Back in my day

Hindsight and adulthood have altered my perspective, but when I reflect on my childhood, my daily activities offer clues about what life was like. Here are a few snapshots of growing up in suburban Dallas-Fort Worth in the 1970s and ‘80s:

Lance about age 7 posing on shag carpet with an indistinct photo backdrop with a bowl hair cut and wearing a white turtleneck with a red and gray striped jacket, tan pants and shiny brown dress shoes. — Rocking that ’70s bowl cut, turtleneck and jacket, I have always been a fashionable guy.

Screens were low-fidelity, bulky, and not at all portable. Television was our primary screen, and we watched it when the shows we liked and were allowed to watch were on. We scheduled our lives around “The Dukes of Hazzard,” “The Incredible Hulk,” and “The A-Team.” As a small child, I spent mornings with “Sesame Street,” “The Electric Company,” and “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.” Limited to about two to three hours a day, my viewing was dictated by my parents’ standards of decency and the dearth of age-appropriate content.

We had only four or five channels, which we tuned in to with an antenna. Our first television required a person to get up, walk over to the set and physically turn a knob to change the channel. I grew up hearing my parents watch the evening news, and sometimes I was awake to hear them watching Johnny Carson at bedtime. I don’t know what else they may have watched after we went to bed, but I remember on the weekends my dad watched nature documentaries and fishing shows like “Bill Dance Outdoors” and “Jimmy Houston Outdoors.” Concerns about screen time back then were as much about how close to the TV I sat as the hours I spent consuming programming.

I clearly recall TV sets evolving with such innovations as remote control and cable, expanding our channel selections. But what extended my screen time beyond a few hours a day was the advent of video games. When my brother and I received an Atari video game system for Christmas in the late 1970s, it took over the main television in our living room. My dad came up with a creative solution. To ease the competition for our family’s main screen, he set us up in my grandmother’s old florist delivery van in the garage. My dad put our old color TV and two chairs in the cargo area of the van. When it got too cold, he added an electric space heater. We imagined it was the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. It sparked our imaginations and kept us occupied for hours, allowing him to watch the TV in the den in peace.

At first we only had two Atari games, Space Invaders and Combat. Undeterred, we logged hours of screen time. With each birthday and Christmas we added to our game cartridge collection with such classics as Breakout, Missile Command, Asteroids, Adventure and Pitfall. The games advanced marginally with slightly fancier 8-bit graphics and more complicated storylines. Eventually, there were cinematic tie-ins with games like Indiana Jones and E.T. We had about 50 cartridges by the time we graduated to computer games when I was in high school.

The only portable games we had were the handheld electronic sports games: Football, Football II, Basketball, Soccer and Baseball. These were powered by 9-volt batteries and featured red LED lights representing the players. The player with the ball glowed just a bit brighter, and we had to hand the device back and forth depending on which player was on offense. The noisy games were nerve-wracking with their bleeps and bloops, so we kept them on mute for long car rides.

Mattel Classic Football 2 handheld electronic game — Bought this re-issue a few years back. The blinking LED “players” still confound my boys allowing me to show off my mad skills.

Now, the phone I carry everywhere has more computing power than those early video game systems and home computers. The amount of time I could spend gaming is limited only to the number of hours in a day. Today’s plethora of distractions require stronger limits and greater discipline, and the portability of such systems as the Nintendo Switch allows my children to take the game they were playing on a larger screen with them anywhere. Gone are the 8-bit animations, except in those games trying to evoke nostalgia with purposefully rudimentary graphics. The games have complex storylines, musical scores, and stunningly artistic imagery. When you factor in video streaming apps on iPhones and iPads for such services as Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus, and YouTube, my boys can access millions of hours of entertainment from anywhere, and it’s a special family event when we sit down together to watch something on our television, which leads to another clue…

Movies that captured our imagination didn’t come out every year. I was 7 years-old when the original “Star Wars” appeared in theaters where I grew up in the mid-cities between Dallas and Fort Worth. Though I may not have immediately grasped the plot, the inventive visuals were unlike anything I had ever seen. Lasers and spaceships and aliens all came to life in a way that my dreams took on a cinematic quality. What I saw on the big screen outstripped what I could imagine. In the years before VHS, though, we had very limited access to “Star Wars.” I remember listening to a radio play on my parents’ bedroom clock radio. It featured scenes cut from the original motion picture giving me precious nuggets of new information about the story of Luke Skywalker. I had “Star Wars” comic books as a way to delve into the world I had seen only once in a theater. The line of action figures, playsets, and spaceships allowed me and my brother, Lee, to tell our own “Star Wars” stories and stage our own battles even as we impatiently waited for the next installment in the series to arrive in theaters.

I was 10 and Lee was 6 when Mom took us to see “The Empire Strikes Back.” Our minds were blown during the climactic duel (spoiler alert) when Darth Vader revealed he was Luke Skywalker’s father. We were crushed when the movie ended with the swashbuckling Han Solo encased in carbonite being transported by the bounty hunter Boba Fett to the gangster Jabba the Hutt’s palace. No movie I had ever seen with such beloved characters had ever ended on such a down note. There was no immediate antidote to the depression. We had to wait another three years before “Return of the Jedi” lifted our spirits and filled us with the euphoria of victory over the galactic empire and the dark side.

In those intervening years, Lee and I received record albums of the movies’ soundtracks complete with dialog and the musical score. We listened to them so often we had large swaths of the films’ dialogue committed to memory. In a few years, we had VHS to allow us many, many rewatches of the original “Star Wars” trilogy. It was more than 20 years before another original “Star Wars” movie would come to theaters, and I had moved on from childhood and the “Star Wars” universe. With the release of “The Phantom Menace,” my childhood sense of awe and adventure came rushing back, even if the plot and acting were not up to the same level of excellence I had remembered from the original trilogy.

Now, I can literally watch “Star Wars” on television any time I want. There are more movies and weekly serial television-style stories that come through streaming services. If I wanted to inhabit the “Star Wars” universe, I can immerse myself any time I want. Gone are the days of waiting three years to discover the truth of Luke’s heritage and if Han will escape Jabba’s clutches.

For fans of “Star Wars” style action and adventure, there are also many more stories to consume. The Marvel Cinematic Universe cranks out two to three movies a year. It makes going to the movies a spectacle reminiscent of those childhood experiences with “Star Wars.” DC competes with a cinematic universe of its own, stuffing the comic book superhero genre with more movies than we can take in. My boys have far greater access to visual entertainment that appeals to them than I ever could have imagined in my youth. They also have far fewer reasons to go outside.

I played outdoors more often and played more sports as a child. Even though Texas summers could be unremittingly brutal, I spent most of my days outside. Armed with a toy gun arsenal no longer in vogue culturally, my brother and I matched up with neighbors and friends to play such traditional scenarios as army, cowboys and cops and robbers. When we got noisy “Star Wars” blasters for Christmas, we elevated our outdoor play to include “Star Wars” battles.

Bicycles were not only our primary mode of transportation, they were the source of hours of occupation. We were allowed to ride the neighborhood, which included a long, curving hill. We discovered the best way to get repeated thrill rides without having to pedal or push your bike back up the hill was to let the momentum carry you down the hill, around the curve, and down the street to the intersection. From there, you could turn right, go up a block, take another right, pedal down that street and you were back at the top of the hill. Occasionally we would be granted permission to ride our bikes to the nearby elementary school, which had a number of ramps and amphitheaters with thin steps separating the grade pods. The futuristic design and footprint of the campus enhanced a game of bicycle chase giving us the feeling we were on speeders tearing through Mos Eisley or some other “Star Wars” city.

I was very mindful of the seasons: football, baseball and basketball. Playing football one-on-one with my younger brother created some challenges. It forced us to follow special rules for rushing the passer and completing forward passes to one’s self. Football was always more fun when we recruited neighborhood friends to play, but our front yard field was often too confining to accommodate more than two-on-two. Larger games moved us out into the street where the call of “car!” caused frequent timeouts. Our world revolved around the Dallas Cowboys, so when we weren’t playing a game, we were recreating dramatic touchdown passes from Roger Staubach to Drew Pearson.

Wiffle ball was ideally suited for our situation. This baseball variation had a plastic bat and ball, so no windows would be broken. We could play one-on-one using basic baseball rules. Our yard served as the perfect venue with the other side of the driveway serving as the homerun barrier. My brother and I took turns deciding which major league team we would be for that contest, and we tried to make each game last five innings, although most ended after three. One summer we even drew up a schedule and would play a different make believe matchup each day. We were fans of the Texas Rangers, so we knew more about American League teams. The Yankees were the most hated opponent, and my brother and I didn’t like having to be their stand-ins.

I don’t remember what year we got a basketball goal, but I do remember we were not very good. We broke out the windows in the garage doors, forcing my dad to install plastic. Like wiffle ball, basketball was particularly well suited for my brother and I to play by ourselves, and we could shoot baskets alone. Our favorite game was “H-O-R-S-E” or the shorter version, “P-I-G” in which we took shots from various positions around the court. When your opponent missed a shot you had made, he accumulated the letters of the games’ namesake words. We also marked the driveway with chalk to have a course of what we called “Around the World.” The winner was the first person to make a shot at all the pre-marked spots.

The only similarity to my childhood outdoor play experiences that my boys have engaged in during their childhood is riding their bikes. When allowed, they take them all over the neighborhood. Admittedly, we were more restrictive with their territory until they were older. Our first house in Lilburn had a large, shady backyard. They played outdoors in a sandbox and on a tree swing and swing set. There was a basketball goal, but our boys never got into sports nearly as much as I did growing up. The creative outdoor play seemed to vanish when we moved into our current house with a terraced yard on a hill.

Mealtimes were more about quantity than quality. My mom prepared all of our meals, except for the occasions when my dad grilled. She took time off to stay home with each of her boys after we were born, but I also remember her spending a fair amount of our lives working. When we lived in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, that meant stressful days, long commutes and limited time to cook supper. Unlike kids these days, we did not have options at supper time. We ate what was set before us, and we typically had no say in what would be on the menu. I remember such delicacies as Hamburger Helper, meatloaf and fried fish that my dad would catch on his frequent fishing trips around the area. Side dishes came from a can or from a box, and as we got older my mom used instant potatoes to fill us up. We never ate school lunches, instead taking a lunch box or brown bag with a sandwich and chips. If there was an emphasis on eating healthy, I was unaware of it. The only rules in our house were “clean your plate” and “no dessert if you didn’t eat your vegetables.”

Church was the focus of our activity. If the doors of the church were open, we were there. Even before my dad left his job as an airline mechanic at American Airlines to go back to Bible college to prepare for the ministry, we were always at church. And we weren’t the only ones. Society was more focused on faith, and schedules were based on the assumption that families would be tied up with church activities on Sunday and potentially Wednesday night.

My family is still very much focused on church, and we’re still there every Sunday and most Wednesday nights. But society has moved beyond accounting for church activities when scheduling youth sports, Scout trips, and even school activities conflict with worship services. As a child, it never occurred to me that there would be anything else to do at those times. My boys have grown up keenly aware of what other kids do instead of going to church.

It’s a cliche to say “life was simpler back then.” It’s also probably not completely true. My awareness of what was going on in the world was limited by my childlike understanding of events like the Vietnam War, Watergate, the oil crisis, the Iranian hostage situation, and many other world events of that era.

From my vantage point, life was good. When we moved to Central Florida the summer I turned 12, my life changed dramatically. Adolescence coincided with a new landscape, and my innocence slowly faded as I became a preacher’s kid, enduring the scrutiny of a congregation and having to live up to a higher standard.

I remain grateful for my childhood and don’t for a second believe I suffered any lingering trauma. I enjoyed being a kid and count myself lucky to have grown up the way I did.

‘Stranger Things’ and nostalgic fads from my childhood

As my family indulges in season four of Netflix’s hit series “Stranger Things,” I’m once again overwhelmed with ’80s nostalgia. It has led to many conversations with my boys about which fads of the era I embraced.

No, I did not have Steve Harrington hair. Yes, I was a high school journalism nerd. No, I did not kill monsters with a baseball bat filled with nails. Truthfully, I did not grow up in a fad-following family, but there were a few fads that slipped through.

As independent, fundamentalist, Bible-believing Baptists, we were taught to “be in the world, but not of the world.” We were expected to separate ourselves from the culture around us. I learned at an early age to mistrust anything that was too popular or seemed to be counter to my religious upbringing.

The list of prohibitions was lengthy and included rock and roll, Christian rock, any music with a beat, movies, playing cards, dancing, swearing, books with swearing, TV shows with swearing, immodest clothing, long hair (for males), sex, discussions of sex, nudity, alcohol, going to bars, eating at restaurants that served alcohol, drugs, smoking, dipping, any activity on Sunday other than church, and many others that I’m not remembering at the moment. You can rest assured I abstained from all of them.

Still, no one is an island. I was not immune to the cultural forces at work during my formative years in the 1970s and ‘80s. The first popular culture phenomenon that captured my attention was without question “Star Wars.” I didn’t see it when it was first released the summer of 1977, but I distinctly remember having a “Star Wars” lunchbox in the second grade. By the time I saw it in 1978, every kid I knew was conversant on the plot and characters. While not the first movie I saw in theaters, it was the most influential. It captured my imagination in a way nothing else had, and my parents fed my fascination with action figures and toy spaceships. My brother and I would play “Star Wars” as well, acting out scenes or creating new ones with our favorite characters. We even started writing our own space adventure movie, using our names spelled backwards for the characters. In hindsight, this was probably the first spark of an interest in writing and creating that would later shape my career choice.

A wall of Star Wars movie action figure toys fill a wall. — This display of “Star Wars” action figures would have made my younger self ecstatic with greed. I sold my brothers and my collection in the mid-1990s, just before the prequels. Probably should have held onto them. Photo courtesy of KennerCollector.com

It wasn’t just the story of “Star Wars” that appealed to me. I loved the characters. Initially, I was all “Team Skywalker,” sharing Luke’s naïveté about the universe and his yearning for adventure. As a pre-teen and young teen, I shifted my loyalty and appreciation to the roguish Han Solo. His brashness stood in stark contrast to my shyness, and I secretly wanted to be able to have a “shoot first” and fly by the seat of my pants approach to life.

Upon further reflection, it was most likely my admiration for Han that led me to partake in the fad of parting my hair down the middle. As I grew into adolescence and actually started combing my hair, I traded the bowl cut of childhood for an attempted feathered middle part like Harrison Ford wore in “Empire Strikes Back.” At the time, I never considered my hairstyle to be fashion forward, and our conservative views ensured my hair would never be so long as to touch my ears or my collar. The fact my parents permitted such an overtly worldly hairstyle was either a function of ignorance to the trend or relief that I finally wanted to comb my hair at all. I had dueling cowlicks on either side of my bangs, so the center-part cut worked as well as anything could at the time. I began carrying a comb in my back pocket, even before I had a wallet. It was 8 to 10 inches long, cream colored, and plastic with a wide handle for easy grasping when the need arose to style my hair with dramatic strokes.

We moved to rural, central Florida the summer I turned 12. My dad was called to pastor a church in Lake Wales, a small town known for humidity, orange trees, retirees and cows. It was hardly the center of the cultural universe, and my location reinforced my lack of participation in fads. I also went from being a kid no one really paid attention to, to the preacher’s oldest son. Expectations increased. Perception became crucial for whether or not parishioners criticized my dad’s ministry. My appearance and clothing took on greater importance at the exact time I crossed the threshold into adolescence.

It was at that time I began to embrace the footwear fad that swept through the 1980s – the boat shoe. We were not a yachting family, but few were who wore the dark brown shoe with rawhide laces and white plastic soles. My first pair of boat shoes were hand-me-downs from my Uncle Rocky. I thought they were tremendously cool. The only problem was that they were tan and not dark brown. I wanted to tell people that even though they weren’t the “right” color, they still counted as boat shoes and, therefore, by extension, I was still cool. I was outgrowing clothes quickly at that age, so it wasn’t long before I left Rocky’s tan boat shoes behind. The “preppy” look became the fashion fad of the mid-1980s, so plaid button up or polo shirts with Levi’s 501 button fly jeans and dark brown boat shoes without socks became my uniform. Fortunately, my look was conservative enough to pass muster with the church folks and the preppy teens of Central Florida. I’m not sure if it added to my self-confidence, but it certainly helped me blend in. Others may have embraced ripped jeans, mullets, and rock band T-shirts, I basically dressed like most of my friends.

A red-haired, teen-aged girl in blue pants, a yellow shirt with a navy sweater wrapped around her neck and Sperry Top Siders talks with a young man in a light blue polo, white pants and brown boat shoes. They are both holding books. She is sitting on a brick wall in front of a school, and he is leaning against the wall. — One did not have to own a boat to sport boat shoes back in the day. It was my footwear of choice for probably longer than was fashionable. Source BestLifeonline.com

Being a preacher’s kid was isolating. My brothers and I naturally gravitated toward video games. From the first Atari we received at Christmas around 1980 to the Atari 800 XL computer that showed up around 1986, we embraced video gaming at home as a hobby. We spent hours with those early games – Space Invaders, Asteroids, Missile Command and Pitfall. High scores were bragging rights between my middle brother and me. Video games occupied us for hours, kept us out of trouble and made sure we didn’t succumb to the list of sins enumerated above. The computer games that consumed us as the technology improved and our tastes matured included M.U.L.E., Archon, Zork, and sports games like “One-on-One: Dr. J vs. Larry Bird.” There is no sound in contemporary life that mimics the whirring of the floppy disk drive as a game loads.

An original Atari video game controller with a game cartridge inserted — Too many hours to count of my childhood and teens were lost to this device, the original Atari. From Space Invaders to Asteroid to the Activision games of Pitfall and Starmaster, that little box and its joystick controllers were my brother, Lee, and my constant entertainment.

At the time and now, that combination of fads seems pretty nerdy, but the rise of nerd culture makes it easier to admit what my life really looked like growing up. The church was a constant, good grades were expected, chores and yard work were character-building. But an honest assessment of cultural participation during my formative years is incomplete without “Star Wars,” a middle part, boat shoes and Atari. And you know what? I don’t regret it.

Nerd alert

Carlton's seat for Dragon*Con — Carlton had the best view of the Dragon*Con parade last year.

Does dressing in the costume of your favorite super hero make you a nerd?

Does carrying a plastic gun or laser sword make you a nerd?

Does donning pointed ears and makeup to resemble an elf make you a nerd?

Does getting up early on a holiday weekend to go downtown and watch a parade of these people make you a nerd?

My nerd tendencies have always had an uneasy coexistence with my jock inclincations. Before the days of fanboys and geek chic, I had a sense that my interest in “Star Wars,” “Lord of the Rings” and other art forms from that genre had a place, but not a very public one if I valued my reputation.

Dragon*Con Parade storm troopers — Hey, these aren’t the droids you’re looking for. Put that gun away!

As pop culture references to such things have become more mainstream, I’ve been a little more willing to give my inner nerd some room to breathe. And now that I have three boys who have fully embraced “Star Wars,” “Harry Potter” and “Batman” I am confronted with a dilemma: do I encourage their interest in imagination-inducing entertainment or dampen their enthusiasm for elements of nerd culture and get them to embrace more mainstream elements of pop culture?

Last year I completely gave in to nerddom by taking the whole family — even Carla — downtown to see the spectacle that is the annual Dragon*Con parade. You know Dragon*Con right?

It is the big gathering of nerds held every Labor Day weekend in Atlanta. Officiallly, it “is the largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the universe.” I can’t challenge their assertion because, frankly, I haven’t traveled much outside of our solar system.

Batmobile at the Dragon*Con parade — “Engine to power. Turbine to speed.” No, I’m not talking about the Batmobile, I’m talking about Barron’s heart when he saw it!

We didn’t buy tickets to the event, so it was a fun, cheap way to spend a Saturday. The boys got to see people dressed in costumes of their favorite characters, including a 1966 replica Batmobile (Barron’s current obsession) and I got to relive a portion of my own childhood with all the Star Wars costumes.

The float and characters promoting the haunted houses were a little much for Carlton, who was 2 years-old at the time. Otherwise, it was a family-friendly parade.

So why am I going back again this year?

1. It’s fun. It’s not every day you see people trying to bring to life fictional characters who live only in your imagination, on the movie or television screen or in books. It has the same vibe as running into a celebrity at the airport, only that usually doesn’t involve plastic weapons.

2. It’s a time to bond with my boys. I’ve dedicated a lot of space in this blog to talking about how I bond with my children. Camping is one way. Engaging in the “campy” elements of pop culture is another.

3. Who doesn’t love a parade? I still remember sitting on the frozen curb as a child watching the Cotton Bowl parade with my friend, Ryan, one New Year’s Day. It’s a spectacle, and the democracy of the Dragon*Con approach of taking all comers (who sign in and arrive at the check point on time) is refreshing. There’s really no skill involved. And it’s interesting to try to pick out what each group of nerds is representing. There are some pretty obscure corners of pop culture represented, and fortunately, my friend, Rob, is an expert who can help identify the more niched references.

4. Sometimes the real world is just a downer. There’s world hunger, hurricanes, war in Syria, stalled economy, crime, etc., etc., etc. Being transported to another place and time for a few hours may not be productive but it does make it easier to cope.

5. I’m still a kid at heart. As much as I try to repress my urge to pick up a light saber and run around the yard joining in my boys’ Jedi combat, I must have an outlet for my inner child. Yes, it’s a little nerdy to always be quoting Obi Wan Kenobi (“Trust your feelings”) or Gandalf (“It’s the deep breath before the plunge”) at the office, but giving space for these fantastical diversions moderates the highs and lows of a workday.

So if you’re looking for me Saturday morning, I’ll be at the corner of Peachtree Street and International Boulevard hanging out with my boys watching the denizens of Dragon*Con strut their stuff. And if that makes me a nerd, well, so be it.

Do you have hidden nerd tendencies? What’s your secret nerd indulgence? Go ahead and get it out in the open. You’ll feel better. We won’t laugh. I promise.

New South Bracketology

There are times I pretend to be an expert: any discussion of running, life in the New South, Star Wars and fantasy football.

There are other times when no amount of pretending can cover up glaring ignorance: parenting, relationships, basic plumbing and filling out NCAA tournament brackets.

Here it is, in all its glory: the 2012 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament bracket. After one day, mine is taking on water.

The mania that has swept the country during the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments (although primarily the men’s) overshadows real news of importance in people’s lives. The never-ending Republican primary plays in the background as gas prices soar, tensions rise in Afghanistan and Iran and severe weather spreads across tornado alley through the Midwest and South.

All that stuff impacts people’s lives, but for a few days, the NCAA tournament distracts us from all that and gives us something else to think about.

What teams did you pick for the Final Four? Leave a comment below with your picks and join the madness!

Of course, the Internet is to blame for this. Back in the day, you had to go out and buy an actual newspaper to fill out a bracket. I can’t remember the last time I put pencil (definitely not pen!) to a bracket on newsprint. Maybe 1997? In any case, the ubiquitous bracket online and the obnoxious presence of ESPN have conspired to empower anyone to fill out a March Madness bracket.

The result? More ground lost to women in the battle of the sexes.

That’s right, the bracket is no longer male-only turf. All it takes is for one woman to post a bracket on Pinterest and suddenly, millions of women discover that they, too, can compete. Perhaps their significant others have been hiding this bracket from them in order to preserve the last bastion of competition where men can pretend to have superiority.

The democratization of the bracket now has more women entering – and winning – NCAA tournament pools. Why? Women aren’t bogged down in details like offensive rebounds, road records and defensive styles. Their picks reflect the truly random nature of the NCAA tournament.

Vandy takes down Harvard — The Harvard of the South defeated the actual Harvard in round one of the NCAA men's basketball tournament on Thursday.

Back when I worked in newspapers, it was always the sports writers who did the worst. All of their knowledge only clouded their judgment. The newsroom pool was usually won by a copy editor with a degree in English literature who made her selections on the basis of which school had the best library or most published authors.

I’m just grateful that my wife hasn’t shown any interest. The humiliation of losing to her in an NCAA tournament pool would only add to the list of subjects in which I can no longer debate her with any credibility. That list includes colors, the arrangement of furniture, baby names, etiquette, television and relationships.

This is really the only week the tournament matters. After the field is narrowed to 16 this weekend, the majority of the country’s brackets will be hopelessly mangled, and the tournament will join the other current events as background noise to our lives. Only the real, hardcore fans will stick with this thing to the end on April 2.

Besides, the real fun lies in figuring out a way to avoid work on Thursday and Friday of the opening week to watch the games. Again, the Internet has brought about a huge sea change on how people slack off from work to watch basketball.

Back in the day, you had to sneak away for a three-hour lunch to watch games or somehow get a portable television into your office. Now you can just log on to ESPN.com and let the Gamecast take it from there – not that I would EVER do that.

When the number of games diminishes to three or four a night, and they all appear in prime time, the illicit nature of the tournament will be gone, along with most of our final four picks, and life can return to normal.

So at the risk of being held accountable by my faithful readers, I will reveal my Final Four selections: Kentucky, Missouri, Florida State and North Carolina. I predict North Carolina will beat Kentucky in the championship, 76-69.

Your guess is as good as mine.

Have you filled out your bracket? Who made your final four? Who is your champion? Leave New South Nation your picks in a comment below and join the fun!