Of the making of diets, there is no end. New diets are constantly appearing, and almost all of them create some ripple. They are guaranteed to give us victory in our perpetual battle of the bulge.
One of the new diets is the Garlic Diet. It doesn’t actually make you lose weight, but it makes people stand farther away from you so that you look smaller. Then, there is the Italian Pasta Diet. On this diet, you hafta walk pasta de pie, you hafta walk pasta de candy, pasta de ice cream, etc.
The Major League Baseball season is now underway, and with it the hopes and dreams of all of us fans whose teams have never won a pennant. My Texas Rangers have never won a World Series since they came into existence. In fact, they have never even won a playoff game.
Erik and Erin Dukes have four boys, all of whom are 7 years of age and younger. I suggested one time that if they had another boy then a few years from now they could all be playing high school basketball for the Booneville Blue Devils, and we could call them the “Duke Blue Devils.” Since Erik is a North Carolina fan, he was not inspired by the idea.
When you are around these four Dukes, if you are quiet enough you can actually hear them growing. They are not only growing in stature, but also in wisdom and in favor with God and man.
The coming of spring appeals to something deep and primal in all of us. The long, cold days have had their impact on us. They have resulted in severe attacks of seasonal affective disorder that have put large numbers of us on life support. Those not on life support are, at the very least, longing for warmth, sunshine, and deliverance.
A cartoon showed a man standing at the window looking out on a landscape filled with green grass, blooming, flowers, and blue skies. He was stretching his arms and saying, “It’s spring! The flowers are blooming, the birds are singing, and the runaway Toyotas are flying down the freeways!”
Another cartoon showed a Toyota car dealership. Over one doorway was the sign, “Repair Shop.” Unfortunately, the dealership was in a shambles. The walls were in a near state of collapse under the impact of numerous Toyotas that had crashed into the building.
On our recent trips to Oxford, I have noted that an old tradition is alive and well along Highway 6, east of Oxford. It is the burning season. A lot of the folks in that area have been burning off their fields.
Burning off your field was an annual rite of spring observed religiously by my father. My mother was always afraid of fire, but each year during the month of March my father got a pyromanic gleam in his eye. He began thinking about setting fire to the fields and burning off any dry grass and weeds left over from the previous growing season.
