Take a packet of salt. From a fast food restaurant I mean. Ever look at the ingredients? You would think "salt" right? Not quite. Well, salt and dextrose. And calcium sulfate, maybe even throw in a little yellow prussiate. Or some sodium silicoaluminate or potassium iodide, like mother used to make.

I had no idea. I feel that way about college football lately. All off-seasons have their additives, but this one has been ridiculous. Jim Tressel, Cecil Newton, North Carolina, the Iowa State crime wave (Iowa State? Who do they think they are? The U?), the always entertaining Dana Holgorsen, with a side of armed robbery from West Virginia linebacker Branko Busick, our two last participants in the national title game jointly giving the middle finger of Christian friendship to the NCAA, all this and if I have to read the name "Will Lyles" one more time I will go all street on my computer screen. I do admit to a secret admiration of Oregon cornerback Cliff Harris re-enacting the Cannonball Run in a rental car through the rural Northwest (118 miles per hour, what the hell did he rent?). It had a certain "cattle rustling through the Vatican" cachet.

When Notre Dame plays USC, I have always thought the game was in Technicolor. Saturated hues play in the twilight of either one venerable stadium built to look like the Roman Coliseum or another that looks like a 1940s movie set (well, it is a 1940s movie set, actually). The same uniforms, the same fans...you can feel the noblesse oblige from your living room. Surprising the visiting team doesn't arrive by train. You would think Victor Fleming was directing.

Oregon/Auburn? That's Ridley Scott. This game had to be played in a giant cutting-edge NFL stadium; the perfect counterpoint to last year's Alabama/Texas contest in a tradition-soaked (and decrepit) Rose Bowl filled with 90,000 of the provincial and well heeled.

I didn't know what I was getting into
But I popped Lincoln and Jackson, too
I didn't mind seeing them fade out of sight,
I just knew I'd have some fun last night
Whenever you in town and looking for a thrill
If Lincoln can't get it, Jackson sure will

On a greenback, greenback dollar bill
Just a little piece of paper, coated with chlorophyll

-Ray Charles

If you played for Ray Charles, the set list changed every night. You had to know about 180 songs from his catalogue. The only difference between that and bowl season is that all of them were good. 

My father claims the three keys to life are laughter, music and ten-dollar Merlot. If you reduce life to a simple philosophy, this one is as good as any. The laughter is universal--lack of a sense of humor has always been its own punishment. The Merlot fills in for whatever your particular culture decides to ferment (potatoes? crafty Russians...). But the music sets us all apart. We all crave a different beat; none of us keep the same time. Some of us hit the notes and others of us like the spaces in between. Our music isn't always music, of course. For some it's running, or biking, or golf. Hunting, fly-fishing, hiking, exploring. Parenting, coaching, mentoring, teaching. Cooking, eating...now we're back to the Merlot. Knitting, sewing, stamp collecting...

Cyrus of Persia figured the Israelites had been beaten down enough. Not only did he let them go back home, but he also decreed the Temple be rebuilt in Jerusalem, which was swell, up until the Romans sacked it in 70 AD anyway. But that's another story. Some of the Israelites went back to Judea because they liked the old country; some of them liked the life they built in Babylon and stuck around. A small few didn't like either option and wandered around in the desert for a while.

What does this have to do with college football? Beats me. Ask Nebraska.

I have nothing against Hubert "Geese" Ausbie. How could I? The guy entertained millions as a Harlem Globetrotter. Great comic timing, and a very good basketball player (which nobody remembers); he chose the Globetrotters over the NBA and playing baseball for the Chicago Cubs. Bypassing the NBA was actually a decent choice in 1960. Bypassing the Chicago Cubs makes sense in any era. Anyway, Geese (plural "geese" as not to be confused with Globetrotter great "Goose" Tatum) would bring his crew to Amarillo every winter and my dad would take me. We probably went six or seven times to see Geese Ausbie and Marques Haynes. There's the rub. That means we never got to see Meadowlark Lemon and Curly Neal: they took the Globetrotter "red" team to all the major cities. Small cities like Amarillo got the "blue" team.  At 43, I still resent this. I shouldn't. Heck, Ausbie's team even had Sweet Lou Dunbar on it. But sometimes, even when you have a great show in front of you, you still wonder what else there is.

Oranges smell like Christmas. This occurs to me while driving to work; I've just peeled an orange for a kid's lunch and the whole car smells like a 1970s crafts shop. I don't know if oranges traditionally have any connection to Christmas, actually. I do know that clementines don't make an appearance in the produce section until November. I also remember that Santa would always leave an orange in my Christmas stocking. Seems like I should have put together that all of the "Santa oranges" were the same oranges from the bowl on the table on December 23^rd and that they would somehow collect themselves into exactly the same oranges that would re-appear in the same bowl on December 26^th. But I lacked that sort of sophistication. Looking back, I am not sure my family ever even ate any oranges.