Jeremy and I go to the Met

My son Jeremy and I stood in the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a glorious fall day in New York. We were there because of Melanie Finnachario. She and I had been at a meeting in a hotel by the Newark airport and took shuttles into the City. We'd attended a workshop hosted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation hoping to find money for a health care clinic we planned to open in Savannah. The conference ended late Friday and we were flying out Sunday for we took Saturday to play in City. Jeremy was there because my son and I really have a good time when we're together. This was such an opportunity so I got him a cheap ticket to Newark and we stayed together. We got to the Met, had a hot dog on the corner out front, and then started our tour of some of the world's greatest art. There was only one problem. The University of Georgia was playing Kentucky at 1:00. Melanie had never been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and I promised that she could spend the day there. Jeremy was cool with it and everything was going fine ... until 1:00. Then Jeremy and I got ... itchy. My first clue was when we stood in front of Van Gogh's Stary Stary Night and Jeremy yelled "Go Dawgs!" I understood though Melanie and several thousand other visitors seemed a bit confused. "We gotta go," I explained to Melanie. My son grabbed one of her hands and I grabbed the other as we sprinted out of the Met to a corner bar where they showing ... the Syracuse game. Who the hell watches Syracuse? The mothers of the players don't even follow that team! They wear orange for God's sake! Grabbing the bartender by the throat, I demanded to know where in New York City the Georgia game was being shown. He kindly explained there is a group of rabid people who gather at a bar near 44th Street. Grabbing Melanie we sprinted to the place and, sure enough, we found our people. Georgia won on a last second field goal. Jeremy and I grew closer as father and son. Melanie quit a couple of years later. I was explaining all of this to Sarah the other day. She's from New York and stared at me as though I'm an uneducated southern idiot. Sympathetically hugging her, I explained, "Honey, it's tradition. It's family. It's friends who share the same devotion. It ain't Florida or Auburn. I'm so glad we're married because now ... you'll learn all of these things. And thank God I'm here for the girls. I mean ... Shit! They could be Buffalo Bills fans! ... Say it with me baby. Go Dawgs!"