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by Adam Jones

"There must have been some magic in the old felt hat they found, for when they placed it on his head, he began to dance around..."

OK, so the holidays are long over. Frosty has melted away and, unless you are spiritually tuned into Twelfth Night, you have by now packed up the tree, the wreath, the lights and returned (or re-gifted, you know who you are) all the sub-standard merchandise. Now we start over with new resolve that usually lasts until at least the second week of February (eh, maybe MLK Day). Once the workaday life begins you take magic wherever you can find it. Even in a dilapidated old dome that not too long ago was the epicenter of misery. There may still be some magic left in the Louisiana Superdome. I kind of had the feeling that once the Preservation Hall Jazz band played the national anthem, the Buckeyes were cooked...

by Adam Jones

Our dreams vary, but they come from remarkably similar places. Most of us are about four maybe  five-years-old when we first remember a campout or working on a project with dad-maybe carpentry or an old car; in my dad's case it was always plumbing (sometimes successfully). You play your first team sport, help out in the kitchen, trudge off to kindergarten. In some families you can still remember the first time the relatives sat around the piano and sang, in others maybe you remember when you strapped on skis the first time and someone pointed you dangerously down a slope. Something in these nascent experiences-for better, for worse-inform the kind of adult that you become. One of the gifts of fatherhood is that you get to see the cycle repeat. We infuse our own kids with a set of memories and experiences and we wait to see who they will become. It's a hell of an experiment.

by Adam Jones

I have been assigned to watch the shrimp pot boil. Decent duty, it comes with cold Dos Equis and the SEC title game on a 13-inch television dragged out to the backyard. These old tube sets have terrific pictures; I begin to wonder if they will become the historical equivalent of the vinyl LP. The shrimp boil is locked in culinary combat with a rack of pork ribs on the smoker behind it. There are beer brats on deck. I feel like I am walking through the International Food Pavilion at the State Fair of Texas (all that's missing is six-dollar beer in plastic cups). On this Saturday I consumed, in rough order: Texas caviar, guacamole, red tomatillo hot sauce, hot pepper dip, shrimp, corn-on the-cob, potatoes, pork ribs, a perfectly cooked hot dog (took a bite from my four-year-old's leftovers-father's prerogative you know), potato salad, a second set of pork ribs and two chocolate brownies. That's just a mess. A wonderful, over-the-top, tasty, uplifting, satisfying, happy, delightful, delicious...

by Adam Jones 

Someone sent me a thank you note on Wednesday night. It was a friend spending his first Thanksgiving away from Texas and the note reminded him of things past. Remember a few years ago when we were all at my house? No one had any family in town and we ended up playing cards all night. That was a good day. Thanks for that.

It's really one hell of a life isn't it? I mean when one can be thanked for basically accepting a Thanksgiving invitation. For arriving on time, for eating food someone else prepared, for drinking beer, laughing, playing cards...for this I am thanked. My friend had the gratitude all backwards. I was the divorced dad with no place to go. Someone had to take me in, didn't they? Actually, no one had to. There are no guarantees in life. Fast forward eight years and I am being thanked for being fed. Hell of a life isn't it?

by Adam Jones 

"What's the score?"

"24-11"

"Oregon?"

"Nope."

Tough to know what that means absent any context. The assumptions are always the same: turnovers, blown coverage, special teams blunder, but we don't really know the full story sitting at the back table of the Mean Eyed Cat, one of our country's great beer bars. Mean Eyed sits on Fifth Street, just off Mopac. Fitting that the trains run right behind it since the whole joint is homage to Johnny Cash. But it's not a sports bar-there's only one TV and the guys at the bar have it tuned to the Spurs-Mavericks game. This clearly demonstrates one of the downsides of democracy. We at the back celebrating dad's night (we don't convene until the last kid is put to bed) must depend on the Yahoo sports ticker, our imaginations and draft Dos Equis.

by Adam Jones

Long ago, I gave up trying to understand the motivations of two-year-olds. By this I mean real two-year-olds, not those who act like it in the work setting, which is a different matter entirely. This thought occurs to me as I watch Charlie, blue blankey tightly clinched between his teeth like a pirate's dagger, run full speed toward the leather ottoman and violently crash into it. He then turns and runs back full speed across the family room and head on into the couch. The self-inflicted toddler tennis match continues for five or six turns before I intercede. I am not sure whether to blame this behavior on too much football or on America's Funniest Home Videos. Nevertheless, at the risk of a concussion (to him, not to me, although he can land quite a blow if he hits an adult on the side of the head), I encourage him to play cars. This allows me to watch the game in peace for about five minutes before Charlie commandeers the cars that Ben, the four-year-old, wants. This episode ends with a hitting, kicking, hair pulling exchange worthy of a fifteen-yard personal foul penalty assessed against Ben. Charlie, though on the receiving end of the violence, is pleased with the outcome. Ben goes to time out and Charlie returns to slamming into the couch at full speed. I should have left well enough alone.

by Adam Jones

You have to love the work. That's a general rule for all of us to live by, but it takes on special significance on a fall Saturday. I have to really love the work to give up a loaded college football schedule. There are those for whom this is not a consideration, but most of them do not tend to read this piece every Monday morning. In any case, I love the work.

Sequestered at a huge corporate conference center on behalf of the Texas Methodist Foundation, I am here to discuss serious matters of spiritual formation, as opposed to discussing the serious deficiencies in the Texas Longhorn defense of the spread formation, which are made readily apparent during the 3:00 break as I watch Oklahoma State's opening touchdown drive. On the Longhorns first play from scrimmage, Colt McCoy lofts an easy pick six.  14-0, Oklahoma State as God appears to be very serious about me returning to the afternoon session.

by Adam Jones

I can't believe I just paid five dollars to hear a pair of strolling guitarists play an only reasonably in-tune version of "La Cucaracha." My grandfather, actually both grandfathers, would be horrified by this. But what choice did I have? The lead singer asked the table if we wanted a song. We said we did and then, under his breath and somewhat apologetically, he leaned over, shielded Erin away with his guitar (always keep the wife out of any monetary negotiations, this is why she buys all the cars in the Jones family...long story) and said to me with eyebrows raised and fingers outstretched (so I could count them, I suppose): "It's five." I nodded and told him to continue being in no position to bargain since the four and the two were already bouncing in their seats and clapping. We were damn well going to hear "La Cucaracha." Disappointing, really. Where were the soaring harmonies? The precision fretwork on the Spanish guitar? They didn't even bring a bajo sexto with them; quite frankly, I've heard livestock auctioneers with better range.

by Adam Jones

My friend Blake O'Brien has played a lot of cards in his life. His sublime term for being dealt a bad gin hand is to be served a "shark sandwich." The etymology can be traced to This is Spinal Tap, if you are interested. In Blake's case, "shark" as descriptor may have come about because of a cocktail-induced mangling of a more familiar and less family-friendly term beginning with the sh- sound.  In any case, picking up ten cards with no pairs and no same-suit sequences is the perfect shark sandwich.

In the Southeastern Conference, the Vanderbilt Commodores have been dealt perhaps the biggest shark sandwich in college football history. Surrounded by the most powerful and rabid football programs in the nation, Vandy is a relatively small and academically rigorous private school. There are other programs in the same boat, but none with the disadvantage of being in the SEC. Northwestern, for example, has had Indiana and Minnesota on the schedule for most of their history. Stanford has always had Cal, who until very recently had just as bad a football pedigree. Baylor gets Iowa State and, in most years, Kansas, to occasionally kick around; Wake Forest and Duke have always had each other. Vanderbilt, however, stands alone as a valedictorian-stocked vanguard against the ravaging hordes of the SEC. What's worse is that the student body typically cares more about who is playing at the Exit/Inn on any given Saturday than about who the Commodores have on the schedule. I know this. I married a Commodore (no doubt I have greatly compromised the Vanderbilt Thetas' reputation for marrying well; I have already sent a note of apology to the national office). Vanderbilt doesn't even have an athletic department. Compare this attitude to some of the other SEC bottom dwellers like Ole Miss, who fired David Cutcliffe for the sin of actually making them competitive and taking the Rebels to three bowl games in four years. Hell, Mississippi State actually hired Jackie Sherrill once. South Carolina, for all of their historical mediocrity, sells out an 80,000 seat stadium every Saturday and managed to convince both Lou Holtz and then Steve Spurrier to come to Columbia to try and guide them to the promised land.