THERE IS NO POOR LIKE MOUNTAIN POOR

Its a little douche-y, but better than anything Kenny Chesney does:

HOT DAMN ITS TENNESSEE WEEK!

In a few short days, the town named after hogs will be invaded by a few.  Though I have scavenged my way through many SEC venues, no fan base is more flummoxing than VOL fan.  Why such an easy target?  It has to do with the location itself.  Perhaps to a WVA or VT fan, the VOL fan is more familiar.  That creature of the hills that plays only a banjo, eschews dentures, and values the Rubenesque woman is somewhat alien to the decorous gentry of the rest of the SEC.  

Gator fan is confident, no, make that assured, that the VOL fan only comes out of this home amongst the clouds and smoke to attend UT games.  A quick survey of Neyland Stadium confirms this.  To wit, the following panorama:

 

Never when perusing these faces do we see economic or social success on any level.  We see self-imposed misery on a level that defies educational classification.  Where would someone like this live?  In the hills, of course, high above those condescending masses who, at every step, would compel the VOL fan back into their unenviable place on the social strata. 

It is football, and football only where this creature may find some modicum of superiority, and their beloved VOLS have given it to them in short doses.  However, it has been rather short lived.  But, that doesn't stop the craving VOL fan has for an opportunity to feign superiority and, as Stevie Winwood put it, be back in the high life again.

So they will come, these pitiable masses.  They will be loud, they will be encumbered by ingesting their own homemade tonic, they will dance to their own peculiar anthem, one that testifies to their humble beginnings, and they will hope against hope for a very rare win in the SWAMP.  Because, as anyone sleeping on a dirt terrain aspires:  Maybe, just maybe, I can have a floor.

~  STAN GABLE ~