Wow, I didn't realize I was such a hick...

(EDIT: after some thought, I've decided to quote the entire article by T.J. Simers in my post--feel free to still click on the link if you'd like, but I don't want the LA Times site to get any more free "clicks" from the petty and amateurish article Simers wrote.)

Hmmm...in this article by sportswriter T.J. Simers, we Nebraskans are given quite the verbal beatdown. Too bad there's not a single original thought in there--the whole piece is a series of overdone, worn out cliches. Frankly, I think the guy's a hack.

Here's the text of the article:

Nebraska fans, lend him your ears -- and more
Simers wants to experience the run-up to the USC game with Cornhuskers fans, if any are willing to show him what their lives are like.
July 31 2007

I am writing this now to give the overland stage time to get it there.USC will be playing in Nebraska on Sept. 15, and I will be joining the greatest football team ever assembled as they strike out into the wilderness.

If possible, I'd like to spend time boarding with some corn cobs, maybe getting a smell of what it's like to be around livestock — then leaving Lincoln to move around the state and spend a few days here and there.

A stop in Wahoo at the Wigwam Café is probably a good start, but I was thinking it'd be interesting to stay with a real-live-boring Cornhuskers family somewhere out on the prairie so I can feel what it's like to have nothing to look forward to in my life other than a Saturday afternoon football game.

I'll be going to Nebraska early in the football week, and while I'm not sure what corn cob hospitality is like, I'd like to remind folks that when they came to L.A., I tried to help.

Remember when the Cornhuskers came to the big city to lose in the Rose Bowl? Everyone here knows there are no individual seats — just long benches for the skinny people who live here.

I was looking out for the corn-fed porkers, of course, including all their big-butted women, when I told them that if everyone sat down after the anthem, there were going to be people falling atop each other at the end of each row.

A number of corn cobs e-mailed to say they were unhappy with Page 2 but thrilled now to have their very own Internet machines.

They also wanted to tell me about their wonderful lives, kids and the modern facilities being built right down there by the creek. Well, there's nothing like a Wal-Mart coming to town to excite the locals, so I was thrilled for them. But for some reason that didn't come across in our correspondence, and there might still be some hard feelings.

I got to thinking last summer, though, as I drove the family-that-I-used-to-love across Nebraska in a RV what it must be like to actually live there most every day of your life. I can't remember for sure if it was Nebraska or Kansas where I saw a tree, but it just seemed as if there wasn't much there.That's why the corn cobs love their football. It's all they have, everyone wearing red, and sitting there like plump, ripe tomatoes with corncobs stuck to their heads, singing, "There is no place like Nebraska."

Hard to argue. There's not a 7-Eleven in the entire state, thousands of people never once tasting a Slurpee, which got me wondering whether I could live that way for a whole week.

I know there aren't a whole lot of cities in Nebraska, but I'm willing to spend a few days out yonder with a family if someone would like to show me what it's like to live without DirecTV and not ask me to kill a chicken for dinner.

I can play checkers if forced, though, or make a run to the Feed Store. Right now I'm willing to go wherever the corn cobs tell me to go, and while several have already done that, I'd like to see for myself they're not talking about some place in Nebraska.

Here's the link to the LA Times site if you want to see the actual article.

If you want to read someone who beats Simers at his own game, read this rebuttal post over at Huskerpedia. Same type of writing, only done much better. And I don't think it's just because it's directed at someone other than me.

Ah--feel the love. Feel the love.

Well, I'd better get back to my "real-life boring Cornhuskers family somewhere out on the prairie with nothing to look forward to in our lives other than a Saturday afternoon football game." Gotta go.

LH