Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Win some, lose a big one

Dear reader, it's taken me three days to recover from something that happened Saturday evening. That is, to no longer be numbed by it. Indeed, I've endeavored to concentrate on the GOOD that I experienced this past weekend in order to overcome this numbness.

Such as: a delightful work day at Eastwood Christian Church (Disciples). Several folks showed up, and had a scrumptious breakfast before fanning out to do chores. I chose to go around the two buildings and replace burnt-out light bulbs. While doing this task, I considered that I was a natural for this, because my Dad had worked for the so-called "light company" (more accurately the electric or power co.) back in Idaho. (Indeed, my last visit to Idaho was in 1994 when he retired from Idaho Power Co.) And after things were pretty much finished and I was walking along Eastland to catch a bus at Gallatin Rd., fellow church and choir member Steve Walls was pulling out of his driveway to go to the work day and being told that it was accomplished, he gave me a ride home. So I had a good conversation with my brother church member and choir member!

Such as: Sunday morning during Worship at Eastwood we the choir sang an anthem which I'd never seen or heard before that day. But here's a clue: part of the anthem the congregation joined in the singing! It was that simple to pick up "cold turkey"! It's called "Rain Down", was composed by Jaime Cortez and arranged by John Carter. The lyrics, based on Psalm 33, are a touching praise-prayer to the Creator.

Such as: Following Worship I chose to bus north to Madison, a long-established suburban municipality of Nashville's. I was planning to dine at a Shoney's there (that's a popular and ubiquitous sit-down restaurant with a great buffet). But upon stepping off the bus I chose instead to go to the Picadilly Cafeteria next door. It was a good choice! The line was long, but the food excellent-tasting and reasonably priced, and I had some light conversations with folks nearby in the serving line, such as about suits and ties, Scots tartans, caps & hats, what had occurred the evening before -- we'll get to that, it's the subject/title of this post. Best of all, I'd say, is that while dining we were entertained by live music! A three-piece band played a delightful variety of instrumental pieces: hymns, gospel songs, country hits, pop hits. . .

All of this from the second paragraph down to here is to affirm that GOOD things did occur over the past weekend. Nevertheless, one bad event was kind of numbing.

I had to work Saturday, clocking in at 3 PM. At 3:30 PM the NFL Titans versus visiting Baltimore playoff game would be kicking off in LP Field just a mile or two away on the east bank of the Cumberland River across from downtown. Work was sort of busy at first, for a Saturday. The later dlow-down allowed me to surf a web site that carried the game in progress, the site refreshing every half minute. When I first surfed into it it was halftime, score tied seven-up. That was rather shocking in itself. But the final score was worse. Titans 10, Ravens 13 as the visitors kicked a field goal in the final seconds. So the hometown team -- the best-record team going into the playoffs -- lost to a team they had beaten on the road during the regular season. A wild-card team led by a rookie coach and a rookie quarterback! Bleah! (as Snoopy would say)

Yes, I've tried to concentrate on the GOOD rather than that numbing bad. Still, it will hurt for a long time that our Titans will not even be IN the Super Bowl 2009 that I was so sure they would win! Plus I have another contrast between my two recent hometowns. San Antonio has an NBA team, the Spurs, who every other year are the world's basketball champions; Nashville just has an NFL team that is talented and often wins, just not the big ones that count!

Oh, well, c'est la vie, as they say in French. . . .

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