Texas A&M vs. Georgia

At the end of this summer, just when summer was ending and school year was beginning and I was slammed with a million things to do, my brother forwarded an email to me.  It was from a company that we bought a custom made house divided flag (of Texas A&M and Georgia) for our mom back in 2009.  This company, that solely makes house divided flags, was acting as the middle man for a Georgia magazine to find different "house divided" stories for an article they were writing.  And at first I thought, "I don't have time for this either Brad, I mean come on, I haven't even written the last installment of my cruise on my blog.  Like I have time for some house divided story."

(Actually my blog was the last thing on my mind, but it would be cool if I could make y'all think that was the reason.) 

But as luck would have it, have you ever made  yourself forget about something but then as soon as you lay down that is all you can think about?  And it was more than that, it wasn't just that I couldn't stop thinking about it, I had the entire last paragraph written out in my head without even trying to come up with it, no joke!  I had no idea what the rest of the statement would be, but I could not sleep until I got that last paragraph onto paper.  So I promptly wrote it on my iPhone and then went to bed.  

The next day I threw the rest of the paper together, had a language arts teacher friend of mine review it, and on a whim I sent it off with a picture of my family attached.

I got a response from both the flag company and the editor of the magazine within hours, the magazine is called, "Georgia Connector Magazine," by the way.  It's a simple free regional magazine that is totally not even worth a blog post to most people but I wanted to share because it's probably the only time I'll make a magazine of any sort. 

And in case you care, here's my original writing about the topic: 

          "My mom, Alita Bell Jones, is an alumna of the University of Georgia and one of the school’s biggest fans.  Shortly after marrying my father, a military man, they began their long journey of moving around the United States.  Unfortunately for my mother, in all the places they traveled, televised Georgia games were few and far between in those regions.  But when they were on television, my family knew that my mom was not to be interrupted, but you could always help her cheer them on.  When, on the occasion the games were tense or not going well for Georgia, she would step outside for “fresh air” and cheer or yell from there.  She didn’t know we could still hear her all the way inside or that even the neighbors knew that meant trouble for Georgia.

          Being residents of Texas, my older brother, Brad, and I eventually both decided to go to college at Texas A&M University.  She loved the both of us and the school we both chose to attend.  The void of her ability to watch Georgia games was filled with her ever growing enthusiasm for the Aggies.

During one of Brads later years at Texas A&M, my mom and dad came to College Station to watch a game.  He got my parents seats in the front row, and my mom swears that after one of the young receivers caught the ball, he looked at her with a look that said, “I don’t know what to do,” and it was, in her words,  because she waved him towards the end zone that he made that touchdown.  I’m not sure that even as a kid I ever believed she was the reason they made a touchdown, but one thing you don’t ever do is disagree with my mom on anything that has to do with football.  It’s an argument you will never win.  I will say, however, that she did, with arms waving to the end zone and flailing all about, make the highlight reel for the game on the news that night for that very play, so the jury may still be out on that one.  I think that’s the moment my mom started her dual allegiance for Georgia and Texas A&M.

          After my father passed away, my mother moved back to her hometown of Blakely, Georgia.  She was happy to be back in Bulldog country but then was surprised to find that she missed being able to watch the Aggie games. 

          In 2009, my brother and I decided for Christmas to get her a custom-made house divided flag with both the teams she loved, Georgia and Texas A&M.  It wasn’t until after the order was placed that the announcement was made that her two favorite teams would be playing each other later that year in the Independence Bowl.  My brother and I got tickets to the game, and after giving our mom the flag for Christmas, we asked if we could borrow it back to take to the game.  We took turns at the tailgate and game holding up the flag even though our Aggie friends gave us nothing but flack.  Our love for A&M would probably not be what it is today if it wasn’t for our mom, and out of our love for her, we carried that flag.

          To this day, she will ruin the outcome of an Aggie game she’s lucky enough to watch by calling us before we’ve seen it ourselves.  The idea of DVR and not watching a game live is a concept that is lost to her.  And forget calling her during a Georgia game, she’ll answer the phone with, “You know the bulldogs are playing right?”  A greeting you’d hear even before she got caller ID.

          For these reasons I wouldn’t label her house a house divided because dividing would imply that you now have less of something, and she never lost an ounce of her pride for the Georgia Bulldogs.  Instead, I’d call it a house multiplied.  She instilled in us the honor you should hold for your school through her undying love of the Bulldogs and showed us the product of your love for your children means you will honor their school just the same as your own."

And here's what the link to what they published: http://digipubcloud.com/publication/?i=124104  The article starts on page 21 and the part where my family joins in is page 24.  Of course they cut my story down significantly, but I kinda wish I always had someone to abbreviate what I am trying to say, they did leave the most important parts of my message and the main points of the last paragraph!