Bourbon in a ziplock bag

It's almost here.

A new college football season --- the 2008 model --- kicks off tomorrow night. The anticipation is palpable and I wonder what wonders the new season might bring.

Vivid memories of college --- and, in particular, Auburn --- football date back 40 years or so now. Granted, there are a few foggy frames in the cerebral footage. Many of them clouded by bourbon in a ziplock bag.

It was the early 1980s. I was a college kid at AU. Smuggling liquor into the game was required. We were always open to new and better ways to hide our hooch. So a good friend of mine, one Tony Nafe, said he'd heard that some folks poured their liquor in a ziplock bag and stuffed it in their pants.

"Great, Tony! Give that a whirl and let us know how it turns out!"

He did. 

Mississippi State at Auburn. Homecoming 1981. Pat Dye's first Auburn squad entered 3-3 and everyone thought we could take the Bulldogs. 

But first we had to take the bourbon. For that, we turned to Tony and his new Ziplock Method.

Not the greatest decision we ever made (And, believe me, our crew --- Weeks, O, Nafe, Copenhaver and me --- made some bad ones back in the day!). I know that people still use ziplocks for gameday smuggling, but I must assume that there have been technological improvements in the zipping locks. For on this slightly rainy Saturday, I'll never forget hearing Tony's violent burst of expletives as the bag burst and his pants soaked up more bourbon than a Lynchburg cask. 

At halftime, we tried to get Tony to wring his pants out to spike our Cokes. 

He respectfully declined.

So we had to watch the second half of AU's 21-17 loss to State stone-cold sober.

Ah, the memories!

Let's kick this mofo OFF!