Of course with our minds fixed on you-know-what, it’s difficult to reflect back on the way things were B.C.
You know, Before COVID.
Prior to the virus becoming the all-encompassing event it has, do you remember what was a major news/ sports story?
The Houston Astros baning on garbage can lids.
What innocent days.
But there have actually been events, especially weather, that played a hand in disrupting our lives back before we all had to learn words like “antigens.”
As we head into the football season, I can remember one Tiger football game which was impacted by a hurricane and one by a tornado.
The hurricane one was in the 1980s.
Rockdale was playing A&M Consolidated on the road and there was a big storm in the Gulf just churning around, not doing much of anything.
My friend Robert Cessna of the Bryan-College Station Eagle put me on A. His radio show; and B. On the spot; early in the week.
“Mike, who do you think is going to win?” he asked. I didn’t know he was going to do that.
I remember stammering: “I can confidently predict the Tigers will win.”
(Rockdale and A&M Consolidated both have tigers as mascots).
Hey, I was right!
The game was moved up to Thursday night. It was almost surreal. Few fans, warm, odd-feeling rain blowing sideways on me.
And that was it. The hurricane went somewhere else and the next night—original game night—was clear and pleasant in College Station and Rockdale.
It was a scarier memory in the 1990s when myself, Ken Cooke and my young son, Mark, headed to the Tigers— uh, the Rockdale Tigers— game in Burnet.
It was one of those dark skies in the afternoon kind of days and the clouds were green. There’s no other way to describe them.
We stopped for a quick supper at a fast-food place in Georgetown and the television was tuned to an Austin station. I think there were three or four then, not like the 47 they have now.
We were informed there were two tornado warnings in effect, one for Milam County, where we had started and one for Burnet County, where we were going.
We got to Burnet High School to find the teams huddled in the field house and everyone else taking shelter in the school.
Some of the Burnet officials told us a rotating cloud has just gone over. It was no surprise. We had heard on the radio a funnel cloud had been spotted at the highway intersection where you turn north to go to the school.
The game was canceled on the spot. A tornado did hit Milano that night.
After that, the only rotating objects I ever wanted to see at a football game were punts.
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