Category: Huntsville

The Things We Say

With the mercury already rising on another sultry Sunday morning, the runner stopped for a much-needed drink of water. The mammoth megachurch had always been a good wayside for such purposes. Situated approximately halfway through the run, one of the side doors was usually open by 7:00am, and there was a water fountain just a few feet inside; real water, and who knows, on a good day, maybe a little “living water” too.

The runner was not exactly dressed for church, but he rarely encountered anyone inside, and he would only be there for a few moments, so he didn’t see any harm.… Read the rest

C’mon In Boys, The Water Is Fine–Part 2

There are certain immutable laws of the universe which govern the course of the day. The sun rises in the east and sits in the west. Politicians will talk a good game, and when push comes to shove, fail to follow through (or use their fists instead). And whenever I absolutely have to be somewhere in a hurry, I will inevitably end up behind an octogenarian in an Olds. Or in this case, a memaw in a Marquis.

There were no cars behind me or coming toward me, and it would have been a simple matter to have downshifted, crossed the double yellow, and blown granny’s doors off on my way to church.… Read the rest

C’mon In Boys, The Water Is Fine–Part 1

“Well that’s it, boys. I’ve been redeemed. The preacher’s done warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It’s the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting’s my reward…Neither God nor man’s got nothin’ on me now. C’mon in boys, the water is fine.”

–Delmar O’Donnell in O Brother Where Art Thou

The phone rang in the middle of the night, shattering my blissful slumber like a Louisville Slugger against a plate-glass window.

Okay, whoa—better nix the miserable metaphor and start over. It was really only 10:30pm. But after the kind of day I had Sunday, I needed the extra rest.… Read the rest

Real Men Wear Unisuits

unisuit.jpgI can’t remember if we were watching a college wrestling match or a ballet performance a few years back when Number Two Son looked at the form-fitting outfits that one of the participants was wearing and declared emphatically, “I’ll never wear one of those.”

Of course, those of us with a few more miles on our odometers and who’ve forced down our fill of crow over the years could have reminded him of the old adage: Never say never.

This past fall after club soccer season ended, Number Two was looking for a way to get into even better physical condition and for a sport to occupy his time during the spring since his school didn’t field a soccer team.… Read the rest

Stranger Than Fiction

I know that tawdry stories such as this and this can catch a person’s eye like a bad case of conjunctivitis. Life is truly sometimes stranger than fiction.

So may I humbly suggest that this weekend you focus your peepers on this instead.

Thanks to my favorite law professor for recommending Stranger Than Fiction. It’s not often that I gush over a movie rental. But this morning, I’m overflowing like Old Faithful. Will Farrell, Maggie Gyllenhall, Emma Thompson, Queen Latifah and Dustin Hoffman combine to produce a sober but soothing feast snack for the soul. There’s also a delightful reference to Space Camp for you Huntsville folks, plus some funny cameos by some guys whom you’ll recognize immediately.… Read the rest

Eat Fresh

The door to the late model Buick swung open and the first thing I saw was his feet.

And then, like a telescope unfolding and revealing it’s hidden length, he stood in segments; first the lower legs, next his thick thighs, followed by the elongated trunk, one arm and then the other. He was wearing an Auburn ball cap, its bill pushed back a little revealing rivulets of sweat forming on his forehead in response to the rising heat of an early Alabama summer. He was six foot seven if he was an inch. But as he pivoted toward the door of the Subway Sandwich Shop on Governors Drive, I saw that his height wasn’t his only prodigious proportion.… Read the rest

The Cure Is Worse Than The Disease

Having just attended a somewhat (okay very) rowdy high school graduation ceremony, this one caught my eye and made me glad that I live in Huntsville, Alabama rather than Galesburg, Illinois.

Which one do you think is worse, someone not hearing their kid’s name called when she walks across the stage, or someone walking across the stage and holding out her hand to receive her diploma only to have it taken back later? What a nice graduation picture (and memory) that last one would make.

Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.… Read the rest

Do NOT Press This Button

easy-buttion.jpgThe speaker at last night’s Grissom High Baccalaureate service was entertaining and spot on.

He basically said there were two types of buttons in life. First, there was the EASY button, and he held up just that, one of those from the Staples office supply store commercials. He told the grads that they could always take the path of least resistance, continue life in their high school mindset, and anytime they faced a difficult choice they could just reach down and hit the EASY button and hope for the best.

But, he warned, whatever you do, do NOT press this button!… Read the rest

Pretty Grads All in a Robe

Yesterday was Senior Sunday at our church. That’s “senior” as in high school, not the over-the-hill, AARP type. There were 26 seniors this year, which, as we say in the South, is a whole big mess of ’em.

They marched down the center aisle of the church, clad in their graduations robes–brown, burgundy, white, red, purple, power blue. This was the start of a new tradition this year. But just barely. It was announced last week that they would wear their robes, and as one might expect, there was a great hue and cry and a week’s worth of high drama.… Read the rest

Johnny Hu, That’s Who

Guess which Huntsville high school student was named to the First Team All-USA High School Academic Team?

Johnny Hu, that’s who.

Johnny, a friend of Number One Son at Grissom High who scored a perfect 2400 on his SAT and a perfect 36 on his ACT, was among 20 students named to the team. Of those, 15 were of Asian or Indian descent. I don’t know precisely how much genetics has to do with that (my guess is quite a bit), but I do know that many of those kids are second generation Americans whose immigrant parents have instilled in them a killer work ethic which makes me and my progeny look like absolute slouches.… Read the rest

Evrathang is RAY-low-tif

The Explainer at Slate does it again. I commented on this the other day, but little did I know then that I was actually a “code shifter” when I’m hangin’ with the clan back in Vah-GIN-ya and talking mountainspeak.

Hillary’s not the only one trying to convince us of her Southern bona fides. In Full Professor Elrod’s case, the more hard-core secessionists among his rowdy and far-flung boiled peanut gallery may have finally disabused him of the notion. I think it was the part about lapsing into Delawarespeak that did him in.

Huntsville is about as cosmopolitan as you can get in Alabama with so many transplants from all over the country and world.… Read the rest

Go Phe!

“LeBron was the old phenom, maybe I’m the new one,” Okoye says. “We’re going to go from King James to Phe.”

Now that’s chutzpah. After all, folks from Huntsville don’t often go around wearing t-shirts proclaiming their “essence” (in this case, invictus, which means “unconquered”) or proudly claiming the moniker “Phe” (short for phenom). But then again, most of us aren’t 19-years-old, 6’2”, 302 lbs and can break 5 seconds in the 40.amobi-okoye.jpg

But Amobi Okoye is and can and that accounts for him being the 10th overall pick in the recent NFL draft and a future Dallas Texan. Okoye became the youngest player ever drafted in the NFL, and when he plays his first down this fall, he’ll become the youngest ever to play in the league.… Read the rest

PowerPointless in Huntsville

PowerPoint also conditions worshipers to act and react in visceral ways, so that the character of their bodily actions and emotional responses are at times downright Pavlovian. The screen, not the altar or cross, becomes the all-consuming center of attention, an object of intense fixation which triggers predictable reflexes and behaviors. When PowerPoint malfunctions, for instance, people become nervous and lost; they become conditioned to worry that it will malfunction. They find themselves thinking more about the screen and the technician at the soundboard than about the God whom they’ve come to worship and the larger worshiping body of which they are a part.

… Read the rest

What’s In Your Wallet?

Yesterday evening, Number Two Son was working out with the Rocket City Rowing Club (look for a future post about that little experiment) when he had his cell phone and wallet stolen.

They were in a friend’s car (in plain sight–lesson learned), and although the parking lot was only located a short distance away, the thieves waited until the team was rowing on the Tennessee River before quickly picking out the only vehicle without an alarm system and smashing the window. The driver also lost his phone, wallet and an iPod (Number Two had left his at home fortunately).

Number Two’s wallet contained his learner’s permit, a small amount of cash and his debit card.… Read the rest