Pay no attention to the man behind the chain link fence.

I actually have an interesting item to share with you for once -- and it's work-related, no less! It appears that I have not met the most famous man I've never heard of. (He did wave to me, though.)

You see, somebody must know somebody who knows somebody, and he said, "Sure, why not let this guy practice in our stadium, even though it will interrupt our workers, cause the head of security to get all flustered, and make campers gawk through the fence rather than participate in the actual camps their parents are paying for (not that they can tell him apart from any of his teammates at that distance, anway)." Okay, so that last part (after the word stadium) didn't enter into that somebody's head at all, because they never think about actual logistics. (And you could tell him apart, if you saw him drive in and noticed he was the only one in a blue shirt.)

Who am I talking about? F*ck if I know, so I asked one of my employees. I had to write it down, and even then I misspelled his name (but that's what happens when your parents name you after a hot dog and lunchmeat brand) and misunderstood which team he used to play for.

Anyhoo... The (U.S.) football player Peyton Manning practiced on our football field yesterday, he and five teammates. He's the quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts, whom I remember as the Baltimore Colts, which should tell you about how long ago it has been since I paid any attention to football. (Am I really turning into my parents, who remember the Brooklyn Dodgers and Milwaukee Braves?)

"Did he go to our school?" I asked. "No, but he did play for Tennessee," my employee replied. Skippy later clarified this for me that Manning played for the University of Tennessee, not the Tennessee Titans (who used to be the Houston Oilers). The reason he was in the area is that he has a house in Ooltewah. The reason he came to our field instead of any other high school in or near The Noog (including Ooltewah) might be because the Colts play on an artificial surface, and we have fake grass in the stadium. It might be because of the "somebody who knows somebody" aspect. It also could be the fact that we can lock up our stadium to keep gawkers to a minimum.

Big fat hairy deal. As long as we could keep scrubbing those temporary paint lines off the artificial turf, I didn't care. I've heard he might come back today. We have to put the goal posts back up, but as long as he lets us have one end zone while he and his buddies practice at the other end, I'm okay with that.

Oh, and for any fan girls (or fan boys) out there who care: yes, I did see him with his shirt off. My comment? "It looks like his nose was broken some time in his life." Skippy said, "Well, if it was, it must have been before the four years he played for Tennessee." The fireman on my bowling team (after he got over being upset that I didn't call him to come gawk at Manning, whom he remembers playing for the university) said that Manning was the only quarterback for UT who went on to the NFL without leading UT to a national title. (This has been your useless trivia fact for the day.)