A few years ago, a good friend's daughter was going to be dancing in the Knoxville Ballet's production of "The Nutcracker" and so we went to see the first matinee performance. We sat in the darkened theater as the Master of Ceremonies rattled through the usual litany of thanking sponsors and introducing the conductor and...
...and...
...I swear, for you non-Knoxwegians, that I am not making this up...
...giving the current score of the UT football game going on at the stadium across the road.
You know you're in Knoxville, the city where the area code spells V-O-L on your touch-tone phone, when the ballet EmCee keeps you abreast of the college football score.
I lived in Knoxville as a child, this is SO TRUE.
ReplyDeleteSame thing happens across the river from me in Nebraska - separation of church and state doesn't happen when the religion is "The Cornhuskers".
ReplyDeleteDitto the Green Bay Packers. If you are in a public place in WI you can't escape them.
ReplyDeleteI've been out of UT for over twenty-five years, and I still refuse to buy anything orange because I'm still sick of the color.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I do remember visiting the new Titans stadium in Nashville the first time, and thinking "Hmm, not much of a stadium...." It's only about 65,000. What's Neyland Stadium now? About 105,000, I think.
I don't know if it's a torment or a comfort to think of them doing that elsewhere-- thought the rabid football-mania was just a Texas thing.
ReplyDeleteThe real question is--why would you go to the symphony when the Vols are playing?!? LOL
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