Today felt like football weather

Early fall in late August.

Cool.

Sunny.

Football weather.

Fat lot I know about football.

If my younger son, Jonathan, reads this, he's already gagging at my even mentioning The Game, as they call it in the South Carolina Upstate.

He knows I have a defective sports gene.

Russell, our older son, inherited that gene from me.

With Jonathan, the "good gene" jumped a generation. He loves football.  Born in DeKalb General Hospital in the Atlanta suburbs, he especially loves Georgia Bulldogs Football.  He probably will never forgive me for failing to take him to see Georgia -- or at least Clemson, 17 miles up the road.  I took him to Athens a couple of times to see the Basketball Dawgs.  Does that count, son?

Jonathan inherited his love of football from his Grandpa Webb and a host of uncles.

Daddy loved football.  My older brother Lee Roy loved football.  My younger brother Leonard loves football. Lee Roy and Leonard would have played football if we had been in school in the fall instead of being in the cotton patch.  Our "baby" brother Lew, born as I was starting college, actually did play football. Was Daddy ever proud!  Members of our generation of nephews are ardent footballers.   Even brothers-in-law love the sport:  Don, who married my younger sister Marie; and Jeff, who married my older sister Leta.

In fact, I was with Jeff the last time I was in a football stadium nearly thirty-three years ago.  We were living in Waco, where Jeff and Leta lived for many years.

Jeff was more brother than brother-in-law.  He had an extra ticket for a Baylor game, and he invited me to go with him.  I went because I knew I would enjoy being with Jeff, even at a football game.

I don't remember the team the Bears were playing.  I don't remember who won, but it probably was Baylor.  I was working on the Waco Citizen Newspaper, and I heard enough in the office to know the Bears were having a good season.

My only surviving memory from the stadium after thirty-three years is the home fans standing to sing "That Good Old Baylor Line," to the tune of "That Good Old Summertime."  Near the end of the BU anthem, everyone in that half of the stadium -- except me -- stretched out his or her right arm and bent fingers and thumb into the representation of a Bear Claw.

Did I mention I have a defective sports gene?