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21 MAR 04: CITY SNAPSHOTS
I didn't have my camera for these snapshots from the last few days -- so please use your imagination to picture them.
SCENE 1: "Man!" said the man sitting next to me at a library as I used an Internet computer. "Is that a Spalding watch?"
Yes, it was a Spalding on my wrist. No, I hadn't come to the library to sell it.
"Yes," I said - then felt compelled to add details, to satisfy this man's curiosity. "I bought it for $19.95, at a Kmart in Panama City Beach."
I remembered this well because on my vacation last fall, I lost my old digital watch somewhere between Columbus and Panama City Beach. Either I left it in a field at Eufaula's Admiral Moorer Middle School where I exercised, at a Hardee's in Dothan where I stopped for dinner - or it flew out the car window somewhere along U.S. 431.
"Are you a basketball official or something?" For some reason, the man was unsatisfied with my answer. I hadn't realized Spalding had become the new Rolex.
"No," I repeated. "I bought it at a Kmart store in Panama City Beach for $19.95." I needed a watch during vacation because I was at a church convention, and morning choir rehearsals began at 8:00 a.m. Looking back, I guess I was expected to sleep on the beach during late afternoons.
I should note the Spalding watch I bought at Kmart has a silver band, with a blue face. There's no gold of any sort. So why was this stranger so interested in it? Was he planning to impress somebody at a sports banquet over the weekend?
(I'll resist the urge to describe the color of the watchband as "Spalding Gray....")
After I explained the point of purchase for a second time, the man sitting next to me didn't say anything else. Perhaps he went to Kmart and bought one of his own. Or perhaps he was disappointed that I wasn't a scout or an agent, ready to offer him a contract.
SCENE 2: A different library branch on Friday afternoon. This time the notebook for signing in to use Internet computers is gone.
"Do you have your library card?" the woman at the desk asked. Sadly, I did not -- so the public access computers now are off limits to people without cards. These libraries are getting as bad as CVS stores....
I clean my clothes at a laundromat on South Lumpkin Road, practically across the street from the South Columbus Branch Library. I normally start the washers, walk over the bridge built for South Columbus Elementary students and have a fast
online session. Deleting spam is SO much easier with DSL lines.
But as of Friday, the rules for public access computers were different - and to be honest, I'd been warned this change was coming. Normally I carry a library card on these trips, so it would have been no big deal. But at this time of year, I'm too
concerned about squeezing all my spring-cleaning dust cloths in the hamper without any falling out.
SCENE 3: The Friday evening news on WRBL confirmed the city is installing new street signs with larger print. I'd seen these on Martin Luther King Drive - but I wondered why they aren't along 13th Street, where all the eye care centers are.
What struck me is that the federal government is requiring cities such as Columbus to make street signs larger and easier to read. Talk about a case of BIG government....
SCENE 4: On a quiet Saturday morning which officially began spring, I took a walk to admire the beauty of the historic district. Outside a house on 8th Street I found two poles with small breathing lizards on each side. You can guess what I thought right away - they're geckos, and the residents saved a bunch on their car insurance with Geico.
I think the two small lizards on the poles were salamanders, showing off their gills as they breathed. I didn't dare disturb them - because who knows how much noise they would have made, setting every dog in the neighborhood to barking.
SCENE 5: At church this weekend, my Pastor admitted he had a hard time focusing on his driving. After all, we meet in a hall that's almost in the "Thunder in the Valley" flight line - and more drivers were looking up than left or right.
My Pastor made another comment this weekend on "The Passion of the Christ," noting NO anti-Semitic acts have occurred since the movie came out. But he read a short item quoting star Jim Caviezel as calling the film "very Catholic" - so I get the feeling my Pastor considers it really anti-Protestant.
But the oddest part came late at night, as I went through my e-mail. One of those online surveys on "What America Eats" asked me a series of questions about my Saturday dining out - and that included the snack table at church! I can't believe I
had to answer three times the snacks cost me nothing.
Now some other quick scattered notes from the weekend:
+ Lake Eufaula hosted a big BASS professional fishing tournament. This makes for quite a varied weekend. You go to "Thunder in the Valley" Saturday for all the noise - then go to the lake Sunday so your ears can heal.
+ The blue team beat the white team 24-16 in the "A-Day" spring game at Auburn University. We expect the white team will be called into Ed Richardson's office Monday morning and be fired.
+ Well, whattaya know - my alma mater Kansas WON its first NCAA tournament game after all! The upset occurred just across the bracket, as the Jayhawks are playing #12 seed Pacific this afternoon. That'll teach me to learn how to worry from
Scott Miller....
+ Instant Message to Higher Power Outreach Ministries of Phenix City: Did we hear the woman on the radio right? Is Johnny Robinson really "the best pastor this side of heaven?" Then how come he isn't even the best-known pastor in Phenix City?
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