The first sign that something was amiss was when I picked up Alex.

Alex is my niece's son. He is 7. He is my favorite person. Usually we go see movies. I know more about animated features than Richard Corliss.

But I got this bright idea. Clinton High School, my alma mater, coming off a 2009 state championship in football, was scheduled to open its season in Newberry, which is roughly halfway between Clinton and West Columbia, where Alex lives. Hey, we'll go to the game. He'll get to see Uncle Monte's alma mater in action. He'll get to see some of the roots of his raising. I'll take him to the game and explain how football works.

Quite by accident, when I picked up Alex, he looked great. He was wearing a navy shirt and light-blue shorts. The problem was that Newberry wears navy and light blue. Oh, well. He had no way of knowing. I had on my red football jersey. If the game was in Clinton, I'd try to buy him a shirt, but it wasn't. No big deal.

I thought it was an accident instead of a bad omen.

Alex and I went to McDonald's. He had a happy meal. I had some new Angus burger that I didn't think was all that great. Alex made friends quickly and it took some effort to pry him loose from the playland.

We got to the game. I let Alex choose where he wanted to sit. He almost immediately made another friend and started playing, which was fine, though I was concerned about the status of his obviously brand-new sneakers.

What I wasn't concerned about was the weather. The sky was half-blue. Inexplicably, it started raining about a half hour before the game was supposed to start. It wasn't heavy but the drops were large. I was almost sure it was going to blow over. I had checked: only a 20-percent chance. Famous last words.

Heavy rain hit. High winds. Thunder. The teams scattered. The P.A. went out. I remained in the stands, getting totally drenched for a bit too long. The rain and wind got even heavier. Real heavy. Alex got scared.

We slogged back to the car as if we were part of Napoleon's army trying to get out of Russia. Alex was crying. "The rain hurts!" I told him to be brave, that there was nothing we could do about it so there was no use in getting scared about something over which we had no control until we could make it another 100 yards or so to the car.

We finally got there. Alex wanted to go home. Since we were wet, the inside of my Honda almost immediately fogged up. Several times, as I drove slowly through flooded lots and out on the highway, I had to take an Atlanta Braves flag and wipe off the inside of the windshield.

It was a freak storm. It washed the game out. I took Alex home. About 20 miles down the road, he suggested perhaps we should go back, and then he thought, well, maybe it would be nice to go to Gamestop, but I wasn't about to go squishing around anywhere once I got in the car.

After taking Alex home and then driving all the way back past Newberry, it was still raining, and I saw a huge lightning strike. I got back home in time to see most of a glorious Red Sox victory over the Rays.

The game is now tonight. Maybe I'll take an older nephew this time. Maybe I'll stay home. I'll probably go, though. Thanks to the NASCAR beat, I don't get to see the Red Devils play often. The new coach, Scott King, was a player when I last covered the team.

I can laugh about it now, but it was serious business.