Bumming around town with Bill Bumerton

Bumerton is a retired Navy fighter pilot who had been missing in action for several years while he traversed the globe looking for greener grass. He discovered the grass is only greener here (it’s blue in Kentucky), so he returned to again take charge of his 1954 green Hudson Hornet that has been in storage, refilled his pipe, and is ready to continue his smokin’ ways. Here is what he recently told us at the Sports Paper.

 

 

Man, Big Dawg, there was a lot of stuff hitting the fan today. Oregon football gets hits with sanctions by the NCAA, Aaron Hernandez is arrested and taken away in handcuffs and less than two hours later the New England Patriots release him, and the Supreme Court strikes down the ban on the Defense of Marriage Act, which makes California’s Prop 8 unconstitutional. What a day. I’m not going to make a judgment on Hernandez, but Big Dawg his background is checkered to say the least. What is interesting is the Patriots last year signed Hernandez to a five-year contract worth $40 million. Man, that would buy a lot of lattes. Apparently, though, it didn’t stop Hernandez from attracting the attention of police. A lot of people today are arguing that the NCAA didn’t go far enough in its penalties against Oregon. They insist the Ducks should have been ruled ineligible for a bowl. I think a lot of them are Huskies. The rise of the Oregon program started at the same time Don James quit, causing the Husky program to slide to irrelevance. It is now coming back under Sark, but it still has a way to go to upend the Ducks, who are amply fed by Phil Knight. Looking on in Philadelphia is former coach Chip Kelly, who was in charge when the Ducks made their mess.  Kelly makes $7.5 million this year,  ducking out on the problems this slap on the wrist will do to his former program. As for the unconstitutional status of the DOMA, that fits in with the steady shift in this country toward allowing same-sex couples to marry and to receive all the benefits of being a married couple. I think the Bible would object to these shifts, but I’m just a human being trying to get by on a fixed income, so what do I know?