Happy Holidays

And May There Be...

I Wish You All Health and Happiness

And a Very Prosperous New Year

Not Exactly Sepia Saturday

I was fiddling around on my computer this morning and came across this photo. This has got to be one of my all-time favorite photographs. I get excited just looking at it.

The memories of those games! Back when quarterbacks called their own plays. Back when games were played in snow driving so hard you could scarcely see the field - much less the lines ON the field. Back when games were played in pouring rain - and receivers slid for 15 yards in the mud after catching the ball and then rising so covered in brown glop that you couldn't read the numbers on their jerseys. Back when games were played in temperatures so freezing that the ground crunched beneath cleats struggling for purchase and breath froze the second it hit the air.

Ah, Unitas! My favorite of favorites! Did you know how much I loved watching you? Did you know how exciting it was seeing you walk onto the field in those high-topped shoes? You, and Matte and Mackey.... How I miss you! I get goosebumps just thinking about some of those games.

There will never be another like you. You were the best. You were the greatest. Yet you never received the accolades - or the money - you deserved.

And this - THIS - is the greatest football photograph ever taken.

Theme Thursday - History

I call this one “Because”.
Because. Because. Because.
How many times in our lives have we women heard that one-word answer in response to a perfectly legitimate question put forth by us? The reason we hear it is BECAUSE they – you know, ”THEY” – have no other answer. There actually IS no other answer. Other than prejudice and fear. So I offer this up for Theme Thursday: An inexcusable history of the treatment of little girls and women by societies of every stripe and always under the guise of “protecting” them:


Because

Little girls. What are little girls made of? Well, I suppose that depends on the little girl so it's hard to say. But I hope for her sake that she is made of stern stuff. She will need it. She will need it because, unlike little boys, she faces a stacked and many times hostile deck. Making her way in life, in some ways, will be easier than in the past. But it will be anything but easy.

She will learn at a very early age that there is something "different" about her. She will wonder why, at the age of 5 or 6, she is expected to wear a shirt in the summertime while her 7 year old brother runs around comfortably shirtless. She looks at him. She looks at herself. She sees no difference. Nevertheless, little girls must wear a shirt. Why? Because.

She will find herself limited, time and time again throughout life, both by law and by custom, for no other reason than this "difference" which she neither sees nor comprehends. By the time of the "shirt incident" she will already have experienced the discrimination which will continue throughout her life. She will have been given dolls and strollers and tea sets. Her brother will have received chemistry sets, footballs, chess sets, and rockets.

Later she will be assigned kitchen chores. Her brother will not. Her parents will be happy when she earns a "C" in science and math. They will expect her brother to earn an "A" in these subjects. Why? Because.

She will face a world where computer ads show bright-eyed, engrossed boys competing for control of mouse and keyboard. Girls will be shown pretending to be princesses, or dressing up their Barbie dolls.

Even if she manages, when she is grown, to somehow overcome the early lessons and succeed beyond expectations, she will still be assumed by those who do not know to be the secretary rather than the boss, the nurse rather than the doctor, the flight attendant rather than the pilot, the administrative assistant rather than the CEO. As "reward" for her audacity in succeeding, she will be labeled "pushy", "uppity", or that old stand-by: "bitch".

Of course, in some parts of the world, it will be impossible for her to achieve anything because she will be sold/tricked into a life of slavery and prostitution or married to some forty- or fifty-something man before she is old enough to know what is happening to her. Why? Because.

In our own "progressive" corner of the world, she will find that people who neither share nor care about her own beliefs and politics will go to almost any lengths to force her to surrender the right to control her own body -- even in the face of near-certain death.

She will be told it is her "place" to be subservient to her male authority figure (father/husband). She will be told her husband's signature is required. She will receive the figurative pat on the head and told not to worry her pretty little head about it while her full-service broker merrily manipulates her money (should she be lucky enough to have some) to his own advantage and charges her more for the "service" than he would if she were male. Throughout her life she will be charged more for many other items and services than she would be charged if she were male. And she will find that, for some unknown reason, her own labor is not worth as much as her male co-worker's. Why? Because.

She will be the one to care for elderly parents while her brothers, better loved and lauded, go on with their lives unencumbered. She will be the one who misses work (when she works at all) to care for sick children. And she will be the one who is blamed when the children don't "turn out" as expected.

She will learn all these lessons well. Obviously the female's fortune and fate is her body. It's what's between the legs rather than what's between the ears that matters. She can't help but learn it. She will see it demonstrated everywhere, every day, over and over again. And when the lesson is finally swallowed whole, she will act on it -- manipulating, selling, tricking, bargaining, surviving -- using her body as her capital as she has been so thoroughly taught. And the day she goes beyond the socially-accepted prostitutions, she will face an incredulous society, cloaked in dirty innocence, asking, "How could you? Why?"

And she will answer truthfully: "Because".

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Submitted respectfully – but very seriously – by AngelMay who asks each of you, when you hear the term "female circumcision", to scream and rant and stomp and threaten until the person who utters this blatant falsehood admits that what should have been said was "female genital mutilation."

PS
If you doubt for one minute this treatment of females still exists right here, right now, go here:

http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/feature/2009/12/14/male_pseudonyms/index.html

Theme Thursday - Snow

7

Footprints, rarely seen,
Of tiny scurrying things
Carved into the snow

8

Snow sparkles in sun
Silence blanketing the world
An icicle drops

I never saw much snow until I moved to Alabama. Yes. It isn’t just stars that fall on Alabama. Of course we never had the kind of snow you have to dig your way through. But we had more than enough of it to suit my taste.

Always liked the “idea” of snow, though. And Christmas cards with snowy scenes. This was always fine as long as I was inside, all toasty warm and sipping hot chocolate and refusing to be pried out with a shoe-horn. Although I do remember one winter in ‘bama when we had a big snow that settled on the ground for days, completely bringing everything to a stand-still. Except, of course, those of us crazy enough to get out there and go sledding down the road. I rode on the back of the sled while my friend “drove”. Of course we could not stop the thing and when we got to the end of the road we just kept going out onto the crossroad. Right in front of a police car. I think everybody laughed. Actually, I’m kinda fuzzy on that now. I seem to remember something about bail…

I’m a day early but….
Happy Snowy Thursday Everyone!


© December 2009 by Alexandra Scot

A Person Divided

Oh No! Whatever shall I do? Will I survive the day?

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Born in Florida and a graduate of the University of Alabama, I'm a person torn on this day. It's showdown time. Throwdown time. Gridiron time. Tear down the goalposts time. (They don't do that anymore, do they? How sad.)

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One good thing about this...

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No matter who does what, I'll have something to cheer about. Unless, of course, they both turn out to be dufuses on this day of days -- and that often happens when the real chips hit the table. Still, here's hoping it's a good game.

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I have memories of the Florida campus - I was there SO long ago as a visiting high school band member. (That part of Florida is really lovely.)

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But most of all.... I miss The Bear!

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UPDATE: ALABAMA 32 --- FLORIDA 13

ROLL TIDE!