Marshall Ramsey

My dad and I are bilingual. We speak English and football. And on Sunday night, I cherished our conversation.

Our Tennessee Volunteers were on — and they were, for the first time in a while, dominating. We sat in my parent’s den, like I had so many times before, talking blocks, tackles, strategy and coaching.

My dad is getting older. Heck, I’m getting older. A game that I once would have taken for granted became more precious to me. For a long time I have lived far away — our time together is rare. I looked at him sitting in his big brown chair with his white hair. If one of the knick-knacks on my parent’s bookshelf was a genie’s lamp, I’d ask to go back in time 40 years.

But I can’t do that. So I just grasped onto the moment as tightly as I could. And as the final moments of the game ticked off, I wished for more time on the clock. 3…2…1…. Tennessee had won.

We sat there for a minute — and then watched a replay of Tennessee’s 1997 SEC Championship win over Auburn. Sure, we knew the outcome of the game. But the score wasn’t what mattered. It was the time on the clock.

I drive all around the Southeast. I know most of the main and backroads and can tell you, within five minutes, how long it takes to get to any point in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida. I’ve navigated snow, rain, fog and wind. I’ve driven in a hurricane (Katrina) and outrun tornadoes. Saturday’s storm near Eutaw, Alabama was the worst I’ve ever driven in. The sky was pitch black, pouring sheets of rain and hammering the Earth with frequent cloud-to-ground lightning. I saw a half dozen cars in the ditch (after hydroplaning) and wondered at the Mensas who refused to turn on their headlights. It was 25 minutes of sheer terror.

Why? Because my family was with me. All I hold precious was sitting in a vehicle under my control. And the weather was starting to rock our van.

Yes, I said van. We have a 2014 Honda Odyssey for a family truckster. Say what you want to about vans, it’s the safest thing I’ve ever driven. We had a 2005 Odyssey for nine years. And absolutely loved it. This one is better in every way. I was thankful for good tires and traction control. And praying I wouldn’t need the airbags.

I chanted to myself, “Dear God, get me through this storm.”

My wipers were beating like John Bonham’s arms. My heart was keeping rhythm. A truck driver, who apparently had a death-wish, zoomed past us, dousing our windshield with an opaque spray of death. The interstate went to one late at the Tenn-Tom waterway. How I didn’t crash into the barrels is a mystery to me. Lightning struck the bridge, causing my heart to stop.

As we broke free of the storm’s grip, the sky was an eerie shade of orange (thankfully not green — no hail was in this storm). The rain swirled in the sky, doing an exotic dance before it fell to the ground. It looked surreal. If I hadn’t been so focused on the road ahead of me (why do people REFUSE to turn on their lights?), I would have marveled at its beauty.

My wife drove through Birmingham (I needed a break). We saw rain shafts coming from the storms that looked like non-spinning tornadoes. I never saw a rainbow after the flood, though. I guess our survival was sign enough that we’d live to fight on another day.

Today is Cowboy Day. It also is, “So hot your back sweats day,” too. But I digress.

I stood outside my son’s elementary school, in the sun (I don’t do well in the sun), watching adorable second graders march outside in their best cowboy garb. They bubbled with excitement. Second graders are good at bubbling. I only wish I had their energy.

Their little voices made a sweet cacophony. Then the chatter was broken with a familiar voice, “THAT’S MY DAD!”

My youngest, a boy who has shown me the true meaning of overcoming obstacles, was grinning from ear to ear. He had seen me before I had seen him. It was a moment of joy I can’t quite explain.

I stood next to a PLS workout friend whose older daughter has been valiantly been fighting leukemia. I thought of David and Sheila Wilbanks who were preparing for their son’s funeral.

As I watched my son dance joyfully with his partner, salty water flowed down my cheek. It might have been sweat. It might have been something else.

I’ll never tell.

It was about this time nine years ago that I heard a voice cry across the newsroom, “There’s water on the second floor of the Beau Rivage.”

That was the moment I knew the Mississippi Gulf Coast would never be the same.

And it’s not. Gone are the middle-class homes that used to dot the beach. New flood plain maps and sky-high insurance rates took care of that. The might oaks still dot the coast, but they were thinned out by the salty surge and high winds. (and bulldozers cleaning debris.) Claims have been settled and lives have moved on. There has been growth north of the flood zone and along 1-10, but the high cost of insurance bedevils many residents.

The scar still remains along the Coast. And it burns.

In Jackson, we had a 12-hour wind event like I’ve never seen. I nearly was crushed by two falling trees while driving home during the height of the storm. And I saw an interstate road sign fly off its posts. My house, thankfully received little damage. But many of my neighbors weren’t so fortunate. (Oaks seems to take it harder than the pines did.) I had a pile of debris in my yard over six-feet tall.

We learned a lot after Katrina. One, is that civilization won’t keep running very long when you don’t have electricity and gasoline. Life began to shut down quickly in the days after the storm. Two, if you had a plan before Katrina, it wouldn’t work afterwards. The storm was too big. Too devastating. Bureaucracies like FEMA struggled to fulfill their mission. Private groups (including many faith-based organizations) filled in the cracks. The importance of flexibility and change was taught. (A lesson hammered home during the Great Recession.) And three, we learned that when things get bad, we get good. The outpouring of help after the storm was nothing short of a heaven-sent. On this ninth anniversary, let me say thank you to ANYONE who volunteered to help us after the storm. Heroes after Katrina were average people who saw a need and filled it. They soothed our wounds with hard work and compassion.

We also were taught another valuable lesson: The cavalry won’t come right after a monster storm. We have to be prepared to survive on our own for at least 72 hours. And we must heed official evacuation orders.

Yes, the Gulf Coast is changed. We all were who went through that storm. But the lessons we learned from Katrina will stick with us forever. And like the mighty oaks that line the beach, the Mississippi Gulf Coast survived live another day.

I love fall.

I will say it again, this time in all-caps: I LOVE FALL!

There is less back-sweating, humidity-suffering, sunburning, heat-indexing and hurricaning. And while the sun isn’t currently lined up astronomically for it to be technically fall, something magical happens today that says Autumn is right over the horizon (in Atlanta):

College Football starts today.

I can almost feel the cool, crisp autumn morning breezes now.

Thanks be to the Football Gods.

Even the trees are getting into the act. They are mixing oranges, yellows and reds on their palettes to paint the landscape.

The world will soon be awash in color.

I know a lot of you love Spring. I’ll admit it has its moments. The “flowers and rebirth of life” thingy is cool. But the whole “Snot stalactites because of copious pollen” thingy ruins Spring for me. And tornadoes. I’m not a big fan of tornadoes. Spinning clouds of pollen that sound like a freight train scares even more snot out of me. Auntie Em! Auntie Em!

Maybe the yellow brick road was just covered with pollen? I digress.

Don’t get me wrong. I love summer — for the first nine months of it. But after a while, it is the guest who has overstayed the party. My power bills are screaming for relief. And then there’s that back sweating thing. I won’t miss days that feel like you are living under a tongue.

I LOVE FALL!

Yes, I like winter a little bit, too. Especially those dark mornings and evenings, snow-freakouts and the resulting hoarding bread and milk. I love bread and milk. But I’ll still take fall.

Did I mention I LOVE FALL?

And since I am now entering the fall of my life. (My hair, if it remains attached to my Klingon-textured head, will change colors like the leaves soon enough), I had better love it. It’s the time of my life where I can now be like the industrious squirrel and start collecting nuts for the winter.

Nah. Think I’ll be the squirrel that sits in the recliner and watches college football.

I’d be nuts not to.

So thanks be to Fall. And all the beauty it brings to my life.

I saw Elvis in Tupelo today — or at least his statue. A few miles away, I saw dozens of tornado-damaged homes. Decades-old trees were like scattered Lincoln Logs. Piled nearby, dreams filled dumpsters in driveways.

Yet with a mix of grit and nails, the community is coming back.

Across the state, I stood on a Mississippi River sandbar as two barges passed quietly in the night. Above my head, the Milky Way dressed up the inky sky with a trillion pearls. I met with Congressional staffers and discussed politics while a bonfire flickered. Blood-sucking mosquitoes had to make them miss Washington, D.C. On the rural highways between my destinations, I saw signs. Lots of signs. Noxapater. Egypt (in two different places). Farrell. Tupelo. Tutwiller. Yazoo City. Clarksdale, Eagle Lake. Near Eagle Lake, the dusky dawn sky’s canvas was painted red by the brush of a rising sun. That same sun gilded the river water with gold leaf. Nearby, white cotton boils played hide and seek beneath thick green leaves. Fields of corn stalks withered in the August sun. Off Highway 49, a bright red truck sat in the middle of a green soy bean field. Bugs sang as a yellow crop-duster danced in the Delta sky.

In the hundreds of miles I traveled this week, I encountered extreme poverty and equally extreme wealth.

I met barge captains who wrestle a changing Old Man river daily. And I met medical insurance professionals wrestle equally changing health care laws. I spoke to hundreds of people and heard their stories of hope and courage. I met a mother who lost a child eight years ago. “I’ll see him again,” she said with confidence. Her faith even buoyed me. On my radio show, I interviewed a woman who challenged her childhood memories and gained empathy as her reward.

Today, a community struggles with the loss of an exceptional young man. Like the tornado scars in Tupelo, time, faith and friends will heal those wounds. But right now, it seems senseless. Raw. Harsh. Too painful. The community has already begun to rally. Just like we always do. When things get bad, we get good.

That’s what I’ve seen in my last five days in Mississippi.