Faith/ Faith is an island in the setting sun/ But proof, yes/ Proof is the bottom line for everyone

After U of L’s telling double digit loss to Chattanooga last night, it has taken me awhile. to pull out an 8.5×11 sheet of 20 pound 92 bright typing bond and roll it into the typewriter.

When I got home last night, I had to kick back, comforting myself with some chocolate almond yogurt, while I clicked through college hoops, college football and the NBA.

Then I called a fellow Card fan, and we did our usual post mortem. It was more coronerial than usual.

Then I got a call from a pal in Georgia, who had already read Rick Bozich’s piece on the game, in which he talked about fans hurling barbs at a sportswriter.

My pal was checking after me, worried I may have been the object of the invective.

Might have been. I did not hear it, even though I was sitting next to Rick during the game.

I finally slept. Much later than usual.

Note if you are wondering whether I’m going to talk about the game, or just my reaction, it’s way more of the latter. See the title to the piece. No mention of the foe. But, if you stick around, there shall be some very minimal discussion of what happened at the Yum!.

This morning, before sitting at my desk to type these words you are reading, I went through my usual Saturday morning routine.

Which includes a half hour on the elliptical, and a couple other exercises. While listening to tuneage on my old school boom box.

There was but one musical choice for me this time around, the album that has calmed, more than any other, dozens of times since its release in 1990.

Paul Simon’s “The Rhythm of the Saints.” It was his second using mostly African musicians. Vincent Nguini’s lilting guitar stylings are a blessing. Yes, those are Simon’s lyrics at the top.

Then I ate my usual breakfast.

Here I sit now, wondering just what path this essay will take.

 * * * * *

At some point late in the second, before the Cardinals mini-run that made the final score less disrespectful than the game really was, but after I’d jotted “KP Era Over” in my notes and closed my notepad, U of L was lining up at the south end out of timeout.

As I sat at that endline not ten feet away, the Cardinals in the game had hollow eyes, staring off into the middle distance over my head.

The faces of the crowd, which was ready to shout Louisville to victory at the slightest indication, were either forlorn or angry.

The red-clad ten year old youngster sitting next to me, daughter of a Louisville staffer, had stopped cheering, was playing a game on a phone.

 * * * * *

There really doesn’t seem any reason to discuss stats, Xs and Os, strategy, whatever.

I am again, after an off season with some hope that there would be a turn for the better, very sad.

Kenny Payne is an eminently decent human being.

But there is no evidence so far that he’s up to the task in a manner that will satisfy a disturbed Cardinal Nation.

Sigh.

— c d kaplan