News from the Bleachers

We woke up to a beautiful snow yesterday. There was about a half inch of the fluffy white stuff covering everything. Almost all of it was gone by lunchtime.

TOURNAMENT TIME! I don’t want to ignore Nate’s basketball season--they had their third win yesterday--but since the Robertson County Middle School Tournament finished up yesterday I will focus on that for now.

Robertson County currently has six middle schools. The first games on the tourney were a week ago Thursday (the 15th). We were paired against Greenbrier. It was a good game. The most memorable part of this game actually came about a minute and a half before halftime. Greenbrier had the ball and our boys simply weren’t acting like they were taking their defense seriously. Not a single one of them had their hands up to block a pass or a shot. Our coach called a time out, benched all our starters, and let the JV team play out the remainder of the quarter. I think that got their attention because they came back from the locker room acting like they meant business.

Our victory against Greenbrier pitted us against Springfield, the number one seed, for the semifinals. We knew chances of a win were slim but we had a glimmer of hope when we learned that three of their starters lost their eligibility to play. As the game progressed we couldn’t tell they were missing any key players. It was a total blow out.

Fortunately for us the losers of the semifinals got to play a consolation match yesterday for third place. We faced Coopertown and won. This was an exciting game and probably the best game Ben played all season. His shooting was better and he made his presence felt on the court with some of the plays he made.

All losses aside, it has been fun to watch Ben play. He has gotten a lot of game time this year. It’s a big step up from Upward ball but I think his experience in Upward has served him well. I am eager to see what his high school years will bring for him. I’m also glad to see that he conducts himself well on the court.

A RIGOROUS SCHEDULE. In case you don’t know East Robertson High School uses a block schedule. This means Jenna gets a new set of classes each semester, much like college. This time she is taking English III, Chemistry, US History and Geography, and Speech. Her Speech class, like Psychology last semester, is a dual enrollment class. In addition to all of this she is taking an extra US History class. This class is simply a college class, not dual enrollment. She has the same teacher for both history classes, but the classes are not related. This class meets at 6:45 am on Tuesdays and Thursdays making for some long days. Her five course load will also earn six hours of college credit.

Jenna handles the load and stress with grace and ease. Watching her tackle all this has increased my admiration for my daughter many times over. I feel confident in saying that here’s one nursing student hopeful who won’t be fazed by the level of work required when she gets to college. Jenna, I am very proud of you.

CONFESSIONS. Confession is good for the soul, right? If so Jenna’s soul should be healthy. It’s not that she needed to confess anything, but it seems like things come up in conversation every now and then which makes her tell us about things she used to do as a little girl.

For example, the other night I shot Jenna with a rubber band. She held it over the vent in the floor as if she were going to drop it into the air duct. She refrained from dropping it when I told her not to, but that’s when she opened up and told me about all the stuff she used to drop down the vent on purpose when she was little. She went on the say that she liked watching my face as I lay on the floor reaching in to retrieve toys, crayons, and the like.

Proud as I am of you Jenna, I’m praying for grandchildren from you. I’m going to enjoy watching you do motherhood. And trust me, I will be giving your kids plenty of ideas.

Joe