I have spent the past week leading a high school team on a spring break trip to Orlando, Florida. First of all, I'm not sure if you've heard of Orlando, but it's quite the tourist destination based on the amount of Eastern European languages I heard and the amount of back hair I saw bursting through both male and female tank tops. And the fanny packs. Lord help me, the fanny packs! Second best shirt I saw: black, cut off T-Shirt worn by a man with a pony tail, that said simply "Jaegermeister Bike Week 2008." Best shirt: worn by a mid-40s woman with tapered jeans that also had an elastic waist, with a tucked in shirt that said "Don't Mess With . . . An Aggie Mom" and a Texas A&M logo.
As I was driving a short bus (yes, literally) from Atlanta 439 miles South, however, I realized that a lot of the names I saw on the highway signs soundly vaguely familiar. Lowndes County, GA in particular stood out. Of course, I was taken back to that magical moment in 1966 when Stokely Carmichael, the great civil rights leader, coined the phrase "Black Power." But I immediately remembered that that was Lowndes County, Alabama, boy was my face red! I mean, c'mon Brooks, what sort of historical neophyte are you!
But I saw others: Ocala, Apopka, and Jasper in Florida were ones that immediately stood out. Why on earth do these names stand out to me? It's not just because I would rather have a botched sex-change operation than live in these towns-- although seriously, I really would. These towns are awful. As in, they are still holding out hope that that Chili's will actually open once the economy turns around-awful. It's because these cities produce numerous starters on BCS rosters each year. The SEC, Big 10, ACC and Big East all try to plunder these areas for 3-5 star talent each summer and fall. Somewhere, the next Santonio Holmes was just off the high way chasing a rabbit out of a crop fire to improve his quickness.
I really don't know what this means. I know that these towns are football powerhouses, yet I can only name 4 Supreme Court Justices (Alito, Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, Bader-Ginsberg . . . sweet, that's 5! Suck it, all those surveys in major newspapers that say Americans are ignorant!). If you can give significance to this random epiphany I had while loaded up on Diet Coke and the contact high given by the estrogen emitting from a bus of adolescent female athletes, by all means let me know. Otherwise, I just leave these thoughts on the interwebs . . .
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