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It's been a long time now since Darlington Raceway has run the Southern 500 on Labor Day weekend, but, by God, it’s back. It doesn't seem like a long time. They started running the race in 1950, and I'm sure some wiseacre paid for his ticket, got his first peek at the track, and yelled, "Hey! What kind of track is this? It's shaped like a damned egg!"

Or maybe he didn't. Maybe he just thought it was the Falstaff talking.

I saw my first Southern 500 in 1970. Age 12. Beginning in 1971, I had to practice football on Labor Day. Back then, the State of South Carolina, in all its pious wisdom, wouldn't allow a race on the Sabbath.

Mama don't allow no stock car racing around here / Mama don't allow no stock car racing around here / Well, I don't care what Mama don't allow / Gonna race them stock cars anyhow / Mama, don't allow no stock car racing around here.

The above is changing a few words in an old, old song, but it's basically how times have changed over the years. Mama has even been known to watch the stock car racing herself.

Why, I'll have you know that I have been known to cut my grass on Sunday afternoon if there's no stock car race and it rained on Saturday. The neighbors don't complain, but I am located a bit off the paved road.

I still say my prayers, mind you. I don't go to services much. Me and Jesus got our own thing going nowadays, and He doesn't mind me watching a stock car race, or mowing my lawn if it really, really needs it, and I ask forgiveness for these and other sins.

As the Statler Brothers explained it, Tex Ritter's gone, and Disney's dead, and the screen is filled with sex.

Besides, none of the stock car racers haul moonshine these days. They run ethanol wide-open, around-and-around, 367 times, maybe a few more, around a track shaped like an egg. Darlington Raceway is an egg bowl, like Ole Miss vs. Mississippi State. They just start it with capital letters in Miss'sippi.

Somehow it's more than a week away. Apparently everyone needs to get acclimated, or they’re worried about the sand gnats. I'll take it more seriously come next week when it's bearing down.

The first time I watched it, Buddy Baker won in a burnt-orange Dodge that was pointy at the front, winged at the back and had a flat-black roof that looked like a vinyl top. Vinyl tops were big in those days. That Dodge looked like it was about a half-block long roaring down the back straight in front of me, my daddy, about 15,000 Scouts -- Cub, Webelos and Boy -- of various shapes and sizes, and various and sundry other civilians in various and sundry levels of sobriety.

In short, Darlington, NASCAR, and my grass-cutting habits have all come a long way since I was 12. There are probably a few other things, but I'm not trying to save the world here.