How's that again?

"There wasn't a time where I didn't think we couldn't win the game."
Southern Mississippi coach Larry Fedora


Huh?

If a double negative makes it a positive, then a triple negative is...carry the 3, fractionalize the hypotenuse, and your outcome is.....egg roll.

Beauty interwoven with ugliness on an early autumn morning

A gentle wind tugged golden leaves from the trees on a sunny day as puffs of cottony clouds dappled the sky.

A woman listening intently to music on her iPod jogged on the sidewalk running along one side of a drainage culvert, and a man pulled two young children down the concrete ribbon on the other.

They were oblivious to the men in uniform hiding behind trees a half-block away, their guns drawn, their eyes studying a house that had been built during World War I. Two young men had scrambled from the house, bleeding, and run next door to escape.

They had been shot, police said. By their mother.

She had a gun and a rifle, police were told, so neighboring houses were evacuated quickly.

Disbelief filled the faces of the people with whom I spoke, and those who remained silent. What could drive a mother to shoot at her own sons?

Police will not get the answer from her. She had killed herself by the time the SWAT team forced its way into the house, flash-bang grenades shattering the silence gripping the neighborhood and announcing their impending encroachment.

Her boys, 16 and 20, are in two different intensive care units at a hospital just a few blocks from where they were shot. They may very well recover from the physical wounds inflicted Wednesday morning, but the emotional scars? That's something else entirely.

A little bit of homemade stew

Idle thoughts on a wide range of topics....

I don't know why, but I almost always do a double-take when I see the moon on a clear night. It doesn't matter if it's just a sliver or full and glowing, there's something about seeing the moon that makes me pause and ponder for a few moments --- and sometimes longer.

* * *

I must be watching too much soccer on TV. The other day on one my evening walks I strolled past an after-school soccer practice among middle school students and watched one kid after another sky their shots far over the crossbar as they accepted crosses from out wide. "You're leaning back as you shoot," I thought. "Straighten up."

Not that I'd ever want to coach soccer. I'll leave that to others with more patience than me.

* * *

Summer's departure always saddens me. Maybe it's my farming background, but I recognized summer as growing season, and nature flashing its nurturing potential. Sure, winter has its beauty and its purpose, but summer feeds us. Summer warms us. Summer presents the trees and the grass and the flowers in full glory.

I realize one of the keys to an enriched life is to find the beauty available in every season...but I still miss summer when it bids us farewell......

* * *

I spent some time with my godson, Anthony, looking at the photos of his school trip to Europe this summer. It was a remarkable trip, to Ireland, England, France, Belgium and Holland...all to places I have not visited. He had a lot of fun, for which I was grateful, and it was as entertaining to hear his stories as it was to see the photos.

It makes me want to find my passport and head over the pond again...