A long time ago, college football.

They tried to make an offensive and defensive lineman outta the big guy, stereotypically casting me as the big — and therefore dumb — black guy.

I brought ENGINEERING to the defensive line.

Lots of 8 and then 16mm movie footage, stills, analysis, at one point even a spreadsheet, long before the advent of personal computing.

Of course, such was met with lots of derision. At first.

But to make a long story short, the defensive coach started to take an interest in my doings and pretty soon there began to be a payoff in result.

At one session in the dark classroom, I made the comment that the routines that I had designated as “secondary” — or more literally, “plan B” executions of the offensive line, what to do if the original plan broke down for any reason — had to be learned so well that we could pull them off “like a well-oiled machine”.

We were a private technical univ. that was not exactly noted for having the “brute force” winning football team, to say the least.

But after a few hard-earned successes with the stuff, the guffaws and tesings about the “well oiled machine” — plus the last name, which already had me designated as a “Mac” (if you were Polish in the NE, you likely were called, “Skee” if yer name ended in SKI) — the guys on the bus after our one and only full victory started callin’ me The Machine.

It is all because I decided it better to “use my head” for more than just a damn battering ram. Survival, actually, I played Center or Guard. Those other Western PA schools had some *huge* coal-minin’ and steel-makin’ boys on the line, dontcha know.

Engineering.

“By Design”

Mac – I’m curious as to why your user name is “machine”? where does that come from?

As for the news clip, well, it is “the UK” — formerly Great Britain, but they’ve given up their God-given right to defend themselves over there, voluntarily turned ‘em in, they did. America, take a good hard look.

Yes, congrats!! Best of luck to you.

if I may toot my own horn here, I finally got 20 good, solid, verified signatures to be on the ballot in order to be elected to the Solano County, CA Republican Central Committee this morning, after going through a REAL PERSONAL hell in the past 48 hours to GET there. I’m told I’ll more than likely be elected by the committee. hope so
Sad part is I’m struggling to feel happy..maybe just it’s because I endured more hell just to get my signatures this morning..but I got 20 valid sigs, no A.C.O.R.N. bullshit here

maybe you folks can help me out a little by helping me feel better?

There is no way to know how, when, or where integration would have occurred between blacks and whites; but, previous government intervention has set the precedent for just such a case.