Capon: n. “A male chicken castrated when young to
improve the quality of its flesh for food.”
— American Heritage Dictionary I’m not crazy about
the holiday season. My personality, normally as stable as a ball of Silly
Putty, sinks into a predictable trough. However, it’s been a lot worse. Only a
few years ago, I’d have to beg my way to holiday events, like Thanksgiving
dinner. Things are better now, but I remember the bad old days. So, when my
friend Leonard suggested I bring a capon to his Thanksgiving feast, I hesitated
not. It mattered not I had only the foggiest idea what a capon was. Some kind
of meat? A chicken, I thought, perhaps some kind of deer?
Anyway, I figured a capon was the kind of thing I’d find at Whole Foods. I
always walk into Whole Foods a little intimidated, like a monk in a whorehouse.
I’m certain the healthy zealots sense the Oreos, bourbon, and Snickers — Andy
dietary staples — in my wake. So, I tiptoe to the meat counter and, as
inconspicuously as possible, ask where the capons are. The butcher guy says
loudly, “No, man, we don’t have none of that.”
“Of course,” I reply. It’s apparent I’ve said something wrong. Feigning
indifference, I say, “Just give me that big chicken there.” Immediately,
feelings of guilt and obligation begin overwhelming me. This is wrong. Leonard
said get a capon and as soon as I go home and look up what a capon is, I need
to go find one. I feel bad ’cause the guy did a fine job of wrapping the
chicken, so I take it. If you find my chicken in the cheese cooler, well, I
didn’t want the meat guy to feel rejected.
My son, Adam, hasn’t done anything alone with me in years. He considers me
way uncool. However, he’d been grounded today. By 9pm, he’s so bored he
takes me up on an offer to go to Central Market, a place I’d never been,
if: a) he could drive, b) control the radio, c) I agree to buy him a
six-pack of kiwi-strawberry Snapple.
I’m sorry, I don’t get Central Market. It took us 15 minutes to find the damn
meat counter. That’s with me asking directions twice, Adam alternately
mumbling, “that sucks” or “that’s cool” every time we came to a right-angle
dead-end at another complex display of imported catnip.
The man said he had capons for sure. Do you remember the size of the Christmas
goose Scrooge sent the street urchin out for at the end of A Christmas
Carol? Out of the ice, the man jerks a monstrous, frightening animal. It
had wings, a head, it was bigger than Floyd, my 100-pound boxer. I’m imagining
this poor castrated creature on my little rotisserie. “Jeez, man, don’t you
have anything smaller?” The meat guy was clearly disappointed. It was
Thanksgiving Eve and he needed to move this thing PDQ. “There’s some frozen
ones over in the freezer next to the hamburger,” he said with haughty disdain.
“If that’s what you really want.”
I left Len’s traditional feast gorged
as a blood-swelled tick. There was another tradition to tend to this night, a
funeral at Memorial Stadium. After 71 seasons and 238 football games, the
doddering, senile old fool on life support for too many years, aka the
Southwest Conference, was finally being put to rest.
Attempting to negate the sedating effects of multiple helpings of pecan pie, I
vacated the warm, toasty press box for the photo deck, an exposed perch hanging
precipitously beneath the western stands. It’s not a bad place to be. It’s
outside. Like Tommy, I can see, feel, and hear — a good spot to wake up. The
half-time show combined the Baylor and Texas bands playing bits of every
school’s fight song, as the public address guy intoned each institution’s SWC
accomplishments. Maybe the capon, coursing leisurely through plugged arteries,
changed something fundamental in my chemistry. I found myself getting
sentimental and, to my thorough astonishment, even teary during this sappy
halftime display.
Beneath a grizzled, cynical facade, you’ll find a sappy, syrupy guy, fond of
animals, nice to most children, who watches lions and sea otters on A&E.
Seventy-one years is a long relationship any way you look at it. In that time,
Texas has been, by far, the dominant team in the league. I would have guessed
this, but the breadth of the domination surprised me. Its 71-year record of
340-150-14 far surpassed the Aggies, in a distant second place, with a
249-219-30 mark. That’s not only a long marriage, but a damn successful one.
Autumns in the coming century won’t look all that different. The Big 12
football alignment has the same Baptists, Red Raiders, and Aggies we’ve come to
know and be bored with. To make up for Rice and TCU, they’ve thrown in Oklahoma
State — a lateral move, at best.
If the death of the SWC can bring a reflective tear to my negative ilk, I’m
sure it leaves a real feeling of loss in lifelong fans. If I can survive 47
holiday seasons, you will survive this. I’ll repeat some advice, worn ragged
from frustrated chums, fatigued from my sad tales, “You’ll get over it.” n
This article appears in December 1 • 1995 and December 1 • 1995 (Cover).