Orange

Yuck!

I always try to stay away from the word hate. I rarely use it, with one exception— Orange. I hate the color orange. Nobody looks good in orange, ever. Wear it at your own peril. The only good thing that comes from orange, is juice. And technically juice comes from an Orange, or Oranges, not orange. Take the saying, Orange is the new Black for instance; gag me. That’s impossible.

You might have guessed it by now, but if not, yes I’m a Georgia fan. But it goes back even further than that, I was raised a Florida State Seminole. My Dad grew up in Valdosta, GA, which is only about sixty miles from Tallahassee, FL. His dad, my Papa, used to take him and my uncle to FSU games back in the 70’s; so I can remember sitting on the floor in front of the TV when I was little, rooting the Noles on.

When I got older, sometime in Middle School, I went with the 4-H Club to my first Georgia Bulldog game. From the moment I first laid eyes on Sanford Stadium from Gillis Bridge, I was hooked! I don’t remember who won, or even who we played, but I’ve been a die-hard Dawg fan ever since.

The Bulldogs weren’t very good back then, a B-Team at the very best. It’d been over 10 years since Herschel Walker won us that last National Championship. And, I’ve spent a many of solum rides home from The World’s Largest Cocktail Party. God bless my wife for putting up with me on those days. It would be 30 more years before we won another title. The University of Georgia was my state school, and I had a lot of pride in where I was from. But Georgia had another thing going for it; Florida was one of its biggest rivals, just like the Noles. And I hated the Gators, so I also hated orange.

The more rooted I became as a Dawg fan, the more I began to notice that almost all of our rival schools were also orange: Not only the Gators, but the Vols, and Auburn too— I say Auburn and not their mascot name, because they seem to be confused as to what their mascot actually is. Anyway, I had to watch while two of those rivals won National Championships during the 90’s and again in the 2000’s, so I developed a true disdain for the color.

To this day, I do not own a single piece of orange clothing. Neither does my wife, nor do any of my three daughters. Well, the three little ones are all grown up now and out of the house, but if they do own anything orange I haven’t seen it. You won’t see it anywhere on our property, our NO TRESPASSING signs are Red & Black. I avoid orange like it’s the plague. It’s hard to type it. I even misspelled it the first half-dozen times in this essay.

But for the past month I must admit, it’s grown on me a little bit. I actually don’t even notice it every once in a while, it’s been slipping by somewhat. The reason? Substack is orange. I swear I even hesitated before I downloaded the app because of its color. But I am so glad I did. My love for my fellow writers on this platform has overtaken my hate for the color orange, at least in this instance. Y’all ain’t about to see me in that terrible-horrible color anytime soon. But I guess I can overlook it here, but only because of you.

Thanks for reading! Is there a color you refuse to associate with? I’d love to hear what your thinking in the comments.

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