Note: The point of this column is to show that every school has its foibles. If you are offended by its content, you probably don't understand the word "foibles."

You're located in Portales, a town so remote that the closest city is Clovis. Not only is closest city is a half hour away, but you're so small that you make Clovis actually look like a city. Clovis, by the way, would have been an excellent name for a character on the Dukes of Hazard.

Clovis sucks so much that sometimes you actually drive to Lubbock for fun. When the reward for a two-hour drive is a town that's known for smelling like cow manure, people wonder about the quality of what you left behind.

Your coffee shop is named Ground Zero, which was a cute pun before 2001. Now the term "Ground Zero" is associated with one of the worst tragedies in American history and that's where you buy frappuccinos. Was "Café Hindenburg" taken? Or maybe Portales is so isolated that you haven't heard what happened. Any day now, a postman is going to come riding in from Clovis bearing news from the east.

Your mascot is the greyhound, named when a football player saw a Greyhound Bus drive by. Really. Maybe the people were on their way to Lubbock to find something interesting to do. You're lucky you're not the Peter Pans. Your women's teams, however, are the Zias. Zias are an indigenous tribe to New Mexico. Western New Mexico – 300 miles away from Portales. That's how little there is around Portales. You can't even find a mascot within 300 miles. Or at least one that's not driving to Lubbock.

I have visited Portales a few times and enjoyed myself every time. Every last person I met was extremely friendly, which is perhaps why the Welcome to Portales Sign says "home of 12,000 friendly people and three or four old grouches." Maybe the grouches were on their way to Lubbock at the time.

Thanks for having me. Go Greyhounds! And Zias!