Riding the Weather Roller Coaster

We have been riding the weather roller coaster. We had a little ice on Friday of last week which closed school. Then the temperatures gradually got warmer reaching a high of 72° by Tuesday. Some serious storms blew through early Wednesday morning. We had some strong winds, though we slept through it. There were a total of thirteen tornados to touch down in Tennessee, one or two of those were here in Robertson County and five in Sunmer County. We really dodged the bullet on that one. Wednesday was another warm day with a high of 68° but by the time we were leaving church the temp had dropped to 38° and it was spitting snow. The next morning we woke up to 16°. Now we’re starting the week with above average temps.

The old saying is true. If you don't like the weather here in Tennessee just stick around.

ANY WAY YOU LIKE IT. Last Saturday Ben and Nate had back to back basketball games at 12:00 and 1:00. During Ben's game Vicki was a little hungry and sent Nate to the concession stand to get a hot dog. She told Nate to put ketchup and mustard on her dog but he had his hands full with other orders and came back with a plain dog. She sent him back with the hot dog for the condiments.

When Nate came back the hot dog had a huge glob of ketchup, overflowing the bun, on one end and a huge glob of mustard, also overflowing the bun, on the other. Obviously not how a connoisseur of these things wants them on their hot dog and Vicki set Nate straight on that point.

"Nate, what I want is a line of ketchup down the length of my hot dog and then a line of mustard, right beside the ketchup, down the length of my hot dog."

Nate looks at Vicki, looks down at the hot dog, and proceeds to stick his finger in the mustard in order to stir the two condiments together. And in that brief moment before Nate took action all of us sitting there knew exactly what he was about to do. We laughed so hard Ben said he heard us from out on the court.

SOUPER BOWL SUNDAY. Our church has had a fundraiser on Super Bowl Sunday for many years to raise money to send our youth to camp. They will be going to Charleston, South Carolina, in July. The event is a chili/soup dinner in the basement immediately after our second worship service. There is an auction to follow. As of now we’ve raised $6000.

Vicki had prepared a batch of potato soup before going to bed last night and left me instructions to take it out of the fridge and put it in the crock pot when I got up early this morning so it could start cooking. By the time the boys got up the pleasant aroma was strong and Nate said, “Mmmm. That potato soup smells good.” Then after a moment he added, “Hey, do I like potato soup?”

YOU’VE GOT TO PAY ATTENTION! The auction that followed our lunch had quite a few donated items. Eddie Cope served as our auctioneer. One of those was a box of those “World’s Finest Chocolate” bars that kids are typically selling as a fund raiser for school or a ball team. This caught Ben’s attention so he entered into the bidding and won the sale at $5. When Eddie asked Ben how many candy bars he wanted he decided on seven. That’s when Vicki said, “Okay Ben, do the math. How much money have you spent?”

Ben’s answer made it obvious that he hadn’t been paying attention and missed Eddie’s announcement before the bidding started that the winning bid would establish the price per chocolate bar. When this was explained to him he said, “Well, I was going to get ten bars but I wanted to leave some for other people.” Vicki was going to cover Ben’s purchase but much to his relief his grandmother bailed him out on that one.

It could have been worse. This was the second batch of candy bars to be sold. The first batch went for $15 a bar.

SELECTIVE READING. While we’re on the subject of church, Bro. Bill started a sermon series today titled “Love, Sex, and Marriage.” The text for today’s sermon came from Genesis 2:15-24. Now the more astute people in church, like Vicki and Mrs. Sue Freeland, noticed that Bro. Bill stopped one verse short of completing the second chapter of Genesis. I think Vicki is going to ask him in staff meeting why he didn’t go on and include verse 25. Maybe he’s saving that for another sermon.

DEAR DAD… While the Swann Family News has been going since September 2003, my journaling actually started back in 1992, though I wasn’t as consistent between 1992 and 2003 as I am today. In the beginning this took the form of letters to my dad. I dug out those notebooks and have been reading them over the last week.

There are about 130 letters, with 84 being written between January and September of 1992. Then I didn’t write again for almost four years. The remaining letters are spread over a longer period of time. It’s been really interesting to read and relive the time of my life when Vicki and I first started dating and when I was in Korea. I’m glad I took the time to write all that down.

I remember back in high school -- I believe it was my sophomore year -- when the English teacher I had that year took a maternity leave. Her replacement was Rita Read, who is one of the assistant principals at East Robertson now. Mrs. Read gave us the permanent assignment to keep a journal for the rest of the year. I hated it and resented the intrusion into my privacy. My journal was as brief as possible as I vowed she wouldn’t win. Well, Mrs. Read, it looks like after thirty years you won after all. Too bad I can’t apply today’s work to yesterday’s grade.

Joe