Bears and football along I-40: Stories for the Slow Season
A friend was on an extended RV trip around the county, and I flew east to join him for the westward conclusion. From Nashville we pretty much followed I-40 west.
During a layover day in Oklahoma City we took in the quite nice Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. At the admissions desk a pleasant woman asked where we were from, and I responded LA. With a devilish tone in her voice she said, "Oh you're a big Laker fan". With an idea of where that might go I said, "no, I'm a Cal football fan". She responded, "Oh, we play football too we're pretty good". I responded "I know and have never been prouder of my Bears than the dozen years ago when we took two from the Sooners". That got a curt response of "watch it you're in Oklahoma".
A couple of days later we were at a rest stop just east of Amarillo, and I spotted and picked up a discarded copy of the local paper, the "Amarillo Globe-News". Most of the area and the largest headline above the fold of the front page was: "Red Raider faithful flock to Kingsbury talk". The first paragraph was:
"The Kliff Kingsbury wave of enthusiasm came crashing through Amarillo on Wednesday evening. The 33-year old head coach of the Texas Tech Red Raiders football program drew the largest gathering of Tech fans our city has seen in a long while."
A second supporting article headlined the sports page and was of a question and answer format with Kingsbury. The first question and answer were:
Q: What happened on the greatest day of your life? A: "That's a tough one. But my greatest athletic day was my first start ever (quarterback) for Texas Tech. It was Spike Dykes' last game. We beat Oklahoma, and we got to send him out with a win." I'll bet Sonny remembers that one.
Another day got us to a state park just east of Gallup. That evening we wandered into town in search of an authentic Route 66 bar, which we found. As we walked in and took our places at the bar, we did our best to not look and sound like a couple of tech weenies. There were few people in the place, but there were two guys to our left, and then a single guy beyond them. One of the two guys was a big talker so we were soon hearing that they were in town working some hazardous clean up job. It was soon apparent that all three, although not really focused on it, were watching the Wings Hawks game on the small TV above the bar.
The Wings gave up two quick ones and the talker was alive. Soon he was also bitching about the Lions, and how a couple of years ago he thought they had turned the corner and were going to be good. The solo guy chimed in "I used to follow the Lions, but then I changed over to the niners during the years I lived in San Francisco." My turn: "yea, the Lions were looking better a couple of years ago about the time they got Javid Best." Approving grunts all around. The solo guy said he had seen Best run at Cal, and that football Saturdays in Berkeley were good. I told him I was there too, so we're pretty much buddies for life now. Not really and after our second, it was time for us to wander on.
A friend was on an extended RV trip around the county, and I flew east to join him for the westward conclusion. From Nashville we pretty much followed I-40 west.
During a layover day in Oklahoma City we took in the quite nice Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. At the admissions desk a pleasant woman asked where we were from, and I responded LA. With a devilish tone in her voice she said, "Oh you're a big Laker fan". With an idea of where that might go I said, "no, I'm a Cal football fan". She responded, "Oh, we play football too we're pretty good". I responded "I know and have never been prouder of my Bears than the dozen years ago when we took two from the Sooners". That got a curt response of "watch it you're in Oklahoma".
A couple of days later we were at a rest stop just east of Amarillo, and I spotted and picked up a discarded copy of the local paper, the "Amarillo Globe-News". Most of the area and the largest headline above the fold of the front page was: "Red Raider faithful flock to Kingsbury talk". The first paragraph was:
"The Kliff Kingsbury wave of enthusiasm came crashing through Amarillo on Wednesday evening. The 33-year old head coach of the Texas Tech Red Raiders football program drew the largest gathering of Tech fans our city has seen in a long while."
A second supporting article headlined the sports page and was of a question and answer format with Kingsbury. The first question and answer were:
Q: What happened on the greatest day of your life? A: "That's a tough one. But my greatest athletic day was my first start ever (quarterback) for Texas Tech. It was Spike Dykes' last game. We beat Oklahoma, and we got to send him out with a win." I'll bet Sonny remembers that one.
Another day got us to a state park just east of Gallup. That evening we wandered into town in search of an authentic Route 66 bar, which we found. As we walked in and took our places at the bar, we did our best to not look and sound like a couple of tech weenies. There were few people in the place, but there were two guys to our left, and then a single guy beyond them. One of the two guys was a big talker so we were soon hearing that they were in town working some hazardous clean up job. It was soon apparent that all three, although not really focused on it, were watching the Wings Hawks game on the small TV above the bar.
The Wings gave up two quick ones and the talker was alive. Soon he was also bitching about the Lions, and how a couple of years ago he thought they had turned the corner and were going to be good. The solo guy chimed in "I used to follow the Lions, but then I changed over to the niners during the years I lived in San Francisco." My turn: "yea, the Lions were looking better a couple of years ago about the time they got Javid Best." Approving grunts all around. The solo guy said he had seen Best run at Cal, and that football Saturdays in Berkeley were good. I told him I was there too, so we're pretty much buddies for life now. Not really and after our second, it was time for us to wander on.