RCR Contest Entry - Hoddy Toddy: The Grove's Incantation

As some of you have figured out by now, I live in Southern California...The OC...Orange County...to be exact. I have been here (mostly) for the past twenty-odd years with occasional forays back to the South for football, crawdads, and Abita Turbo Dog. During that time, snugged safely away in my memory is the ever-comforting Hoddy Toddy.

Some think that it is a cheer. How demeaning! Yes, the cheerleaders sing and chant it for every athletic event that is remotely connected to  the university, but to say that it is simply a cheer is a dramatic dismissal of its power as an incantation.

What does it mean? This is a question that is so superfluous that one is tempted not to answer. Indeed, there is such ineffability to Hoddy Toddy that the attempt to explain would always fall short. One "experiences" Hoddy Toddy, one does not cognitively apprehend it. Perhaps this story will suffice.

Two years ago, I was waiting in Portland for a connecting flight. It was typical Portland...cold, wet, and foggy. Everything was at least an hour behind schedule. I was sitting at the Portland Brewing Company sucking down a pint of Oatmeal Stout, when out of the corner of my eye I caught a familiar pattern. As I looked, I saw a young African American man hurrying down the concourse. Down the sleeve of his long-sleeve t-shirt read quite plainly, " Ole Miss Rebels." Without budging, I shouted out "Hoddy Toddy!"

He stopped dead in his tracks and looked around. I waved. He came over. He was a 1995 graduate of Ole Miss. I was a 1975 graduate. He was headed to Los Angeles, I was headed to Orange County. I bought him a beer and we shared stories about the University, the Grove, and the Rebels. We traded business cards and he disappeared. Remember that he was a young black man and I was an old white guy.

About three weeks later, I was sitting in my office when the phone rang. "Hoddy Toddy!" rang clearly through the receiver. "Do you know where the Citrus Grille is?" he asked.

"Yeah, it's about three blocks from here"

"Well, I am in town and I owe you a beer."

A few minutes later, I entered the Citrus Grille any saw my young friend with an Asia American woman. Turns out she was also a Rebel. We sat for a couple of hours drinking beer and eating appetizers. Just before leaving, we hoisted the final glasses and in unison:

Hoddy Toddy!
Gosh almighty!
Who in the Hell are we?

Flim Flam!
Bim Bam!
Ole Miss by damn!

The story does not exactly end here, because as we were finishing a guy who had been drinking alone all evening came over and said,

"Hell, if I had known you guys were from Ole Miss, I'd have come over an hour ago. Hi, I'm from LSU!"

So, while Hoddy Toddy may seem like a battle cry, it is not. It is an absolute, a universal. On Saturdays in the South it may divide Rebels and Tigers, but on any other day, 2000 miles away it brings together old and young, Rebel and Tiger.