Rusty Saber: Tailgate parties should be held at church

This will come as no surprise to anyone, but I have been known to be wrong. For instance, I once predicted that people wouldn't pay exorbitant prices for clothing with the unlikely brand name of Tommy Hilfiger plastered all over them.

I mean, what sort of high society name is that? Ralph Lauren, as an overpriced brand name, I understand, but Tommy Hilfiger?

Well, you know what happened to that forecast. Practically everyone owns something with the Hilfiger label. The prediction was so lame on my part that I have some Tommy Hilfiger clothes in my less-than-extensive wardrobe.

Never one to learn from past bloopers, I have another can't-miss prediction unless, of course, it fails. This one has nothing to do with clothes nor is it new.

I once suggested that churches wanting to increase Sunday attendance should take a page from football's play book and hold tailgate parties before services. As with most of my suggestions, this one was ignored.

I'm at it again. This time it's more than a suggestion. It is a full-blown prediction backed by the prestige of the Hilfiger prediction.

Without trepidation, I predict that if churches were to have tailgate parties before services, church attendance would more than double.

This fearless prediction is based on the passion Americans have for food. I don't care what the event may be, if it's known that food won't be served, no one will show up. If food is served, it had better be good. If not, everyone will be out of there. Where two or more are gathered, food is bound to be there. What better way to entice people to church than to promote pigging out at tailgate parties?

For some fans, tailgate parties have become as important as the football games they precede. Once it was just a few football fanatics who showed up early for games and ate picnic meals around station wagon and pickup tailgates. Soon, simple picnic meals gave way to elaborate barbecues with fancy cooking equipment the likes of which many of us have never seen.

The smells wafting over football stadium parking lots are heavenly. Tailgate parties have become so popular that the those who don't cook can have them catered. If they help bring out crowds for football, why not churches?

Of course, if pre-church service tailgate parties were to become standard practice, the dress code for church attendance would have to change from "Sunday best" to "grubbiest." Admittedly, churchgoers might have barbecue sauce breath, and some might still be gnawing on a chili dog or a barbecued chicken leg, but they would be there.

Tailgate parties work because of our affection for unhealthy food. We love stuff we shouldn't eat. Have you ever heard of a pre-game tailgate party or any outdoor eating binge consisting of tofu, sushi, rice and Perrier?

Truth be told, I love barbecue and other foods of the tailgate genre. If there were such a thing as a church tailgate party, I would probably want to be there eating every high cholesterol morsel in sight.

Why is it that the more unhealthy the food, the better it tastes? For some reason, unhealthy food must taste even better to folks when cooked in a football stadium parking lot.

However, when it comes to eating unhealthy food, I remember that a book of columns written by my favorite columnist, the late Lewis Grizzard, is titled "Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night." Like me, Grizzard loved chili dogs ("dawgs" was his word, not mine).

Big, juicy bratwursts drenched with chili, kraut or barbecue sauce sound as good to me as they did to my idol.

But I also try to keep in mind that another of his books was "They Tore Out My Heart and Stomped That Sucker Flat," written after heart surgery. It was his heart that did him in.

Having had my own bouts with a telltale heart, I reluctantly keep the consumption of chili dogs and the like to a minimum.

Well, that is to say, I, well, I snarf up one now and again when no one is watching.

If Tommy Hilfiger can become a household name, can church tailgate parties be far behind?

(Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communications department at Drury University and a Springfield public relations consultant.)