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Wednesdays With Ed
Well, we're all down here at the damn SEC Meetings in Destin and if you
think that sounds as fun as a barrel of monkeys, you've never seen
Phillip Fulmer in a Speedo.
Now, I am not an easy man to
disgust. Sometimes, growing up in hard times on the Hairy Bayou, Mama
Orgeron had to put whatever was available in the gumbo pot and ask
questions later. And I've BY-GOD seen some things since then. Hell,
once we're having Easter dinnrer and I just cough up this finger that
I'd bit off a boy who jumped offsides in spring practice a couple of
days earlier. Landed right in the yams. But I got to admit
when I heard the Tennessee contingent down by the pool -- they were
hollering "what do you mean, you ain't got Jimmy Buffett's version of
'Rocky Top?" -- I was concerned. And, sure enough, there Phil was,
lying in these three beach chairs they'd pulled together for him. And
then he stands up. Well, there's a lot of crying and screaming.
The weak-ass Starkviller contingent, hell, they just faint dead away.
Even my two little boys, Jackie Fargeuax Orgeron and Tojo Yamamoteaux
Orgeron, are getting a little puffy-eyed. So !I said to myself "Ed, you
are the BY-GOD HEAD COACH at Ole Miss. A great school. The school of
... well, I tried to think of some tough-ass people who went to Ole
Miss but could only come up with William Faulkner and that Miss America
from 1962, so I just said "Screw it, you're BY-GOD Ed Orgeron!" And I
turned and looked square at those cheeks. Did you ever see one
of those big 50-gallon drums of pure lard that they use at the big
croaker fryins' they have down in St. Tammany Parish, before they melt
that lard down? Well, picture that snow-white lard just sittin' there
with an orange shoestring placed squarely down the middle, multiply it
by about 30X and you'll get some idea of what I was looking at. Pure
white and only one little indentation on it. "What the hell is that dent?" I asked. So Mark Richt, who is hiding under a lounge chair, says "That's David Cucliffe's nose print."
Well, we'd been getting a side view but then Fatboy wheels around and
we're suddenly facing it STRAIGHT-ON. I turn to Mrs. O and say "Honey,
if he had the jalapeno bean dip at the reception last night, we're dead
where we stand. So I got to do something!" "So I yell out that
"I am offering FULL FOOTBALL SCHOLARSHIPS TO OLE MISS to the family of
any cabana boy who'll find me a beach towel big enough to cover that up
with. Hell, I figure any cabana boy who'd even approach it would have
to be tough enough to be BY-GOD OLE MISS MATERIAL. But hell, every
cabana boy in the place has high-tailed it back to Havana, apparently.
SO I go inside to the ballroom and start ripping up the carpet with my
bare hands and teeth. I've just about got it pulled up when Mrs. O
comes in and yells, "Forget it, Ed! He's headed for the ocean!"
Hell, I ain't a big Destin fan, but it ain't Starkville or Hattiesburg
so it doesn't deserve a tsunami. Fortunately, though, Phil didn't go
cannon-ballin' into the Gulf, just sort of eases himself in. It did
raise the tide pretty considerable -- got a bunch of salt-water in the
pool -- but if anybody was killed other than a few LSU fans that were
having a dune-side corn-dog roast, I didn't hear about it. Well,
they finally woke ol' retired-ass Roy Kramer up from his nap and he
rolled down to the beach and took Phil a pair of coaching shorts to put
on over his Speedo. I never did understand why Phil's coaching shorts
were in Roy's bedroom, but then, I'm pretty new in this league.
After that, I got in the official Ole Miss speedboat and went down the
coast drinkin' a few beers and offerin'a few scholarships. We've had a
lot more activities at Destin, but I will have to get to them later, I
guess. Be of good cheer.
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