Smiley Anders for July 31, 2008

• By SMILEY ANDERS
• Advocate columnist
• Published: Jul 31, 2008 - Page: 1B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Those University of Alabama people never miss an opportunity to promote the Crimson Tide.

This fact was brought home to me last week by a story my brother Louis told me.

Louis and his wife Jane, of Oakdale, were vacationing at Gulf Shores, Ala., when Jane injured her neck in a surfboard accident.

At a clinic in Foley, Ala., it was determined that she needed to go immediately to Mobile for surgery.

The neck brace they put on her in Foley just happened to be purple and gold. (But Louis and Jane are indeed serious LSU fans.)

The surgeon at the Mobile Infirmary, Dr. William Brent Faircloth, must have noted the LSU colors and the fact that his patient was from Louisiana.

Because after the two-hour, thankfully successful surgery, he told a still groggy Jane that he had been operating around her vocal chords and needed her to talk so he could make sure they hadn’t been damaged.

“Repeat after me,” he told her: “Roll, Tide … .”

She dutifully repeated the refrain before she realized her blasphemy …

Too much news
Skip Goldstein, of Prairieville, says, “While I was helping teach at a vacation Bible school this summer, a group of 6-year-olds were playing on an old 1950s swing set with a glider.

“The glider, because of age, was somewhat crooked.

“As I prepared to show Darreis how this old-timer used to swing on it, he said, ‘Mr. Skip, you better not get on that thing, it has issues.’

“You think Darreis has been watching the Legislature too long?”