By Staff
Leada DeVaney, Editor
I was sitting at a small town festival in Wesson, Miss. this weekend, my attention tuned to the Alabama/Ole Miss game that was playing on our radio.
I wasn't paying much attention to what was going on around me, caught up in the knowledge that Alabama was getting its tail kicked up and down the field.
A nice lady walked up and asked "Are we winning?" to which I replied, "No, we're getting killed."
"Ole Miss is getting beat?" she asked. "I was listening to the game in the car and they were doing well. What happened?"
"Oh – that we," I replied. "Yes, that we is winning. My we – Alabama – is getting killed."
She just smiled and walked away.
About an hour later, Greg was standing near the radio, listening as his team took on Mississippi State. I had quit listening by this point, and all I had to do was see the smile on his face to know that the score was to his liking.
I walked over to say something to him (probably something about how I hate Auburn) when a man approached him.
"How we doing?" he asked, tilting his head towards the radio.
"We're doing just fine," Greg replied. "Cadillac's scored about four touchdowns already."
The man looked perplexed, then corrected himself.
"No, I mean, how is Mississippi State doing?" he asked.
"Oh," Greg replied. "Not so well."
Later that same day, Greg's 16-year-old niece Michelle rode in the car with me as we made our trip back home. Everyone was tired from the long day and all I wanted was some peace and quiet, something that was going to be hard to find with Michelle, her brother Michael and Greg's son Derek in the car with me.
She reached down to the radio and found a station that seemed to specialize in throbbing, thumping music. She began to sing along and promopted her brother and cousin in the back seat to join in with her.
"Waive your hands in the air," she sang at the top of her lungs.
"Michelle," I said. "All of these songs sound alike and it's really loud and annoying. How do you listen to this stuff?"
"We all listen to it," she said with a laugh. "We all like it."
We again. Another we. There seems to be a lot of them.
There's the we that likes Ole Miss.
There's another we that likes Mississippi State.
Then there's the we that likes to listen to loud thumping music.
I will tell you this: it's a long way from we to me.