City of Angels: No Heaven for an LSU Aficionado

In the sleepy little town of St. Francisville, Louisiana, I often remember as a kid, the times sitting under the carport of a simple little house on Pine Street, listening to my Paw Paw tell stories.

For hours my brother and I would sit under his spell as he would spare no detail to paint with words the great adventures and mischief he enjoyed as a youth.  We would laugh and laugh.    

As a cigarette hung from the corner of his lips, he soulfully spun tales that inspired us to explore on our own, potential ideas to try at the most opportune time. 

Many of which became the scaffold to countless ‘wood-shed’ discussions that still make me wince even today.

But those stories and the time spent with my grandfather are gifts I now muse about with great love and affection.  They were moments etched in my life that have become woven into the fabric of who I became, and what I am today...never to be separated or changed.

Within my fabric, many lifetime moments represent many threads of color that define me. 

Family, friends, and a collage of memories have all blended to mend a suit of color that is comfortable and unmistakably me.   

Two colors that shimmer in the stitching of this suit are all too familiar to LSU fans.  How did these colors get there?  They don’t exactly match with the other colors from my life?

Los Angeles California—very diverse colors indeed.  

Baton Rouge to L.A. is a complicated road to retravel.  The twists and turns certainly add much depth and character to the detail of fabric which glistens with complexity, yet with unassuming drapes of simpleness.  

There is contrast that is difficult to define yet recognizable—soft to the eye, but rough to the touch.

There’s a label on the fabric; “Made in Louisiana - Altered in L.A.”

As I sit in grid lock on the 405, or sit through a ‘trimmer’ wondering about the ‘big one,’ there is a constant that I draw near that feeds my homesickness. 

My morning is so predictable when the Dell crackles to life. 

A dose of Dandy Don, the Baton Rouge Advocate, and Tigerbait.com while sipping a ‘damn strong’ cup of coffee, adds yet another thread of LSU to my life. 

Purple and Gold run through me, and living so far from what made me me, is not so heavenly.  Sure, the ‘Left Coast’ has incredible weather, and the sites are great to brag about, and so many do come here to make their dreams come true. 

But paradise is over-rated.  Give me humidity, Community (Coffee), and a beignet any day...while sittin’ with family and friends talking Tiger Football.  That’s living among those who share a lot of common threads.  That’s heaven.