Name Brand

Christmas shopping.

My wife and I have made a tradition of it. Every year we shun all other adult responsibilities and and wander off into retail utopia in search of a completed shopping list, all in the course of one school day. To be honest, we never quite complete it all in that one day but we do get time together, a quiet lunch for two and at least most of our list complete. And no crowds. That's my kind of Christmas shopping.

This year I had a bit of an epiphany. My youngest son, the naturalist, for exclusively academic reasons, has decided that he is a University of Florida Fightin' Gator. He might be the only 10 year old in this town that has not only chosen a school and a field of study, but has also paid a campus visit to the specific department building in which he plans to complete his coursework. Gators or no Gators, I'm going to feed that passion, I'm going to support this dream, just like any sane father would.

So we were looking for Gator gear. A shirt, a bag, pair of socks, disposable Bic lighter, something, anything with the colors and logo. Not easy to come by in Georgia. Sports stores. Four of them. The biggest had up and down escalators as well as an elevator but no men's room and, more importantly, no Gator stuff. But a few things this establishment, and the other three as well, had - Under Armour, Nike, Adidas. Hoodies. Hats. Pants. Shoes. Shirts. Looking over 2/3 of the sales floor it was easy to see that in every color combination imaginable, every active wear garment known to the free world was on display for purchase.

There was obviously Georgia apparel, as there should be, back in the corner. A few Tech items, Falcons, Braves, even a Georgia Southern hoodie. But it was all stuffed in a back corner accessible only by negotiating the trails through the merchandise emblazoned with brand logos.

I thought about what the team logos stand for. Georgia fans know the traditions that go with being a fan. Earning the right to walk through the arch, ringing the victory bell. Auburn fans roll Toomer's Corner. Arkansas fans call the Hawgs. Jax State fans get goosebumps when we hear Salvation and know where the references to troy fit in when the band plays Dixie.

The teams represent ideas, philosophies and for those of us that attended one of the schools, it represents some of the best years of our lives. Jax State Football means something to me because I've got sweat equity in it. It matters because I have hours on the books. It matters because I know my pertinent fields can be found on the 3rd and 4th floors of the Houston Cole Library and my professors were over the hill in Stone Center. It matters because I watched the Olympics on the big screen in The Roost while eating chicken fingers. It matters because I walked to Subway on cold evenings with a friend because that's what irrational college kids do, It's where I learned to drive a manual transmission and what good music was.

That UA or "Swoosh" or whatever means I paid too much to have the same brand as the kid next to me in health class. All I have invested in it is the $60 I gave the cashier. No one puked in a car. No one fell in a camp fire. No one sat in a place called "Restaurant" eating pancake sandwiches at three in the morning or took the Springfield, Missouri city bus for two hours to eat at Steak n Shake. Not one soul hollered "whup troy!"

So my question is, why does it matter to us? What is the magic a disconnected brand name mega company logo holds over us? This isn't capitalism, it isn't conservatism, it's consumerism. We're pushing our identity, our past, our great memories into a back corner of a store so that we can purchase someone else's dream across the front of a sweatshirt.

I'd rather buy my son his own dream on the front of his sweatshirt. Gators or no Gators.

Homonyms with the Duchess & friends

The world is full of contentious and controversial news right now. There's plenty to write about but more than enough people writing about it. We need something to pick us up and lighten things up a bit.

And we're in luck. Because I was sitting in a local chicken establishment enjoying the final few bites of a country ham biscuit, and catching up on Twitter (@BiscuitsGA), when what to my wondering eyes should appear? Her royal highness, the Duchess of Paddlefoot, Janeal Picklesimer along with her sidekick, Loucilla Pickens and their husbands, Carl and Buck, respectively.

The quartet ordered their breakfast and found their seats, luckily close enough for me to overhear the conversation. 

"I tell you what", Loucilla started, "this Common Cord stuff at Junior's school is 'bout outta hand. He done come home tellin' me that they's learnin' bout homonyms. I'm gonna go up to that school today and tell 'em that I think they need to work on readin' and math and leave them homosectionals in the movies. It's like they're takin over the world. We don't need them in our schools."

Carl looked up for a second but then went back to his breakfast. Buck didn't even pause. No time for frivolous talking. They needed to eat and get to work. You know how you pass the work crews on the roadside and there's about eight people watching that one guy in the hole working his can off? Yeah. These two aren't part of the eight. They're the ones welding, wrenching, hammering. They're best friends and can communicate effectively with facial expressions, gestures and the occasional grunt. The pair once built a fishing dock in three hours with two hammers, a circular saw, a box of nails, and only 4 audible words, one of which was "beer". 

"Homonyms ain't got nothin to do with that, Loucilla. They's words that sound like other words." My ears really perked up. Janeal has some education! Then she continued, "Think about rainch. Buck used a rainch to fix your plummin when the toilet backed up into your kitchen sank. And then all that nasty stuff drained back down the pipes. Then you had to rainch out all that gross stuff that was left sticking to the sides of it. And then you got this here rainch dressin that I'm dippin my fries in. And then there's that rainch where we rode horses in Mawn-tana."

I was almost in tears. Then Lucilla grasped the concept.

"Oh, like how we're sittin in these cheers eatin breakfast and we used to be cheerleaders in school."

"Yep. And how the water level in the sank sank when Buck fixed it."

Lucilla laughed "Ooh, and tar! Like the tars on the car and the road is made of tar too. And those two go together! What do you call it when somethin like that happens? It's umm, umm, oh yeah, moronic!"

"No, not moronic, Ironic. Moronic is those people from Utah on the bicycles that run from my dog when they come to my door."

That was all I could do. If I stayed any longer, I was going to bust out laughing and then Carl and Buck would feel compelled to beat me with a rainch...er...wrench.

Until next time...