Gaegrand

This will definitely be my last year going to Mississippi State football games.

I got one of those mass emailings from State this week. It mentioned new parking and traffic regulations for this fall. I went to the referred website to check it out.

Almost all of the previously free parking is now $10. I usually park in that day students' parking lot in that big hole behind the laundry. It is now $10. That lot is a long way from the stadium but now there is no free place that is within reasonable walking distance.

I will probably park across 82 in the technology center parking lot and take the free shuttle. The Sparrows usually park there, too.

Here is where I am supposed to say it isn't about the money, but I once read and I do believe that when people say that it always is about the money.

By the time I pay for my tickets, gas at $2.60/gallon, etc., it is an expensive afternoon and I don't want to pay any more.

But also this has been a slow death from a thousand cuts, and this cut is just too much. Last year I was humiliated by being defeated by Vanderbilt. (Forgive me, Manuels.) I had planned this elaborate and expensive weekend, and then get to see Vanderbilt run all over us. I could not take it. And worse, Ole Miss continues to beat us.

I hesitated and hesitated this spring over whether to buy tickets this year. I finally did because I thought not buying should be the positive decision. If I didn't know for sure, I should go ahead and buy them because if I did not I lose my good seats.

The parking situation just seems to be the final sign. It really hurt. When the alumni magazine came this week, I cried and threw it in the trash without reading it.

Maybe 40 years after I graduated, it is right for that part of my life to be over.