Thanks to MarqHusker’s dispatch from LA last week, and, of course, in remembrance of Gatorama’s write-ups:
Thanks to my buddy’s mother-in-law, who is an Auburn booster and life-long season ticket holder, I have been hosted to a few of Auburn’s games over the last several years. This year I was planning on the attending the earlier Mississippi St home game, but since I was working that month in Italy she saved us tickets for the Georgia rivalry.
From Washington-Dulles we landed into Atlanta early enough to grab the rental car and, nearing the Alabama border, break for a late breakfast at the Waffle House in LaGrange GA. Our booth’s window faced the Chic-Fil-A in the next lot over, where the line at the drive through was so long two Chic-Fil-A hatted girls were walking the length of cars wrapping around the building, taking orders on tablets. When a white “State Prisoners” van pulled into the lot one of the girls took orders through the sliding cage window at van’s rear and one of the prison guards stepped from the van’s front passenger seat to cross the lot and smoke outside our diner window. He wore a Ducks Unlimited hat and was tattooed with a Whiskey Jug on his forearm. The song “Rocky Mountain Way” played in the Waffle House when our eggs and bacon were served.
After the state line the boiled peanut stands were aplenty. We bought our share from an offseason fireworks stand run by fundraising high school students wearing their football jerseys and cheerleader uniforms for their game later that night.
On I-85 we drove past Auburn to Montgomery AL where we’d planned to hotel for the night with the booster’s group caravanning in from Texas. So we spent the free afternoon in Montgomery, which, to my surprise, has far more history than I ever would’ve expected. Before hitting the heavier historical themes downtown I dictated we first tour the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum in the historic, wide-yarded residential neighborhood south of the downtown. This was a big deal for me, because as someone who has visited his wine-bottle adorned grave in Rockville MD, his boyhood home in St Paul MN, and one of the Paris bars where he befriended Hemingway, this completes the list of his haunts. I highly recommend anyone else visiting, because beyond the expected displays of first edition novels, handwritten letters, and Zelda’s art, this is the home where they last lived as a family. Right on the back porch his earlier novels and short stories were penned. And better yet, the Museum’s owner and curator shares her accounts of friendships with Fitzgerald’s descendants, editors, and scholars, many of whom are now passed.
Next we toured the Rosa Parks Museum. Small, but very interactive, the highlight is a 3D reenactment of Parks’ refusal and arrest that is projected across an expanse of a Montgomery city bus from the 1960s. The rest of the museum is mostly archived news clippings and video footage of the over yearlong bus boycott resulting in Montgomery.
Because it was Veterans Day most everything else of tourist interest was closed, such as the highly recommended First White House of the Confederacy (next to the Alabama State Capitol) where Jefferson Davis resided as President of the South. We walked around, finding more historical markers for the spots where MLK stood and addressed large crowds after the Selma to Montgomery March, buildings replacing sights of warehouses where slaves were auctioned on the riverfront, and the Winter Building, where from the second floor the telegram was sent authorizing Confederate General Beauregard to fire on Ft Sumter, effectively the first military action of the Civil War.
Now, onto Gameday:
Auburn’s tailgating plots are established by a land rush that starts the evening before when the campus allows groups to tape off their spots for the next morning. Parking is handled by fundraising groups; you might remember the name of our attendant, former Auburn QB Ben Laird, who was fundraising on behalf of his girls’ softball team. After setting up the tents and leaving the BBQ and crockpot under the watch of her brother, a dentist who offered to share his dip and whiskey, our Auburn Booster friend walked us around campus and to the bookstores where she made sure we all were bought Auburn shirts for the game. Inside she was recognized by the wife of Auburn’s coach, who know one another from working booster events across Texas.
Returning to the tailgate, lunch was ready, the highlight was Low-Country Boil, an Old Bay seasoned boil of corn cobb, taters, sausage, crab and jumbo shrimp, all poured right onto an open tablecloth before self-serving by hand. The 230PM kickoff put a rush on our packing everything up in time for our march to the stadium.
Getting into the stadium it was noticeable how little the two fan bases – Auburn and Georgia – like each other which I found surprising given how well I’d previously seen Auburn host mostly inebriated LSU and Gator crowds. In our seats the scattered Bulldogs fans were already trading barbs with the Auburn crowd. Not to mention Kirby Smart’s comments doubting crowd noise factoring into the gameplay had the stadium loud and ready.
But Georgia’s opening touchdown drive kept the noise tempered, and though Auburn’s offense answered in stride, their first touchdown came after three field goals which until then left many in our section yelling about unfinished drives.
Auburn opened the second half with two quick touchdown drives and though the student section across the field maintained a celebratory mood and sustained a lot of noise for Georgia’s QB to overcome, the old timers in our section were shouting at Malzahn to maintain play calling aggression in wake of LSU’s big, earlier season comeback. It wasn’t until halfway through the 4th quarter, with a 33-10 lead, that a big 55 yard TD screen assured the rest of the stadium (save for yelling about a few of Georgia’s cheap shot penalties) and fans started heading to Toomer’s Corner with rolls of toilet paper. The biggest crowd at Toomer’s since the famous 2013 Bama game. It’s not every day you can celebrate blowing out a #1 ranked team.
