Tebowing, Kapernicking, and the Next Big Thing

Hello folks, let’s chat…With the Super Bowl just days away, I thought we’d kick off our weekly visit with a little football trivia. “Tebowing” is the act of celebrating by taking a knee in prayer, made famous by the on field celebrations of NFL quarterback Tim Tebow. But never you mind all that, Tebowing is so over.

The cool kids are Kapernicking—making a muscle and kissing their bicep! Plenty of athletes have celebrated big plays with the bicep smooch but 49ers’ quarterback Colin Kapernick has successfully branded it.

So, here’s the thing. I say it’d be big fun if we girls had a signature southern belle move of our very own. I called Paulette to help me brainstorm what it might look like. We tried out different moves over the phone, y’all, and laughed ourselves silly while we were cooking supper in our respective kitchens.

We haven’t exactly settled on the new move but right now we’re considering a sign to mimic the hoop skirts of days gone by. We call this signature celebration the HOOP!HOOP! (you know, kinda like whoop, whoop.) It’s performed with a single hula hoop hip motion while holding up a pinkie finger. Fun, huh? We could use it when we score an awesome sale item, pull a slap your mama dish out of the oven—or when we deliver that perfect southern saying at just the right moment, as illustrated by the following story which practically begs for a southern belle HOOP!HOOP!

I recently received a sweet letter from a Georgian reader who wanted me to know she was enjoying one of my southern non-fiction books. I was blessed to hear my stories were invoking wonderful memories of her mother and grandmother but I was plum tickled when she shared the following example of their Southern Mama wisdom. One day her mother and her aunt were complaining about their husbands. Earline’s Grandma was listening nearby as she plied her crochet hook at the speed of light and occasionally glanced up at the other women. When the girls finally ran out of steam and turned to her for motherly advice, Earline’s grandma stopped in mid-crochet to note that, “A horse is only as good as its rider.”  HOOP! HOOP, Grandma!

(Oh, please, you know you just tried it.)

Hugs, Shellie