I can cotton to this

Today, I joined the elite few who can say they’ve played in the Cotton Bowl. There were no cheerleaders, no fans in the stands to marvel at my athletic exploits. But I played my heart out. And as the saying goes, I left it all on the field. Although the Oklahoma Sooners will own that storied turf in October, it received the Mark of the Ayatollah on this day. In several places.

A good crowd turned out for the Dog Bowl, in which the Cotton Bowl was transformed into a 70,000-seat dog park. I sniffed canines of all breeds, including a fetching little pug lass in a pink collar. She was a bit young, so I gave her my business card and told her to call me in a few weeks. Because of a nonspecific security threat, I traveled incognito, leaving my turban at home. I tucked my beard into my collar so as not to draw a crowd. That’s me in the lower left of the photo montage. That big fellow on the lower right was able to snag a hat from someone’s back pocket. Unfortunately, my mother retrieved the hat and returned it to its human owner. I will have to have a talk with her about that. Her knee-jerk decision to side with the human in this matter was rather troubling.