Good Days

Some days are just better than others. You wake up and think to yourself, before your eyes are even open, *Wow. Today's going to be a good day.*

I kind of felt that way when I woke up this morning. Granted, I didn't want to wake up. But, for a change, the cats were all quiet and contented, the beat of the rain against the window was soothing, and I basked in a feeling of warm contentment.

Then I realized why.

Football! Yep! College football is BACK! Today is the day when my team is still undefeated and the hopes for the season are high. We can beat anyone~~and will. *grin* (and for all you Florida fans, I'm listening to *Rocky Top* at the moment and just waiting for you guys to get to Neyland Station. mwahahahaha)

Of course, the downside is that I'm not in Knoxville, cheerfully boiling brats in beer to get ready for tailgating tomorrow. Noooooooo.....I'm in Ohio. One of my other personalities (the one that pays bills) tends bar for every Ohio State football (except the one I'm getting dragged to next month) so today is cook food for the party day.

But in Ohio.

Let me tell you a bit about the bar. It's an old school neighborhood bar, open since literally the day after Prohibition ended. It's got those old-fashioned glass-doored coolers set into polished oak doors and a clientele that's almost as old during the day. I love the old regulars. Some of them had their first beers in the bar when they were sixteen and we were still fighting WWII. Their stories are great--so great that I've been compiling them and working on a story about them called "The Sunday Morning Regulars." It is, make mo mistake, a dyed-in-the-wool Ohio State Buckeye bar.

Period.

Only now there's a bartender who's a single spot of orange behind the bar, the transplanted Tennessee Volunteer who argues football stats with fellows old enough to be her grandpa. That's about the only time I yell *Bullshit!* at an old codger waving a ceegar and talking about the good old days of Woody Hayes. Some of them probably went to school with Knute Rockne.

At any rate, there's also a younger, really hardcore crowd too. The owner is in his fifties, his son just turned 30, and of course there's me. *grin* I can find a football fan at the funeral parlor and they show up to squawk at me about my allegiances. The trick is to blend the two without a pair of dentures getting knocked across the room.

But get this: apparently the bar has been getting phone calls. *Hey! Is that chick from UT tending bar there during the Ohio State game?*

*Celina is tending bar for every Ohio State game.*

*Cool! Are you doing anything special for the game?*

*We're running drink specials and having a tailgating party.*

*Do I have to make reservations?*

Power. Aint't it grand?

So today I'm preparing food for 50 and tomorrow is the first Ohio State game. I hope it goes well. I even pass a sparing thought that maybe, just maybe, I might root for the Buckeyes tomorrow. But then, at 5:30, everything changes.

Tennessee versus California on ESPN--two top 25 teams knocking heads in Neyland Stadium.

Rocky Top, you'll always be
Home sweet home to me.
Good old Rocky Top
Rocky Top Tennessee.
Rocky Top Tennessee.