August « 2012 « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

August, 2012

Auburn / collarbone / football / Friday / photo — Comments Off
31
Aug 12

Where I gingerly complain

My physical therapist spent his entire time driving his elbows and forearms into my shoulders. It felt like he was just grinding my bones away.

His job is to assist in regaining a range of motion — which is doing very well, thank you — and minimize the impact of scar tissue. Instead he just performed top rope elbow drops on my shoulders.

It helped, a little, I suppose. By the end of the day I could feel it in my hands and in my head. Ice wasn’t doing anything, so I switched to heat. Then I tried the foam roller — great for legs after a long ride or a hard workout. I just wedged that between my shoulder blades and hoped for the best.

So, now, ready for bed, I feel better than I have all day, which has been less than desirable.

Sorry to complain, but muscles that aren’t spasming are sore because of the strain. That’s just wrong.

Football season is upon us and I’m posting photographs we found last week while sifting through archives in Auburn University’s collection in honor of this most festive time of the year. This one is Dean James Foy and an unnamed young lady hanging out with, I’m guessing, either War Eagle III (1960-1964) or War Eagle IV (1964-1980).

I mentioned Dean Foy, who died just two years ago, in a roundtable piece for TWER the other day. It has been broken up into segments here and here and here. I find it hysterical, though, that the Dean would get no closer to the eagle.

But then I remember what the raptor experts always say. “He’s thinking ‘If I were bigger, I would eat you.'” Good advice to remember.

Alabama / Auburn / collarbone / football / history / Samford / Thursday — Comments Off
30
Aug 12

Ow. Ow. Ow.

Being sore is a pretty lousy experience. I like to think that I have good control of my body. I can change my breathing, I can lower my heart rate. I can change the blood pressure readings on that machine at the grocery store. But I could not get the muscles in m back to unclench tonight.

It started in my left shoulder, my physical therapist tells me that has to do with muscles that wrap from the clavicle and through and around. It spread from my left shoulder into my right shoulder tonight. The Yankee said “You look like you’re about to cry.”

I told her I was trying not to move, because I had a sense that if I moved, at all, it would only get worse. Maybe, I’d thought, I can force these muscles to relax. That was the word selection in my head, and I found the contradiction delightful.

Instead I started coughing which was the opposite of not moving.

And so I’ve had upper back spasms for most of the evening and the night.

I’m ready to feel better, thanks.

More meetings today. I think I have already reached my quotient for the semester. And so I shifted to email. Well, let me just tell you, mister, I’m on the hook for a lot of email. And so I write a lot of them.

I’m due a new phone. The technology services staff passed them out over the summer and they installed mine … in a different office in a different building. I brought it to my office yesterday and discovered that someone will have to come and do something to the phone jacks to make this thing go. Gone are the days of simply plugging in a phone and hearing a dial tone. This one requires the Internet and some special pixie dust in the wall outlet.

Also it delivers voicemail directly to your email. That’s just strange.

I’m sure the innovations held therein are the biggest advancements since we abandoned party lines. This upgrade might be a step too far, too fast, though. I’m pretty sure my old office phone is at least 30 years old. Imagine giving Calbraith Perry Rodgers, the first man to fly across the country in 1911 (49 days! 70 stops!), a Messerschmitt Me 163A, which in 1941 set an unofficial speed record of 624 miles per hour. (That record was broken by Heini Dittmar, a German born just before Rodgers set on on his transcontinental feat.)

My new phone is exactly like that, only I can’t fly it.

Football season is upon us and I’m posting photographs we found last week while sifting through archives in Auburn University’s collection in honor of this most festive time of the year. This young lady is holding two tickets to the 1971 Iron Bowl. Not sure what she is standing behind and why, but this game featured third-ranked Alabama, fifth-ranked Auburn. These tickets were like cash.

Too bad Alabama won 31-7 and gave them a conference championship. I bet she was inconsolable after the game.

markers — Comments Off
30
Aug 12

The historic marker series

Welcome to the 17th installment to a series that is documenting all of the historic markers in the county. I’ve been riding around on my bike to find them all and sharing them here. (Clearly I planned ahead and did some of these before I got hurt.) So head on over and discover what is so significant about this beautiful building.

Enjoy, happy pedaling and happy reading!

Auburn / football / iPhone / photo / Samford / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
29
Aug 12

Just a Wednesday

Tulane is here. They’ve taken refuge 250 miles inland so they can continue their last week of preseason preparation without worrying about Hurricane Isaac. They did this a few years ago, too.

We see them around in the hallways and in the cafeteria. These are big guys. I mean, the football players Pat Sullivan brings into Samford these days are large men — one almost accidentally knocked me over with a blind swat of his hand and I’m not a shrimp — but that’s Samford. Tulane is another thing altogether. Every one of their guys are hosses. And that’s only Tulane.

But it is nice to have them here — I don’t know what they are doing with the rest of their day, presumably studying and resting in a hotel somewhere — but they are going about the business of football practice in the morning.

There’s a guy down there, somewhere in that picture, who is calling out the stretches. He sounds exactly like Farmer Fran in Waterboy:

Anyway, a lot of meetings today. We had a lunch meeting with the office of communication and some of the student journalists. It has become an annual tradition, the pros getting to know the students. They talk about what they do, beg the students to call them at all hours of the night rather than get something wrong, and so on. They give them tips and feed them lunch. They, so kindly, offer to let the students copy and paste their press releases.

Later I explain why they won’t ever do that.

There was a meeting with a few of the editors, and then a sales meeting with the new ad managers.

I had to catch up with some faculty and do staff things. Then there was another meeting that didn’t happen, but will take place next week. I’m not sure, but I might have had a meeting about a meeting. And so on.

Dinner at Dreamland with Stephen. It had been so long since I’ve been there that I almost forgot where to make the turns. I ended up in a residential area and rolled down my window, thinking I would sniff my way to the ribs. This was not a good idea.

Naturally we had banana pudding.

Football season is upon us and I’m posting photographs we found last week while sifting through archives in Auburn University’s collection in honor of this most festive time of the year. This is Ralph “Shug” Jordan who was the beloved Auburn coach from 1951 to 1971. The back of the photograph says he’s posing with “a special fan.”

It could be Aubie. He finally came to life during the basketball season in 1979 and Jordan died in the summer of 1980. And the print of Aubie’s coat looks familiar to his original look. So we’ll call it Aubie. That’s Rep. Barry Mask, then.

collarbone / iPhone / journalism / photo / Samford / Tuesday — Comments Off
28
Aug 12

Back to class

My first class of the semester was this afternoon. This was the sky over the Samford campus later in the evening. We did the syllabus thing, and the let’s-all-get-to-know-one-another thing. This time I just asked them what was the most interesting things they did this some. Some stayed home and worked. A few took road trips. Others did work with their churches. One did a mission in Kenya.

Our students are always doing cool things like that.

Like a mean teacher, I lectured for a while. No time like the present to start in on AP Style, I always say. So we worked through a bit of that. I let them go a few minutes early, first day of classes and all that. It won’t happen often.

They had such bright eyes and took good notes today. They laughed at my jokes.

I promised them a quiz next week. They might laugh a bit less then.

Saw some faculty I haven’t seen in a while. Got to tell my collarbone story one more time. Usually these tales get better with each telling, but this one is good enough. Besides, my shoulder needs all the karma it can get just now.

Missed a meeting with a student because of my class. There will be plenty of meetings with students this week.

Football season is upon us and I’m posting photographs we found last week while sifting through archives in Auburn University’s collection in honor of this most festive time of the year. This is from some undated game. There are tons of photographs in the archives without names and dates. A shame, really. But I love this boater hat.

We were just having a conversation about the Tigers/War Eagles thing. No one wants to admit it, but War Eagles was used as a noun as recently as the 70s around here. I’m pretty sure that is what the rest of this guy’s hat says.

The guy on the left, he’s clearly seen something he didn’t care for on the field. I wonder if he’d remember this game today. That guy’s got some good hair, too. I wonder what he’s coating it in.

Everyone in the stands seemed to well dressed. These were clearly different times.