It is a glorious Alabama day: blue sky, a whisper of breeze caressing my face, and a hint--just a subtle hint, mind you--that Fall is around the corner. You may call it Autumn where you live, but it is simply Fall here, and it is my time of the year. Today is the kind of day that can make you glad to be alive. A day you wish you could press between the pages of a scrapbook, like a rose in an old family Bible. It is a feeling that you may want to take out and hold again in trembling old hands, many years hence.
I head out of town for an afternoon jaunt in the psycho-billy jeep (all blacked-out, Johnny Cash style). I recon a beautiful tract of land that my company has just listed for sale: thick with pine timber, whitetail deer, and Fall wildflowers. I certify it a "winner," just waiting for a savvy buyer. As I creep along woods roads overgrown with fescue and dog fennell, Johnny's voice belts out "Cocaine Blues," on the c.d. player, sung to a rowdy bunch of society's castoffs in Folsom Prison so many years ago:
"Come on all you fellows and listen to me, Stay away from whiskey, And let that cocaine be."
The warning came too late for many of them, Big John.
I revel in the freedom they forfeited. This afternoon is for you boys.
Twenty miles away, thousands have congregated to watch the latest edition of the Auburn Tigers play their season opener. All decked-out in orange and blue, hope springs eternal that this is the year. They will eat and drink and hoot and holler at a fevered pitch, like a congregation caught up in the Spirit at a tent revival. War Eagle and Hallelujah, neighbors, can you feel it?
I could be there with them. But on a day like this I would rather be here--prowling the back roads of Alabama.
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