I must be getting forgetful in my old age, here it is 11:45 Friday morning and I just now remembered to start writing this column. Normally editor Andy Weld reminds me, "Are you having a column this week?" but he's off in Iowa or someplace, off for a few days, so since I've been picking up most of his work and messing with the dogs and running all over the country doing Christmas stuff, I just plain forgot.
But hey, I've got 15 minutes til press time so what's the problem?
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First I ought to relate that my mother-in-law, Marian, passed away Monday at her home in San Jose, Calif. That was actually her husband Bob's home, but he's been gone almost a year now and the old homestead where My Dear Sweet Sainted Wife grew up is occupied by her brother, Kirk, who happens to be in Idaho at the moment but that's a story for another day.
Marian and my wife's father, Prim White (who's been dead some years now), made annual trips back this way, usually in late summer, to visit relatives (Prim's from up around Steele, the Bayou, actually), and to check on some land Prim owned over around Piggott.
On one of those trips back this way I met My Dear Sweet Sainted Wife, and when I got out of college I headed west to track her down.
But that, also, is a story for another day.
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Christmas we spent in Columbia, Mo., with both the oldest boys and grandaughters Leah-Bo and Alexandra and also Molly and her mom, Niki, and my sister Karen who just has a 25 mile trip up and over from Fulton, Mo., to Columbia.
We cooked up a whopper of a prime rib with all the fixins' and opened presents to beat sixty and a fine time was had by all (as they say).
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The weather was a bit much for me, though. Driving up there it rained so hard that 50 was a little too fast to travel on I-55 when it was really coming down.
When I went through St. Louis the temperature was 67 degrees.
When I got to Columbia 100 miles west, it was 22.
Go figure.
Then the next night it got down to -9 ... that's right, MINUS 9.
Too cold for me, that's for sure.
I wonder if any of Kit's diehard golfers got out in that weather?
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Now it's 11:55 and I've still got a few more paragraphs to write. Better get to it.
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I think it will be possible to get out on the golf course tomorrow for the first time in several weeks. It's supposed to be in the mid-to-upper 50s with some sun out and light winds out of the south so I guess I'll text everybody and try to set up an 11 a.m. tee-off.
Heck, we might even get enough for two groups.
At Kit's course in Columbia it's supposed to be in the high 40s or maybe even the low 50s, and there will be 50 or more guys in the big game ... and that's in Moberly, not Columbia. Moberly is a town of less than 10,000, so it's smaller than Blytheville.
Go figure.
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Now that Tony Romo's out of the Cowboy's game with the Eagles Sunday night, somebody else can choke off the season for good ole Jerry Jones.
A billion dollar stadium and an 8-8 team.
8-8, over and over and over again.
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Time to stop writing, the last plate besides this one just hit the computer to plate system (I can hear it from my office real easy-like, and my wife thinks I have a hearing problem ... huh! What I might have, sweetheart, is a listening problem, but that's also a story for another day).
dtennyson@blythevillecourier.com