“No wise man ever wished to be younger.” – Jonathan Swift
Monday birthdays seem more appropriate at my age, but in an attempt to beat the system Jody and I took a weekend trip to Georgia and claimed it was birthday-related. It was actually a chance to accept a kind invitation from a friend to do something every sports fan should do—watch a game “between the hedges” at iconic Sanford Stadium. It just so happened that the mighty Georgia Bulldogs were playing the Red Wolves from Arkansas State University, my wife’s alma mater, so it was a cool deal all around.
Did I mention that our gracious hosts once were the President and First Lady of the University of Georgia? It was an honor to stay at their home and sit in their air-conditioned stadium box, and from the sometimes-you-get-more-than-you-ever-dreamed files, we even got to meet Uga—once named the best mascot in the nation—who was hanging out in his SUV in the bowels of the stadium before greeting his adoring fans!
And just after meeting the star of the show, we were allowed on the field during pregame warmups where we were privileged to see those iconic hedges. The hedges were originally planted in 1929 – inspired by rose hedges in Pasadena – and other than a controversial removal/replant surrounding the 1996 Olympics, football games have been held between their carefully-manicured boundaries ever since.
And then the game was terrible. Arkansas State, although a quality football program, was completely outmatched against the #3 team in the nation and lost 55-0.
But there was something very special about this particular blowout. Georgia fans don their red with great pride, but in the approach to this game they were invited to wear pink in honor of Arkansas State’s head coach who recently lost his wife to breast cancer shortly after her 49th birthday. And did they ever. The stadium was filled with pink in what Coach Anderson emotionally described as “one of the classiest moves he has ever seen,” and it was breathtaking.
Today, as I celebrate my own 49th birthday, I am reminded that life is both fleeting and unpredictable. Shakespeare said that all the world’s a stage, although the Southern take might be a football field, and that we humans are “merely players” on it. As we play our parts “between the hedges”—win, lose, or draw—it is nice to imagine a scene where even the opposition recognizes that something greater than our differences binds us together as one.
That is what I thought about on a pleasant Saturday afternoon in Georgia.
Starting to Look Up 