As we end

baseball season and start football, our minds are all

directed to stories of victory yanked from defeat. Thus I

have compiled my Comebacks of the Year Awards for three

entities that were up to their eyes in alligators and

somehow have made it back into the canoe. They are an

airline, a movie theater and a 70-year-old stud.

First up, is Airtran

Airlines. Formerly Value Jet and much maligned (some

deserved), Airtran has gone from the Milli Vanilli of air

carriers to a solid, efficient, pleasurable ride. I used

to love Airtran for nothing else but they kept down

Delta's airfares in certain markets. But, over the past

year, they have become solid in so many key areas.

Sure, it's important to

stay on time with their flight schedules and they do, but

Airtran gets high marks from me in other key areas, too.

First off, you can get a free round-trip ticket after

just six trips on Airtran, three if you charge your

tickets on American Express. And do like me, I charge my

Airtran tickets on my SkyMiles AmEx to get a double

whammy.

No doubt about it, I love

Delta, but they are the Microsoft of the South, resting

on years of monopoly. And 25,000 miles before a free

ticket? I can earn an Airtran ticket before the Delta

pilots have brushed the lint off their blue blazers. In

my book Airtran is a killer value and the clear-cut

airline to be reckoned with here in Atlanta.

Next up and even more

local, is Tinsletown 17 movies theater in Fayetteville. I

gave them a big thumbs down a few months after they

opened. They just didn't have their act together. And how

hard is it to open the doors and take our $15 for snacks?

Yet, in the last month or so, it's like the National

Guard has arrived and taken control of the city. Service

has improved with seemingly less people. The

projectionist actually seems to stay and make sure the

sound and focus are correct, which is amazingly simple,

but before was rarely handled.

The key to this Cinemark's

success has been a change of management. The manager from

Cinemark Movies 10 (now a dollar theater) which ranked

number one every time I have rated our local movie

theaters, has moved to Tinsletown 17. Her name is Peggy,

and thank her personally for bringing our one and only

Fayette county stadium-seating theater to a level of

quality that matches the price of admission. As good as

the movie theater is becoming, though, even it can't

soften the pain of watching "Wild Wild West" or

"The Blair Witch Project."

I should be writing lastly

about Jim Morris, the 35-year-old rookie pitcher for the

Major League Tampa Bay Devil Rays, but he never played

baseball before, so technically his feat is not a

comeback. Instead, I want to give the last comeback award

to someone twice his age, 70-year-old Eddie Fisher. He

has written a tell-all book about the women he conquered.

The self-proclaimed "Jewish Sinatra"

(Sinatrastein?) has come forward, naming all the famous

women he bedded.

In an excerpt he claims,

"he knew, sometimes intimately, Ava Gardner, Audrey

Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Gina Lollobrigida, Brigitte

Bardot, Joan Collins, Sue Lyon, Lana Turner, Margaret

Truman." I don't know, at 70, I think most men

recall that kind of list of women, don't they?

Yet, Eddie is big news

again. Another quote on his exploits says, "One

wonders how he was able to find time to record songs

between his bouts of passion." Well, how long does

it take? Just a few minutes, right? I mean, to record a

song.

Nevertheless, Eddie, what a

comeback; after all these years, you have managed to

bring yourself back into the spotlight and remind the

American people just what a jerk and a joke you always

were. May you get diaper rash from sitting too long in

wet Depends.

[E-mail Billy Murphy at

[email protected] and visit his homepage at

https://billymurphy.homepage.com.]

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