Guest Editorial-Opinion September 2021

I’m not sure if this world is about to return to normal, but thank God it is about to at least feel normal again.

January means the start of a new year, but for the past 50 years or so, September has been the start of my new year. Many approach Jan. 1 with gusto as they anticipate a new beginning, a renewed opportunity, a promise of better things to come. That is my approach to September. Something about the crispness in the night air, the first day of dove season and the start of the college football season lights my fire. I have experienced so much in my 66 years that very few things excite me these days. Let the record show, however, that I am once again excited now that September is here.

My love of September can be traced back to my early childhood, long before I even started hunting. I was born in LaGrange, and then my dad, Clyde Bolton, lived in Winder before he went on to become a college football writer for the Birmingham News. He took me everywhere with him. I went to football practices with him for the major SEC teams. I remember being in the Alabama dressing room in 1963 when it was announced that Coach Bryant had suspended Joe Namath.

My dad took our family with him every Saturday when he went to cover SEC football games. We’d have to wait for hours afterward as he wrote his stories, but that was nothing but a blessing for a kid. My brothers and I would get out on the football field with a football and imagine we were the stars.

We traveled a lot. When my dad covered road games, we’d leave on Fridays, stay in motels, go to the games and return on Sundays. That created an oddity for me that I doubt very few can claim. By the time I got to high school, I had probably seen 100 college football games. Because we always left on Fridays to go to college games growing up, we didn’t follow the local high school games. In fact, I played in the first high school football game that I ever saw.

Just when I thought life couldn’t get any better, I went on my first dove hunt when I was a freshman in high school. On that day, September became an additional attraction, and quandary, for me. Should I go to a college football game on the opening day of dove season? I chose dove hunting. The camaraderie, the BBQs and blasting away in a good dove field while listening to football games on the radio are some of my fondest memories ever.

I’ve been lucky to have been invited to many great dove hunts over the past 45 years. Oddly, the two dove hunts I will remember most are for bad reasons. They both occurred in the 1980s. I can’t remember the exact year for the first one, but the dove season had been moved up one week that year. I went on what was supposed to be a great hunt. It was 97 degrees at noon. It didn’t take long for me to decide that I just didn’t hate doves that bad.

The second occurred in 1987. I was still young and dumb then. That day provided me with one of the most valuable lessons in my life.

A former Alabama football player, who will remain nameless,  invited me to a hunt. I met him at his home, and he said he had to get a bet in before we left. He asked if I wanted to bet. I said I didn’t bet on football games.

He kept explaining how Alabama wasn’t as good as they used to be, but they were surely 13 points better than Memphis State. I finally reluctantly said I’d bet $5. He said I’m betting $500 for you. Well, since it was a sure thing and all… Alabama, who had already beaten No. 1 Penn State, wasn’t 13 points better than Memphis State on this day. In fact, Alabama didn’t even win the game. I listened in horror on the radio. Late in the fourth quarter, my friend said that the next low bird that came through I could shoot him and he could shoot me and it would look like a hunting accident. He was kidding of course, but for a poor boy like me who had to go home and tell his wife what a stupid thing he had done. That is the story of my only football bet, one of the few bad memories of all my Septembers.

A better bet? That my dove field sit this September will be nothing but good memories.