Pretty good article

LINK

When I was eight years old, my maternal grandfather, whom we called Toots, decided it was time to begin my inculcation. On a cool but sun-sweet Saturday in October, we hopped into his big blue Buick and drove downtown. We were headed for Birmingham’s Legion Field, where the Alabama Crimson Tide football team, then coached by Paul “Bear” Bryant, would play the Kentucky Wildcats.

Toots pulled his Buick into the front yard of one of the numerous shotgun houses scattered around Legion Field (where Alabama played some of its home games until 2003). He handed a man who was sitting in a rocking chair on the house’s front porch a five-dollar bill. I was in charge of carrying the two crimson-and-white seat cushions, a necessity for withstanding the stadium’s aluminum bleachers. A marching band played somewhere in the distance as Toots and I joined one of the many tributaries of walking fans, which eventually all joined together, forming a great swollen river by the stadium.