Soccer Cultist!Written by Ed Williams
Man, I’m really worried about one of my two buddies in Brotherhood, Hugh Foskey! That’s right, I’m really worried about Fosk these days. Hugh, along with Ray Pippin and myself, form “The Brotherhood,” most elite social organization in world. Our membership list has totaled just three since 1976, and you can‘t get much more exclusive than a club with only three members. Ray and Hugh are my two best friends, so if something goes wrong for one of them it automatically becomes a concern for me. And that brings me around to what’s going on with Hugh these days. Used to, Hugh and I would occasionally get together to watch a ballgame, grab some Nu-Ways, or just talk some smack about who hottest woman in America is. Nowadays, I’m lucky if we get in a few minutes on telephone every few days. Frankly, this situation has concerned me, so I decided to do a little undercover work to see just what’s going on. What I’ve found has really shocked me, but, being professional investigative journalist that I am, I’m going to let all my readers in on sordid truth behind what’s monopolizing Hugh’s time. Bottom line, Hugh’s joined a cult. I know it’s shocking, and I know it’s something that’s hard for y’all to believe, but Hugh’s involved in a cult. It’s something called “Youth Soccer,” and it’s got him wrapped him up like a newspaper does a freshly caught brim. Hugh’s into it bad, and I don‘t know if I’ll ever get him out of it. If I call him up on a Saturday and ask him to go to a ballgame, he’ll inform me that Ross or Will (his two sons, both are proud SOBs, Sons Of The Brotherhood) have “Saturday morning indoor games.” Other times he’ll tell me that they’re “playing a rec league Thursday night tournament game,” or that they’re having “an out-of-towner” way off in another city. Honestly, I think Hugh and his boys are playing soccer seven days a week, and, on top of that, soccer season apparently runs year round, as Hugh openly admits that his boys play from early February on up ‘til up around Thanksgiving. When Thanksgiving comes, they take off for a few weeks, get a bunch of new soccer gear for Christmas, and then they start it up all over again in February. Frankly, I’ve never seen Hugh so enmeshed in something, it’s so bad that I‘m starting to think that a bunch of naked Amazonian women standing on sidelines couldn‘t get him off a soccer field.
| | REVISITING OUR PRIORITIESWritten by Terry L. Sumerlin
After his haircut, young man stepped behind my chair and, without saying a word, hugged me. I must say, in all humility, it was a great haircut. It wasn’t haircut, though, that brought about hug. It was result of a bond we had established during haircut.While cutting his hair, I mentioned that I had recently, and unexpectedly, lost my mom. She would have been 75 in July. She had only had two surgeries in her life and had enjoyed good health and independence. One day, while visiting with her, she mentioned to me that she was having some problems. A subsequent doctor’s visit indicated she needed a hysterectomy. It seemed simple enough. She would have surgery and be up and about in no time. It was not to be. In a month cancer metastasized, apparently from her uterus, to her abdomen and lungs and she was gone. I still can’t believe it. As I shared these things with my customer, he told me of his mother’s bout with cancer. Though her illness was much longer, it too had been fatal. I knew all that he was telling me, having heard it at time from him and his father. This time it had new meaning. Though I felt for both of them before, on this occasion my feelings were deeper and more sympathetic. I KNEW how he felt. I told him that I had urge to call Mom every day, just as I was accustomed to doing. That, while planning her funeral, I thought, “Maybe I should call Mom and see what she thinks about this list of pallbearers.” Then I caught myself. In her novel, “Five Smooth Stones,” one of Ann Fairbairn’s characters speaks of such impulses concerning his departed mother, “My mother died ten years ago, but it still happens to me. The people we love never really leave us.”
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