My Dear Sweet Sainted Wife left Tuesday for Columbia, Mo., where she will spend three weeks or so helping get granddaughters Alexandra and Leah-Bo off to school (and otherwise entertained as required) while both their parents have already trudged off to work. Grandma B usually assumes this task, but since she's wandered off to Vietnam for some reason or the other, that duty fell happily on our side of the family.
On the way up there, she spent the night at our river place to deal with a leaky roof, which turned out to be a couple of loose shingles that took only a few nails and a modest $20 fee to a local carpenter to fix (there's some friendly folks in Van Buren).
Then she ran into a 50-mile detour going up Highway 63 because of "high water" -- I guess Northeast Arkansas isn't the only place that's been rainy lately.
According to My Dear Sweet Sainted Wife, the normally sweet-natured Current River was up out of its banks all the way over the many sandbars, nearly up to flood stage. This happens every spring and whenever there's excessive rainfall in the local region up 100 miles or so northwest of Poplar Bluff, but I don't remember that much flooding in August. None, actually.
The mild little river can be quite a monster in the spring, though, as you can easily tell when the high water goes down and there are another 1,000 uprooted trees littering the riverbed and banks -- but that just gives you something to dodge as you float or canoe or kayak down the river.
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What happened to Shelby Miller Wednesday night made my stomach turn, but it looks like it was less serious than first appeared. Carl Crawford's line shot up the middle on the game's second pitch caught Shelby square on the point of the elbow, and I would have sworn it had to break something.
But apparently, it was just a bad bruise and if the story on yesterday's sports page was right -- he won't even miss a start.
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Football season is beginning to rear it's many-faceted head, and so far, Johnny Manziel is still hogging most of the headlines.
The NCAA is thinking about running him out of college football for taking money for signing his autograph on a bunch of football helmets, which according to their rules and regulations is what they should do.
I have a problem with that, since those NCAA rules and regulations are strictly their own and have no basis in law or common sense or fairness ... just the NCAA being it's own ridiculous self.
Why should the NCAA have any interest in what Johnny Manziel or anybody else gets for signing his autograph? What business is it of theirs?
Does it in any way effect the world of college football? I don't see how. If players are denied what few opportunities they have to make a few bucks while in college ... well, it just seems un-American to me.
I can see the NCAA being strict about gambling and other things that might have a negative effect through a few back doors on the outcome of college games, but picking up a little cash for signing autographs (if you're famous enough) seems as legal as anything could be.
When I was broke in college (4-1/2 years of that) I'd do about anything to raise $6 ... enough back then for a pork shoulder sandwich and a pitcher of beer at the Rendezvous. Instead of signing autographs (which I would have preferred), I'd gather up Coke bottles, which in those days you could sell for a penny or two apiece. If you had enough of them, you had $6.
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Dr. Matt Jones whipped me soundly in Wednesday's golf match, but the week before he blew a 5-up lead to lose in complete ignominy. He's still 3-up lifetime and playing better all the time.
Such is life in a small town.
dtennyson@blythevillecourier.com