Oh, man … it hurts to make this comment criticizing a college football team I want to win the NCAA championship, but I have to speak out at what I saw at the end of the Orange Bowl game on Thursday.

I watched the University of Oregon score touchdown when none was needed to ensure their victory over the Texas Tech Red Raiders.

The Ducks were leading 16-0 with about 30 seconds left in the game. They had stuffed the Tech offense thoroughly during the game. Head coach Dan Lanning called a time out and the Ducks returned to score a touchdown to make the final score 23-0.

Oregon could have simply snapped the ball to run out the clock. There was no time for the Red Raiders to score twice and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Sometimes I just don’t quite understand what goes through coaches’ minds in the heat of the moment. I just believe Coach Lanning could have let the clock secure the win all by itself. Don’t misunderstand me. I am glad the Ducks won … but still.

The street where I live in Princeton, Texas, is part of a nice subdivision just south of U.S. 380. It’s next to an elementary school and the neighborhood is crawling with kids who run or skateboard to school each morning.

The homes are modest, but nice. It’s probably my forever place to live.

But as I look up and down the street this evening just after saying good night to my family who were here to celebrate Thanksgiving with dear ol’ Dad and Grandpa, I am struck by the sight of lights adorning rooflines celebrating Christmas. Some of the houses have those blow-up decorations on the lawn depicting Santa Claus, Rudy the Reindeer and assorted other symbols of Christmas.

I have to tell you that it boggles my mind how folks can celebrate two famed holidays at once. I mean, c’mon! Thanksgiving is quite enough to stand all by itself in Americans’ homes, as it commemorates the settling of this great land along the 13 Colonies in the 17th and early 18th centuries. We went to war with the Crown to win independence from the Brits. I watched “The Patriot” the other evening just to remind myself of the brutality associated with the American Revolution.

Now I turn my attention to Christmas. Not while I’m carving a turkey in the kitchen and serving it to my sons, my daughter-in-law and my granddaughter.

One holiday at a time is sufficient for this old-timer.

What in the name of blathering idiocy has become of Donald J. Trump, the self-proclaimed dealmaker in chief, the guy who always vows to negotiate his way out of any scrape?

The dude has yet to show his overfed puss in this fight over health insurance, food for the neediest Americans. It has resulted in a shutting down of the federal government. It is jeopardizing air travel as we enter the busiest travel season of the entire year. This is the guy who supposedly wrote “The Art of the Deal” in which he boasts about the deals he has struck.

Oh, wait. I forgot. The guy also is a pathological liar who cannot be trusted to tell the truth on anything, at any time, on any subject … no matter how trivial.

We’ve trudged through the previous record for government shutdowns. We’re now in virgin territory. I am one American who is scheduled to board a jetliner in a few days and fly east for a couple of days and nights. It is imperative that I arrive at my destination on the day I said I would be there. I am not entirely sure I’ll be able to do so.

Why? Because the self-proclaimed master of his domain refuses to get off his ass long enough to make a few phone calls and push his Republican sycophants to work on behalf of those who put them in power.

A fair question one could pose to Donald J. Trump might go something like this … but bear in mind that we are talking about a pathological liar, a serial cheat and a man who says he’s never sought forgiveness.

Uh, Donald, how would react if one of your employees got caught with his hand in the till, while he was boinking a colleague of his and the two of them were plotting to take over your company … possibly using violent means?

I am not a Trump cultist — oh, duhhh! — so I cannot answer that question with a semblance of fairness. My hope would be that he cut the employees loose with cause and with malice and the he would seek to repair whatever damage had been done to the company in question.

The question is relevant because about 77 million Americans cast their votes in 2024 for an inidividual who has (allegedly) done all those things. They comprise the moronic MAGA brigade of Trump loyalists who gave their guy a pass on all the transgressions he has committed and some of which he has actually acknowledged! Lest we forget, we must remember that Trump provoked the mob to attack the Capitol on 1/6 in an effort to reverse the result of a free and fair presidential election in 2020.

So, I sit in my North Texas home scratching my head and wondering how this guy would react if someone who worked for him damaged his company the way he has inflicted damage on our great nation.