Hill-Topics
We went to the Dust Bowl Saturday morning in El Dorado. Actually, we saw Butler Community College hold a spring football scrimmage out on the school's practice field.
With all of the rain, the field has been too muddy to practice on many times. But on Saturday the field was not only dry, it was hard as a rock.
Blowing wind whistled in the ear-holes of the player's helmets, making it hard for them to hear the quarterback's signals.
And whenever a play was run, a dust cloud rose from the player's shuffling feet. It put a gauzy sheen on the super-sized players slamming into each other.
One of those giants was former Hillsboro Trojan standout Wade Weibert, a six-foot, five-inch, 300-pound offensive tackle, who is about to wrap up his freshman year. There were lot of big boys out there, but none any bigger than him.
After winning so many championships, Grizzly coach Troy Morrell is able to reload his roster each year with the biggest, fastest, and most athletic players in the state. Hillsboro's all-state linebacker Lucas Hamm signed with Butler, and will be out there next fall.
We decided to go to the scrimmage, even though our son, Garrison, 20, was on the sidelines in street clothes. To his dismay, Garrison, who transferred to Butler at semester to play defensive back, is sitting out spring football. He's recovering from shoulder surgery following a freaky weight room accident, which occurred after a lifting partner forgot to tighten a safety sleeve on his barbell.
Rehab is coming along well, and Garrison plans to kick up some dust of his own next fall.
* * * * *
After leaving Garrison in El Dorado to catch up on assignments he missed after surgery, wife, Claire, and daughter, Jillian, 19, and me, suddenly and inexplicably 50, drove to Topeka for the Kansas Press Association awards.
After much ado and anguish aforethought, my half-century observance Friday had been
Surprisingly liberating!
I awoke before dawn on my 50th birthday and leapt out of bed, marveling at the wonder of it all. "I made it! Unbelievable! I'm 50 years-old!"
I congratulated myself for having gotten this far along with everything intact and working pretty darn well.
Thanks to all of you who remembered my birthday with cards, phone calls, and personal condolences.
I asked Claire if she realized that now that we're both 50, added together we're entering our second hundred years of life.
Even though she's a math teacher, I'm not sure she appreciated that.
* * * * *
We spent Saturday night in a motel in Topeka, then headed to Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln to see our oldest daughter, Bethany Dixon, 23, a senior, in her last college theater performance of "Dancing at Lughnasa."
This play tells the story of five unmarried sisters in a small Irish village in 1936. Bethany died her blonde hair black to play the role of the severe, oldest sister, Kate, who fights to keep the family going through the strength of her Catholic faith, and intimidation.
As her character extolled the virtues of the Pope and all the saints, I nudged my new son-in-law, Joe, and asked him what their marriage counselor priest would think about Bethany's newfound fervor. After all, they had gone around and around on the issue of women priests.
We both chuckled about that.
So many horrible, painful events happened to Kate, that when she finally broke down and cried early in the second act, we all cried, too.
Afterward, when Bethany was out of costume and back to being herself again, I gave her a big hug and said, "I'm so glad you aren't that character in real life!"
In an effort to reclaim her blonde hair, Bethany bought about $40 worth of at-home hair color and went to town Monday.
She called later, in a tizzy.
"My hair is striped in shades of orange!" she wailed.
When I laughed, she asked to speak to her mother.
* * * * *
Speaking of hair color, after the play, Claire, Jillian, and I took Bethany out to eat, and then for a walk around a mall, right about closing time.
We talked about how much Bethany had grown up since she left for college four years ago, and how quickly time had gone, and how wonderfully well things have turned out for her.
A moment later, I took off my Nebraska baseball cap for no particular reason, and ran my fingers through my hair.
Bethany looked, then looked again, with a concerned look.
"Daddy! Where did you get all of this gray hair?" she said, tears welling up in her eyes. "It's not supposed to be getting gray yet!"
I laughed and held her hand in mine. We walked a little more.
Me, on the better side of 50.
She, a newly-married woman, soon to graduate from college; Years beyond the frightened teenager Claire and I had left at college, who has been away from us for so long, and visited so infrequently, that until this moment, she hadn't noticed just how the years have aged us.
Still, it felt good, walking.
Yes, it felt just fine.
— GRANT OVERSTAKE
