My community service adventure

While this blog post is a little late in coming, it's nonetheless warranted.

The Topeka Capital-Journal each year raises money to donate to Junior Achievement, a program to -- you guessed it -- help juniors achieve through showing children how class applies to the real world in a practical way.

Each year, in thanks, Junior Achievement hosts a night of bowling in Topeka for businesses who raise and donate money to the program. And, yours truly, enjoyed a night of copious amounts of alcohol and bowling to support Junior Achievement.

Incidentally, Junior Achievement came to my third or fourth grade class (details are sketchy because that was a long time ago) and showed us the importance of working together as a team on an assembly line type project to accomplish our goal quicker and easier (we built pens in teams, how cool is that?).

The Capital-Journal had enough people at Gage Center to fill four lanes. It was cool to see a lot of local businesses and organizations getting together in support of such a great program. The TPD were their, Security Benefit, etc. It is a nice community effort.

But I must say, nothing beats the feeling of racking yourself while bowling in front of the managing editor of  a publication while trying to pull off a move affectionately termed 'the finisher.'

A proud moment? Not necessarily. A memorable one? Yes.

As is Junior Achievement's long-time-ago effect on me.

Battle between news mediums

Four college students were driving back to Topeka on Saturday afternoon from a journalism conference in Kansas City. They were traveling west on I-70 when they happened to notice a KSNT news van in the right lane.

Everyone knew what must be done.

The blue Ford Focus switched to the left lane and began gaining ground on the news van. The person in the back, left hand seat prepared himself. The Focus pulled alongside the news van and a bare ass waved at the driver while the Focus driver blared on the horn. The driver of the news van, while not recognizable, had a disgustedly perplexed look on his face as he stopped sipping from his Sonic cup.

Hysterical laughter ensued as the throttle was matted and the car zoomed off into a brighter future than that of local television news.

Innocence

"Mommy, that's a pee pee," he says as he points at the artwork.

"No son, that's an umbilical chord."

Ah, the innocence of childhood.

The gun

They're all lined up.

The silence about the air is absolute as they all stare at the guy with the gun. He stares at each one of them and asks if they're ready.

Everyone tenses as he points the gun.

A couple of premature shrieks escape the innocent bystanders. The gun fires and everyone takes off running to screams.

Who doesn't love a good cross country race?

Goin for a cruise

The drunken screaming is everywhere.

Not bad screaming, but fun screaming, happy screaming. Everyone is in a drunken state of bliss, even as two cars almost collide in the parking lot.

One guy is screaming because his friends are trying to leave him as he is trying to climb into the moving car with his pants still down from peeing on the car.

Another is screaming at the guy who almost hit him, or who he almost it. It's hard to tell.

A cruiser is sitting at the end of the parking lot, quietly looking for trouble.

Funny how it is only barely past 11 at night.

The cracks

He walked into Subway, unshaven and unkempt.

Those already in line payed no attention as he seemed confused and not all there. He walked over to look at the rack of chips and then to the checkout counter to mumble a couple of words before shuffling back out into the evening air.

The people behind the counter weren't nonplussed as this wasn't the first time someone like that had come in.

The sandwich line kept moving.

The customer line kept moving.

Somewhere, another one slipped through the cracks.

The night will only know

The guy showed up late and had no idea what he'd gotten himself into.

People are doing shots, random people are makin out on the couch and there's lots of drunken loudness, nothin new there.

But it doesn't take long for the drunken loudness to turn into lots of screaming and crying.

And before he knows it, he's running down the street with a buddy at almost midnight in street clothes trying to find someone.

How did this happen?

People are in the streets crying, cars are driving around searching with the runners.

How did this happen?

Who knows how much time later, order has been marginally restored as cigars are passed around to relax, but does anyone truly know what happened?

Seriously.

Some things the night will only know.

A step toward the fall

I must say, I'm enjoying the recent infusion of fall weather into the scheme of things.

The overcast skies and cool, fresh air energize me and give newfound life to my day. I feel like things are good and I'm at peace when I'm just walking, not necessarily with a destination in mind. It's like I can just walk and silently watch the world pass me by as my worries wash away with the occasional drizzles we've had.

Not only that, but this type of weather always takes me back to my senior year in high school during my fall cross country season. I remember after a good, hard run, going out to my '72 Cougar convertible, putting on some country and just letting it all engulf me. It was a great feeling, one I've tried to keep bottled with me and can pull out when needed.

I revel in difficult, physical feats and manual labor. It gives me such a great feeling of accomplishment, something I don't usually get in college because so much of it is useless when it comes to accomplishing physical things.

Don't get me wrong, I love deep discussions and pondering, but sometimes I just want to put on a pair of holey jeans, a flannel shirt and go help my dad split wood or work on my truck.

And when weather like this comes around, I just have that feeling and can carry it with me and the world has a tougher time getting to me. It's like my own invisible patronus.

Some days there's nothing more I'd rather do than take that someone special out to a pond I know, push off in the boat and just float the evening and night away under the light of the moon and stars. Sheltered by the trees as the gentle wind playfully caresses the surface of the water where fresh air pervades everything.

While I'm nothin short of a dreamer, there's not much better than fall. The feelings it invokes in me money could never buy.

If the walls of a barroom could talk...

"Hey, Janet, do you guys wash the ash trays?"

"Yeah, we do."

"Would you eat ketchup out of one of them?"

Janet looks at the two poor souls dipping fries in ketchup contained in an ash tray.

"Oh, God no, don't do that."

Hysterical laughter fills the table as Janet takes the ketchup-filled ash tray away and a napkin takes its place."

********

Guy 1: ".....Yeah, actually I'm turning 22 tonight."

Guy 2: "Oh yeah? Congratulations!"

Guy 3: "Yeah, this hear (pointing at Guy 1) is the old fucker."

Guy 1: Sheepishly to the table at large, "Everyone, this is my gradeschool principal (Guy 2)."

Guy 2: "Yeah, I'm the old fucker."

Hysterical laughter as Guy 3 tries to pry the foot out of his mouth without falling out of his chair.

A river's wrath

He sits quietly, his head down so as not to cause problems with his most-noticeable presence. A group to which he used to belong no longer wants him. Yet, he sits among them like old times. He fights to hold his tongue while the group struggles to find direction, consistency and the ability to better themselves.

It tortures him to realize how much they need him but refuse his services. Not surprisingly, he is largely ignored and the few times he speaks, his stare stays fixated on an imperfection in the table.

He never wanted this.

Never expected this.

He would give a lot to make it right, but realizes that's just how it goes sometimes. While one can never set foot in the flowing water of a river twice, one can step into the same place in the river and see similar surroundings.

A desperado's pain

The desperado sits in a bar, surrounded but alone. A silent cry for help goes out with every pitcher purchased, every slurred word and every shot killed. The smile hides all he can't say and the laugh everything he's never known. He can't help but feel adrift while watching the door swing open and close -- beckoning him with the temptation of leaving. The only anchor being a life he's carved out of sheer happenstance and failure. The harshest judge he has ever stood before is staring right back at him out of a grungy bathroom mirror in a swirl of smoke and deceit.

But there's no time to think about that, another pitcher is on the way.

FOOTBALL!

Finally, football is here! I can't wait for the Chiefs preseason game Thursday against the Bears. For the first time in awhile, Chiefs preseason games actually matter. In the past the Chiefs have been good so preseason games were filled with players who weren't necessarily going to make much of an impact.

But this year is different.

They are still on a horrible 9-game losing streak and a very young, inexperienced team. These preseason games have a much more important meaning as a testing bed for all the young talent they have. It will be interesting to see if their QB Brodie Croyle can show improvement vs. this past season, especially since he has yet to win an NFL game.

And that's scary to think about. Our starting quarterback, with whom we are hanging our hopes and dreams on, didn't win a game last season. And the guy who's supposed to be protecting his million dollar blind side?

Well, he's hurt along with the Chiefs' other first-round pick, Glenn Dorsey. Both Brandon Albert and Dorsey are out for an unspecified amount of time. I was hoping to see the faces of the Chiefs overhaul on the field against Chicago on Thursday. Alas, no one will.

All I can say is I expect the game will be ugly. I'm sure the entire preseason will be, but nothing new there. And I can only imagine how bad the Chiefs will be slaughtered on opening day in New England.

I just hope a .500 record isn't too much to hope for, but seeing as how the Chiefs generally fall short of expectations, I'm going to keep a beer in my hand at all times during the game -- the only safe bet with the Chiefs this year.

Why?

A friend of my tonight just told me he found out for sure his mom has cancer. One thing I've struggled with my whole life is why such bad things happen to such good people.

I still don't have an anwer except for that's the way it is. I know us in America have it better than most of the world, but I still don't understand how so much bad can happen, except for the fact of the Ying and the Yang.

I do believe you have to know the bad to know what's good, otherwise things blur and what's where good and bad merge until we're theoretically robots in that everything is the same. That tends to be how I justify the bad things sometimes, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's any easier to stomach. In the words of Lonestar, "I pray for every women, child and man, to find the strength to rise above, to teach each other how to love, to forgive and be forgiven some sweet day...I pray"

I know I don't often enough, but I'm still learning and growning. I'm gonna get there someday...

It's funny, I'm designing the sports section of the Capital-Journal again tonight, and I can't help but wonder why I chose to major in mass media at Washburn. I've learned more working at the C-J and being sports editor of the Washburn Review than I have in any mass media classes at Washburn, save for the theoretical classes (which I do enjoy).

I could've easily majored in actuarial science like I was and given myself more options and a job in a field that, quite frankly, isn't choking. But I love mass media way more than math these days. I'd rather make no money than hate my job.

Either way, I guess my classes have basically given me a place to solidify my skills and pick up the random InDesign tip. But when it comes to mass media, it really is what real-world experience you have and who you know. You can't learn to design or write under the pressure of deadline in class. It just isn't possible. Anyone can write a news story, but can you write it in 10 minutes because the game went into overtime?

It's crazy to think, 4 years ago I started at the C-J as a part-timer in high school answering phones and typing up box scores, standings and other sports agate. And now I'm designing sections and I love it. The hours aren't glamorous, the pay is bad but the satisfaction is solid. How many people can say their work is seen by thousands each day?

Maiden voyage

So I guess I'm a newbie at this whole blogging thing and we'll just have to see how this works out. Hopefully this will be a place I can express my myriad thoughts and make sense of things. And, of course, I'm sure there will be plenty of sports stuff chronicled here along with obscure country music references. It's what I do.

One of these days I'll get around to making a proper profile. Who knows, today might be that day.

That's all for now. It's my one day off and I chose to do laundry on it. I'm pretty sure that's high treason and I should be hanged.