I can’t believe I’m saying this—I’m coming to you from Atlanta. If I weren’t under strict orders from my doctor, I’d be writing this from Aspen, but I’m sick.
I should be fireside at a fancy hotel, eight thousand feet up, with a fifteen-dollar coffee, watching globetrotters strut by in ridiculous outfits. About now I’d have wrapped up an afternoon swim in a heated outdoor pool, en route to the Grateful Deli for a Dead-inspired sub.
After a “Friend of the Deviled Egg on Rye,” I’d head back to the infamous St. Moritz, a ski bum haven for knuckleheads like me, where the rooms have no televisions, just a chest of drawers and a communal bathhouse. The vibe is decidedly eighties; zero attempt has been made to attract the glitterati. When it’s gone, so goes one of the last affordable places in the Roaring Fork Valley.
Since I can’t watch the Dawgs at Zane’s, I’ll watch the Florida game from my couch. And I must confess something: I have never been to the Florida game. I hate saying it, but I have sound economic reasons.
As an undergrad, I was usually broke. I had enough cash to cover my tab at Boar’s Head and a two-dollar ride home in a van, but that was it. My mother made me vats of jambalaya, which I lived on, and when I had a few extra bucks, I spent them on cigars. By the time the Florida game rolled around, I was stealing change from my buddies’ ashtrays. Jacksonville was out of the question.
I graduated, moved back to Atlanta, got married, had kids. One day I woke up and I was in my mid-forties, having never been to this game. Somewhere along the way, I’d simply come to love it from afar.
I was looking forward to watching it in Aspen, with a victory cigar at the polo field before an evening dip, but boy, would I love to be in Jacksonville this weekend.
I’ll whisper what men have said for millennia…next year.
Yeah, next year I’ll be at the Florida game.
This year, doctor’s orders.
