Let Me Tell Y’all A Story is a weekly column that’s usually not focused on sports. It’s brought to you by our partners at Chuck Owens, Alfa Insurance.

It was 1:30 a.m. when I pulled back into the driveway.

Junior correspondent Graham had fallen asleep somewhere around Hammond, but like most kids do, he began to stir in the passenger seat as we took the south Brookhaven exit onto Highway 84.

Walking ahead of me towards our house, he stopped and turned.

Even in the darkness, I could see his smile.

“That was awesome.”

I gave him a hug, patted his head and told him I agreed.

It had been a freaking awesome day for sure.

We’d left home around 13 hours earlier, headed to New Orleans to see the Sugar Bowl between Ole Miss and Georgia on New Years Day.

I won’t recap the game here, as you all know how it went.

It was a really fun one to watch, no matter where you were viewing it from.

Ok, maybe it wasn’t too awesome if you were a Georgia fan, but Graham and I went in with the neutrality of Switzerland, just hoping both teams played well.

G is nearly 14 years old.

My wife was at a loss as to what to get him for Christmas as teenage boys are not the easiest to buy for.

Once I saw that it would be an all-SEC affair in New Orleans, we got tickets to put under the tree.

It was just as much a present for this old college football fan as it was for the boy.

We didn’t get tickets on the 50-yard line in the lower bowl. We were up at the top in the 600s and I can guarantee the fun we had would have been the same if our seats had been 25 rows off the field.

It just reminded me of one of the most amazing parts of being a parent, having shared interests with your kids.

Enjoying the same things as your offsprings is a key to feeling like a kid yourself.

And I’m not talking about going to parties with your kids, that’s gross, I’m just talking about the fun that comes from liking the same stuff.

When I was a little older than Graham is now, I can remember wanting to go watch the 1997 Sugar Bowl so badly.

I was just beginning to become a college football fiend.

The drama for that game was dialed up to 100 as Florida and Florida State met in a rematch of a game that FSU won a month prior.

It was the de facto national championship game as Florida State was unbeaten and the only loss for the Gators had come to the Seminoles.

Danny Wuerffel went off for UF and the Old Ball Coach Steve Spurrier got the last laugh over the Noles and Bobby Bowden in The Dome.

I knew that it was happening just a couple hours down the road in New Orleans but didn’t have ways or means to get there.

Don’t read that as any type of “woe is me” like complaining as my Dad just had other interests.

He loves college football today, but at that time, he’d rather spend a Saturday morning at the Kentwood Sale Barn and a Saturday night running walker hounds in a coyote pen.

I’m a reader and I got that love from my Mama and I wish she was still here to talk about books with me.

My daughter and I share a love of music. When she plays a great song by some artist that I’ve never heard of, it makes my heart swell.

I didn’t plan on college football being something Graham loved so passionately, but it’s too late to turn back now.

He used to tell folks that he wanted to sell insurance one day, like my buddy Chuck, the presenting sponsor of this weekly column.

Now I’m not so sure. He might be the Senior Correspondent of Y’all Sports before I know it.

I know we’re going to watch a bunch of high school football games in the future, but I don’t think this will be our last Sugar Bowl experience either. The day was further enhanced by him absolutely smashing a dozen charbroiled oysters at Fisherman’s Cove in Kenner for lunch along with a pound of shrimp.

That buzz of that good time stayed with me in the weeks after our night watching the Rebels and Dawgs do battle until the final horn.

I feel blessed to have shared the experience with my best buddy.

I’m not the wisest man in the world, but I do know this for a fact.

Life is truly vapor. Take the trip. Buy the tickets. Watch the game.

We’re only here for a minute. You can choose to have fun and enjoy it or sit at home and be miserable.

I’m going to try and have fun with the time I have.

I also felt grateful to the friends that took me with them to see college football games while I was growing up, which grew my love of the sport.

The Sessums took me to an Ole Miss game in 1997. Rebel running back John Avery was injured and every time they gave the ball to a true freshman running back from Morton, I thought the fans in Vaught Hemingway Stadium were booing their own team.

Turns out they were just crying out, “DDDDEEEEUUUUCCCCCEEEEE.”

Deuce got loose that day for 92 yards in a 23-15 win. We ate Abner’s chicken fingers in The Grove and threw a football back and forth until our arms were tired.

The next year, Dr. Mark Smith took Chad, Craig and me to see the Texas A&M Aggies in Hattiesburg against the Southern Miss Golden Eagles.

We sat at the top of The Rock and in the pregame warmups, as the punts unleashed by TAMU punter Shane Lechler looked like they might float out of the stadium.

He’s now considered one of the greatest punters of all-time, second only to Southern Miss legend Ray Guy.

And my brother took me and Parish Stewart to the Egg Bowl in 1997. I was in the concourse, getting a Coke in one of those paper cups that you could scratch wax from with your fingernails when I heard a roar from the crowd above me.

I ran up the ramp and looked out onto the field at Davis Wade Stadium as players from Ole Miss and Mississippi State took part in a pregame brawl.

Like my future teenager in 2026, that 16-year-old version of Cliff would have summed it up by simply saying, “this is awesome.”