Here are some excerpts from a chuckle-inducing e-mail (thanks, Jana!) circulating around about the upcoming football season. This first part documents the football differences of Northern and Southern fans.

Stadium Size:
NORTH — College football stadiums hold 20,000 people.
SOUTH — High school football stadiums hold 20,000 people.

Fathers:
NORTH — Expect their daughters to understand Sylvia Plath.
SOUTH — Expect their daughters to understand pass interference.

Campus Decor:
NORTH — Statues of founding fathers.
SOUTH — Statues of Heisman trophy winners (and championship-winning coaches).

Homecoming Queen:
NORTH — Also a physics major.
SOUTH — Also Miss America (as well as a physics major).

Heroes:
NORTH — Rudy Giuliani
SOUTH — Archie and Peyton Manning (as long as you mean “Heroes Who Are Currently Alive.” I think we all know whose name is in the “Heroes Who Are Currently Not Alive” category.) 

Getting Tickets:
NORTH — Five days before the game you walk into the ticket office on campus.
SOUTH — Five months before the game you walk into the ticket office on campus, make a large financial contribution and put name on a waiting list for tickets.

And here’s another part of the e-mail, answering the eternal question “How many SEC students does it take to change a (energy-saving compact fluorescent) light bulb?”:

At GEORGIA: it takes two — one to change the bulb and one to phone an engineer at Georgia Tech for instructions.

At ALABAMA: it takes five — one to change it, three to reminisce about how The Bear would have done it and one to throw the old bulb at an NCAA investigator.

At KENTUCKY: it takes eight — one to screw it in and seven to discuss how much brighter it seems to shine during basketball season.

At TENNESSEE: it takes 10 — two to figure out how to screw it in, two to buy an orange lampshade and six to phone a radio call-in show and talk about how much they hate Alabama.

Anyway, if you want the whole thing, e-mail me and I’ll send it over.