An Unforgettable Sky

The year was 1983 and the college football season was in full swing. At that time in my life, I worked for a metal building company that was an international corporation and I was based out of Utah. My job took me to various parts of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The main headquarters was in Houston Texas, with another large facility in Nashville Tennessee. My boss was located in Nashville so on occasion, I was requested to travel down to the southern states and participate in various builder conferences and meetings.

Football was a large topic of conversation down in the south at that time and everyone was allied with one college or another. During my trips to that portion of the country, I would get a glimpse of just how dedicated some of these fellow workmates of mine were. If you didn't readily agree with one person's choice of college memorabilia that decorated the offices in their work setting, you might end up with an enemy on your hands. These people were dead serious about their team, regardless of whether or not the team was terrible that year or not.

The Tennessee plant had many employees from all over the South and Midwest states. They were gathered together there for their engineering skills and trades. With them, they brought their favorite home team logos along with all the past and present history of football for their team of choice. Arguments around the break areas were commonplace and no matter how good your team was that year, someone would always bring up the past and some type of argument would ensue. Most of the disputes were friendly enough but I saw a few that nearly went to fisticuffs over meaningless pride.
   
That particular year, my home team of BYU was on a firecracker roll, defeating everything in its path. When the mighty Miami Hurricanes laid down in the trail and BYU prevailed over them, I knew we were on to something special that year. As it played out, I had bragging rights for the next 4 months and everyone had to eat a piece of the old defeatist pie. Everywhere I went that year and on most of my phone conversations, all I heard was how BYU was not going to go undefeated and that the crown would be given to someone else. It got so bad that I would avoid certain characters that I knew were just laying in wait after each weekly victory to argue their point.
   
About the middle of November, I was summoned by my boss who had played for Indiana and was a huge Hoosier fan to travel to Arkansas for a builder development conference and stay for the week. I dreaded the trip and tried every way I could to get out of it to no avail. I knew the torture that awaited me as BYU was rolling up a score on several smaller schools that couldn't measure up to the Lavell Express that year.

When I arrived, the talk was BYU this, BYU that, and it got to the point where I wanted to sack several obnoxious individuals if they continued their rants. There was one individual, and I'll spare his name as he will probably read this and remember his wounds, that just wouldn't leave BYU and its success alone. Constantly, he buggered me until I had finally had enough. I waited for the opportunity at a large luncheon that we both attended and finally under duress, I made my move. Looking back on it now, It was foolhardy of me, but I crumbled to the constant pressure.

As we were all gathered at a lunch table in the town of Stuttgart Arkansas, the noisy nuisance made his usual pitch about BYU schedule and how they were in a weak division and as soon as they played anyone with any real talent the win streak would end. Slowly everyone at the luncheon table glanced my way as if I needed to battle his statements in my own defense of my team. There were at least thirty managers, engineers etc. seated around me and everyone waited with baited breathe for my next comment. Even my own boss was grinning like a hyena as he looked at me with those Hoosier eyes.
   
Well, the words just spilled out of my mouth and before I knew what I had said and realized my pride had just tucked my brain in my back pocket. I blurted out the challenge of challenges, 'Care to put your money where your mouth is?' Only I didn't stop there. I was on a roll, so I went after the one thing you don't do when you're on a tight family budget. I let out the ole 'Are you all talk and no show?' That is the one statement that you can't get out of no matter how hard you try. That statement is the ultimate slam, cut, degrade, bottom of the gutter insult to another fans pride for their team. It begs for a comeback just to make things level. I received the look of looks from the culprit. As he swallowed down the last of my swirling toilet flush and looked around to size up the insult, he brings out the one thing I didn't want when the volleys were being fired between us. He said to me, "How about a two hundred and fifty dollar bet that your team doesn't go undefeated the rest of the year, let alone have a chance at the National title. Oh, and how about double that if they win or don't get the National title?"
   
All the eyes around the table now shifted from one brainless fool to the other as I could feel the heat of the moment. For a small country boy from a rural farm town in Lehi Utah, that moment ranks right up there with the dumbest thing I ever did in my life, to that point. With my old alma mater, BYU sitting on one shoulder and the conscience of a family man with a stay at home wife and three small children and not a pot to piss in on the other shoulder, wouldn't you know I chose the path of least resistance and folded under the pressure. Reaching out my meager hand, the only satisfaction I gained from the whole deal was that my nemesis was a smaller man and when his hand hit mine I gave it the old Captain Crunch of handshakes. He got the message that I was not happy with the outcome as I made my point.
   
Now, I know how this might look to some of you reading this post. How could a BYU alumnus, Mormon raised young man fall into the category of the Devil's cauldron, and risk money he sorely needed on the home front. Well, you had to be there to understand how stupid the whole thing was. I have never seen a dumber Jackass than the one that I was looking at later that day. I glanced in the bathroom mirror of my Hilton hotel room while my mind went back and forth about how I would come up with the dough since the odds were overwhelmingly against me.

I had resolved myself to a small part-time job for a while until I had squared my account and with that, I tried to put the foolishness out of my mind. I was haunted by the last thing my boss had said as we were leaving the luncheon and heading to our hotel rooms. He patted me on the back as we climbed into the taxi and said, "Southwick, I didn't think you had it in you. I sure hope you beat that Jack, but BYU ain't got a chance in hell of winning it all." I swallowed hard as I knew that the odds were not in my favor and he was right.
   
After the luncheon and the conference, I was invited to some old-fashioned duck hunting in the duck capital of the world. We traversed over to where the Arkansas river washes into the Mississippi, south of Stuttgart. We were ferried out in duck boats to a wooded area and set up behind decoys and temporary blinds. The area was flooded with tall trees all around us. The ducks would come swooping in through the trees and it was the best duck festival I have ever entertained in my life. Those boys back there have a piece of duck hunters heaven.

As the sun set on the second day of hunting, the sky filled with a glowing fusion of colors that dazzled the mind. The colors were so intense that even the bark and leaves on the trees glowed in an orange ball of fire. I have never in my life, to this day seen a sunset like that one and it defies logic as to how it came about, but it was breathtaking, to say the least. The pictures that I took of the scene almost make the prints like they were photoshopped, but that type of technology didn't exist back in 1983. I brought the pictures home and later in life I painted an oil painting of the scene as I remembered it and with the aid of my pictures. Each time I gaze on that painting it takes me back to the scene of the duck hunt and the hotel luncheon. Little did I know at that time, but I was on a course to be able to talk the talk and walk the walk in the BYU annals of fan in your face for the next year.
   
Now, all of you reading this story know that I was relieved of the stupid wager of the moment and that the BYU team went undefeated and won the National Championship. But what you don't know, was that my dumber partner in the dumb Mormon wager of all time turned out to be a number one fan for all time and Graduate alumni of the University of Michigan. We had no idea that it would turn out BYU vs Michigan for the title but that is how fate jumps in the game and takes its turn at humbling the mighty. Here I'll interject the score just in case the loser is reading this post and needs a little reminder. BYU-24 Michigan-17. And I only fleeced him for $250.00. This was against the wishes of my boss, who wanted to see this guy really eat the crow and pay the double bet.
   
Yes, I had bragging rights around the water cooler for the next year, but I kept it pretty low key. I was still nursing the bullet wound that had narrowly missed taking my numbskull off after the famous handshake and the bet. I had prevailed by the skin of my teeth and the lesson was a one and done for me as far as sports betting was concerned. I returned to a normal life and the only time I wince at the thought of my mule-headed accolades is when I see the sunset painting and it takes me all the way back to that day.