Clinton, South Carolina, Sunday, December 1, 2019, 10:30 a.m.

It was a lone outpost consisting of a pop-up tent, a silver-gray trailer with a big-screen TV, another whose screen wasn’t as big, tables of food, coolers of ice and beverage, and a small group of would-be celebrants.

The Furman University campus was mostly vacant in observation of the Thanksgiving holiday. A few vehicles drove by, a few joggers jogged by, and a few walkers walked by. Some of them wore quizzical looks. A few who were students during the Baptist years instinctively hid their beverages when the school police came by on patrol. The officers just waved and smiled.

Why are these people here?

Don’t they know the football game is in Tennessee?

Some of those there, between Paladin Stadium and the practice fields, just happened by and joined the party. Some friendships strengthened. Some began.

Going to Clarksville had been considered by all of them, but, because of the holiday and its demands, they just decided to enjoy the game somewhere other than in the privacy of their homes. They had gathered in this area throughout the fall, so they decided, by a slow Facebook process of discussion during the week, to get together in familiar company at a familiar place.

As it turned out, it was better than being there because the fate of the Paladins was ill at Austin Peay. Driving home, down and out, was less taxing from Furman than it would have been from northwestern Tennessee. The party had developed through an extended process of “Why don’t we gather at the stadium anyway to watch the game?” and “I’ll do it if you will.”

It was longer than anyone thought it would be. The gathering began at 11 a.m. The game was supposed to begin at 1 p.m. It was delayed by lightning beforehand while everyone watched football games in Columbia and Atlanta, and during the game when lightning struck again.

A good season ended badly. In fact, the game between Furman and Austin Peay, to paraphrase Merle Haggard, rolled downhill like a snowball headed for hell. The Governors led at halftime, 7-3. They governed the third quarter, which dissolved into a rain-splattered blur of long plays, turnovers and impending oblivion. Austin Peay won, 42-6. Twenty-eight of its points occurred during the quarter of snowball hell.

Furman football is good and getting better. The Paladins made the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs but bounced out in the first round. They’re on their way, but they’re not there yet.

This was a group of people who differed in many areas but were united in the knowledge that their team may not yet be good enough, but win or lose, it is still theirs. The allegiance was undying even as the season died.

It even drizzled a while in Greenville while it poured in Clarksville.

They toasted victory before and the end afterward. Then everyone went home to watch football games deemed more worthy by the masses and went to sleep tired and glum.

The first thing they noticed this morning was that the sun had come up yet again.

 Eddie Bopp shot this short video. Unfortunately, the song I learned last week proved all too appropriate.

 

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My eighth novel is called Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Lightning in a Bottle is now available in an audio version, narrated by Jay Harper.