His mother was nearly apoplectic and his career Air Force NCO dad couldn't decide whether he was more upset that his son was going into the Marines or that he was going to be a [expletive deleted] officer. They, and everyone else in the Colonel's world, opined with amazing foresight that serving in the Marine Corps would be hard at first and then get worse.
So, the Colonel knew what he was getting into.
Nobody, however, warned the Colonel about the absolute gut-wrenching, soul-sucking, hate-inviting, head-in-hands, cap-throwing anguish that would attend his life every football season as an Ole Miss Rebel.
Thanks to his aforementioned career Air Force dad's assignments, the Colonel spent little time in Mississippi (his parents' home state), and knew precious little about Mississippi -- other than lots of doubled consonants. There was that fifth grade year ('66 -- '67) in Columbus, while his dad went to fight the communists in Vietnam -- but, other than that, he had no clue. He knew more about Morocco, Panama, and other foreign places (like Arkansas and Louisiana), than the 'Sip. He was 18 and a stranger in a strange land when the Colonel's folks dropped him off in front of his dorm in Oxford.
Ole Miss greeted the Colonel like something foreign on the bottom of a penny loafer. Ole Miss was old money, southern aristocracy, and partying preppies. None of which matched the Colonel's pedigree. To say he didn't fit is like saying you shouldn't put ketchup on a T-bone.
Duh.
And, yet... even though Ole Miss didn't love him, the Colonel fell in love with Ole Miss.
It wasn't love at first sight -- more like love at long association.
And, it was a tumultuous, if not torrid, affair, punctuated with Rebel yells and early fall mornings cutting through the Grove for that 8 o'clock class, alone on his path and in his thoughts, the greatest of which was why in the name of all that is righteous did he let his academic advisor sign him up for a 5 semester hour math class that met at 8 in the morning every... day... of... the... week.
An 8 o'clock 5 semester hour math class should have been enough warning to send the Colonel running for his life. That particular first semester freshman hell was, it turned out, harbinger of the nature of his life-long, love-hate relationship with Ole Miss.
And, speaking of harbingers... Ole Miss football in the mid-seventies was atrocious. The first season of games attended by the Colonel was painful.
Eleven on a scale of one to ten painful.
Root canal by a recent dental-school grad painful.
Bumper hitch ball - shin collision painful.
Listening to Donald Trump pa...
You get the picture.
Rebel football was so bad in 1974 that South Carolina beat us 10-7 on our homecoming.
Why is that so bad you ask?
South Carolina won just one football game that year...
Then, just when the Colonel finally resigned himself to muddling in the mire of Ole Miss football mediocrity, the Rebels would pull off a stunning upset (Alabama and Georgia in '76, Notre Dame in '77); playing football like they actually knew how to play to win.
The last ten years -- since the Colonel returned to, and re-retired on a slice of country paradise just north of the campus..., and bought season tickets -- have been particularly painful.
There have been spectacular wins against hated rivals and complete collapses against non-conference patsies. The emotional roller coaster that is to be an Ole Miss Rebel is not for the faint of heart.
Luckily, the Colonel, as has been pointed out by many close to him, has no heart...
Still, the Colonel gets entirely too wrapped up in the outcome of a game played by a bunch of teenagers. So much so that most Saturday nights during football season, he doesn't sleep.
Not one wink.
Win or lose, late into the wee hours of Sunday morning, the Colonel will toss and turn, replaying the game's turning points. It's stupid, the Colonel knows. But, he ain't smart and you can't make him...
Tonight, a hated rival -- LSU -- comes to town. Nothing epitomizes what it is to be an Ole Miss Rebel more than Rebel Nation's absolute and abject hatred for LSU. Tonight, the Colonel will pay way too much to park way too far away and hike way too long to climb way too high to his season-ticket seats for which he pays way too much of his hard-earned pension to yell way too hard for a bunch of teenagers in whom he invests way too much of his emotional energy.
In all probability -- if his long history with Ole Miss is any indication -- the Colonel will walk a couple of miles back to his car tonight, dejected, frustrated, and swearing that this is the last year he's gonna subject himself to this insanity.
Then, again... we might just win.
Either way, the Colonel won't sleep much tonight.
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