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This is the way I heard it.

Harvey sat in front of his big screen TV nursing a beer and wondering if Tom Brady could pull another rabbit out of his hat when a bona fide superstar began to sing the bejesus out of the Star Spangled Banner.

It was an epic performance that immediately transported the 79 year old Harvey back to a time when he was young and famous and hopelessly in love.

Why the sudden sprint down memory lane? Because Harvey knew something that most people did not. Harvey knew that the bona fide superstar belting out the national anthem at Super Bowl 53 wouldn't be up there on his big screen TV.

But for the seemingly random influence of his future ex-wife 47 years earlier and the randomness of it all was blowing Harvey's 79 year old mind.

Harvey considered the unlikely chain of events which led to the burst of nostalgia, now threatening to overwhelm him best he could figure, it began with a phone call from Jim Weatherley way back in 1972. Like Harvey, Jim had quit football to make a living in L.A., whereas Harvey had done the TV thing, Jim had done the music thing with a lot less success. One day Jim called the house. Then Harvey's future ex-wife answered the phone. She was in the bedroom when he called packing her suitcase.

Hello. Hey, gorgeous. May I speak to the man of the house? Oh, hi, Jim. He's downstairs memorizing lines. Want me to get him now? That's all right. I'm just checking in.

How's tricks with you? Truth is, tricks weren't so great for Harvey's future ex-wife, like a million other girls from a thousand other towns, she'd come to L.A. looking for fame and fortune thanks to her looks. There was no shortage of modeling jobs. Noxzema scooped her up the minute she landed, then Max Factor, then Ford, then beauty rest.

But modeling jobs weren't the reason. Harvey's future ex-wife had come to the City of Angels. She had come to act and casting agents just weren't taking her seriously. What's the problem? As Jim, you're gorgeous. You're talented. Harvey's crazy about you. Just sit tight. The parts will come to you while you're awful sweet, she said.

But I know myself and I know if I don't get out of L.A. for a spell, I'm going to lose my mind. Well, then, said Jim, where are you going to go? At which point Harvey's future ex-wife might have said, I'm going to head home to see my parents or maybe I'm going to take the redeye back to Texas. Both those statements would have been true, but that's not what she said. What she said was, I'm leaving on the midnight plane to Houston.

Jim hung up, grabbed his guitar and wrote a song about a frustrated actress who leaves L.A. and goes back home. It took him less than a half hour. A few weeks later, he cut a demo. A few weeks after that, Whitney Houston's mother, Cissy, offered to record Jim's song with one condition. We need to change the title, said Sissy. I'm a Houston, but I'm not from Houston. Also, my people don't take planes.

We take trains.

Jim agreed to the new title and before long, Whitney Houston's mother's version of Jim Weatherly's newest song, inspired by Harvey's future ex wife's desire to leave L.A. as soon as possible, was heard by another recording artist looking for a breakout hit.

This artist thought the tune could use a little more groove and a lot more soul. Jim agreed. She also thought the frustrated actress leaving L.A. should be a frustrated actor. Instead, Jim agreed to that change as well. In fact, Jim said, Change whatever you want, lady.

Anything but the name of the guy who wrote it.

That's how a song called Midnight Plane to Houston became a midnight train to Georgia, a monster hit that went all the way to the top of the charts, won a Grammy, got Jim Weatherley voted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and completely changed the career trajectory of a young recording artist whose face was now on Harvey's big screen TV, 47 years later singing the bejesus out of the Star Spangled Banner at Super Bowl 53 and giving America something to stand for.

And that's the way it was. February 3rd, 2019. A bona fide superstar ended the anthem on a high note thanks to a random phone call 47 years before Tom Brady pulled another rabbit out of his hat, thanks to a preternatural mix of good luck and stupefying talent.

And a 79 year old former football player named Harvey Lee Yeary recalled the seemingly random influence of his old girlfriend on the musical career of Gladys Knight and the national anthem at Super Bowl 53, the old girlfriend, whose red swimsuit now hangs in the Smithsonian Institution, the same girlfriend who stole his heart and took his name, not his real name, the name he adopted when he quit playing football and started playing roles.

Maybe now you'll remember the girl for whom the fall guy fell as the aspiring actress who took the midnight plane to Houston, the angel who came back to L.A. to work for Charlie and marry the Six Million Dollar Man, the future ex-wife of Lee Majors named Farrah Fawcett. Anyway, that's the way I heard it.