Published: May 23, 2007 11:11 am         

SPORTS COLUMN: Precious memories

This past weekend seems like went by in a whirlwind. We had the all the boys home and the grandchildren, we had a ball.

We rode four wheelers, walked the place over and fished the pond. We caught a couple of nice messes of catfish and bream.

My grandchildren are two and three years old and you can imagine what those mischievous little eyes can get into. By the same token, it’s amazing to watch the simple things that they soak up with such wonder, things that us old folks sometimes take for granted and to soon forget to take time to smell the flowers and enjoy the simple things in life.

For example, they found a snake and my son killed it with hoe, it was a small moccasin and it had a large bulge in its belly and they all wanted to know what that was so Pappy had to do a small autopsy , there was a large toad frog inside.

After the ooh’s and yucky’s they must of asked a thousand questions . Of course Pappy had to answer all of them even when I had to make up something. Most of the time I tried to be as honest as I could because I believe in telling children the truth as it’s the only way they can learn. I think we sugar coat to much these days with children and when they get out in the real world ,they have a rude awakening.

My boy’s and I even got to squeeze in a little target practice as the girls went to Wal-Mart. A little male bonding and the oldest grandson felt like a big shot getting to stay with the big boys. I guess we all crave that one on one attention. Anyway, he was strutting around like a rooster for awhile. The fellowship was good and it was nice to have my whole tribe together as it’s been quite some time. With my youngest in his final year at Ole Miss and one of my twins in Georgia with two of my grandchildren, we stay kind of scattered. To me there is nothing more important than family other than God.

Sunday was home coming at Doty Springs Baptist Church and that is where most of all my people are buried, my roots run deep in those red clay hills and so do my memories.

I can remember when cars were parked all the way from the church to Hwy. 14. The house was full but not near as many as I remember from years ago.

There was plenty to eat but again something was missing, a lot of kin folks have gone on to be with the Lord and I don’t recall seeing any fried apple pies. Yes, times are changing and I don’t think always for the good. We live in to fast a pace world and we need to slow down, smell the flowers and look at things with child like wonder. We might see just what is important and find out some things are not as important as we thought. One of the songs sang that day was “ Precious Memories” and as we sang, a flood of those memories clouded my soul, some good, some not so good but all a part of who I am. I look forward to making many more as we did this weekend and the preacher’s sermon summed it up just right.