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“We’ll make our own history,” he said, a good long while before asking her “Would you like to have more adventures with me?”
“Yes, of course!” she said.
So their families and closest friends gathered on the hottest day of the year.
Five years. Time flies. Hearts deepen. Affections widen. Romance grows. Respect multiplies. Blessings. Challenges. Successes, triumphs, joy. Laughter. Beautiful smiles. Favorite phrases and lilting voices.
Five years. Adventures. History.
Tiger, War Eagle VI, has died, the university has announced.
Tiger never yielded, which is what you want out of an eagle that you ask to fly down a field. So long associated with Auburn, she was thought to be among the oldest golden eagles in captivity.
Tiger started that uniquely Auburn tradition, superlative to almost every other pre-game routine everywhere, at the beginning of the 2000 season.
A friend of mine was a member of the service fraternity who took care of her back then, when she lived in the aviary just off the concourse. You could see them training her at a particular time most any afternoon.
When my family came to visit my freshman year I took my grandmother by to meet Tiger. She had her picture made with her. “That’s just something you don’t get to do every day.”
My grandmother did it again the next year too. Then she said “I bet nobody ever gets to do that!”
The first eagle to fly free in Jordan-Hare Stadium soared through the 2006 installment of the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry. For her last Iron Bowl, the 2005 “Honk if you sacked Brodie” game, Tiger landed near us on the field. They’d named the field itself after Pat Dye. It was Carl Stephen’s last game as the voice of the stadium. Tiger sacked Brodie twice.
During Tiger’s years of mascot service Auburn amassed a record of 75-27 with the SEC championship in 2004.
A grateful nation also asked her to fly in the 2002 Olympics.
After Nova and Spirit took over the pre-game flights, Tiger kept touring and teaching as part of her role at the Southeast Raptor Center.
She helped educate audiences throughout the region. Her likeness remains a fund raiser. Believed to be one of the oldest golden eagles in captivity, Auburn announced today that she has died at 34.
War Eagle! Fly down the field! Ever to conquer, never to yield!
(A brief version of this post appeared at The War Eagle Reader.)
We spent the day returning the house to order. When you close up shop for a time it only makes sense that you have things to do to return it to a living domicile. I dismissed the seven ninjas who secured the premises and returned to the joys of the simple things of daily life. Little things like laundry.
We spent most of the day, though, wondering what we’d just done. That is a long, long drive.
Allie handles it like a champ:
We don’t let her into the driver’s seat, of course, but she is great otherwise. She has three places in the back seat to recline and pace. She sits on the passenger, she sits in the passenger floorboard. She spends time under the passenger’s seat. You wouldn’t think there would be enough room, or desirable, but she hangs out there some. And she does laps. She travels better than I do, I think.
Since we had nothing in the kitchen we went out for lunch, for veggies. Our order was wrong. Ahh, to be home. This is one of those places where you order and they give you a ticket with a number and then a girl who is trying really hard brings out your food. This was my ticket:
Thirty-four. To be home again.
When I went to the post office to collect the mail, I saw this:
Ahh, it is great to be home.
We are back, having made landfall in New Jersey this morning.
After a week unplugged I had 201 emails, 15 percent of which required my attention. Why did I receive the rest of them?
Pizza at Colony with friends tonight. I must have eaten a pie by myself. (Which is great because careful food choices on the ship, 17 miles on a stationary bike, 14 miles running and a half-mile swimming meant I didn’t gain any weight during the cruise.)
We caught up on the last two episodes of Game of Thrones. (SPOILER: Can you believe that one that that one character did!?!?!) I watched a few other things and read email and tried to catch up on news. I’ll be close to up to speed tomorrow, I’m sure.
We’ll be on the road home. Some trip we’ve had, huh?
Ran 10K this morning. Spent most of the rest of the day reading and relaxing at sea. Those are two great sentences.
Our cruise is winding down. (A sad sentence, indeed.) I would be remiss without mentioning our waiter and assistant waiter.
Peggie is from Nicaragua:
Alvaro is from Peru:
No request was too strange, no favor done with sarcasm or exasperation.
Wednesday night I asked Alvaro if he could find some sour cream. “This is stupid, but just ask and if it requires any more searching than that, don’t think another thing of it.”
A few minutes later he brought back a great big dish of the stuff. We stored it in our stateroom’s mini-fridge and applied it to light sunburns. It really works. Tell everybody. I told Alvaro the next night and he was surprised.
And then we all went out for baked potatoes.
OK, that very last part isn’t true, but this part is: when you cruise with Celebrity, you get great service.
