HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DALTON, GO SOONERS! O-U !

I spent my entire childhood in the great state of Texas, frolicking upon the vast miles of wide open plains, singing "the stars at night, are big and bright......," (not) picking the government protected bluebonnets, and dreaming of becoming a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader because that was the natural order of EVERY little girl there. Raised in the Lone Star State, with legends of the Alamo, and the Texas Rangers (the sheriff posse first and then the baseball team) and the sandy beaches of Padre where I more specifically lived all a of part of the internal makeup that made me proudly Texan. And rooting for the University of Texas Longhorns, partly because it was the natural expectation of my birthright and partly because it seemed so exciting in a place where football is bigger than the distance from border to border.
Then in my junior year of high school, I was carted north of the border courtesy of a job promotion for my Dad (who only five years later experienced his first layoff and was sent back south. Coincidence? Or an elaborate plan to rid of me forever? Mwahahahaha.) But by then I had met a boy, a die-hard arch enemy of the Longhorns and a crimson wearing wild man. I don't know how we crossed party lines, but like a Capulet and a Montegue, we were not supposed to be together. We kept a playful rivalry for years, specifically the years when OU was not so hot to trot for the first time in like, forever. In the early nineties. In our early marriage. But then our first born came along, a boy, and it only seemed right to let go and let him root for his Dad's beloved Sooners. And as our brood grew, and Bob Stoops came (he is a class act and expects all his players to be the same) and the boys enjoyed Saturday games together in Norman in the live action, and the reputations of the players of the past gave way to a bunch of super nice ethical guys that my boys could actually look up to, and we became friends with the team doctor and with a Heisman winner's dad, but STILL couldn't get special tickets because they are so hot, I began to embrace the whole thing. I bought a couple of T-shirts. I root for them anytime they are not playing Texas. And even then I feel like I win either way. I am a rare bird that some claim can not exist. But my husband has accepted me. And I have come to understand that taking a man's team is much like taking his last name. It just identifies you to the tribe that is your family.

So tonight we are celebrating my son's 12th year on Earth. In Sooner country. A crimson and cream child, born and bred. And like I was brought up surrounded by the legacy of the Six Flags of ownership nations, warm winters and starry wide-open night skies, he will forever equate himself with stories of schooners and land runs and Indians and oil. He's having a birthday watch party as the University of Oklahoma Sooners football team vies for the title of BCS National Champions, nine years after they last carried the title. They've had a fantastic season! They have lost only one game this entire year, and then by a very small margin.
I betcha' can't guess who beat 'em?

I'll be wearing red tonight, but I'm just sayin'. ;)