Roy Exum
I can never remember a day in July when my garden, my lawn, my dogwood tree, and my ferns are all wilting for lack of rain. Right now we are more than eight inches under our average rainfall for the first six months and, on this wonderful weekend, those who love firecrackers are urged to keep a pail of water in case a spark could cause a fire. On the other hand, every July 4th I am reminded of the greatest play in the history of baseball. This happened on April 27, 1997, on Dodger Field in Los Angeles and let’s listen to Vin Scully make the call of Rick Monday’s greatest save. CLICK HERE
And now for our monthly walk …
AN ORCHID to the promise we will wear and/or display Tennessee Orange today in memory of the legendary Lady Vols basketball coach, Pat Summitt. Already the Hullander family of Hullco Home Improvement on East Brainerd Road have been paying tribute on their digital sign while The Rug Market just off South Broad has gloriously displayed a huge basketball rug with a memory ribbon. And what about the cars around town that have orange bows attached? It is a proud day to be a Tennessean indeed.
AN ONION to the fight in a Lumberton, N.C. Sonic restaurant that left two men shot last week. It seems the husband of a manager got into a serious tiff with an employee. The husband, 36-year-old Ronald McDonald, is not believed to be connected with one of Sonic’s top competitors.
AN ORCHID to the revelation that the epitaph on the gravestone of The Rev. John Paul Carter (1923-1997), which stands in the University of the South cemetery in Sewanee, reads in bold carving, “While he lived he was alive.”
AN ONION to the confirmed report an innocent third-grade child at a New Jersey end-of-school party was turned over to police when he made what was construed as a racial remark when he asked if he could have a “brownie” when he spied a platter of the chocolate-and-walnut confections. The child was not arrested, mind you, but was turned over to the state’s Department of Children’s Services.
AN ORCHID to Ballard Designs, the famous home décor company, for offering digitally-produced, stretched-canvas reproductions of paintings by Chattanooga’s pre-eminent artist Carylon Killebrew. Born in Detroit in 1948, Ms. Killebrew is now nationally renowned and her originals, which now sell for literally thousands of dollars, are in high demand. But now her “pure, honest and unadorned” works can be ordered – in various sizes, no less -- for one-tenth the cost. And get this, the copies are so good “I won’t tell if you won’t.” It is easily predicted that Carylon’s paintings will one day be on display in The Louvre Museum in Paris, probably near Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. But the better tip is this weekend’s “Firecracker Sale” where Ballard is offering a 20 percent discount that includes the hot-selling Killebrew art! (www.ballarddesigns.com)
AN ONION to the new study by the world's best outfitter, Patagonia, which reveals fleece jackets and pullovers are a serious threat to the world’s oceans. It is believed too many of the synthetic microfibers – which in fact are tiny bits of plastic – are winding up in water systems after the apparel is washed and ending up in the ocean.
AN ORCHID to the East Ridge shooter who wounded a would-be robber at the Marathon Service Station on Ringgold Road early Thursday morning, this just hours after an article on Chattanoogan.com by yours truly bemoaned the fact the American public is highly unaware how many “good guns” are stopping “bad guns.”
AN ORCHID to the Cornell professor who has a novel idea in coping with America’s horribly overcrowded prisons. “Let those go who have been there the longest. There may be some exceptions, but these people aren’t monsters.”
AN ONION to the alarming news that a U.S. Forest Service law enforcement officer was knocked off his four-wheel all-terrain bike in Glacier National Park this week by a huge bear and was then killed by the angry animal after he apparently surprised the creature. Another officer witnessed the scene from his own four-wheeler and was not harmed.
AN ONION to the epitaph of John Billy Jones (1929-2005), said to be on display in the White Cemetery in Walker County, Ga.: “One nice thing about being dead is you don’t hear all of that self-centered two-for-one bull****. Live in New York. It’s Saturday night.”
AN ORCHID to the epitaph of June Moss Wingo (1948-2005) in the Roberta City Cemetery in Roberta, Ga., “The Shell Is Here But The Nut Is Gone.”
AN ONION to Arthur Brooks, the fun-loving Jewish father who ran a hysterical ad searching for a wife for his son, Baron. It seems almost 20 candidates applied after the ad appeared in the Coeur d’Alene Press. But this was after the event went viral and was featured by news outlets all over the world. Arthur said the publicity was too overwhelming and postponed the process, much to the chagrin of pranksters everywhere.
AN ORCHID to the Chattanooga Times Free Press for its brilliant coverage of Pat Summitt’s life earlier this week. The quote from Pat they used on the newspaper’s front page was almost good enough to become a tattoo: “God doesn’t take away things to be cruel. He takes things away to make room for other things. He takes things away to lighten us. He takes things away so we can fly.” (Children everywhere should memorize that.)
AN ONION to those who doubt I am not a good singer during my morning shower. Yesterday I performed “Amazing Grace” with Andre Boccelli, “I’ve Been Hurt” with Bill Deal and the Rhondels, “Bring Me Sunshine” with Amazing Rhythm Aces, “Worthy Is The Lamb” with the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, “I’m Gonna’ Miss Her,” with Brad Pasley, “Just A Closer Walk” with Sara Evans, “What I Did For Love” with Josh Groban, and the masterpiece version of “Mr. Bojangles” by Sammy Davis Jr. I’m tell you, we were incredible. (Oh, and we had two piano interludes – “New Love” by Jim Brickman and “Grace” by William Joseph.)
AN ORCHID to baseball superstar Ken Griffey Jr., who played an epic prank on then-rookie Alex Rodriguez when both were playing with the Seattle Mariners. Here’s the Sports Illustrated version: “Griffey enlisted Seattle’s trainer, Rick Griffin, to convince Rodriguez that the club’s stars—including Buhner and Randy Johnson—were involved in a scheme to sell their sperm to the highest bidder, as if they were thoroughbred stallions, and that Rodriguez might himself attract an appreciable stud fee. He brought in a fake doctor. ‘Dude, you got great genes,’ Griffey told the rookie. The callow Rodriguez was skeptical at first. Then he started to come around. ‘How much money do you think we could make?’ he asked. Griffey, mercifully, pulled the plug before donations were to be harvested. ‘Everybody has rookie hazing,’ he says. ‘That was his.’”
royexum@aol.com