“Football combines two of the worst things in American life. It is violence punctuated by a committee meeting.”     - George Will      

August just arrived, and I’m ready for the fall. This steamy summer has provided so many global warming glimpses that I wish Al Gore would wave a magic wand, part the climate sea and deliver his people.

You can bet the Ascension Parish School Board is ready for fall. They started school early last week on Aug. 8. Why do people complain about today’s school kids so much? These students are passive,  back at their desks and clearly ready to learn and take on China.

If the school board had pulled an early opening trick when I was a young scholar, we would have hijacked the fastest school bus and forced the driver to take us to Washington, D.C. Then, we’d have marched on the White House lawn in protest, dousing the start school early movement once and for all.

In most parts of the country, fall means leaves turning brown, donning an extra layer of clothing, state fairs and harvest festivals. In other words, Vivaldi was thinking about something other than football when he wrote his famous concerto “The Four Seasons.”

But, in South Louisiana, mention that fall is in the air and you will hear a choral refrain of “Football! Football! Football! Oh, hallowed football season! Blessed be the day of thine holy arrival.”

We all understand the importance of running up and down the field and simulating war, football as it is called. Football memorabilia sales from the likes of LSU, Southern University and Dutchtown High School will support the economy of South Louisiana long after the last oil wells pull out of the Gulf of Mexico.

Wouldn’t it be nice, just once, to say “Fall” and hear someone reply “Oysters?”

What better treat can one have than the fall arrival of September, the first month after summer with an “r” in its spelling, when once again oysters are plump, salty, juicy and begging to drop from their half shells down into our highly trained and awaiting gullets?

Football rules and I have come to accept the game, though I’ll never embrace it or await its arrival like I do a sloppy afternoon of oyster slurping. Even though football is a ridiculously trivial and silly way to entertain oneself, the game is sometimes entertaining when viewed in the light of political or labor/management issues.

Hats off to Brett Favre for forcing a trade to the New York Jets from the Green Bay Packers. From time to time it does management good to be reminded that labor produces the product that keeps the business in business. Favre certainly told the Packer cheese that it does not pay to mess with a laborer who delivers the goods on the scale that he does.

When a quarterback like Favre says he wants to retire, then develops retiree’s remorse (many retirees do), you either bring him back, or set him free in the marketplace. Don’t try to say you want him to leave AND do not want him to quarterback any team that you might have to play.
Who would have ever thought a rebellious 38-year-old retired quarterback from Green Bay would become the spiritual  successor to Jet’s quarterback Joe Namath, the greatest rebel in NFL history?

Pity the poor school board trying to start school early if there is a young Brett Favre on campus.