College. Family.

Despite any reservations I may have in continuing my education at Covenant College, the fact remains that I go to school with six of my cousins and my sister. Not many dudes get to say that.

 

Cardinal Fever in Chattanooga?

The positive correlation between St. Louis and Chattanooga doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. It’s been explained that lots of people have lived in BOTH cities at one point in their lives because the seminary is in St. Louis, and Covenant College is in Chattanooga.

That’s ridiculous, though.

Only 1,000 kids every year go to Covenant, and only about 7-9 of them are from St. Louis. Take that and multiply it by a decade and you have 90 people TOPS that have lived in both cities over 10 years. So you’re telling me I’ve met the majority of those folks?

Every day I see people walking around town here (and not young people, OLDER people) with Cardinals hats, Cardinals Jerseys etc. This girl I know just showed me a picture of her dad with a Cardinals fishing hat on. A Cardinals fishing hat? What the heck? He’s lived on Lookout Mountain for more than 20 years!

Here’s another thing that confuses me about the STL/CHATTY connection… MOST people in this town support (to the death) either Tennessee University or Georgia University. It’s all about what line you’re on and if you live here on the mountain or here in the city or blah blah blah. Lots of pride. Well… What about the fact that those avid Georgia Bulldog fans have completely neglected that they have a pro baseball team called the Atlanta Braves like 74 minutes from them? How can you be a die hard Dogs fan based on where the state line is drawn through the mountain but then waltz around town in a Redbirds fishing hat like it’s no big deal?

There’s GOT to be another reason for all this St. Louis attire. If these jersey-wearers were going for style, we all know they’d be busting Oakland Raiders jersey’s or Red Sox gear.

As a true Brave hater, I’m willing to concede a few things:

1) If Chipper Jones played for a team in my state, I’d be thrilled. The guy is batting like 1.000 and smoking balls into the bleachers like he’s mad at someone. I don’t care if he is in his 30′s and still going by the name Chipper. I don’t care that he domestically abuses his wife or chews tobacco. The guy is a machine.

2) Growing up with Fred McGriff would be enough to win me over as a small child. I’d be sealed forever. 1996 World Series eat your heart out. I distinctly remember a scene where the Yankees were trying to close out the Braves in the 96 Series, and a foul ball with 2 outs came over to the Braves dugout. Charlie Hayes came over to try and make the play and Fred McGriff refused to move his body in the dugout. It wasn’t so much that he disrupted the play, he simply stayed his ground as if to say, “Yo dude. I’m Fred McGriff. You can call me McGruff…and I ain’t movin in MY dugout. Aight playa? Aint no way you gonna move me off my two feet right here. I don’t care if you miss the ball or not. In FACT, I hope you DO miss the ball. Then I may get to bat again and try and pull a ball 600 feet into right.”

3) Lets talk for a second about Mad Dog Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz… Or lets not. How could you deny a pitching staff like this. If you live in Denton, GA which, as the crow flies, is under and hour from Atlanta… why the HECK are you not a Braves fan? I understand that these guys are mostly all gone now, but if you got to spend the better half of the 90′s with these hurlers, wouldn’t you take with you just a wee bit of nostalgia or pride with you into the 2000′s??? Maybe I’m just a sucker for Cy Young award winners.

4) I’ve got two words for you: Walt Weiss.

I’m not even mentioning our favorite two Braves of all time, Andruw Jones and Javier Lopez. How could someone not be a Braves fan?

Then it occurred to me… I just moved back here this year. Is it possible that people are switching their allegiance along the border of Georgia and Tennessee only very recently? Have they had enough? I mean the Braves make the playoffs every year… but whens the last time they won a world series? Is it getting boring and old? Is the jig up?

“Well”, I thought.

“Maybe”.

Here’s the Braves starting lineup from last nights game:

Gregor Blanco
Yunel Escobar
Chipper Jones
Brian McCann
Mark Kotsay
Greg Norton
Jeff Franceour
Kelly Johnson
Jair Jurrjens

Off the bench they brought these guys in:

Omar Infante
Blaine Boyer

Now I’m not saying that you have to be a known player to be a good player, and goodness knows I’m a believer in young talent that should come up and surprise people in the league. I stand behind Jay Bruce of the Cincinnati Reds like a son (He played a little ball in Chattanooga, incidentally). I stand behind the young players on my Cardinal team that weren’t household names until this year. Ryan Ludwick, for instance, has no business being mentioned on Sunday dinner… but the guy keeps crushing fastballs into the stands. How about SKIP (yes SKIP) Shumacker. Does that ring a bell? Didn’t think so. But my goodness, at least he’s batting .300 and making infrequent web gem appearances. 7 of the 11 guys who played for the Brave’s last night I’ve literally never heard of before.They don’t even sound like baseball players! And they play like guys you’ve never heard of too.

I don’t even have to mention it here, but I will… In case you’re curious, the Braves are 56-71 at this point in the season, a mere 14 games out of the lead in NL East. I’d say they’ll need another big name player or two to close that gap.

Am I the end all of baseball knowledge? No. Do I spend hours and hours watching ESPN every night, playing in 15 fantasy leagues, and keeping up with every team? No. What I am is an above average sports involvement guy who feels that what is happening in Atlanta is a total tragedy.

You’ve got Chipper Jones batting .360 and ripping the cover off the ball, and not one other person on the team is up over .290 even. Who the heck are these guys? And how the heck do you squander what was arguably a top 5 pitching staff in World history over the course of 3 years?

To be honest I miss the good Braves. I miss the rivalry. I miss the fire they had to beat the Cardinals. I miss how cool Turner Field looked on those night games in August. I miss feeling really frustrated because we could not figure out a way to beat these guys in the playoffs. I miss thinking Bobby Cox and Ted Turner were geniuses, basically.

Now maybe I’m meeting a lot of Covenant College/Covenant Seminary crossover family type people. Or maybe the tide has begun to turn. Maybe the Braves are getting old. Maybe it’s just a fad. Maybe I’m totally wrong about the lack of Braves fans and just don’t see them on a regular basis. Or maybe Cardinal nation, which has spread as far in some places as Paducah, Kentucky, Little Rock, Arkansas, and Omaha, Nebraska has finally reached the Smokey’s.

It doesn’t surprise me even one bit that those border Georgians are switching their allegiance and hanging new flags in town, and to be honest it doesn’t bother me that those colors are red and white.

Go birds, baby. Go birds.

 

There’s Always Meremac

There was this crazy sense of urgency upon turning twenty three to get something done. I mean don’t get me wrong… The bar tending gig was bringing in enough money to get most of my bills on time and support a mild drinking habit through a pretty spring semester at Missouri Baptist University, but it seemed like people were accomplishing more and at higher frequencies elsewhere.

This idea of college is strange. Community school and really even state school doesn’t quite cut it. You’ve got a couple of ingredients that cook up an obtrusively raunchy cake here.

1) 45-55 year old professors who care so much about shadowing their lectures with political garbage that they forget to teach the content.

2) Idiot indie kids who think every rhetorical question from the hippy professor is directed at them and carry on in class discussions pertaining to absolutely nothing the course covers. They know so much. And this brings me a hugely important question… Why oh why does Niche get brought into every class discussion? I’ve sat in on a college algebra course and some kid started ranting about Niche. My goodness. Shut up. No one cares. And put on some deodorant for goodness sake.

3) Street kids who are getting their tuition paid for by the government because their mom cashes welfare checks twice a week. These kids are funny, because they sleep during class, and when they are awake they try to whisper to each other, but non of them know how to whisper… so they just talk… and the class awkwardly carries on despite this as the professor soon realizes he has no control over a room full of kids who don’t really care about anything but their new pair of Jordan’s and whoever just hit them up on their two way pager. (who still OWNS a two way PAGER???) Side note about these kids: Twice per semester one of them will tap you on the shoulder to get your notes from the last two weeks. It’s like clockwork. Can’t say no, though. Then you might get shot.

4) The little blonde girl who’s parents taught her to think conservatively so she’s always got a bone to pick with the professor, and always wants to try and show off whatever tidbit she learned about the senate from her dad at the dinner table. This girl always gets some of her information twisted, though, and stumbles over words until the snyde professor just shuts the door on the conversation by exerting professor power and changing the subject or just telling her she’s wrong. Oh the politics.

5) Bosnian soccer players who are way better at whispering than the wellfare babies. Somehow these kids slip under the radar and don’t get noticed as much. They never take notes but always get B’s on their tests. When you do catch them whispering, it’s always in their native tongue. You’d never know one of these guys speaks english either. A huge mystery. How the hell are they beating me in this class? Must be cheating

All the while I’m sitting there also contemplating the possibility of a crazy kid showing up with a rifle and mowing kids down. Lots of times I get distracted during class plotting escape routes and dreaming up hero-based scenario’s. Needless to say… hard to make the grade or get anything fulfilling out of big public school lectures.

That’s probably 13 years of private school talking. Oh my gosh I’m a school snob. A degree from the likes of Mizzou makes me want to jump off a bridge.

I worked with several folks who went the UMSL route. Even more depressing. It’s not that I’m judgmental of those particular people, it’s just that this thought of a private, liberal, strenuous, and free education couldn’t get out of my mind.

The truth is that I’m generally a hater of those who graduate, and the idea of the four year plan developing into a stupid financial planning job. An extension of that truth is that I envy those who accomplish the four year plan leading into a stupid financial planning job. I don’t envy their job or their lives, just that they succeeded in that next educational platform. I suppose it’s a pride thing. Oh my gosh I’m a prideful son of a bitch.

Anyway it had become time to do something. The urgency was there. The plan was there. The motive was there. The tools were there. Most importantly… The tuition was there.

So now I’m here.

Hope this cake tastes better.

Chattanooga. Chatta-Vegas. Chatta-Nothing-To-Do-Ga.

 

The Rules of Chatta-Vegas

I was never actually scared of black people in St. Louis, but moving to Chattanooga completely lifted any racially tilted discomfort I may have had towards being around thugs at night. Down here it’s a bit different. The brotha’s are kind and mind their own business. Worst case scenerio they might ask you if you could lend them your lawn mower. They don’t steal, they just hope you’ll trust them with your expensive lawn equipment.  Sometimes they even acknowledge you with a laid back head nod. It’s the white people you have to look out for down here. The back mountain hick, more specifically. There’s nothing more frightening than a skinhead country boy rolling down Market street on his kid brothers bike with a wife beater, J’NCO jeans, some half baked eyes, and a fat pinch of wintergreen Skoal in his mouth. I kind of feel like Edward Norton in American History X. The brotha’s are my friends here.

Sometimes I wonder, when I see a group of homeless-seeming country boys, “what they are into?” Sometimes I’m tempted to pull over and ask them what baseball team they like. I also wonder if guys like that ever crave a bacon turkey bravo form Panera. Have they even had one? If one of those dudes got mad at me for having long hair and wearing a band t-shirt, could I calm him down just by talking? The scary part is, probably not! In fact, the more I talk probably is directly correlated to the amount of hits I will eventually take. That said, my options are keep my mouth shut and get knocked out, or keep talking and then get knocked out and then knocked out again when I wake up. I feel like they are already angry at me.

These guys actually get offended when you look at them, and especially when you try to talk to them. This brings me to rule number one: Do not approach or try instigating conversation with hillbilly boys in Chattanooga… especially when they are running in packs.

“Hey dude. I’m not from here. I was wondering if you guys knew where the nearest Starbucks was.”

It seems a lot like I’d be speaking a foreign language. It also seems like he’d get so mad at me for offering him the information that yes, I drink coffee, not Pimp Juice.

“What’d yew say, fag? Whayred ya get those jeayns from? Lady Gap? Beat his ass, Chet”

I’m frightened of these guys. The worst part is there’s nowhere to hide. In St. Louis, if you get scared of a thug, you can simply wheel out to West County and have a Thai brown rice wrap from Crazy Bowls. In Chattanooga, if you get scared of a hick, you have to just become a hick…

So instead of talking about Starbucks, politics, religion, society, life, human beings, fun, or any other non drug or domestic violence related subject… try this:

“Hay mayan. How you dewin? Ahv beyen lookin absolewtly everywhayre fer some pawt. Mah damn truck browk down and ahm just shit owta luhck.”

They may at this point even test you… make sure you’re not a LADY. and say, “whatchyou say?”

“I aint sayin anything mayan. Promise I don’t mean ya no hawrm. Just need to fahnd some pawt.”

That might be my only out in any strange confrontation with a hick. This is rule number two: If you talk to a hick, speak his language. This may mean referencing Nascar, pot, trucks, beer, chicks, football, or your uncle that can hook you up with some Vicatin. They get intimidated easily by articulation and you risk walking into some kind of backwoods retaliation just by using proper English.

They just hate it when you look at them. Don’t look. Thats the rule. Face forward, walk straight, and yield the right of way to any hoosier couple walking on your side of the road. The man may seem feeble and boney, but he probably downed just enough Busch Lite to feel no pain. Let him have it. The sidewalk is his, and his fair ladies.

This is rule number three. If a Chattanooga hick boy is courting his woman down the street, it probably means they are on a date. Just because he’s got an unbuttoned denim shirt on and jeans tucked into high top white Nike basketball shoes does not mean that he’s not in the middle of swooning his baby’s mama. When hicks are in swoon mode they become meat heads. Stay away. Yield. Forfeit. Lay on your back. It’s for your own survival.

These rules may hopefully help any new arrivals in Chattanooga. One final note is that if a couple of kids sneak up on your car while you’re at a stop sign or stoplight… your best bet is to let them harass you and bang on the trunk of your car until it’s your turn to go. If you say something, they’ll either smash your window with a baseball bat, or throw lit fireworks in your car.

In review:

1) Don’t look at or approach a hick.

2) If you must speak to a hick, don’t intimidate him. Speak his language.

3) Do not by any means disrupt a hillbilly date.

4) Let the southern street kids have their way with your car.

Easy enough. Now go tackle Chattanooga.