Tonight the second telecast preseason NFL game will grace discerning televisions across the nation. It's a bird thing, ATLANTA FALCONS VS BALTIMORE RAVENS, and hopes are high in our household these guys are ready to get down and dirty and play like it matters.

Football fans begin the countdown to the Superbowl with the preseason opener, played on a hot August night. And this balmy night of the dirty (sweaty) birds holds the promise of Fall's cool short days, brilliant foliage and adventures that count on the gridiron. Send the kids back to school, don your cozy sweaters, throw a log on the fire and win one for the Gipper.

Football season brings more than the smell of popcorn and taste of beer. Sweet memories of times past float on the chill night air of the local High School Homecoming game and snap like dry twigs in the bonfire of the brain.

Joe Namath still swaggers onto a grassy field in New England, bad knees taped and good pride riding high on his broad shoulders. Vince Lombardi still dons hat and dress coat to reign over the sidelines of a snowy Greenbay Sunday. Lynn Swann still sidesteps a herd of linebackers and makes like a gazelle on a Monday Night, while Al Michaels yells, "Look at him go! He's gone!"

First kisses still taste of unknown secrets behind buzzing bleachers on a crisp late September night. Icy beer and steamed hotdogs slathered with Guldens brown mustard still go down better than the fanciest haute cuisine. Shivering beneath a shared throw stained with cheap food and shouting until we're hoarse feels like great fun. Voices of long forgotten compadres echo in the splintering wooden stands of our memory, the ghosts of long ago shouts and cheers tickle the synapses.

Winning and losing seemed all important, rah, rah for the home team. But what really mattered was the coming together and the making of some fun. Responsiblities, homework, jobs, bills and bosses were temporarily banished. The looming term paper, deadline, divorce or doctor's appointment faded into some distant corner of our minds. And we came together, rich and poor, upbeat and downtrodden, players and spectators, to share, to create; anticipation, excitement, comraderie, joy, laughter, challenge, downfall, pain, and triumph.

All this magic conjured by a green field, two teams and a handful of believers who came to make the alchemy of playing a game seem real.

Someone won and someone lost, but what mattered was the adventure that transported us to another reality of our own making where life was fun and times where good and simple things were savored.

And that's why it's really NOT a question when Fall rolls back around and you hear: Are You Ready For Some Football!