Lake Neuron

It has been a stressful and unpleasant time at work, for reasons I won’t discuss here, but I have the diversion of looking forward to one of the high points of my year, which is less than a week away.

Dawn Holley, who chairs the steering committee of which I am a member, said today she believes advance ticket sales are going quite well. It looks like we’ll have a good crowd, and a much-improved out-of-town crowd due to better support from papers in surrounding communities.

I touched base with Cascade High School band director David Lucich today to make sure it was OK for me to drop by Monday afternoon, when Nashville Symphony assistant conductor Kelly Corcoran, who will lead Tuesday’s concert, stops by to work with the Cascade band on the two numbers which Cascade will play in tandem with the Nashville Symphony: “The 1812 Overture” and “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” I want to get a photo of her working with the kids so that I can run it on the front page Tuesday as last-minute promotion for the concert.

I am ashamed to say I don’t own any Cascade shirts right now. I went by a sporting good store today to buy one, but they didn’t have anything in XXL. I found a nice faded-orange golf shirt at Wal-Mart; it doesn’t specifically say “Cascade,” but I think it will be quite appropriate to wear to the concert (which we try to promote as being casual and family-friendly). Maybe I could make a badge to wear on the shirt.

DSC_4423

Originally uploaded by jicarney.

Well the Christmas parade was very nice tonight — and there was plenty of it. All three bands sounded great. (I think my alma mater was the best, but I’m obviously biased.) Turnout was great on the square (and everywhere else, if the traffic was any indication when I tried to get across town afterward).

More photos are here.

I’ll be working my normal shift at the paper this afternoon, and then I’ll grab dinner somehow, and then I will head for the square to photograph the annual Christmas parade.

I haven’t heard for sure, but I assume that all three of our public high schools will have their bands in the parade. When I was growing up, only the big high school in Shelbyville had a band, but now all three of our public high schools have bands, and they all sound great. I’m proud to say that my alma mater, Cascade, won awards at a big band competition this fall. Community High’s band played at our local Nashville Symphony concert this year, and Cascade will play in 2008, with Central presumably on tap for 2009.

Well, since I haven’t shown up the past couple of weeks, Cascade High School’s football team has regained its winning ways, with a 35-13 first-round playoff win tonight against Collinwood.

Originally, I had planned to stay home Friday night and finish studying for layspeaking class. But it had been such a long week, and my sister had driven up from Linden so that she and my nephew could go to the Cascade / Jo Byrns game. I decided to go with them. We enjoyed the outing, although obviously we were disappointed that Cascade lost.

Layspeaking class went very well today, and we stayed as scheduled within the first three chapters of the book, so I didn’t miss anything by going to the ball game. Jackie Clevenger is a great teacher, and it’s a really great group. I volunteered to do our opening devotional for the second half of the class next Saturday.

I got home tonight and did some polish work on my sermon for Cannon UMC for tomorrow. I printed out a copy, then read through it, then made a few more changes. I went to print out another copy and my ink cartridges ran out. So I dropped them off at Walgreens for re-filling (cheaper than a new cartridge but easier and — I hope — more reliable than filling them myself). Walgreens is close to my parents’ house, so I stopped by to see everyone. My sister and two of her three kids spent last night and were still there; they’ll leave later tonight. I watched more episodes of “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody” than a single, 45-year-old man should be forced to watch.

Eventually, I returned home, stopping by Walgreens to pick up the filled cartridges.

Well, the Champions are now 8-0, with their second shutout in a row and their third of the season. They have outscored their opponents 317-54. But it’s all prelude to next week, when they will face the other unbeaten team in Region 5A, Jo Byrns. (I assume they’re still unbeaten, although tonight’s score hasn’t posted yet at the TSSAA web site.)

UPDATE: I stand corrected! Jo Byrns lost tonight, leaving Cascade in sole possession of the Region 5A lead.

The Cascade Champions are now 6-0, guaranteed a winning season, and have outscored their opponents by a total of 225 to 54.

The 4-0 Cascade Champions have outscored their opponents so far by a total of 149-40.

I’m over guest blogging at Music City Bloggers this weekend, by the way, so please stop by and see me there.

The county where I live has three public high schools. There’s the big one in Shelbyville, and two rural schools: Community, in the northwest part of the county, and Cascade, my alma mater, in the northeast part.

Cascade has had a football program ever since I was in school in the late 1970s. I don’t follow high school sports that closely, but I do have enough fond feelings for my alma mater to have some vague sense of how they’re doing in a given year. For most of the 426 years since my graduation, our football program was not real successful. Last year, however, we had a great year and were ranked among the highest in the state in Class A. We’re highly ranked again this year.

Community, on the other hand, went for years without a football program. They started freshman football a few years ago and have their first-ever varsity program this year.

Naturally, tonight’s first-ever gridiron meeting between the two schools has been a topic of discussion all week. Last night, at the school board meeting, Amy Martin, who represents Community’s district, brought a Vikings jersey and hung it in front of her place at the conference table. She had some good-natured banter with Dixie Parker, who represents Cascade’s district (and whose son is Cascade’s coach).

As a loyal alum, I naturally wanted Cascade to preserve its unbeaten record and good ranking. But I also knew that the natural rivalry between the two schools might serve to fire up the underdog and I thought it might be a closer game than the schools’ records and statistics would indicate.

I needn’t have worried. The final score, according to the TSSAA web site, was Cascade 62, Community 19.