TEXARKANA ARCANA

Had an interesting drive from Memphis to Shreveport this afternoon. It was yet another gorgeous blue-sky, Sunshine Studly day, by the way. About an hour into Arkansas on I-40, I passed a large windowless, aluminum-sided building. The sign outside read "OPEN 24 HOURS" and there was a huge, tall sign closer to the road sporting nothing but three large red "X's".

"Should I see what that's alll about?" I asked my good friend Mike, who was on the Crackberry with me.

"You do NOT wanna do that," he assured me. "They may be having a Sunday 'Deliverance' special at the expense of all Yankees. A 'Yankee Yank Ye'."

"Yeah, I'll avoid that."

I stopped in Forrest City next, where they had a Bonanza. All efforts to have them slightly alter the sign (It needs a "w" and an "l") were kindly refused. At the local Shell station they were having a "KNIFE SALE". No lie. I totally should have jumped on that.

Also passed through Hope, Arkansas (birthplace of Hillary's husband), and Texarkana...which produced Jeff Keith, lead singer of Tesla (although, unlike President Clinton, there is no sign on the highway commemorating this occasion).

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Independents Bowl

If they can have an Independence Bowl between a pair of .500 teams--sending the not-so-subtle message that freedom is all about breaking even--, why not have an Independents Bowl? We'll pit the two top independent schools in Division I-A against one another every year and Ralph Nader can do the pre-game coin toss. Sure, there are only three independents in I-A, but let's not quibble over details. We can quibble over whether Army or Notre Dame, both of whom finished 3-9 this season, would have been more deserving to face Navy.

No. Why quibble? Give it to Army.

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Jordon Dizon Fun Fact: Dizon, Colorado's inside linebacker and the nation's leading tackler (107 solo tackles) is a graduate of Waimea High School on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. Waimea is the westernmost high school in the United States. It's facts such as that always make the CU media guide the most interesting one in all of the NCAA. That's because of CU SID/associate AD Dave Plati , who is now in his 30th season in Boulder.

How long has Dave been there? He was the SID when my man Ryan Walters' dad played there from 1986-89. And yes, I just realized that I'm not just old enough to be Ryan Walters' dad, I'm older than his dad.