
Thursday, April 19, 2007
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Opinion

Fielder’s Choice
By Barry Burleson

Tired of wind, cold

I walked out the door of The South Reporter several times Monday afternoon to check on how the new paint job on our building was going.

Not because I had concerns about the quality of the work. It’s looking good.

But simply because it was nearing 70 degrees and the sun was shining. It seemed as if I had not experienced that in months.

The past two weeks we’ve almost frozen at every athletic event we’ve attended. It made me think back to the time I played in a spring softball tournament about 25 years ago and it snowed.

There wasn’t any snow in this spring of 2007 (at least not yet), but that’s about all that was missing.

The weekend of April 6-7 my son Andy played in a baseball tournament at New Albany. That Friday night, I carried Erin to T-ball practice and got very cold, while Pam suffered even more during a doubleheader at New Albany.

Parents brought blankets and heaters (thanks to good friend Ronnie Day), coats and so forth. All that helped tremendously, but it was still cold, very cold, and the wind was terrible. It would cut you in half.

The coaches said the pitchers could hardly grip the baseball because their hands were so cold.

Then Saturday evening I accompanied Andy to New Albany to the tournament’s semi-finals. It was cold but not nearly as cold as the evening before. The bulk of the fans were huddled in a self-made tent, trying to keep the wind off, with again small heaters running, too.

I managed to stay outside the tent - with several layers of clothes on, plus gloves and a toboggan.

This wasn’t baseball weather. I’m not sure what that weather was good for – maybe snow skiing.

I’m starting to think they should switch the football and baseball seasons – football in the spring and baseball in the fall. It seems we don’t have any cold weather for football anymore, except maybe late in the playoffs.

This past Saturday I traveled to Clarksdale for a junior high track meet. I didn’t go as prepared as I did the week before for the baseball tournament. I only had on one layer of clothes, plus a coat and gloves. The weather was miserable – again cold and a strong wind that wouldn’t quit.

I particularly felt sorry for the track meet participants – who were freezing in their shorts and shirts on the track.

In between their events, they were bundled under tents in coats and quilts.

It was far from track meet weather. It was also muddy everywhere except on the track itself.

I went to the vehicle once to warm up but toughed it out the rest of the time. I figured if the kids could take it, I could too.

Sunday evening Pam and I drove to Tunica for a reception kicking off a workshop for some Press Association representatives from across the country.

Once again, I had to drive in the wind. I don’t know how many times in the past few weeks I’ve complained to Pam about trying to stay between the lines on the road while driving in such strong winds.

In case you can’t tell, I’m about fed up with this April weather we’ve been experiencing.

Perhaps that’s because the warm temperatures in March spoiled me.

This week’s forecast, sunshine and temperatures near 80, is about as welcome as any I’ve seen in some time.

And it’s particularly encouraging since this is Pilgrimage weekend in Holly Springs. We always want the best weather possible for this grand event.

Close to Nowhere
By Linda Jones

Welcome!

Yes, “welcome” to all the visitors to our fair city!

But, that’s not who I’m referring to in this column.

Sunday was an exciting day at my church, Free Springs United Methodist, out near Harmontown.

The congregation and pastor of Free Springs CME Church, just down the road and a neighbor for probably well over 100 years, joined us for our worship service.

As with many small, rural churches, Free Springs CME, while they have Sunday School every Sunday, only has worship service on the second and fourth Sundays.

Our pastor, who is still relatively “new” to our congregation (less than a year), wondered if maybe they’d want to come to our church on those Sundays. After all, we know each other from “everyday” real life, why not on Sundays also?

Laurie, our pastor’s wife is our pianist and Keith, one the few men at our church, leads our music. Those are two of the three people in our church who are musically talented. My friend Jane has a very nice voice and leads music when Keith has to be absent.

So, we were excited about adding voices to our “joyful noise” and also worried that our singing would be terrible.

Wonderfully, the combination of voices worked tremendously and our singing sounded much better than normal.

After worship service, we all went downstairs to our fellowship hall and enjoyed a wonderful lunch together.

As luck would have it, we’d postponed our regular second Sunday lunch because of Easter, so our “Second Sunday lunch” fell on the third Sunday anyway.

We’ve decided that if our friends and neighbors from just down the road will come on third Sundays, we’re switching from “Second” Sundays to “Third.” We all had a great time!

I do have to mention that my pastor and his 16-year-old daughter Anna “covet” Bro. Jerry Wright’s new truck.

When Anna got her driver’s license recently, her dad, Bro. Troy, “lost” his bright, red pickup. So, when Bro. Jerry drove up in his burnt orange Avalanche, most of us in the congregation immediately began to “covet” but Bro. Troy and Anna were more serious.

Bro. Jerry’s wife offered to trade anything — as long as they took the payment as well.

Our church is very small and the 28 of us that were there Sunday was about normal. I don’t know what’s normal for the CME church, but 10 of them came to visit us.

It was a wonderful day! Our sanctuary was filled with fellowship and our fellowship hall was packed with good food, good friends and the sound of laughter resounded.

God blessed us, every one!

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