Which is it? Has the world gone stark, raving mad or full, blown crazy?

Mad or crazy? I can’t figure which.

Part of it is I’m old. Young folks are getting acclimated. They don’t expect service after the sale. If they go to a chicken place that is out of chicken, they say, well, let’s see what else we can have?  I act as if I went swimming and found a desert.

This change, I think, is multifaceted. Everything is different. I’m going to stick with sports. That way the United Nations General Assembly won’t have to meet, and besides, it never does any good.

What got me thinking about this – on this particular week – was the crisis in our state’s college football teams. I hadn’t really noticed on account of my favorite team, Furman, is just what all Americans should expect from such a team, but it’s not like this every year. It’s the plan, of course, but empires rise and fall, athletes graduate if they’re lucky, and then they come back and let everybody know how great they were.

This guy Tyler, who apparently has enough self-confidence to tell whoever’s listening that he knows what he’s talking about – and that’s really all it takes – wonders how Dabo Swinney can “justify” his salary with a break-even record?

Forget the disappointing season. Does Tyler think all football games are based upon salaries. It’s not Swinney’s job to justify his salary. It’s Clemson’s job to offer a salary. This is free enterprise. This is capitalism. It’s based on scarcity. Swinney has won two national championships. That’s pretty scarce.

I don’t want to go off on Tyler the way he he went off Dabo. The guy served our country in harm’s way abroad.

But daaaamn.

If everything – everything, not just most everything – is about money, then that is the purpose of playing the game. Just bring the agents and accountaints out for the exchange of money and see what’s on Netflix.

The games do not always go to the most skilled nor the races to the fastest, but that’s the way to bet.

In the opening game, what if Clemson had beaten Duke, 28-7, instead of the opposite, and Mike Elko had said, “Great game. Dabo and I both justified our salaries. It’s a great night for America”?

If Clemson upsets Notre Dame on Saturday, all will be forgiven at least until Wednesday. Dabo will go to Spartanburg and take Tyler out to dinner.  Then the next time the Tigers fall, Tyler will challenge Dabo to a cornhole match. They may make a commercial together for a furniture warehouse. Eventually, Tyler may become rich and famous, like Stephen A. Smith. Or he me may return to the vile depths from whence he sprung, unloved, unwanted and unsung. Sir Walter Scott wrote that.

Fortunately, I know my market value. If I get the card in my wallet clicked eight times, my market value is a slice of lemon pound cake. It’s available to anyone who is old and grammatically correct with a fifth-grade writing level.

In the midsummer, Dabo Swinney and Shane Beamer were beyond reproach and question. Their teams were bound for glory. Nothing could change the inexorable rise of the Tigers and Gamecocks, the latter advancing behind the other.

Everybody’s got the right. It’s a consequence of living in a free country. Sometimes no one believes in a damn thing. Most everybody’s mad about something and most likely each other.

It reminds me of a bar. “I’m tired of talking about it. By God, let’s fight.”

That, my friends, is the USA today.

Reckon I can find 20 people who like this site enough to chip in $20 to keep it going?

Support the advertisers, and help keep the site – the game stories, the blogs, the photos – alive by making a donation to DHK Sports, P.O. Box 768, Clinton, S.C. 29325 or making a small monthly donation via Patreon. The Laurens County site is here. The Furman site is here.

Another way I can derive some revenue is if you purchase my books at MonteDutton.net. They’re quite entertaining in spite of the fellow who wrote them. Two of my novels, Cowboys Come Home and Lightning in a Bottle, are available in audio versions. The latest, The Latter Days, is about baseball.

Photo galleries are posted on Instagram @furmanatt and @laurenscountysports.

The next Fiesta Grande open mic is Wednesday, Nov. 8, at 8 p.m.