By all rights, the following post should be rated “mature audiences only.” Since that categorization would disqualify around 90% of this blog’s readership, just be forewarned that explaining this one to the kiddies might be a little awkward.
I thought I had found a convenient explanation for Georgia Tech’s recent thrashing of Notre Dame when I stumbled on a local columnist’s account of the tailgating scene prior to that contest at South Bend:
"Thousands of cars filed into Notre Dame before the game. They opened their trunks [I’m guessing she means the occupants rather than the cars themselves. Otherwise, those folks have certainly found themselves the ultimate tailgating vehicles.] and SUV hoods, poured cocktails and served snacks over games of "cornhole…."
Suffice it to say, I almost choked. For you Yankee types and the smattering of sheltered city folks who patronize this page, to all good Georgia country boys of my generation, “cornhole” was a slang expression for, well…think about the quarterback who stays “under center” too long and the exchange between them involves more than the football. Now, don’t get me wrong. As far as I’m concerned, whatever two consenting adults do in private is up to them. However, here were these folks in South Bend doing something right out there in front of God and in the very shadow of “Touchdown Jesus” that can get you arrested here in Georgia and lots of other places. (If this is ever a problem give me a call. I did hear about a real smart lawyer who got a sodomy charge reduced to “following too close.”) Not only did this suggest to me that the Pope must be a lot more liberal on such matters than I had been led to believe, but if the fans had spent most of the day indulging in this kind of activity, I doubted that they had much energy left to support the team. For that matter, the kids on the team were probably just going through the motions so they could get the game over with and get a good view of the post-game hi-jinks. I tried my interpretation of the real reasons behind Georgia Tech's stunning victory on a Tech friend of mine, and, not surprisingly perhaps, he wasn’t very receptive.
Only later, when I had calmed down a bit, did I read the rest of the column, and discover that “cornhole” was “played mainly with planks of wood, bean bags and good aim.” I have to admit the “good aim” part threw me a little, but I finally concluded that these folks were really just tossing beanbags. Still, I thought, there can’t be much to ‘em if they don’t know any better than to call what they’re doing what they’re calling it.
Didn’t they pick up on Stephen Colbert’s description of “cornhole” as a "cross between horseshoes and sodomy"?
At any rate, I found in my interpretation of all this ample reason to discount Tech’s victory over the obviously unworthy Golden Domers crowd. Then, while jogging the morning before UGA’s encounter with the hated Gamecocks of the even more hated Steve Spurrier, I discovered something painful well beyond my feeble powers of description, something that well-nigh knocked me to my knees and told me without question that I shouldn’t have laid that twenty on the ‘Dogs. There they were, at least three sets of earlybird Bulldog tailgaters setting up their boards and getting out their beanbags.
My only hope is that if the Athletic Dept can’t get a ban on this disgusting and pernicious practice at UGA tailgates, we can at least pass the word that those who indulge in this activity should never refer to it as you-know-what. Otherwise, we better prepare ourselves for a season of heartache. You know what they say, “You play like you tailgate.”
