A Much Needed Break

The fall weather has finally arrived, and when it did there was no moderation. We went from hot to chilly practically overnight. There are signs that the trees are about to turn, so we're looking for the pretty colors to explode in the next few weeks.

FALL BREAK
This week has been Davidson Academy's fall break. This was a week I had set my sights on some months ago for rest and relaxation and it was all I had hoped it would be. Friday after school I cleaned up my classroom, locked the door, and walked away, mentally as well as physically. Our homecoming game was that night. Vicki and I had signed up to work in the concessions stand, so enjoyed the tailgating fun until it was time to go serve hamburgers and hotdogs.

A quick aside, the Bears are enjoying an undefeated season this year. We've scored over 60 points per game in a four game stretch. Our cousin, Wil, is having a good season. Our homecoming game was televised locally. Jackie called me at halftime to say that Wil had caught a beautiful touchdown pass.

Last Saturday we headed out for the lake house once again. I enjoy the lake house. When we are there time seems to come to a stop. It was so nice to wake up later than I normally leave for work. It rained the majority of the time, but we were content to stay in, simply relaxing and enjoying time together. Jenna came up with us, skipped her Monday classes, and returned Tuesday. The rest of us headed home on Wednesday.

SETTING RECORDS
We had a cross country meet in Dickson last Saturday. The boys and I went to that before heading to the lake house. (Vicki and Jenna went to a funeral in Camden and then met us at the lake house.) With only two races left in the season, Ben wanted to to beat his personal record of 19:55 that he set last year before graduating. All the kids have run well this season, but given the 85°-90° temperatures, breaking personal records has alluded most of the team. Saturday morning was a glorious 54° and just about everyone set records, Ben included. He clocked in at 19:12!

I don't want to ignore Nate here. He came in at 22:10, beating his season record by 8 seconds, but seeing the mud covered boy come around the corner and head into the funnel toward the finish line told the story before I heard the tale. Somewhere along the back of the course he tripped and fell. He bore the bruises and scrape marks from that one for several days. Getting back up from the fall wouldn't have taken too much time, but what really cost him was looking for his glasses. Nate normally runs without his glasses---and this race was no different---but his reaction after the fall was natural enough. He estimates he lost about 30 seconds in a panic looking for his glasses until it dawned on him that he never had them on. Disappointing as this was, he took it well and even left the mud on his face for a while as a battle scar.

CAMDEN TRIPS
I mentioned above that Vicki went to a funeral in Camden. She has a good high school/college friend, Angi, who now lives in Bowling Green. They get together periodically. It was Angi's mother who had passed away.

This weekend she and Angi returned to Camden for their 30th year high school reunion. I was going to go, but when other husbands started backing out I opted to stay home. As it turned out, she and Angi had a big time making it an overnight trip and shopping on the way home.

THE BOB ROSS MUG
Last Christmas one of Ben's friends gave him a coffee mug as a gift. It has a picture of famed PBS artist Bob Ross on one side and a quote from Ross on the other that reads "We don't make mistakes. We have happy accidents."

Now Ben is a man of few words. You have to weasel the information out of him to learn anything. So Vicki was naturally curious when Ben pulled his mug out of the dishwasher one evening and set it out by his backpack and gym bag. I will skip the interrogation that followed for the sake of brevity, but the bottom line is that we were all shocked to learn that every Friday Ben drinks hot tea in his English class as they discuss literature. Who knew? Neither of us saw that one coming. I think he'll be switching to hot chocolate as we return to school, since he really doesn’t enjoy hot tea.

THE GREAT POP-TART RITUAL
Since the boys and I ride to school together most mornings (and are leaving about the same time when we drive separately), I get to witness what I call The Great Pop-Tart Ritual. I'm more of a cereal guy, but I am fascinated each morning as I watch the boys consume their breakfast pastry. I'm sure I could go into a deeper examination of what all this means for either boy, just as people do who examine the order in which folks put on their socks and shoes. Rather than overanalyze my breakfast table, I'm just going to report my observations.

Nate will sit down and very carefully break off and eat the edges of the Pop-Tart, the short edges are first, followed by the long edges. Then he will consume the center of the thing in 6-8 bites. Ben, on the other hand, will carefully break a Pop-Tart in half, and then into quarters. When this is done he will pop a quarter into his mouth and chew thoughtfully. Both boys are alike in that they do this one pastry at a time.

So, that's my morning amusement while I munch on my Cheerios or oatmeal. Even teenagers are creatures of habit.

Joe

Fall Is Here!

Fall is here! We thought the days would be cooler--and they were, briefly--but then the temps went back into the 90s. At least those days are numbered. Tobacco barns are firing and corn is being gathered. It is a nice time of year.

OLD TREES
I enjoy a yard full of trees. I grew up in a house that sits in the middle of a yard full of trees; tall, mature oak trees for the most part. We've had to cut a lot of trees out of Mom's yard over the years, but there are still about 100 trees in the area we mow and maintain.

I didn't mention this at the time, but this happened when we were eating lunch over at Mom's back on the August 26th after church. I had gone outside to throw some table scraps out in the field when I heard the sounds of something crashing through the trees over in the wooded part of the yard. Thinking a limb was falling, I turned to look and was astonished to see that the tree trunk had broken some 8 or 10 feet above the ground and was falling. Rather than fall all the way to the ground, the tree top fell into another tree and is still leaning there at a crazy angle, making the job of clearing this up all the more complicated.

I called my cousin, Brad, who does tree trimming to come out and look. While sizing up the job, we noted a couple of other dead trees that needed to be cut down. Hopefully he can cut this one tree down without having to cut the one holding it up.

Well, Brad has been busy and not been able to get to Mom's job yet. Turns out this is a good thing. A couple of Friday afternoons ago (21st) after the boys and I had gotten home from school we got a brief shower. As the rain moved out I heard two very loud peals of thunder. Pretty soon after that Donna, who was sitting with Mom at the time, called to say that lightning had struck something close by and that she'd "never heard Mrs. Anne praying quite like this before."

I got in the truck and drove over there and saw exactly what happened. Lightning had struck one of the healthy trees immediately next to the tree that had fallen over almost four weeks earlier. This poor tree was splintered! I've seen trees that have burn marks where lightning ran down the trunk, but it's less common in my experience to see the bark just blown off with one side looking like it erupted and large chunks of wood scattered for 30-40 feet all around. If you've ever seen a pencil that was broken but not snapped in two, imagine this in tree scale and you'll have the idea. Too bad the lightning didn't hit the leaning tree and help us out.

This is sad to me. I'm glad Aunt Mar is not around to see her stately trees showing the signs of age.

FINISHING STRONG
We are nearing the end of the cross country season now. The boys have been running well all season. Ben has been trying to beat his personal record of 19:55 this year. He's come close, but with all the heat they've been running in, this goal alludes him so far.

I enjoy going to support the boys run when I can, but I will admit this is not a spectator sport like basketball. Most races, we watch 200-300 runners take off from the starting line, walk over to the opposite side of the course to cheer them on as they go by, and walk back to catch them at the finish line. The fastest runners log times under 17 minutes and the last of the runners cross the line 10-12 minutes later.

What's interesting to watch are the little races that happen as small packs of runners trickle in. That's when you see the boys with determination reach within to summon the will needed to beat those around him. This story played out between Nate and another boy who were running side by side the other week. Nate glanced over with that look of "You're not beating me!" on his face. He poured it on and was half a step over the finish line, clearly in front of the other runner. Later we were surprised to see that the timing system had placed the other runner ahead of Nate by one second.

I was standing by the finish line filming the action which helped us figure out why this is. Nate had attached the RFID chip to his left shoe before the race. By dumb luck his left foot came down just inches before the finish line sensor. His right foot was clearly over the finish line sensor before the other boy, but the other boy's time was recorded first because his RFID tag went over the line before Nate's did. We were laughing about it at home, and I told Nate he'd have to plan a little better so he'd know which shoe would step over the line first at the end of a 5000 meter race.

JENNA'S KNEE
Jenna has come home for a few days while Trevecca enjoys fall break. Her walking has improved a lot, but she certainly isn't back to normal yet. She worked a short shift at Historic Perk yesterday and did well. On Wednesday night, she will resume her duties in the nursery at Grace Church of the Nazarene.

AN OLD STORY
The other day a plastic bag sitting on a shelf in Mom's garage caught my eye. Curious, I looked inside to discover a cache of letters my mom had written to Aunt Carrie when she was living in Arizona, mostly as I was growing up. I brought these home and started skimming through them. There are several funny stories, but this one from a letter written on October 27, 1968, caught our eye. Keep in mind I am about two years old when this happened. Dad had passed away the previous December and Mom and I had moved in with Uncle George and Aunt Mar. Mom writes:

One night this week George wasn't in such good humor with [Joe]. He has monkeyed with their alarm clock before but they have always caught it. This time when it rang they were so sleepy they just rose and went about the morning routine not looking [at the time].

I heard a high pitched, shrill giggle coming from the direction of [the] breakfast table. Couldn't decide whether Margarette was laughing or crying so got up to see what on earth was causing such. There she was shaking with laughter, wiping the tears. George looked glum. They had just finished breakfast and he had checked his watch to see how much time he had to enjoy his second cup of coffee before leaving for work, when he discovered it was 3:30. There was something about his dining in a shirt and tie at 3:30 that was hysterical (he didn't find it that way). They went back to bed but [I] don't think they slept much with all that coffee.

Joe