Feeling Nutty

I've been trying really hard to blog at least once a week so here are some random thoughts from the past seven days.

You have probably heard that a private company SpaceX launched a rocket into space this week.

But did you hear that along with the cargo on board headed to the space station there was also a number of people. okay not really people, at least in the living sense, but their remains -- their ashes? For the sum of three grand Space X along with partner Celestis will release the remains of the dearly departed while in orbit.

Who says you can't buy your way into heaven?

James Doohan the actor who played Scotty on Star Trek was beamed up for the last time in this recent flight. Actually this was his remains second attempt as a failed mission dumped him into the Pacific ocean back in 2008.

Talk about Star Trek : The Next Generation

In other news I created this short video for my own, and hopefully your, entertainment.

And last but not least I have to share this with y'all. I write for a Texas football magazine and by far the largest part of the job is creating the profiles for the MANY high school teams here in the state. Some of these are really out of the way places. Tiny little towns that play 6 man football and almost no one except those from there have ever heard of. One such town's high school is nicknamed the steers.

Now for the uneducated a steer is a castrated bull. If you are really uneducated let me explain more. Castrated means the animals testicles have been removed.

Now in light of that fact having a football team called the steers seems rather asinine to me but as I was writing the profile and recapping their last season I noticed they had lost one game by two points. I couldn't resist writing this brilliant (if I do say so myself) line ... And in the final non-district tune-up, the Steers came up a pair short in a (56-54) loss to Silverton.

Fifty-Fifty - A Yellow Flag Tale

The mercury is still hitting the triple digit mark more days than not here in the Texas Panhandle. There is no crispness to our air as of yet. The leaves have not began to change. There is no frost on the pumpkins, and yet I feel as if Fall is but inched away.

Why? Because the kids have started back to school, which means in the afternoons you can hear that tell-tale pop of helmets echoing across the Texas landscape. Yep folks, it is time for some Friday night football.

Once upon a time, I donned the striped shirt each and every Friday to ref these games. I blogged about some of my more memorable reffing experiences back in 2007. That series of posts can be found here.

Given that Friday kicks off the 2011 high school football season here in Texas I thought I'd post another tale today.

I was down in the town of Plainview, Texas which is about an hour south of Amarillo. Game time was upon us so I strolled over to the visiting sideline and told the coach I needed a team captain for the coin toss.

Tho coach nodded and then turned back to his player. In very intense fashion he relayed these instructions.

"Okay, when the refs ask what you wanna do I want you to defer. If the other team one the coin toss and we can;t defer then we want to receive the ball. If we can;t receive because they wont he toss and elected to receive than we wanna kick from that end. Got it?"

The kid nodded.

"So one more time the coach said," Defer if you can. If you can;t defer we want to receive. If we can't defer or receive we wanna kick from that end."

"Got it coach," said the kid.

The coach sighed. "Repeat the choices back to me one more time."

I intervened. "Coach, we gotta have a captain. It's time to get started.

"Okay, okay," said, the coach. "Remember Jimmy Defer, receive, kick from that end. In that order."
I gritted my teeth. I'd never reffed a game from this particular team, but I certainly had never seen a coach so anal about the coin flip.

As the player and I walked to the center of the field the coach kept shouting out his instructions.

As we met at the fifty another official gave a few instructions and then told the kid I'd ushered out to "call it in the air."

As the shiny gold coin fluttered upward, the kid yells out "Defer!"

My fellow official snagged the coin and stared at the kid, "Son, you gottta call either heads or tails."
The kid looked horror stricken for a second and then turned to his sideline. "Coach, he says I can only say heads or tails! Which one should I pick!"

The coach shook his head and hollered back, "I don't give a Tinker's damn what you call just pick one!"

Again the coin arched skyward. This time the kids shouts, "Tails!"

"Tails it is," answered the other referee. "You've won the coin toss so the option is yours. What do ya'll wanna do?"

The kids smiled, raised his chin and proclaimed, "We wanna kick. From that end."

I grimaced. After all of the coach's instructions the kid had screwed up.

The other ref said, "You can kick alright but the other team gets to choose the end."

Choosing to kick meant the other team would get to choose at the opening of the second half. This meant the anal coach's squad would kick off and give up the ball to begin both halves of play.

I walked back to the sideline and said," Coach, I hate to tell this but y'all won the toss and your player chose to kickoff."

I expected the coach to blow a gasket but instead he smiled and and said to me, "Know what's really bad?"
When I shook my head, the coach said, " That is my smartest player."

Walt said it best ... It's a Small World After All -- A Yellow Flag/Postal Tale

Come on admit it, you're humming that song right now aren't you? Especially, you WordVixen since you love all things Disney.

Today is the day after the big Halloween carnival at the school where me wife teaches, VOLUNTEERS, and where my boys attend. Which means when she climbs out of bed today, after putting in something close to 40 hours of labor the last three days I will once again have me wife back. I'm not even going to add up the hours she has put in over the last four or five weeks. Who knows she might even post a new blog over at her site?

Since Purdue Boilermaker ultra-fan, Phats was wondering about a new edition of the Yellow Flag Tales and several people have suggested I need to blog about the good Ol' United States Postal Service I'm going to do both today. All in one glorious story. Okay, glorious might be getting carried away. How about mildly interesting story?

Now I'm a pretty big guy, so anytime something heavy needs moved or lifted, I'm often recruited for the task. So several years back the fellow who is in charge of maintenance at all the small post offices here in the Texas Panhandle needed a bit of help moving a safe up in the small town of Follett, Texas.

So me and Wayne load up in the Postal owned stake-bed truck, which looks something like this and take off for the 150 mile trip to Follett. Now Wayne is a nice guy but not the most thrilling of storytellers. He is one of those guys that takes a three or four minute tale and stretches it to fifteen. Also, he normally travels and does his work alone, so on the rare occasions when he has company he makes the most of it. I'd been with him before so I'd already heard his best takes, however that did not stop him from telling them to me again.

A couple of hours in my eyelids were getting heavy, but every time my head began to list forward Wayne would increase his volume and say something like, "You know what I mean" to wake me back up.

So I was barely paying attention when he announced, "Boy I sure hope we have enough gas to get there." This became a reoccurring theme as he said the same thing about every other minute. Now in Wayne's defense the stake-bed wasn't his normal vehicle. He usually drove a large maintenance van, but we'd needed the large bed to take along some extra tools.

The road leading into Follett is quite hilly and we just happened to be about halfway up one of those hills when the truck sputtered, shuttered and stalled. Our momentum carried us up over the that hill and gravity carried down to the bottom of the next one as Wayne tried fruitlessly to recrank the fuel less engine. Then he said, "If only we could make it over this next hill we could drift into town."

Doing my best Luke Duke impression, I opened my door and hopped out of the still rolling vehicle. I figured I could push the big thing since it was already moving, but I knew that once it stopped it would take me and three mules to ever get the thing rolling again.

Now I'm not the most graceful of fellas so my maneuvers where mighty ugly but I manged to get back behind the truck and start pushing up hill without falling or otherwise injuring myself.

And we made it to the top even though I was huffing and puffing like an asthmatic chain-smoker. Then gravity took back over and I had to race back up to the passenger seat open the door and hop back into the moving truck.

Wayne lied. We drifted down that hill up another small one and down again and still there wasn't hide nor hair of the metropolis, Follett. (Population less than 500.)

We rolled until we came to the base of another steep hill at which point Wayne said. This must be that last hill. Seeing as to how I still couldn't breathe I said, "Maybe so, but I'm done pushing."

We parked grabbed a gas can out of the back and commenced to walking. Turns out town was still a solid mile away. By the time we hit the city limits it was lunch time and as we passed by the high school students were pouring out of the parking lot on their way down to the local convenience store for a fried burrito or chimichanga or corndog or some other deep fired delicacy. As Two strange men walking through a small town with a gas tank, we drew a lot of stares, and a few offers for a ride but at that point the gas station was only a block away, but we did get a ride back out to the truck after filling our gas can..

That would be the end of the story, except this was a Thursday and guess where I was scheduled to ref a varsity football game come Friday night? Nope not Follett. My schedule read Silverton Texas versus the Valley Patriots @ Silverton.

But ... I had a message on my answering machine when I got home that evening, From the secretary of the ref association. Wanting me to switch with so and so because he couldn't make it to his game on Friday night in time. Where was this other game? You called it, Follett, Texas.

So the very next day I made the same 150 mile trip to Follett, with plenty of gas to spare I might add. Decked out in my black and white stripes I pulled my black hat down low and walked out to the middle of the field for the opening coin toss.

One of the Follett Panthers captains frowned and stared at me a second and then his first words were, "Hey weren't you that guy who ran out of gas yesterday." So much for a lucky break.

And the first time I got near the Follett sideline this gem came from the coach, "Guess it's too much to ask from a guy to see the other team holding when he can't even see far enough to read his gas gage."

I turned away from that coach with one thought on my mind. Thanks Wayne.

One in Every Crowd -- Tales of the Yellow Flag

This is my favorite story about my officiating days so even if you do not like football I urge you to read this one. Hope y'all find it as humorous as I do.

This week's edition finds me in White Deer, Texas. Another small town here in the Texas Panhandle. Forty five miles east of Amarillo the town is large enough to have regular eleven man football.

Now the White Deer Bucks are bitter rivals with the neighboring Panhandle Panthers but on this particular night the hometown Bucks were playing a junior varsity game against some other town. I can't remember who, but it was not their big rival Panhandle. And I'll say it again. This story takes place during a Thursday night JV game. Not varsity. So in the grand scheme of things not a game of great importance.

White Deer played rather badly and in the end lost by twenty or twenty-five points. I remember the game itself being rather uneventful, but at least one fan did not see it that way.

After the game I'm walking out to my vehicle chatting with one of my fellow officials, a fellow who in his spare time competed in bodybuilding. The guy was a good ten or fifteen years older than me and although he stood only five eight or so he had massive biceps and huge pecs. I'm not even sure where he found striped shirts large enough to cover his muscles. As is, the fabric was stretched tighter than a pregnant zebra's belly.

Halfway to our cars a little old man held up a hand to stop us. I'd guess him to be late sixties or early seventies. Clad in a dirty pair of stained overalls he staggered a bit as he spoke in a drunken slur. "I haven't seen calls that bad since the '67 Panhandle game." Keep in mind this happened int he late 90's. 97 or 98, I think.

"You fellas are the worst refs I've ever seen." He scratched at the white stubble on his chin and even from a few feet I could smell the booze on his breath.

"Why thank you," I said. That was my standard line whenever people approached me after games with a report of how bad a job I had done.

The drunk narrowed his eyes as he swayed. Then he said. "Listen here smart-ass. What you need is an ass kickin'."

At this my fellow ref reached out and gathered the drunks overall bib and shirt into his meaty fist. Then he hoisted the old codger clean off the ground.

BY THEMSELVES ZEBRAS

ARE QUITE DOCILE

BUT IN PAIRS THEY

OFTEN TURN AGRESSIVE

The drunk's eyes widened and with missing a beat said with a slur , "Now shettle down. I Didn't say I was gonna kick his ash. I just said he needed one."

Despite the situation we both laughed. It isn't often you come across a fast thinking drunk. My friend put the man down who with out another word turned and staggered off across the gravel lot, but once he got to the far side he turned, lifted both hands and gave us a double one finger salute.

One thing I learned as a ref. The best you can hope for is that one side will not hate you at the end of the game. Someone from the losing team will always blame you regardless of the score, and in a close game it is very likely that both sides will be cussing your good name.

'Twas a Dark and Stormy Night - Tales of The Yellow Flag

This weeks officiating adventure took place in the small town of Silverton, Texas, and once again the hometown teams mascot is the Owls. Silverton is about sixty miles southeast of Amarillo. Here is a pic I found of the area surrounding town. Amarillo sits on what is called the Caprock and Sivlerton is right along the breaks where the caprock drops off.

Most sports fans recognize the name Micky Mantle. Mantle is a baseball legend. Few people have probably heard of Larry Mantle, Micky's brother but back in 1998 Larry Mantle was the head coach of the Silverton Owls six-man football team.

The year before the Owls had advanced deep into the state playoffs before eventually losing to the team that went on to claim the Texas state title, and once again the Owls were ranked in the top five in the statewide polls.

Larry Mantle was a big imposing guy who commandeered a healthy respect amongst his players, fans, opposing coaches and, the official assigned to his games. He wasn't necessarily a screamer or a volatile guy, but as a ref you knew when he was displeased with a call. I had called a game in Silverton the previous year without incident, but on this early September in 1998 things did not go my way.

It started raining early on and by the second quarter the filed, the ball and everyone's nerves were a bit slippery. And Silverton was losing handily to a team they were supposed to beat with ease. There had been numerous flags including a controversial pass interference call I made against the home team. And Coach Mantle insisted that the other team's lineman were holding his players. I watched, but in my humble opinion the blocks were clean.

Just before half the black skies ruptured, Rain pelted down in sheets, and pea sized hail bounced off of players helmets. Unfortunately, referees, coaches and fans do not wear helmets. When a bolt of lightening struck nearby the head referee stopped the game and we fled to the safety of the locker rooms.

In these small schools us official were given whatever space was available. In Silverton this happened to be Coach Mantle's office, so as we sat there dripping wondering how long the storm would linger, and wondering if the highly ranked Owls would find a way to get back in the game and preserve their standing.

About an hour went by before Coach Mantle came in said, the storm was expected to last several hours and he was choosing to forfeit. When the head official explained that the game could simply be canceled or postponed Coach Mantle said something to the affect of, "No, we'll take our loss like men and move on."

So I changed out of my stripes, dried my body, and got dressed for the hour drive home. By the time I was finished the other refs had already gone. I trudged out to my Jeep Cherokee. The rain was still coming down and lightening danced through the sky. Then I reached in my jeans pocket and realized my keys were gone. I patted the other pocket. Empty. Then I peered inside the driver's window and there in a momentary lightening flash I spotted them on the passenger seat.

I tried every door but they were all locked, so begrudgingly I went back inside. Down the hall I head voices so I walked that way until I reached the boys locker room. I eased the door open and heard the coach delivering a speech which went something like this ...

... I realize the odds were stacked against us. The rain made the ball hard to hold on to. And I've never seen a worse officiating crew. Blind, incompetent, and that pass interference call was absolutely ridiculous.

About this time several of the players noticed me and pointed to the back of the room. Coach Mantle turned, sized me up and said, "What?"

Rather sheepishly I said, "I locked my keys in the car."

The coach nodded. "That figures."

Players chuckled.

"I was wondering if you had a coat hanger or something."

"I'll get you some help. Just wait out by your car."

So I went back outside and waited. In the rain.

Ten minutes later a sheriff pulled up. As he fished around with his slim-jim he said, "Some game tonight."

"Yeah, too bad the storm cut it short," I said. "Might have made a comeback.""I doubt it," Said the sheriff as the locked popped open on my door. "Not with calls like that pass interference."

"I said nothing to that."

"There you go." The sheriff stepped back so I could sit down behind the wheel.

"Thanks. I really appreciate it."

The sheriff nodded and readjusted the Stetson on his head. "Yep. My boys been playing ball since grade school, but that's the first time he's ever been flagged for pass interference."

The sheriff followed right behind my as I drove out of town. And you can bet I stopped at the one blinking light and I kept the speedometer a good five miles below the posted speed limit, but still I kept waiting for those red and blues to flash in the rear view mirror.

But I escaped town wet, but unharmed and to Coach Mantle's credit he offered a handshake and merely said, "I remember you," the next time I called a game in his town.

Personal Foul -- Tales of the Yellow Flag #1

Most of these ref stories will fall into one of two categories -- my stupidity, or people who take football way more serious than the average person. They will not be about the nuts and bolts of the sport and I feel pretty certain that even the most unsporty of readers will be able to follow along and chuckle.

This week's installment takes place in tiny Hedley, Texas. Should you want to learn more you can follow the link but basically the town is 87 miles south east of Amarillo and boasts a population just shy of four hundred. The Hedley Owls play six man football instead of the traditional eleven a side. The entire high school grades 9-12 has less than a hundred students and with a good percentage of those being female fielding a regular team would never happen. There are many six man teams in the state and just because they are small does not mean they take their games any less seriously.

By the way I always thought that Hedley should do away with their Owl moniker and go by the Hedley Horseman. This would make one heck of a helmet decal. Don't you think?

Referees in Texas get paid a percentage of the gate attendance for officiating varsity games. You'd think this would make ref'ing small town games bad, but actually they still pay pretty well since everybody from both towns attended the games as well as farmers and ranchers from the surrounding area. Almost ten years ago I made anywhere from hundred and fifty to three hundred dollars a game, plus mileage. Not bad for three hours work, even today.

Back to Hedley. Normally I traveled alone but this one particular time my wife decided to go. She's never attended a six man game and I told her this one should be a good game as both teams were equally matched.

So I change into my black and white stripes, don my whistle, stuff the ol' yellow hanky in my pocket and trot (me and actual running decided long ago to part ways) out to the field. I spy my wife sitting up in the full to capacity bleachers of the home team. Refs always check out tot he bleachers, first to see how much money they are likely to make, second to scope out the ladies cause refs are just like all horny men of this world, and third to identify the hecklers - they are easy to spot with their bullhorns, and I hate all zebras glare.

The crowd was good, my wife was smiling at me and there wasn't a bullhorn in sight. Things looked good.

As expected the first half was tight, but Hedley was winning and there hadn't been many controversial calls. A good well played game. So again I trot off to the weight room/ referee changing for a bit of halftime refreshment and rest. Six man football is action packed so it tends to wear a fat guy like me out.

So the big six or eight member bands do their thing. It is not unheard of in these towns to see a kid in a football uniform marching in the band as well.So much for his chance to take a breather.

I don't pay much attention to the stand when I come out for the second half, but then sometime in the third quarter I look up and there in the middle of the bleachers is my wife and there is not another living soul within fifteen feet of her.

Now I had jsut ridden in the car with her and unless something had changed she didn't have a bad case of B.O., she isn't the the type to start farting out in public, and she had no communicable disease. So what in the world had happened to make every person in the bleachers suddenly move away and shun her? Here is what she told me after the game.

At halftime one of the Hedly cheerleaders went up in the stands ans asked her if her name was Angie.

My wife said, "No."

"Are you Frank Smith's girlfriend?"

Again Jennifer said, "No."

"Are you from Clarendon?"

Jennifer smiled and shook her head.

At which point the cheerleader said, "Well who are you then?"

"My husband is one of the refs. I came with him to watch the game."

And with that comment my wife parted the crowd like Moses did the Red Sea. And this was during a game in which, one, I was doing a good job, two, there was no big game-changing controversial calls, and three the home team was winning. I think my wife only went to one other varsity game in which I called and she gave up after that. It bothered her way worse than it ever did me to hear everyone complaining about everything from my poor eyesight to my bubble butt.

But four years of ref'ing prepped me for my writing career, because nothing any agent, editor, or reviewer can say will compete with the things I heard on a weekly basis. Miss one call and you'll get a healthy dose of personal and very instantaneous rejection.