Ok, well, my Daddy (RIP) loved him some UT football. He was a poor country boy who didn't go to college, because he got drafted out of high school before he even graduated to fight in WWII. He married my Momma on leave between basic training and shipping out. He got wounded and captured by the Germans at the Rapido River (you can google that). My Momma was working at an airplane factory in Ohio and got word he was MIA, before learning that he was alive and a POW. He got away when Russian tanks and artillery rolled into the town where he was being held at a POW camp in Poland. He and some other guys stole a tractor with a wagon and drove it to France where they eventually hooked up with U.S. forces and finally made their way home and he was reunited with my Momma. They had a restaurant at a boat dock in middle Tennessee, but moved to South Knoxville when I was six months old so my older sister could attend TSD. Daddy got his GED and went to business school on the GI bill, then got a job as an accountant at a local dry cleaning chain. He paid for Momma to go to beauty school and then she opened a beauty shop. We didn't have a lot of money, but they worked their asses off to provide for us and I never felt poor. My Daddy loved football, and became a huge UT fan. He couldn't afford tickets, but we could see the lights and hear the roar of Neyland Stadium from across the river, and we listened to John Ward call the games on the radio. Later on, my Daddy was able to afford season tickets, and went to every game except when he gave them to the then grown up me and my then newlywed Mrs. Later he could no longer go to the games, but he watched every one on TV or listened to them on the radio if they weren't on TV. (I played in band, and in high school actally got to march on Shields Watkins field before a game one time as part of some sort of high school invitational. My Daddy was proud.) I attended UTC on a band scholarship, but came back home after one semester because I missed my future Mrs. too much. I went to UTK, but later dropped out. My Daddy wasn't too proud of that, but he helped me get a job that kickstarted my career. My wife's Dad (RIP) was a professor at UT so her family was All Vol. Her Mom (RIP) was the world's greatest Lady Vols fan and went to every game. So we came from completely different backgrounds, but the University of Tennessee and the Vols are like a river that runs through our lives.
