Hill-Topics
Every warm body in Hillsboro should be at the game Friday night, even if there aren't enough seats for everybody in town.
That way, in future years, when stories are retold about the greatest game in the history of the town, you can say "I was there!"
Now I'm not trying to brag, but Claire and I know a thing or two about playoff football, having lived through seven bellringing years following the Fort Scott Tigers.
Fort Scott is a class 4-A school that often was ranked among the top 10 teams in all classes in the state. Football was to us as basketball is to you. In Fort Scott the gates opened at 5 p.m., stands were full by 6 p.m., and the game didn't start until 7 p.m.
Our family was super involved with the Tigers. Our oldest daughter Bethany was the Fort Scott Tiger mascot and a dance team member, our daughter Jillian was a cheerleader and our son Garrison was a team member in several playoff games beginning in his sophomore year.
This past Friday night in Salina at the Hillsboro game against Sacred Heart, I saw sophomores shivering on the Trojan sidelines. It reminded me of our son's sophomore season when he too endured a blue-lipped trip all the way to the state championship game.
One of the players I stood next to Friday night was shivering and his teeth were chattering. But he didn't need to be reminded how lucky he was to be on a team that was still playing football in the cold when most of the other football players were at home, comfy and warm, playing their football games on a video game.
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If you hear ringing in your ears Friday night, it will probably be my wife Claire, introducing the cowbell to the Hillsboro football program. Claire sat in front of Hillsboros' coaches' wives in Salina and suggested she would bring several cowbells to the next game. They had been told that cowbells were illegal, but Claire looked it up in the KSHSAA football guidelines and although airhorns are illegal, cowbells are not. Now all she has to do is find the box they are still packed in. Cowbells are so popular in Fort Scott that I had to drive for an hour to find one, so when I found any I bought four, because they were sold out all around the area.
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I got a phone call last week from John Ellis who wanted me to ask our readers if anyone had found a pair of little girl's glasses, which were lost this past Saturday at a yard sale near Ash Street and Sixth in Hillsboro. The little girl set them down and forgot them. They are silver colored, brand-new and expensive. If you found them please be assured they are missed, and give me a call, 947-3975.
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Speaking of losing things, those of you who might have had Paul Jantzen as a science teacher in the high school will, no doubt, understand the fear I felt when I somehow misplaced his most recent article for this newspaper.
I thought I had faxed it to our Marion office to be typeset, but I couldn't find it when I went there to put together last week's paper. Paul came into the Hillsboro office last week and I told him that I deserved a big fat zero for losing it. I showed Paul the copy of his article in the Hillsboro office, in the faxed tray. He held it in his hand and looked up at me with the strangest look on his face. I asked what was the matter and he pointed to the F that was circled on the top page of his article. To me, the F meant it had already been faxed. To the retired teacher it came as quite a shock. He'd never received an F before.
Mr. Jantzen isn't going to believe this, but the dog ate my homework again this week. I couldn't find his article anywhere!
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I experienced another memorable moment late Sunday night, after getting home late from the newspaper office. I didn't want to wake up Claire, so I tried to walk through the bedroom in the dark into the restroom to brush my teeth.
I smacked into the blade-narrow edge of the bathroom door, which had been left half-closed in the middle of the dark opening; stubbing my little toe, my knee, my elbow and my forehead all at the same time.
Stunned and hurt, I wimped around, and I complained to Claire, who had been startled awake by the banging and commotion.
"How could you leave the bathroom door half-closed in the dark!?"
After limping to bed and pulling the covers over my battered bones, I asked Claire again, "How could you have left the door half-closed?"
Ever the optimist, she said, "half-closed, half-opened, it all depends on how you look at it."
— GRANT OVERSTAKE
