As I photographed this pumpkin a few minutes ago, I was wondering how much snow our friends in New Hampshire have had this weekend and just how much celebrating they did when the South Carolina kicker missed the field goal in overtime to preserve a victory for their beloved Vols of Tennessee. I hope their was some Friendly’s Ice Cream involved.

By geographic accounts I am truly a country bumpkin.  According to the map, we live approximately due East of Nowhere.  And that is okay.  As you can tell there is some frost out on the pumpkin this morning.  Last night/this morning was the coldest we have seen so far this fall.

I hope and pray are is well with you and yours this morning on your little piece of the map.

Just walking out in the brisk air this morning listening to what few walnuts that have not already fallen do so was a time to take pause.  I took a deep breath in and exhaled with ample effort to produce a heavy dose of what we call “seeing your breath”.  In my case it is “seeing your hot air”.  Still it was a moment that has not left me.  It is something that still looks the same at the age of 46 as it did when I was plain 6.  There are not too many of those sights to behold as you get older.  Trees grow.  Towns get built up.  Some cities die out.  What was the country  is now a row of shopping places…witness Lakeland Drive outside Jackson, Mississippi the last twenty-five years.  A new subdivision may pop up in a place you didn’t think it was possible.  Still…through it all…when the weather gets cold and  the conditions are just right,  I can still see my breath like I was 6 years old again.

I was six in 1974.

I was seven in 1975.

1975 is….well…gotta go.  I will revisit this later today and lament a few football games that went awry the past two days.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson