Graduation

Tuesday night was Josh's high school graduation. The place was packed. There were twenty more graduates than at Jonathan's last year and it showed. Fortunately, we got there early and got decent seats plus managed to hold spots for both of our families.

Josh was one of two valedictorians. Both of our sons were valedictorians and as you might guess, I am pretty proud of them. They took hard classes (Calculus, Physics, etc) so they certainly earned it. Josh did his speech on "Attitude Determines Altitude". He did a great job on it. Transcripts are available for a nominal fee :-). Afterwards, Josh went with some of his buddies to eat and then come back for Project Graduation. This is (as you probably know) where they lock the kids in until the next morning to ensure a "chemical free" night. From what Josh told me and pictures I've seen, it looks like a lot of fun for them. Its better then most graduation nights I was familiar with in the past in this area which turned out to be huge drunken bashes.

It was an emotional day. Donna called me that morning and I could tell she was really upset. She finally told me that she was upset because Josh was leaving for school for the last time. She could remember when she sent him to pre-school for the first time and now he was done with school. I do not know how we'll ever get home from Lexington in August after we drop him off. I imagine sedation of some type will be in order. I am reminded of a lesson Jim Faughn preached where he referenced Psalms 127:4-5. These verses compare children to arrows in a quiver. He also talked about the coming when those arrows come out of the quiver and are shot into the distance. We're nocking our bow with one right now and it'll be let loose in a few months...

Literature

I enjoy reading a lot. My favorites are the Bible and various classic literature by writers such as Mark Twain, Jules Verne, and Robert Louis Stevenson. I have given up on reading most modern literature. For example, I tried to read Stephen King's "Bag of Bones" years ago and found it so vulgar that I gave up. The only "recent" fiction I've read is the Harry Potter series. I still read a lot of non-fiction (Finance, Bible study aides) books plus books of facts like almanacs.

A favorite classic of mine is the "The Scarlet Pimpernel" by Baroness Emmuska Orczy. I was reminded of this recently when I saw the Facebook page of a young man (Derek Ratliff) I go to church with . The story is about a man who appears to be a brainless rich aristocrat who turns out to be a dashing brave famous hero (The Scarlet Pimpernel) who saves French aristocrats from the clutches of the French "Reign of Terror". Does the general premise of that sound familiar (rich man who is actually a hero that nobody could believe would be him)? I've always felt that this book was the forerunner of the disguised superhero genre that is popular to this day (Bruce Wayne/Batman, Tony Stark/Ironman, etc). It's not an immensely long book (about like Treasure Island). It has some history in it concerning the French Revolution. I'd recommend you give it a read.

What I've just found out is the Baroness wrote other prequels and sequels to this book. I am already scouting out a few to buy to find out the further adventures of "The Scarlet Pimpernel"

Oooh, Donuts...

I have loved Red's Donuts for as long as I can remember. Their original shop was on Bridge Street. I can remember in my youth getting a Large Dr Pepper, four soft shell tacos from Taco John's and then getting 6 of their fabulous chocolate iced-cream filled donuts to top it off (this would be after a couple of rounds of Putt-Putt golf). That was back in the day when I could eat and eat and never gain an ounce... I have learned not to buy donuts anywhere in Paducah since I am always disappointed when I do.

They moved to a location on Jackson Street some years ago. It's right on the way to where we worship (Central church of Christ) and we have to constantly resist the temptation to stop in and grab some. This morning, Donna wanted to buy some donut holes for the Ladies Tea at Central. If you don't know what donut holes are (I actually met a guy from New York City a few years who didn't), they are the little pieces of donut that are cut out from the center of a regular donut and fried and covered in glaze. They are excellent especially when they are fresh like they were this morning (second only to the chocolate iced - creme filled I mentioned before). I had to make myself stop from eating all of them along with the chocolate iced - creme filled I bought so there would be some left for my sons.

Anyway, they now put advertising on their boxes. Donna and I always find it funny that this advertisement is on there.

Tennis anyone?

Yesterday was the Regional Tennis Tournament at the Larry Heflin tennis complex in Lone Oak. My younger son Josh is finishing up his third year playing tennis. He had played very little tennis up until high school (in gym class). I remember him coming home to say he was joining the team. I was a bit surprised but we played a lot together over the past few years to help him practice. I used to be able to beat him no problem, then we got to where we played close matches. This year, it's a different story. He beats me easily now. Last Sunday afternoon, he beat me 8-0. I didn't play that bad, he's just gotten better.

He's had to play the one seed this year, so he's had to play a lot of good players and he didn't win as many matches as when he was the three seed last year. He's also running track (the long distance events) so he has to run back and forth between practices and matches/meets.

Anyway, he wanted to win one match at the Regional as his goal. He drew a player from Heath. Both of their matches were rained out this year (as were several others) so he knew nothing about who he was playing. Watching them warm up and play they looked pretty evenly matched. He lost the first set 6-2 and was down 3-1 in the second but came rallying back to win 6-3 and then won the decisive set 6-2. He was thrilled. His reward was to play the 2nd seed from St. Mary who was very good. Josh did manage to win a couple of games, but lost 6-0, 6-2.

I'll miss watching him play and especially our games together once he goes off to school. We talk and have quite an enjoyable time when we go to play.

As a bit of trivia, Larry Heflin was my 10th grade Geometry teacher at Lone Oak. Probably neither of us would like to admit that this was 32 years ago... Also, Josh's tennis coach was his geometry teacher as well.

Denver Nuggets

I was happy to find out this morning that my favorite NBA team (the Denver Nuggets) won game 5 of their series with the New Orleans Hornets to advance to Round 2 of the NBA Playoffs to face the Dallas Mavericks. This is their first playoff series win in 15 years. This of course may prompt you to ask "Why do you root for the Denver Nuggets"?

Go back with me to the mid 1970s. The NBA was nowhere as popular as it is now. They might a show a few games a year on TV plus parts of the playoffs. I seem to remember they even would tape-delay playoff games. There was another basketball league back then called the ABA (the American Basketball Association). They used a red, white, and blue basketball (I used to have one, wish I still did). They pioneered several basketball changes that the NBA actually adopted including the 3-point shot, the slam-dunk contest, and high school kids going directly to the pros (i.e Moses Malone). There was a team in that league called the Kentucky Colonels that played in Louisville. Not only that, they had two prominent former UK players in Louie Dampier and arguably the best Wildcat of all time - Dan Issel.

They were very competitive in the ABA. There was a country-city rivalry with the New York Nets and their star player Julius "Dr. J" Erving. Kentucky finally won the ABA championship in the 1974-1975 season. They challenged the NBA champs (the Golden State Warriors) to a championship series which the Warriors declined. Things were looking great! Then, in a bizarre move in the off season, the owner of the Colonels sold Dan Issel to the Baltimore Claws (a new ABA franchise).

That owner was John Y Brown. He is well known to Kentuckians as the man who bought KFC from Colonel Sanders (later selling it). He was also governor of the State from 1979-1983. He later divorced his first wife and married Phyllis George. She was a former Miss America and the first prominent female NFL sportscaster. Brown made me even more upset after the season when he refused to pony up to have Kentucky move to the NBA (when the ABA finally folded) with the New York (later the New Jersey) Nets, the San Antonio Spurs, the Indiana Pacers and finally the Denver Nuggets. He ended up buying the Buffalo Braves team right after that (they became the LA Clippers). I pushed everybody I knew to not vote for him for governor in 1979 and would never vote for him for anything after that.

Well, the Claws folded in something like a week after the season. Dan Issel ended up with the Denver Nuggets. With Issel being a UK guy plus the Nuggets being an ABA team, I started rooting for them and have ever since. They had good teams those first few years and even got to the West finals in 1987 before losing to the Lakers (with Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul Jabbar). Ever since, they've bounced back and forth between mediocre and terrible (one year they lost 23 games in a row!). They've made some good personnel moves in the past few years. The final piece was getting point guard Chauncey Billups in exchange for Allen Iverson at the start of this year. I'm cautiously optimistic.

Hope you enjoyed what my sons would surely call "an old man story".

Country Road, take me home...

Josh was playing tennis in Murray on Friday afternoon and wanted me to come there. He wanted a ride home so he could get to a Multimedia class gathering that night. He grudgingly said "Since you are driving all that way, you can watch me play". He generally does not like Donna and I to watch him play. Naturally I jumped at the chance.

We go to Mayfield a decent amount. It's been years since I've been to Murray. I got to Mayfield and the "Dick Castleman Bypass". Mayfield has maybe 10,000 people in it but somehow they were able to get a bypass built around their city. It's nice I admit (it used to be a quite weavy trip through downtown Mayfield) but I am not sure how it was justified. Obviously somebody (quite possible their local representative it's named for) had a good bit of influence in the Kentucky state legislature.

After rounding the bypass (about 3 or 4 miles), I turned left to pick up the main part of 121. I was surprised to find that it was now integrated with hiway 80. It was also now four lane. Turns out hiway 80 is going to be fourlaned all the way to Murray. Right now it's done all the way to Coldwater. They've had to put in a traffic light in Coldwater now to get the four-lane traffic back onto 121 from the four-laned 80. It's bizarre seeing a traffic light in Coldwater. I don't even think its as big as Wickliffe or LaCenter. It might be comparable to Kevil.

After a bit of online research, the plan is to four-lane 80 all the way from Mayfield to Cadiz. Again, some representatives in this part of the state must have some influence in the state legislature. It may divert traffic from Stella depriving me the right to always yell "Stell-aaa" in my poor Marlon Brando impersonation whenever we see the green sign when we drive through (and earning incredulous looks from my sons each time).

I've lost a bit more sympathy for our Governor when he complains about a lack of money. I may incur the ire of some, but I cannot understand the need to four-lane that corridor. I've gotta believe there are hiways that need it worse than that in the state...

Kansas City, here I come

I got up Saturday morning and ran on the treadmill at the hotel. We finally left a bit before 11 for Kansas City. We stopped in Columbia and ate at Chili's. We got to the hotel (Drury Inn and Suites) about 3:30 so we had time to rest a bit before the game (at 6:10pm).

The weather was a bit warmer so we just went with bringing coats. You can walk from the Drury Inn to Kaufman Stadium (home of the Royals). It's right next to I-70 (you actually walk on an overpass over I-70 to get there from the Drury). You have to walk down a steep grassy hill, but that's it. We got in and found our seats were better than expected. We were in the 200 section behind the Yankee dugout. I had seen the tickets listed as row HH, so I thought we'd be in the back of the section. Turns out they count rows from the field, so HH ended up only being about 35 rows up.

We watched the players warm up. I noticed CC Sabathia warming up (he's a big guy and very hard to miss). Turns out he was going to pitch instead of the originally scehduled starter (Joba Chamberlin). Sabathia is one of the best pitchers on the majors (even though he got hammered on opening day) so Jonathan was happy about that. I didn't recognize hardly any of the Royals starting lineup. I've heard talk of them being a dark horse in the AL Central race, but I have a very hard time believing that... The Yankees were missing A-Rod and their high dollar new first baseman Mark Texiera didn't play either. Jonathan's favorite (Derek Jeter) played though.

The Yankees picked up a couple in the first on an RBI double by Jorge Posada. Sabathia looked strong in striking out two Royals in the first. In the third, Jeter singled, stole second and went to third on a Johnny Damon ground ball. Nick Swisher (subbing for Texiera) hit a a slicing fly ball toward the right field line. I thought "Jeter will score on that catch since the right fielder is running toward the line to catch it and won't be able to make a strong throw home". Next thing I know, the ball falls fair and Swisher ends up with a triple. Matsui doesn't get him home from third with one out, but Posada gets another big double with 2 out to make it 4-0. Sabathia gives up two lead off singles in the 4th, but strikes out Billy Butler and coaxes a DP out of Alex Gordon to escape unscathed. In the 5th, Nick Swisher hits a two run homer to make it 6-0.

I decide at this point to look for the elusive polish sausage I didn't get the night before. I went all the way around Kaufman stadium and nobody sells them! Unreal. I had to settle for a jumbo hot dog and and big pretzel instead. I'll say that the food choices at Busch Stadium are much more varied.

Sabathia finally left in the 8th since he was close to 110 pitches. The Royals finally got a run in the 9th (prompting a sarcastic cheer from their remaining fans). There were quite a lot of Yankee fans there (besides Jonathan) who were ecstatic with a 6-1 win. We walked back to the hotel and went to bed.

We got up the next morning and headed out. We stopped for Bible Study and worship services at the Eastside church of Christ in Columbia Missouri. We later stopped in St. Louis to try and eat at Lion's Choice. We were again thwarted as it seemed the whole franchise was closed for the holiday. We stopped at our old standby (McDonalds). The trip home was uneventful. Jonathan and I had some nice father son discussions. We did wrestle over the radio. I did listen to the Cardinals Astros game and heard Kyle Lohse pitch a shutout for a Cardinals sweep of the Astros.

We got back about 5:15. I wasn't starving but I decided to try out the Midnight Truffle Blizzard at DQ (it came highly recommended by my son Josh). I was not disappointed, it was great! It probably has thousands of calories, but it sure was good. We went to church and it was good to see Donna and Josh. Josh even brought me a leftover Arby's roast beef (he didn't quite finish their 4 for 5.00 deal).

It was a thoroughly enjoyable weekend. We are eagerly awaiting the NFL schedule release on Tuesdays. The Giants play at Arrowhead this year (it's right next to Kaufman Stadium) and we hope the game is scheduled such that we can go..