back to the house but the United States Navy was severely damaged. While the Japanese upper military command were singing and dancing about the victory in Hawaii Admiral Yamamoto rose up and said “It is a great victory, but I fear that all we have done is awakened a sleeping giant.” The prophetic words proved to be truthful because Yamamoto knew the manufacturing power available in the good old United States and four years later Japan was prostrate and in ruins administered by the Allied military.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow