Home Opinion Mine Creek Revelations: Deadly Out There

Mine Creek Revelations: Deadly Out There

1325
0

YES, I AM STILL HERE peeking out of the newspaper’s window on Main Street and I am wondering how many more school shootings have to happen before our national and state legislators do something about it.

Well, national at least. I believe that Arky legislators would figure out a way to arm the Parent-Teacher Association. That’s just my opinion.

But maybe our U.S. congressmen and senators can climb over the wall that separates R and D, and at least make an effort to change things.

Change things because the status quo just isn’t working.

The framers of the Constitution had no idea that someone would want to open automatic weapon fire in a school, or into a crowd of peaceful folks shopping in a store or working in a factory. 

This would require some statesmanship, including peaceful, thoughtful compromise.

I agree with the folks who say “In my day boys drove pickups to school with rifles hanging in the back window.” But, in those days we didn’t have nuts spraying classrooms with automatic gunfire.

The left, or progressives, or liberals have their share of nuts, just like the conservatives. Do something.

The Uvalde, Texas, shooter walked into a gun shop and purchased an automatic rifle before he was old enough to buy a beer in a bar.

Surely there are ways Repubs and Dems can agree upon which might make a difference.

At least try.

=—-= — =

THE WEATHER. Out in Yellowstone the flooding has been called worst ever. Park entrances are closed due to roads washed out; landslides

Flooding seems to happen on suspiciously more and more occasions. We’ve seen it here. The rainclouds just won’t move on.

Spring heat following closely on the heels of record cold temps.

Our next weather phenomenon will be dust from the Saharararara Desert blowing across the Atlantic and settling on our windshields. Hope there aren’t any teeeeensy critters riding on those grains of sand.

At least we are promised beautiful sunsets for awhile. That means that we’ll be overcast everyday at sunset.

=—-= — =

WHOOOO, PIG! The I have heard from many Hog fans begging me NOT to listen to the radio or watch games on TV when the Hog baseball team plays Stanford in the College World Series out there in a place called Omahahaha.

It’s because I am nothing but bad luck. What a curse! Jinx shoulda been my middle name.

Both of my regular readers will recall how ‘my’ team always does poorly when I start paying attention.

For example, if the Arkansas Razorback football team is playing Little Sisters of the Poor, I must leave the room as soon as the opening kickoff sails into the air. I can’t even hang around long enough for their receiver to return the kickoff for a touchdown.

Same with basketball. When the ref tosses the ball into the air for the opening tipoff, I’m outa the room before a tall guy’s hands can slap the ball. As soon as I start caring about basketball the Hogs lose a big one.

So now, the baseball team seems to be doing pretty good. They beat Oklahoma State in the Regional tourney and advanced to a Super Regional where they (we) beat North Carolina. We were the underdogs in all of those. I proudly avoided keeping up with the score, inning, outs, runners on base, balls and strikes, RBIs, etc., for NO OTHER REASON than to help my team.

I am the Fair Weather Razorback Fan.

The Razorbacks will now play the University of Stanford University, a hoity-toity team with West Coast snobbery and a mascot which is a tree. Could we get Husqvarna to outfit our team with chainsaws, please?

If we beat the Tall Trees we’ll probably play Auburn or Ole Miss again. All matches are two out of three. That means I will have up to three chances to walk out of the room without watching or listening in order to help my team.

At least we’re not playing Little Sisters of the Poor. And baseball has nine innings, not two halves. That two halves thing was often football’s downfall.

And you ask yourself: Why does this guy call himself the Number One Fair Weather Razorback Fan?

=—-= — =

WORD GAMES. Here are two more ‘names’ that go together in some context: “Facts & Fancies.” That was the name of a popular column written twice a week in the ‘Nashville News’ during the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s by the editor and publisher — Louis ‘Swampy’ Graves, my father. I asked him once how he came up for the name of the column and he told me that he had seen a column with that very name elsewhere and decided to appropriate it for his own column.

=—-= — =

HE SAID: “I heard the old, old, men say all that’s beautiful drifts away, like the waters.” William Butler Yeats, Irish poet

=—-= — =

SHE SAID: “Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” Anais Nin, novelist

=—-= — =

SWEET DREAMS, Baby

Previous articleObituary: Fred L. Turney of Nashville
Next articlePike County’s quest to be ‘wet’ falling behind