A Wordy Problem

A steaming freighter leaves Haiti at 200 miles per hour, blasting across the Caribbean like a cooped up puppy that has eaten through it's plastic universe, chewing apart boats, gargling with surveillance buoys, dumping on islands and pissing on the fringes of the Southeast.

Up along the Florida strip, a new force has been unleashed. The newly exorcised Rays hopscotch around the American League landscape with the wanton destruction of a Class 5 twister. Normally dismissed by the masses as impotently organized and irrelevant after August, this system has kicked up a blinding dust from Boston, to Detroit, to Toronto. It has silently swept through Louisville and the International League, and then immediately sat down on top of New York, and buried the Yanks with a factory full of fresh bats and strong arms

To add to this troublesome equation of Autumny convergence, thirty two jets simultaneously leave their pig leather and mud stained hangars on circuitous and tense five month bomber missions that they all hope sees them emerge as the better of two who will come gliding effortlessly into the PHX come February. There is a grey domed pilot guiding one of these Jets, fresh out of re-unretirement, who looks to add to his record mileage and add another sticker to his helmet. But he will have to deal with plenty of recharged foes, including a talented Horse with a freshly rebuilt knee and an advanced case of brotherly one-upmanship. Not to mention an installation of Patriots who thought that they had perfection in hand last winter, only to fall to the luck and destiny that was somehow mustered by the cross-town rival of our white haired Captain. Add to this swarm some Bolts of lightening, a rowdy group of starry-eyed yahoos from Texas, some veteran Cats from this Carolina's, and a fleet footed Viking or two.

Meanwhile, down on the ground level, near the very roots of the fertile grass that blankets our union of states, two trains join the aforementioned cacophony. One is painted a bright, hopeful blue, promises change, and plans to pick up along its meander a few disenfranchises from the middle of the road. The other is swathed in deep, Patriotic Red and White and stops in towns small and obese for patriotic straight talk, banking on of a wealth of experience and some change of their own. And, while each engine sports a fresh coat of expensive paint, the cabooses that they haul are the home of the real artistes. These political Pollack's spend their time between whistle stops working out their masterpieces, painting their rival as contemptible lunatics who will greedily blow up the bridges that unite in order to Engineer the Earth.

The unruly convergence is on. Politics, Sports and Weather are this Fall's national elements. The question is, will they all blow up at once? And if they do, what then?
Football season is on once more. And hark! There across the mournfully dwindling sports pages, the Boys of Summer are now the Men of Autumn after being forced to clean up their hardball act and downsize considerably. Wounded by scandal, a few have still mustered enough energy to beat each other up, and after a long wet summer, the destined leaders have emerged from their packs, give or take a few frantic momentum surfing Wild Cards. But wait, it remains highly likely that it will all have to hold while storms of fierce wind and rain and words whip us into a frenzy of self-preservation and distrust.

Those slacker delinquents and chronic bellyachers among you whining about ADD, ADHD, HDTV, or TV ADitis can skip the equating that this column requires. The rest of you I challenge to study this quickening convergence and plot a course through the muddy seasons to come. Report back to Hang Time. And, for those of you who don't like to wait, the equation is listed below, as proven by resident socio-disasticaster Bear Anderson in a recent scatologically unveiled formula.

32x(NFL)-13 (Jets chances of winning AFC) x $5,000,000 (Bellicheck's video late return fees) >3 (games out of playoff race = NYY)+600(Rays Fans) x Gustav x Hanna x Ike x X % 50/50 = A FALL TO REMEMBER! (Duck!)

Corby Anderson writes Hang Time for the Aspen Daily News Roaring Sports Magazine from the fishy decks of an observation sloop docked off of Lovers Point, California. Answers to this week's word problem can be submitted, in triplicate to [e-mail]