I can remember shooting baskets for hours in the humid summer months and even, at times, the brutally cold winter months on the basketball court in the driveway back home.
You are talking to someone here who used to chip ice off that old court just so my friends and I could play, and once, we even walked in a snowstorm down to the community center to play ball.
My attitude toward New Years Eve has been a mixed bag. As a kid, it was the one day of the year that I was allowed to stay up late, but I never could stay awake. In college, New Years Eve always promised a raucous party, one that I would never be able to remember the next day. When I joined a band, New Years Eve became the night I made “big” money doing something I loved.
The Santa Rosa County Legislative Delegation met Oct 24 where Sen. Doug Broxson’s proposed bill was briefly discussed. The only existing water system which attended the meeting was the City of Milton. This was the first time residents had even heard about it.
VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except (what) they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
It is December, and our neighborhoods have exploded with strings of sparkling lights spilling off roofs and hugging hedges. The colder, crisper nights, like the pathetic fallacy of a Shakespearean play, have lent a modicum of credibility to the artificial icicles dripping off the eaves. Chubby inflatable snowmen, Santas, and cartoon characters sway gently in the chilly breeze in improvised choreography to some unheard night song. Nativity scenes softly lit offer a quiet counterpoint to the eclectic spectacle, reminding those who dare to ponder that there is a Christ whose quiet incarnation in Bethlehem brought hope to the world.
I recently heard a sermon from my home church, First Baptist Orlando, that 100% inspired this column. I love Christmas for many reasons, but first and foremost because we are celebrating and recognizing the significance of the birth of Jesus. How does the world celebrate Christmas? By giving gifts and acts of kindness to one another to demonstrate our love for others.
Dear Santa, the FHSAA could use a clue.
I know it’s a big ask. Perhaps a bigger ask than that time when I was 8 and I circled every toy in one of those old department store catalogs hoping for the best on Christmas morning.
Santa Rosa County is fortunate to have a committed group of citizen advocates, small but vocal, who monitor local government to protect the interests of “We the People.”
Over four of the five weeks of December, many churches will, in some fashion, observe the season of Advent. By most liturgical calendars, Advent began the last Sunday in November, but the church I pastor, like some other churches, has opted to begin its observance on the first Sunday of December and ending on Sunday morning, December 24.
