About Dawson County news. (Dawsonville, Georgia) 2015-current | View Entire Issue (May 29, 2024)
PAGE 7 A Send a letter to the editor to P.O. Box 1600, Dawsonville, GA 30534; fax (706) 265-3276; or email to editor@dawsonnews.com. DawsonOpinion WEDNESDAY, MAY 29,2024 This is a page of opinion — ours, yours and others. Signed columns and cartoons are the opinions of the writers and artists, and they may not reflect our views. Its hard to be a sore loser in Georgia The things you leam on this job. Someone called PromoGuy who, as it turns out, isn’t a guy at all, but a company that has something to do with sports betting says Georgians feel down for an average of 39 minutes after their favorite sports team suffers a disappointing result. It turns out that we are well above — or below — the national average. According to the guys at PromoGuy, Americans in general feel down for 2.5 hours after a bad sports out come — or 2 hours and 38 minutes, if you want to be precise. PromoGuy says they wanted to share this with us after conducting a nationwide survey a couple of months ago that involved 2,137 American sports enthusiasts. Of all the par ticipants, 60% were male 38% were female, 1% non-binary, and 1% was identi fied as something other than all of the above which I don’t understand but have chosen not to pursue, lest I should find out. The average age of respondents was 41 years. So, which state has the biggest snit when they lose a game? West Virginia. People in West Virginia feel down for an average of 17 hours. In their defense, since their econ omy, education, health care and infrastruc ture rank at the bottom of almost every national ranking, you can see why they would want to spend 17 hours thinking about something other than their quality of life. If you are not affected by a serious case of eye-glaze at this point, PromoGuy says to tell you the second grumpiest state behind West Virginia when their team loses is Missouri. They spend 12 hours, 33 min utes obsessing over a loss. That surprises me since the Kansas City Chiefs reside in Missouri and they don’t lose often. Maybe we should send them the Atlanta Falcons and give them something to really get upset about. It seems the third crankiest state after West Virgina and Missouri is Montana. Montana? I find that hard to believe. With all the majestic mountains and pristine fly fishing spots available to the locals, they worry 12 hours and 30 minutes about los ing a ballgame? Kentucky ranks 4th in the bad loser cate gory, which doesn’t surprise me. It is all about basketball in Kentucky. The University of Kentucky has won 8 national titles and finished 2nd twice and its boost ers don’t take kindly to losing. PromoGuy says Kentuckians will fret an average of 8 hours and 53 minutes. After that it is time to take action. John Calipari won a national championship in 2012, went 410 - 123 (.769) and was given a lifetime contract in 2019. His lifetime at Kentucky lasted four more years. Calipari is now the head coach at the University of Arkansas, where their fans only stay upset for 52 minutes. Connecticut rounds out the top 5 sore losers at 5 hours and 33 minutes. What do they have to be sore about? UConn men have won two consecutive national basket ball championships (six in all) and the UConn women have won 11 NCAA titles, including four in a row from 2013 through 2016. What do the citizens of Connecticut have to be sore about? Get a life, people. The state that recovers the quickest to a loss according to PromoGuy is Nebraska. They spend 22 minutes on the subject. That figures. Their once-proud football team can’t beat two eggs in a pan these days. They are 38-55 over the past decade. I guess the locals say, who cares? Interestingly, Mississippi is the next least-stressed state. Supposedly, they get over a loss in 25 minutes. Forgive me for questioning PromoGuy but I am betting that’s as wrong as turning left on a red light. I can guarantee you that the loser of the annual Egg Bowl between Ole Miss and Mississippi State doesn’t get over it in 25 minutes. That is serious business in Mississippi — a year’s worth of bragging rights. It takes 25 minutes just to come to the realization that somebody is going to have 365 miserable days until the next Egg Bowl. As for the Great State of Georgia, we have so many things to be grateful for that we don’t spend much time brooding over a loss. And when your alma mater loses 2 football games in 3 years you have to work hard to stay upset for 39 minutes. Having shared this information with you, I hope PromoGuy will consider a survey on why we need to know this stuff. I’m bet ting they won’t. You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@dickyar- brough.com or at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, GA 31139. DICK YARBROUGH Columnist The non-vacationers I’ve gone on very few vaca tions in my life time, the majority of them being with my Ex and his family. He thought it was odd that my family didn’t take vacations. Little did he know about the ill-fated trips we had attempted over the years. We had tried to do small day trips, never staying any where overnight. Just a few hours were enough to let us know it was enough. Usually I got car sick. Or maybe it was the combina tion of whatever I ate that usually involved ice cream and something fried. Pop and Bobby wanted to get home to watch a ball game, or the whole excur sion was planned around a by week. When we returned from our final foray into day trip ping, Granny slapped her hands together and declared, “That’s it. We’re done!” And we were. So the Ex thought he was showing me the world by taking to me exotic places like Virginia and North Carolina. My first camping trip seemed more like a hazing ritual and something out of a Stephen King novel, with Wes Craven directing. It was the longest week of my life, and I wasn’t sure I’d survive. When I got home, I don’t think I spoke to him for two days. His family asked me to go to Germany with them one summer. I declined. The last thing I needed was to be thousands of feet in the air, for hours, headed to another country — I could barely survive in a neighbor ing state. I had snakes uncoil and slither across my foot in the Nantahala forest. I was hang ing on the side of a boat as we furiously tried to make it back to the dock when a lightning storm popped up. I had been lost in the dark mountains of North Carolina, thinking that’s how a lot of horror movies begin. I would watch sitcoms where the people had ridicu lously bad luck with vaca tions and laugh. Until I real ized, my experiences were just as ridiculous. Even though my travels have been limited in number and distance, they all had their share of mishaps and unsavory side quests. It’s as if it’s part of my family bloodline to be bad vacationers. Thankfully, Lamar doesn’t like traveling any more than I do. I am a little disappointed we never planned a honey moon after we eloped, but even our trip to tell my fami ly we had married was plagued with issues and a four hour trip ended up tak ing nearly eight. We talked about the possi bility of taking a honeymoon in the future but the more we talked about it, the more we realized it was a bad idea. For one thing, it’d cost a small fortune to board our animals. When we married, we had a blended family of four dogs and a bird. Venus was a master escape artist and could get out of anything and would even eat the fence. Pepper had already been banned at one boarding facil ity, and took that as a person al challenge to be banned from other places. Now, we have seven ani mals, and while they are all very sweet creatures, practi cally every one of them has separation anxiety when we’re out of their sight for long periods of time. Even the cats. Granny never wanted to spend the night anywhere because she wanted to sleep in her own bed, with her own pillow, and her own sheets. Now that makes perfect sense, but when I was a kid, I didn’t understand. Not even when I’d spend the night with my friends and feel like something was off because I didn’t have my pillow. The fear of what else may be in a hotel room is enough to make me not want to sleep in one, and Lamar has said he’d rather sleep in the car than a hotel room. We’ve realized the odds are largely stacked against us to go anywhere, so the best decision is to just not go any where. As summer officially begins, people start asking about vacation plans. Everyone seems to be going to the beach or camping. “We live in a cabin; that’s as close to luxury camping as I want to get,” I tell Lamar. “It’s pretty dang close,” he responds. So while everyone else is off on the next great adven ture, the Crouches are stay ing home. We’ve finally accepted the fact we’re just not cut out for vacations. Sudie Crouch is an award-win ning humor columnist and author. The NFL has CONPEMNEP KICKER HARRISON BUTKER'S FAITH- BASEP COMMENCEMENT SPEECH. — The SAME NFL with a LONG HISTORY of A55AULT and ABUSE AGAINST WOMEN? Letter policy Letters should be limited to 350 words and may be edited or condensed. The same writer or group may only sub mit one letter per month for consider ation. Letters must be submitted by noon Friday for midweek publication. We do not publish poetry or blanket letters and generally do not publish letters con cerning consumer complaints. Unsigned or incorrectly identified letters will be withheld. Mail letters to the Dawson County News, P.O. Box 1600, Dawsonville, GA 30534, hand deliver to 30 Shoal Creek Road or email to editor@dawsonnews. com.
