YES, I AM STILL HERE peeking out my window on Main Street, and there are two local teams left in the high school football playoffs — but not the two teams I expected.
After losing six of their first seven games, the Mineral Springs Hornets closed with three wins over arch-rivals and managed to sneak into the playoffs as a fourth seed traveling to play the first seed of another conference.
But, surprise, MS won and won big.
My Scrappers, however, were snakebit and lost to the fifth seed of another conference. It was easily the biggest upset of any playoff game in any division.
Sometimes that stuff just happens.
It DOES NOT take away from Nashville’s wonderful season — going undefeated through the conference and getting that thrilling one-point nail-biter on Arkadelphia’s home field after the Badgers had our number for recent years.
So, congrats to the players in orange and back; the coaches; fans; cheer squad; band; pressbox crew; concession stand volunteers; and administration on a successful season. We love the Scrappers!
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ONE THING I sometimes do right is chicken-sausage gumbo.
I like to have a crockpot of it when I misjudge the arrival of first cold temps.
There are two things I do which I think makes my gumbo better than yours:
(1) I cook the sausages on my patio grill so that the skin has a little ‘char’ before chopping and adding them to the crockpot; and
(2) I spend about 20 minutes on my feet at dawn making a roux on the stovetop.
The roux is about 1/3 cup each of vegetable oil and all-purpose flour over medium heat. Stirred constantly until, as my original recipe says, it turns the dark brown color of “an old penny.” It is absolutely essential to have a roux and to have a good roux, properly brown.
So now the U.S. is doing away with pennies. Just recently we made the last one because the copper industry made the President mad.
Pennies are normally the most plentiful coin in my pocket, but maybe not in the future.
How will I judge when to take the roux off the heat and scrape it into the lovely broth and other stuff waiting in the crockpot if’n I can’t find an old penny for comparison?
One other thing that makes my gumbo special is okra. I thaw two bags of frozen cut okra, and add the contents to the crockpot mixture about an hour before serving.
The store brand at [name withheld by request] has gotten mighty ‘woody’ lately. Some pieces are just too fibrous.
Otherwise it’s fantastic, and the woody pieces don’t interfere with the overall goodness of Louie’s Excellent False Cold Spell Gumbo.
I’ve frozen a large container for Thanksgiving weekend.
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EPSTEIN’S LIST. Not quite as noble as”Schindler’s List.”
Isn’t this a circus? I still want to know more about his suicide.
Lots of suspicious coincidences that leave room for conspiracy theories — looney and not-so-looney.
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SHAMEFUL DANGER. Saw an article recently that several Trump administration bigwigs had moved onto military bases for safety. And Trump’s former supporter, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-SC), says she’s getting death threats since splitting with the President.
Sad news items that reflect our nation’s current poor character.
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THE GOOD EARTH. We barely got to enjoy the muted colors of our autumn when the strong winds of the weekend shook the leaves from the trees.
I didn’t even have a chance to make my usual Autumn Leaf Patrol of rural roads.
Fall is a wonderful time of year. I already miss (sorta) Summer, and I dread (sorta) Winter, although Winter may already be here. Or not.
It seems like just a few days ago that I was asking the Almighty for relief from the heat.
One thing I have noticed is that my yard has fewer fire ant mounds. They are probably there, though.
I’m most likely overlooking the mounds because those pesky, hateful critters are hiding under bushes.
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MORE THINGS I LEARNED from opening an email: INFLATION — Cutting money in half without damaging the paper
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WORD GAMES. I love oxymorons: After they finally won an SEC football game, the Razorback dressing room was ‘organized chaos.’
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HE SAID: “When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.” Oscar Wilde, playwright
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SHE SAID: “Society honors its living conformists and its dead troublemakers.” Mignon McLaughlin, author and journalist.
I wonder if any sharpwitted journalist has grilled Mignon.
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SWEET DREAMS, Baby
