All I wanted was a hotdog...

Friday night at the Russell County vs. Central football game, from about the second quarter on, there was only one thing I could consistently think of: food. I didn’t get to eat much before the game and I ate an early lunch.

So you might say, ‘Why didn’t you get something to eat at halftime?’ Well, I was covering the game for The Citizen and halftime is when we tally up all the yards and statistics and think about what happened during the first half. There really isn’t much time to trek down to the concession stand, wait in line and get back in time to be ready to cover the second half, especially if you’re recording each play.

Anyway, when the game was over, I did my best to hurry up and catch Coach Rico White for an interview while continuing to take pictures, which is what I was doing this particular game. As soon as I was finished, I headed over to the concession stand and was relieved to find that there were still people inside and I was even more pleased that there was a big tray filled to the brim with hotdogs.

It was most definitely a sight for hungry eyes.

So I walked up and told the ladies inside I would like to purchase a hotdog please. This is where they crushed me. They replied that they are no longer selling food. I was stunned.

What, then, is the tray FULL of hotdogs doing sitting there? I made sure I heard them correctly and asked for clarification, “There’s nothing left for sale,” while staring at the dogs. They said that’s right, and said they were sorry.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Last time I checked, the Russell County school system was not exactly rich, to put it nicely. Now I’m not sure exactly where the concession money goes, but if it’s to the athletics department, kids on the varsity football team have to wear jerseys that are so old that the numbers don’t all even look the same. Some of the helmets don’t even have team decals on both sides, meaning that inevitably, some kids probably don’t even have a helmet of their own, but rather have to share with other reserves. Are you telling me THEY don’t want my money? Or that THEY couldn’t use it?

Or maybe the money goes into the school system’s general fund. Or maybe it just goes to the Athletic Booster Club. My point is that the money surely goes somewhere to help the students in some way.

All this and they can’t sell me one of the 50 hotdogs that were left?! I don’t get it. Was it a function of selfishness? Did the ladies inside want to take them home to their family? Or did they want them for themselves? I don’t understand. Or maybe they were saving them for the football players. But isn’t the whole point of the concession stand to SELL food and drinks? Isn’t that why they cooked the food in the first place? If not, then I would certainly like to know what it’s there for.

The school system is in proration and they can’t sell me a freakin hotdog. Not to mention that I probably would have bought three. I know it’s only three dollars (I think), but I’d be willing to bet that I’m not the only person this has happened to.

Whatever. Explain it to the kid who’s only got a decal on one side of his helmet.

I hate Monday holidays

If there’s one thing that really screws up my week here at the Citizen of East Alabama, it’s a holiday that either falls on, or is observed on, a Monday. And it’s not just me – it’s everyone who works here.

The way our week is laid out, it begins on Wednesday, the day after we go to press, or in other words, send the files to the printer so we can send out the newspaper on Thursday. Wednesday is when we have all of our meetings, talk about what we’ll write that week and how much space we’ll have, etc. Then the later part of Wednesday, and all day Thursday and Friday, we reporters go out and find more stories and write the stories we talked about on Wednesday.

Monday is supposed to be reserved for anything else that might suddenly come up – like breaking news – and we also use it to write about whatever happened over the weekend. Now, it’s inevitable that something will always come up every Monday or some source we need to talk to won’t call us back until Monday, and sometimes even Tuesday.

Basically, Monday is the catch-all day that we use to basically gear up for the storm that is press day, which like I said before, is every Tuesday. We NEED our Mondays around here.

So when there are holidays observed on Monday’s where we can’t come into the office, it really cramps our week and puts a tight crunch on all of us. Not only do we have to come in early on Tuesday morning to make sure we have covered all of our bases, but we also have to make sure nothing happened on Monday that requires our attention and make sure we are ready to put the newspaper together, period.

This past weekend, we had to cover high school football games on Friday. For those of us who had plans and were gone all weekend after that, it meant coming in Tuesday morning and writing the story of those games , in addition to finishing anything else that needed to be done, before the paper could be sent off to the press. It was either that or write our stories off the clock, which I’ve done many times, but obviously would prefer not to do if I had a choice.

So what to do about it? I suggest that for the country as a whole, we start observing holidays on Fridays. It makes sense.

Not only would that preserve the traditional beginning of the week that so may people require to keep a regular schedule of events, but it would also remove people’s desire to take the Friday before a Monday holiday off. I mean, seriously, how many people try to turn a three-day weekend into a four-day weekend by doing just that? I’d say it’s probably a lot.

If holidays were observed on Friday, I don’t think people would be very inclined to also take Thursday off – it would be too obvious, I guess. And does anybody really think people would go ahead and take Monday off, too, to make it a four-day weekend. I don’t think so. I know I certainly wouldn’t do that. I would rather go ahead and get my week started right, and not have to play that furious game of catch-up I so love.

Maybe I’m in the minority in this, but I sure know it would make my life, as it is now, a lot easier. And anyone else who works with me in this particular weekly publication would almost certainly agree with me. I know this, because we’ve all already complained about it together first thing this morning (which was Tuesday, when I wrote this, although you’re probably reading it on Thursday). But I guess it would be just one more thing that will never get done. Why? Well, because it makes too much sense, obviously.

Music is my coping mechanism

For as long as I can remember, music has been a big part of my life. There was a time when I played music and there was a time when I actually sang in a choir. I think those experiences helped me develop a good base knowledge about music – that, and growing up the younger brother of a teenager who was big into music during those very impressionable years of mine. For that reason, 80s hair band rock is the foundation of my musical taste, but it has certainly grown since I’ve come into my own.

Since then I’ve expanded to have a VERY wide variety of musical tastes. I’ll listen to anything from Eminem, to Atlanta Rhythm Section, to Patty Griffin, to Kent DuChaine, Foreigner and Guns ‘N’ Roses.

Nowadays, more often than not I turn to music as a coping mechanism with the world around me. If something is going well, I listen to music that is upbeat and very positive. But if things are going badly, I tend to listen to slower, more emotional music that really encapsulates how I feel. The way I look at it, it’s not so much me identifying with the music as the music identifying with me. I think it helps me deal with whatever comes along to know and hear that someone else has felt the same way and gone through the same thing as me. I guess you could call it dwelling, but I’d rather think of it as dealing. It helps me get over whatever it was that got me down in the first place and it is remarkably comforting.

For instance, when I feel heartbroken, I might listen to some slow Eric Clapton or Bad Company, or maybe something altogether different. Or if I’m feeling like I could conquer the world, you might find me listening to Guns ‘N’ Roses. I’m sure you get the point.

I have recently tried to help others find their musical coping mechanisms. My mother is someone who grew up with music as a big part of her life. At one point, she was a very talented lead singer in a band and I think music was probably an emotional outlet for her, as it is with most musicians. But she has stopped listening to music for the most part. The same is essentially true for someone else I know and both have a lot of stress in their lives. I think listening to music is a natural stress reliever and both could greatly benefit from re-finding the music, so to speak.

It’s kind of funny to me, but they say smell is the sense that is most associated with memory. I won’t argue with that, but I will say that for me, sound, or certain songs play on my memories like a drum. Probably the same as with most people, I go through phases where I’ll listen to a certain song over and over again until I wear it out. Well, if I happened to be playing that certain song during a definitive period in my life, I’ll tend to associate that song with that period.

I can remember playing one particular song repeatedly every time I was headed over to see my now ex-girlfriend. Well, low and behold, I heard this particular song three years later and it took me right back to that girl. I immediately remembered exactly how I felt when I was headed to her house, exactly the mood I used to be in and exactly why I used to play it.

There was another time when a song hit me this way. When I was in middle school, I used to listen to a particular radio station every morning as I would eat my cereal while getting ready for school. Well, needless to say, I heard one of the songs that used to always play on that station and suddenly I felt as if I should be eating a bowl of Kellogg’s Frosted Mini Wheats.

These are very vivid memories. But I digress. The point is that music is my release and I use it to relate to the world as I know it.

Oddly enough, I think cutting the grass is another natural stress reliever for me. But I’ll save that for a different column on a different day.

Be like a duck... but don't fret if it doesn't work out

If there’s one lesson I’ve learned in my lifetime, it’s that things may not always work out the way you would like. In fact, it can be a rarity that things actually do work out the way you think they should, and more often than not, it takes a lot of tough behind-the-scenes work.

I recently came up with what I considered a long-term plan to reach a goal that was important to me. Through a few weeks, everything was going “according to plan,” you could say. Up until recently, when the plan basically came to a screeching halt, which, as you can probably imagine, is a bit upsetting. It would be easy for me to get down and feel sorry about it, blah, blah, but I had to look at history and simply say, things happen for a reason, and go from there. I know that throughout my lifetime, this has happened on many more than one occasion.

My parents have always told me that hard work pays off. A friend once told me to always be like a duck: cool, calm and collected on the surface, but paddle like hell underneath. I took both pieces of advice to heart and have really tried to be like the duck.

I don’t usually touch subjects like what I’m about to say, but they say the Lord works in mysterious ways, and I believe it’s true. There have been plenty of times in my life when my plan didn’t work out, only to find out later that God had a much better plan for me.

For the first 18 years of my life, I practiced every day and thought I was going to be a professional baseball player. It was my plan. I ate, slept and breathed baseball. I lived it. But as soon as I got to college, for some reason the rigors of the sport just didn’t appeal to me and I decided not to play anymore. To this day I wonder about that decision, but I’m comfortable with it.

In economics, they teach you a very important concept known as “opportunity cost.” But it’s much more than just an economic concept. The idea is that basically, everything you do costs you something, whether it’s money, time or experience. For instance, if you’re faced with a decision of watching TV or going out with friends, and you choose to go out with friends, the opportunity cost of that decision was the TV program you missed. Every decision you make has an opportunity cost or consequence.

There is so much I would have missed if I had chosen to pursue baseball. During that time, I really came into my own as a person and found out who I was. Some people find this out sooner than I did, but when you dedicate so much of your life to one thing, it begins to define you. So for me, separation from the sport helped me redefine myself. And in this case, the opportunity cost of becoming me was very small, and for that I can honestly say deciding not to play baseball anymore happened for a reason, although I didn’t see it so clearly at the time.

Regardless of what happens to you in your lifetime, you have to keep in mind that when one door closes, another one usually opens up. You may have to search for it and it may take some time to find, but as long as you keep your eyes open, things will usually work out. It’s a comforting viewpoint to have, and it’s basically the same principal as believing in a religion that cannot be proven. It’s about faith – faith that if you work hard for what you believe in and what you want, things will work out in your favor.

But as you work, keep in mind that it doesn’t matter who you are, what kind of job you have, how much money you make or what you look like, some things just aren’t meant to be. And on the flip side, if it is meant to be, then there’s no need to worry.

Going green is easier than you think...

One of my columns from the Citizen of East Alabama earlier this year:

All the talk nowadays is about going green. The concern for our environment is growing very rapidly, as it should be. And the concern should not necessarily be for yourself, but rather for your children and grandchildren.

I consider myself to be one of the more “green” people I know of. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t own a hybrid vehicle and I still take long showers. But there are some little things each and every one of us can do to help out just a little bit. And together, WE can make a difference. The key to it all is this: the way I do it doesn’t really interfere with my everyday life.

It’s really becoming easier and easier to be green, as companies are actually catering to that “lifestyle,” albeit mostly for PR purposes. Clorox has its “Green Works” brand and Arm & Hammer has its “Essentials” brand.

Today, I’m just going to talk about soaps and paper, because I think those are the things you can change that are least disruptive to your life, plus I’m severely limited on space.

The first thing I did when I started to go green is replace my regular soaps with environmentally friendly soaps. That includes dishwashing detergent, laundry detergent and even shampoo. Soap is one of the worst things for the environment that people don’t really know about. The reason is because of the extremely high phosphorus (or phosphates) levels.

It makes sense if you think about it. When you wash your car out in the driveway or yard, what happens to the runoff? If you live anywhere near a water source like a stream or lake, I guarantee that soap will end up there. You might say, ‘but the ground filters it.” Maybe it does at first, but when it rains the phosphates seep farther and farther toward the watershed (or lake, etc.).

The same thing happens on a smaller scale when you’re talking about shampoo, laundry soap, etc. that dumps into the sewer system. It all eventually finds its way to large bodies of water. It’s a fact.

Phosphates stimulate the growth of algae in water, which deplete the oxygen supply in water, which in turn kills plant and fish life. More than half of the phosphorus in this country’s lakes and rivers is estimated to come from detergents and soaps.

I use soaps that are made of natural ingredients and are biodegradable. It should say something on the bottle. The brands I use are Arm & Hammer Essentials laundry detergent (yes, it cleans my clothes very well and it’s cheap), Palmolive dish detergent (it says on the bottle that it’s earth-friendly), Palmolive Pure & Clear dish soap and Suave Naturals shampoo. My hygiene is still top-notch.

Beyond soaps, I recycle everything I can – especially paper. It’s the easiest thing to recycle. And I don’t do it to produce less trash, I do it so that fewer trees will have to be cut down to make more paper. And the biggest culprit? Toilet Paper. Believe it or not, more trees are cut down to make toilet paper than anything else, especially in the United States. Obviously, I can’t recycle my toilet paper, but I can buy partially recycled toilet paper.

I’ve searched far and wide to find a brand that is satisfactory, and I’ll tell you what: not too many of them meet my standards. But I did find one brand that works for me (and my girlfriend, for you ladies). It’s carried at Wal-Mart and it is clearly labeled. I think it’s called White Cloud or something like that. Unlike most other recycled TP, it is soft, absorbent and most importantly, durable.

I truly believe that these minor adjustments in the way I used to do things will make a difference if everybody joins me. Every type of animal is important to our well being as humans, so we must do what we can to help them all survive. And if you don’t think it’s important to help save wildlife… have you ever seen “The Butterfly Effect?” Where do you think that term came from?