A strange planet, far away

I can't resist these old Bear Bryant Show clips. I can't.

It's just so, so, so . . . quintessentially the South of my youth. Only, back in the South of my youth, I'd have said "my limited vocabulary doesn't permit me to say" stuff like "quintessentially."

But there you go. One . . . two . . . three . . . take a swig off that Co' Cola and sing the praises of Golden Flake corn chips before Charlie Thornton falls silent to make way for the Bear's five minutes of pure stream of consciousness as the coach's cigarette sends clouds toward the ceiling from under the desk.

TODAY, kids would see this and take it for a Saturday Night Live skit. Children, I grew up in a Saturday Night Live skit.

And speaking of that 1979 LSU-Alabama game -- I was there. In the student section. It was miserable.

It was as miserable of a game as I ever stayed all the way through. It rained -- hard. It was cold . . . probably in the upper 30s. I remember huddling under some plastic sheeting that some folks abandoned when they gave up the Tiger Stadium ghost.

And I remember 'Bama winning on a last-minute field goal, the only score in the whole frigid, soggy affair.

Didn't even get any Golden Flake corn chips for my trouble. Or a Co' Cola.

Your Daily '80s: I wanna play fer yew, Bear

Even legends didn't win every week.

Here's a bit of Paul "Bear" Bryant's weekly Alabama football show from 1980. Y'all, this is self-evidently 30 years and a universe away from the world we inhabit today.

I don't know that today is any improvement.

By the way, I think we know what killed the Bear a couple of years after this show -- washing them chips down with Coca-Cola.