It’s old conventional wisdom that even the best-laid plans never seem to work out exactly as expected. A weekend jaunt to Birmingham with a few friends illustrated this perfectly, as our hopes of cheering the Tiger basketball team into the Sweet 16 quickly dissolved, only to have happiness restored by crawfish, plasma, drunken pogo-stick wars and Charles Barkley, in the flesh, large and in charge.
As a unit, we were quite the crew — Buzz, Klegg, Smiley, Stretch and Pontius Paul, who spent as much time fighting off the advances of 30-year-old women as he did cheering for the Tigers. Our host, Archie, Birmingham’s modern-day Don Juan, completed the ranks quite nicely.
Following LSU’s “game,” which I’d rather not discuss, we were stunned and distraught. However, we still had an entire weekend, a free place to stay, 70 pounds of crawfish and an unbreakable determination to overcome our sadness with some liquid assistance. In the true spirit of LSU fanhood, we succeeded quite nicely in using the proverbial lemon to make some tasty, tasty lemonade.
We first took refuge in watching March Madness on Archie’s plasma screen TV, a contraption which eerily reminded me of “Farenheit 451” but was, for lack of a better expression, really cool — despite having to stomach the commercial featuring those annoying, cell-phone-hawking triplets approximately 8 million times during the course of the CBS weekend coverage.
The following day’s crawfish boil was quite an event as well, since most Alabamans see more interracial Southern Baptist couples than crawfish in their lifetimes. Call me cheesy, but it’s adorable watching kids who aren’t from Louisiana negotiate the delicate peeling process, usually with mixed and entertaining results.
Ensuring all the fun wasn’t exactly clean and wholesome, I witnessed a day of “celebrating” so intense that it culminated in a pogo-stick-off between the owner of a Birmingham luxury car dealership, the owner of a chain of Greek restaurants, a Baton Rouge building contractor and several other respectable citizens. Lucky for the participants, no one was injured seriously, and lucky for myself I had no pressing ego insecurities and remained a spectator, not a participant. But I think we all can learn a lesson: pogo stick before beer, never fear; beer before pogo stick, you’re sore as hell and bruised in the morning.
Despite our ability to remain upbeat after the Tigers’ drubbing, a visit to a less-than-crowded Birmingham night spot caused the long drive, disappointing loss and lack of sleep to start to take a noticeable toll. Luckily, the evening was saved by Butler’s upset of Mississippi State — and most importantly, by the appearance of Birmingham’s favorite son, the Round Mound of Rebound, Sir Charles Barkley.
I was able to shake his hand (which swallowed my own) and get a trademark Barkley smile — luckily there was no friendly slap on the back, or I probably wouldn’t be still around to write this column. The man is huge. They say TV adds 10 pounds, but the impression of Barkley you get on TV is just about right on.
Even this abridged account of our weekend should serve as a reminder to LSU supporters, loyal and fair-weather alike, that there’s so much more to the fan experience than victory or defeat. With a little luck, a little love and some determination, even the most unglorious defeat can provide a lifetime of memories –and you may even meet Sir Charles.