my wife, the marshall grad

gave kind comfort as i lay in bed, congested with the phlegms and mucouses of a summer cold, made more miserable with the third herd touchdown of the night -- against none for my west virginia mountaineers.

quietly listening on the radio, i nudged her as she dozed and said, "tonight's the night."

"what?" she asked sleepily.

"we lose tonight. marshall just scored again. it's 21-6."

"there will be blood in the streets of huntington," she replied.

"yep," i sighed.

"oh, honey, all that doesn't mean anything to me," she said, as she laid her head on my chest.

i felt like that old couple on "titanic," who embraced their fate together as the ship sank.

it was such a sweet gesture. i immediately felt at ease and prepared for the inevitable.

then came the comeback that i wouldn't have believed we had in us.

fifteen unanswered points and one overtime later, i awoke my wife once more.

"holy shit."

"what happened?"

"wvu won, 24-21."

"you're fucking kidding me."

"it was a miracle."

"seriously? couldn't you let us have just this one?"

i reached over to console her.

"don't touch me."

i love my wife.

to the s.o.b who made my wife cry

i don't know who you are, but you must be one self-absorbed, insensitive motherfucker to think it's ok to call someone first thing at work and unleash expletives you wouldn't dream of uttering to a stranger on the street.

what kind of self-righteous indignation do you possess that allows you the license to abuse and insult another person whose sole provocation was to answer your phone call?

what kind of courage does it require to anonymously speak with such hostility and meanness to someone who hasn't even begun to converse, let alone argue with you?

i would submit that whatever cause you espouse and whatever claims you may stake have about as much legitimacy and merit as the courtesy you have for others.

yours must be a monumental quest of selfishness.

for if it were anything of worth, it would not suffer the lack of respect it has garnered -- a mirror, obviously, of the regard in which you hold everyone else.

may you be happy in your sad, sorry kingdom of self-delusion.

nike faked out of its sneakers

the hue and cry over athletic apparel maker nike's alleged tacit endorsement of mountaintop removal mining was like watching a vast, all-conquering army surrender to a tiny band of shadow puppets.

seriously. i was pretty geeked up that the shoe giant had chosen my west virginia mountaineers as one of ten schools to model their new line of football gear.

i clicked on the link for the unveiling and watched some pretty cool animation and listened to the dramatic linking of the relationship of the state's tough mining heritage with the efforts of wvu's football team.

"they really put some work into this," i thought as i watched animated coal dust rising from a mine entrance and listened to the rhythmic clank of mining tools and falling rock.

a lot of drama, but they're selling something. "puffery," as i recall from my advertising classes.

the background for the illustration was gritty. foreboding clouds. a coal dust-covered football field.

the flattened mountaintop backdrop, while seeming to portray one means of extraction, i thought could have used equally dark and spooky hillsides. we are the mountain state, after all.

but these were mere quibbles with what i thought was a pretty bad-ass representation of my favorite football team.

a number of environmentalists, on the other hand, were deeply offended by what they viewed as the university's endorsement of that method of mining.

they voiced their disapproval. loudly, and with great drama.

"I am so angry. I love football, and I will not watch WVU again."

this, from an activist in washington, d.c.

back in corporate, officials reacted as though they had offended an ethnic or religious group and pulled the image.


what they offered in its stead was the same football player standing in anonymous football stadium.

and the cool animation? gone.

the whole thing just struck me as the result of not doing one's homework, then doubling back after being aggressively questioned over an answer, whether it was wrong or right.

if the advertiser knew what percentage of the state's population supported mining versus not, they might have ridden it out and shrugged it off.

instead, the sportswear behemoth fell for the blustery feint and trashed some striking creative work.

guess all i have to look forward to now is wvu's coal bowl game this week against marshall university.

and, no, i don't believe watching it makes me a friend of coal any more than practicing recycling makes me an environmentalist.