Editor's note: With the onset of the football season just a step away, and the anticipated ending of the baseball wars, we feel the following item to be apropos at this time.

Love/hate relationships are rampant; as a matter of fact, they're plum unrestrained.

Even in our great state of Alabama there's solid evidence of the co-existence of those emotions on the campuses of our two leading universities.

Most Bama fans say they pull for all the football teams that play arch-rival War Eagle U in its annual gridiron wars.

The Tigers down on the Plains express an identical feeling toward the Red-Elephants of T-Town fame.

Now that friends, tells both sides of that story, intrastate.

Omitted obviously, for purposes of nicety, are discussions about political fighting, charges and counter-charges, name-calling and the like.

Going afield somewhat, uncounted multitudes revel in the commonality of their love to hate Notre Dame's Irishmen and the New York Yankees.

Why is this so, you may ask.

It arises from a pair of discriminatory conclusions: (1) jealousy of success, and (2) the overabundance of notoriety afforded the athletes of South Bend and the Big Apple.

The posers of love/hate relationships present us with a baffling question that's difficult to deal with.

On the love side, apropos of little or nothing, we have Oscar Wilde claiming that &uot;to love one's self in the beginning of a life-long romance.

Hatred is expressed by Edward J. Mannix, who said that he went around the world and discovered that both sides hated each other.

Both Wilde and Mannix present definitions that are in keeping with worldwide events at this particular juncture in time.

It's unfortunate, but probably true that hate far outweighs &uot;love&uot; aspects that are prevalent right now on this planet.

Love/hate in the Great Hereafter, we firmly believe will become a Love/Love situation.