The arrival of fall means an increase in the hectic work pace for us at Mainstreet Newspapers.
I realize it’s not technically fall as Georgia’s summer sun continues to fight us almost daily. I say fall since football season is now upon us and kids are back in school.
With the overall slower pace of the summer months now a thing of the past, we often forget to stop and be thankful for the little things in life. You know those things which we too often take for granted but are still grateful when we are able to notice them.
With that in mind I give thanks today for:
•a good night’s sleep.
•arriving at the local high school football stadium two hours before kickoff. There’s nothing like soaking in the atmosphere that is high school football on a Friday night. It’s the bands, the teams, the community. It’s a slice of Americana at its absolute best.
• Wednesday afternoons when I arrive home knowing another edition of the paper has been finished.
•a classic movie which I’ve seen at least 100 times, but still enjoy watching it again.
•guilty pleasures like “The Jerry Springer Show” and “Cheaters” and knowing that no matter how far I’ve fallen, I’ve never made an appearance on either. Ditto for the show “Cops.”
•college and pro football media guides.
•an old song which immediately takes you back to the year it was first popular.
•sports talk radio.
•a comfortable pair of shows that are broken in just right.
•columns by sports writing legend Furman Bisher. We’re still able to enjoy his work which makes us luckier than we know.
•newspaper reporters like Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who did more good for this country with the printed word than I could ever hope to. Do high school students today even know about Watergate?
•Keith Olbermann’s “Worst Person in the World” segments.
•the overnight radio show “Coast to Coast AM,” especially when the topic centers on UFOs, bigfoot, aliens and the like.
•memories of hearing a liberal radio talk show host in Atlanta.
•political columns by Bill Shipp like the one he wrote recently about Secretary of State Karen Handel and the questionnable decisions she has made. While some may contend Shipp is simply showing his liberal said, the column was backed up with tons of evidence which could not be simply ignored when it comes to Handel’s attempts to keep certain candidates off the ballot in our state.
•watching the flock of birds and family of squirrels arrive at the feeding area we have established for them. Birds of all descriptions, as well as several squirrels, have become quite demanding but are still enjoyable in daily viewing.
•those of you, like myself, who still enjoy reading a newspaper by holding it in your hands rather than looking at it on a computer. Much has changed about the newspaper business even in the time I entered it professionally in 1993 but I hope we will always have the printed edition to enjoy.
•my recliner after a long day’s of work which often stretches well into the late afternoon and on into the evening.
•the first rays of light as it peaks through the window in the morning.
Chris Bridges is a reporter for The Banks County News. E-mail comments about this column to him at chris@mainstreetnews.com.
