Have you watched the news recently? I don't mean to complain, but it's a never-ending circus of sadness and horror. If they're not reporting on mass shootings, they're talking about the possibility of mass-shootings. And when they're done, they discuss mass shootings.
Well, I speak for millions of Americans when I say: I'm disturbed. What about the good stuff? In our giant of briar-patch world, there are millions of strawberries that pop up every day. And if you'll permit me, I'd like to tell you about a few.
Ahem.
I'll begin with schoolchildren who visited a Missouri Humane Society last Wednesday. The kids are part of a program in which students practice reading storybooks to rescue dogs. The purpose: to calm traumatized animals — and because everyone hates math.
Florida: ninety-year-old lottery winner, Ruby Sorah, won forty-three million dollars. Let that sink in for a second. This week, Ruby told reporters she's giving all her money away. Every last cent. Not even a trip to Vegas to see Celine Dion.
My granny never even gave Christmas cards.
In other news: meet a blue-eyed newborn with a severe brain abnormality. His birth mother abandoned him in a West Virginia hospital the day after his birth. The next morning, Rhonda Farley, a stranger, adopted the baby on the spot, without hesitation. “I believe," says Farley. "Every child needs somebody. Especially kids with special needs."
Which brings us to Kiera Larsen, who died on Monday after pushing two toddlers out of the path of an oncoming SUV. When she saw the runaway vehicle, she displayed bravery that was downright other-worldly, with no regard for her own life.
She died a hero.
Yes, our world is full of hatred, which is no shock. Just watch the news. There are killers with semi-automatics, madmen with bombs, and candidates caught in sex scandals.
But there are also saints like Kiera. Good people with a kind of…
Paxton is four miles wide, with a town-hall about the size of a Tom Thumb. Most of the people living here skate along the poverty threshold. And most of these hardworking folks don't even know what that is exactly. Or care. At least not this week.
Our Paxton boys played ball. In fact, it was the best basketball the little city has seen since the mid-seventies. That is, if you can call Paxton a city.
Most folks have never visited a place as small as Paxton, Florida. A town within spitting distance of Alabama. At the moment, there are 706 residents here — unless, God forbid, someone's granny dies. And this year's senior class isn't big enough to fill up a few church vans.
Paxton is four miles wide, with a town-hall about the size of a Tom Thumb. Most of the people living here skate along the poverty threshold. And most of these hardworking folks don't even know what that is exactly. Or care. At least not this week.
Because this week, their boys played white-hot basketball.
The Paxton Bobcats took the court in Lakeland, Florida, while half the town sat in the bleachers with hand painted signs.
These are the state championships. The singular biggest event some of these country kids will ever see — besides their own weddings. The boys were full of syrup-thick adrenaline. Each of them smiled big enough to
see their teeth from the nosebleed section. They might as well have been in the NBA finals.
The first half: wiry Zach Varnum guided the Bobcats to a joyous lead. He's liquid dynamite. There's no doubt about it, this kid's going places. Each time one of these athletes made a play, I understand the auditorium of mamas almost ripped the room apart — which is what mamas do.
But after halftime, the winds changed and everything went south. The Paxton boys clawed with everything they had. The other team clawed harder.
When the game was over, the boys sat disappointed, slumping their shoulders. But their mamas weren't about to let them get away with such behavior. Because heroes don't sulk. Besides, these champions have already made an entire city — no the entire county — proud.
The fact is, this is the 1A State Championship, and our rural Walton County boys were there,…