Wednesday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Wednesday

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15
Apr 15

Wednesdays move swiftly

Another Wednesday, another full day. Class stuff in the morning, lunch, and then a class, which is immediately followed by another class. And then advertising phone calls and emails and faxes. (That’s how we upload.)

Then comes a few minutes to catch up on news and then student meetings. That’s followed closely by the newspaper critique, pictured below:

They are a swell group. Sharp, engaging, witheringly funny. They’re doing good journalism, too. If you need some promising young reporters, it turns out I know a few.

I saw this late last night and wanted to share it here today. If you’re an Auburn person, or a sports fan, you likely knew that Philip Lutzenkirchen died last year. I met him three or four times. (I don’t hang out with those guys or chase them down, but small town, BMOC and all that.) He was smart, handsome, talented, a nice fellow, well liked, respected by his peers and his fans. I wrote one of the first things about him, along those lines, after he died.

His profs liked him too, as a person and a student. (One of The Yankee’s colleagues wrote a nice piece about him, too.) Lutzie was coaching at a high school and looking forward to his next chapter when he died. A stupid, dumb tragedy that killed two boys, one a promising young man in college at Georgia and his friend, a guy just out of Auburn and a kid himself.

From that, though, comes this, which is one of the more courageous things I can imagine. His father spoke at that first hometown memorial. And he’s taken this on as a mission. Within just a few weeks of losing his oldest kid he was in locker rooms talking to high schoolers and college students. I saw him pick a kid out of the crowd, talk to him for a few moments and then send him out of the room. “And just like that, he can be gone.” Mike Lutzenkirchen sharing a raw, real, candid kind of message because, he figures, he’s filling the hole.

So here he’s talking to a room of high school athletes this week. It’s beautiful and hard and real. And kids should hear it, bad as it is for anyone to have to speak it from their own terrible personal experience.

And far be for it me to tell Mr. Lutzenkirchen how to tell his family’s story, he mentions the prom example in that speech, but he undersold it. From the Department of The Kids are Alright, comes perhaps the sweetest story you’ll find today.

And since we are at the anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, check out this cool slideshow from CNN.

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8
Apr 15

Travel day

Breakfast at the Barbecue House. Delicious. And then we loaded the car with a few bags and drove to the airport, where all of the parking lots were full. Having congratulated ourselves for being early for a change now we were feeling the traditional airport stress. So we booked an off-property spot, because the 21st century has a way of overcoming minor difficulties on the move. Literally, the bill was paid over the phone as we pulled into the lot.

Caught the shuttle to the airport. Went through security. Went through security again, because the indifferent folks wearing blue shirts at the Atlanta airport possess a keen attention to detail.

We flew out of the new terminal and into Tampa, which forever feels like a new city. We took an Uber ride to the hotel. (My first Uber!) It was fine, nice guy, clean car, pleasant chat. That was also paid for over the phone, and so it was almost like it never happened. He was the friend-of-a-friend who also worked at an art shop and had a Disney past who had nothing to do that afternoon and was happy to take a ride. Or so it seemed. He did get paid, after all.

Checked in at the hotel. Went up to the 11th floor and were amused by our view. On the opposite side of the hotel you get the canal. Over here, the Embassy Suites and a parking deck. I shot this video, a Hyperlapse edited on my phone and mixed with a tune I made on my iPad.

We met up with our friends from the conference, swell folks from around the region that we don’t get to see enough, but enjoy too much.

We walked to a place downtown offering high end pub food. I hadn’t previously known that was a niche. Anyway, it was a lovely time with nice, smart, funny people. We walked by to the hotel and I’m going to either read or grade myself to sleep.

Samford / Wednesday — Comments Off
1
Apr 15

Crimson goes Mirror Universe

As soon as the Crimson’s editorial staff put together their schedule for the year they noticed that April 1st fell on a Wednesday, their regular publication day. They dreamed and planned all fall and winter about what they would do.

They are good group. Sharp journalists. Funny. Clever. Diligent. And yet I was a bit hesitant. College papers get in trouble for April Fools jokes every year. (At least two have already this year.) But they are very careful and conscientious. They wrote up fun copy and then took great pains to make sure that they weren’t putting words into the mouths of real people on campus or libeling anyone.

The only real person in the April Fool’s section of the paper was Jameis Winston, and he’s a public figure and our manufactured quotes didn’t say anything bad. They did a nice job throughout, and it has been well-received on campus. Here’s a small version of the April Fool’s pages:

The hammock headline is my favorite. Always knew there was something sketchy about those things The squirrel story was a hit, as you might imagine.

The Mr. Beeson Twitter account was pleased:

YESSSSSSSS pic.twitter.com/hScA1tstM5

— Ralph Waldo Beeson (@RalphBeeson) April 1, 2015

Someone did ask me if they meant to run the masthead backward. I made a big production of it. “BACKWARD!?!?” with a big, panicked rustling of paper.

Yes, they did.

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25
Mar 15

Night blooms

It has been a day. So here are some lovely tree blooms.

It will rain tomorrow, and the blooms will probably disappear then and soon after. Enjoy them while you can, while it is still their day.

I do not know what is happening. / photo / running / Wednesday — Comments Off
18
Mar 15

Cleaning the leaves that never go away

The weather is beautiful. Tomorrow it will change. And so I was sent outside to do yard work.

And by sent, I mean it was overdue and it was a wonderful day to be outside for a few hours. The sky was high and sharply blue. The few clouds were thin scraps of paste in the sky. The temperature was intent on redefining room temperature. And overhead, things are showing the full promise of the season.

Blink fast and everything turns green.

And so it was that I had to mow the lawn. Some parts are greener than others. And some are just dusty. Other parts have still more leaves. I’m pretty sure we’ve raked “for the last time” twice during the winter, but here I am doing it again today. No matter. There is stuff to see.

Managed to fill about four big lawn bags, mostly of willow oak leaves. Once again I say unto you: No person that has ever raked willow oak leaves has ever later planted willow oak trees. That’s one of the two things I know about raking. The other is that I’m going to make my money by developing an efficient way to get leaves off the ground and into bags.

How do you do it? I’ve tried about every possible way to get leaves from here to there. I’m using a giant rake and shoveling the leaves from the pile into a bag held somewhat open by a giant garbage bag. We cut the bottom out of that can, probably because we read it online or someone told us too, but I think would work just as well using this technique in the conventional

Maybe I could invent a vacuum system for next fall.

But that’s for later. I’ve done enough of this today, two hours of yard work and two minutes of brushing by one bush that seems to have a unique nest alliance of wasps and bees inside. Glad that one doesn’t belong to me. I hope the owner notices it soon.

There’s this beautiful tree nearby:

In putting away the lawn mower and the lawn bags and the giant garbage/leaf can and the gas can and all of that I learned we had a new neighbor. I wonder how he feels about leaves. He was a shy one. Good thing I got this safety shot. He offered me no other photos:

About that time The Yankee came home and we went for a run.

So there we are on the trail. She takes off, I catch her. At precisely a mile I realized I’d had exactly one bowl of Cheerios all day. And so far the next three miles I suffered. I’m not sure if it was the sudden lack of energy or the knowledge of the sudden lack of energy. It was not a good run. But there will be other, less not-good running efforts. (The flatter the better.)

At home I ate two pieces of leftover frozen pizza. And they were the best two pieces of mushy thin crust and stretchy cheese you can imagine. And then we went out for Chinese, and it was the best Chinese you can imagine. Pretty much the best day you can imagine.

Except for the leaves.