by Adam Jones

Tensions are high as an argument breaks out among friends. The controversy is this: How do you contest overtime in Mattel's PRO CLASSIC 2, the early 1980's handheld electronic football game? They finally come to terms on alternating possessions and the plastic box is fired up to settle things on the "field." T.O. (no, not that one) purchased the game for two bucks at a used toy store and dropped it on the table at the bar. He might as well have thrown out several dozen bottle rockets and a cigarette lighter to a pack of ravenous 12 year-olds as to tempt a bunch of 30 and 40-something men with this perfect relic of our youth. Generation X-Box would eye us as a goat eyes a new gate if we were to try and convince them that these tiny red dashes conjured to us Montana to Rice or Walter Payton flying down the sideline. They are accustomed to fully animated and lifelike digital replicas of their heroes in full color and controlled with a flip of the thumb. Progress isn't all that it is cracked up to be (I ponder this while watching the game on the Boulevard Grill's 52-inch high definition screen). It seems like our games used to require a little more imagination.

by Adam Jones

So, what are the odds that I will contract typhoid in Guatemala? This, not the early over/under of the Papajohns.com Bowl between South Florida and East Carolina, is the dominant question of the day. Seeing as my travel over the new year to Central America has been planned for months, yet I am negligently already within the four-week preferred window for typhoid inoculation, I need to know if I will be sipping a cool drink on a forested veranda in Antigua or if I will be dying a slow and miserable death about the time that Houston and South Carolina kick off the Auto Zone Liberty Bowl.

by Adam Jones

A dad can get away with almost anything while holding an infant at a crowded Christmas party. Especially an introverted dad like myself. An infant wards off small talk; people prefer to smile warmly at the baby and keep moving. But the best part is that if you are in the food room no one expects you to politely move through the buffet with a plate. As long as you are feeding the infant a cracker and adhering to the general rules of party eating (no double dipping and if you touch it, you eat it) you can stake out a queso bowl or a boiled shrimp station for hours. Being the expert that I am, I can even manage to make a potato roll and roast beef sandwich with one hand, although I do have to forego the horseradish when holding said child. This grand scheme held me in good stead right up to the point that C tested the limits of its foolproofishness. He exposed my evil plot by wildly swinging his left hand and landing a perfect uppercut on the bottom of a glass half-full of egg nog. Egg nog in flight is pretty spectacular. Huge creamy white droplets infused with Kentucky whiskey and Jamaican rum, perfectly flecked with nutmeg and cinnamon, launch straight up, separate, hang in the air for a brief moment, descend and hit the floor with a rat-a-tat explosive burst like a milk-filled floral shell as the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve.

by Adam Jones

There was quite a ruckus behind us as I eased the car onto Texas 31 on the way out of Longview. The honking started with a Tahoe and then a pick-up joined the chorus. They were trying to get my attention.

"What's going on back there?"

E looked over her left shoulder puzzled. Clarity came when she shifted in her seat and looked to the right.

"Uhm, honey, you..."

"What?"

"It's the nozzle from the gas pump. It's still attached to the car...along with the hose..."

She was correct. About eight feet of industrial strength rubber tubing was flapping along behind us, trying vainly to break free from its captivity like a trout at the end of a fly rod.

by Adam Jones

Fear the Cheese. That's what it says on the back of the brown t-shirt from Matt's at 35^th and Cedar in Minneapolis. Apparently Matt's serves up a burger bigger than your head called the "Jucy Lucy." It's all on the shirt. My t-shirt drawer defines my entire Saturday. If my guys are playing, the burnt orange shirt from The Frisco Shop on Burnet gets the call. If not, I am prone to the black Bob Dylan shirt; it reminds me that, all external evidence to the contrary, there must be some extant rebel or poet within me. Today my guys were idle, but I honored them anyway. Their long ago win over Michigan in the 2005 Rose Bowl won me the Matt's shirt. My friend D.H. and I had bet a local t-shirt on the outcome. My team had Vince Young and his team didn't. Today his team would play in a game with much higher stakes and maybe I could bring myself to cheer for the Wolverines.

by Adam Jones

Weldon "Bird Dog" Trice is one the great football players in the history of West Texas State University. He definitely had the best nickname, earned as a fleet cornerback who could track 'em down and sniff 'em out. He was in a group of Baptist men who served my family lunch the day of my grandfather's funeral. I didn't hear anything that week other than what a fine upstanding man my grandfather was, which was appreciated, but of which I was also well aware. I lost interest in these plaudits after awhile and relied on the rote responses of the grieving to get me through the conversations. Then I talked to Mr. Trice.

by Adam Jones

My sister brought me a family bible on Saturday. Just like in the Willie Nelson song. The inside front noted that my great grandmother gave it to my grandfather in 1926, long before the BCS permanently screwed up college football. There were four book marks in it and part of me wonders what Granddad Joneswas looking up in the fourth chapter of II Kings. This is where the Moabites are overrun, knocking them out of bowl contention and resulting in the son of the king being slain as a burnt offering. Talk about being fired. The bookmarks in the Gospels land on my grandfather's favorite parables, which are a tad bit more heartwarming. I'm very thankful my sister found this. But it's not the artifact I have been looking for since Granddad died in 1994.

by Adam Jones

The football was just sitting in the corner of the garage. I took it with me, kind of like when the Greatest Hits of Southern Rock CD is just sitting by the counter at the gas station and you pick it up for $6.99 because, heck, when's the last time you heard "Flirtin' with Disaster" by Molly Hatchet? Anyway, I was going for a walk around the neighborhood, the weather was perfect and I needed a ball to toss.

That's right, a 39 year-old man walking around a residential neighborhood throwing a football to himself. I've decided that this will be my lifetime sport. A good friend ruptured his Achilles tendon in one of our church league basketball games two weeks ago and it gave me pause. I'm really not interested in golf and don't have a reliable tennis partner. I've always believed exercise should involve a ball of some kind, which eliminates running and swimming. So this is it: fresh air, cardiovascular benefits, hand/eye coordination and pretending I'm Limas Sweed while the puzzled neighbor at the corner of Highland Hills and Laurel Ledge wonders what the hell I am doing trying to get both feet in bounds before I hit the curb. I may even start a league.

by Adam Jones

We all remember when we gain entrance to clubs, either formally or informally. This starts when another toddler rolls a ball to you on the playground or maybe when you are baptized or when you stick your whole face in the cake at your first birthday party to celebrate America's great fascination with both excess and eating a lot of crap. The best club I ever joined welcomed me when I was five and I went to Kimbrough Memorial Stadium to watch the West Texas State Buffaloes play football. I'm still a member in good standing - and so are all of you.

We got a new member this fall. There's no telling what B will say on the way home from a Saturday morning breakfast. He often asks if the day will be a "family day," which in our house means Mom and Dad are not going to work and the whole family gets to spend time together. He follows up by asking if we are going to the park or if friends are coming over or, sometimes, he says something really profound. Like:

by Adam Jones

Rain came to Austin on Tuesday and I had the day off. No better place to be in such a circumstance than at the Frisco Shop on Burnet. The Frisco is a real coffee shop, a relic from the fifties and the last restaurant standing in the once famous Night Hawk steakhouse chain. You can get strong coffee at the Frisco, but if you order a 2%-decaf latte the waitress will look at you the same way a goat looks at a new gate. It's that kind of place.

I was hungry and looked to stake my claim to one of the five parking spaces fronting Burnet. A blue Ford F-150 swooped in front of me and took it, which wasn't cool because, well, I was hungry and now would be forced to sit through another red light at the corner of Burnet and Koening while I made the block and parked around back. The Frisco is a seat yourself joint and I found a booth by the window, which allowed me to take great solace in being dry and well-fed while the rest of the world drove around in the rain striving to accomplish their daily tasks. Did I mention I was hungry?