Fall Potpourri
By Ted Mallory
tedm@mapletonpress.com		 November 7, 2002
As you know, a potpourri has a lot of different little things in it. That’s this week’s column, so many different things are falling off the trees in my mind that I couldn’t focus on just any one of them. Here they are, hopefully in chronological order, enjoy.

Glad that’s over…Brrrr.
The best thing about having Halloween behind us has to be that maybe now there will be something else on TV besides lame slasher movies. How many sequels can they make for every one of those anyway? Mass murderer chases teenagers, everybody dies. Great formula.

Great job on the costumes moms and dads. I saw a lot of variety out there this year. Spiderman was my favorite, besides my own little fire fighter and bumble bee, that is. Great job on the candy neighbors. Lots of chocolate, no rocks. Neat decorating and great grown up costumes too. I’m sorry if you missed Lynn Hoffman as the Cat in the Hat. It was worth the climb up the hill

Glad that’s over…time to wash our hands
The best thing about having Election Day behind us has to be an end to the obnoxious, negative political ads. It’s no wondering the Libertarians on the right and the Greens on the left our growing for once. We in the middle are sick of the way the two major parties behave.

How can we believe a candidate who claims to be a fiscal conservative when they spend so much money on campaign ads? How can we believe a candidate who claims to want to grow Iowa when they never told us any plans, all they did was attack their opponents? And they wonder why voter turn out is so low. I’m not looking forward to Presidential Caucus season next year.

Sorta glad that’s over…gotta refocus
Football and Volleyball are finally winding down. Only a week or two before practice starts for basketball. Fans get longer than coaches and athletes. Rest, unwind and enjoy the down time. Then get ready to rock n’ roll.

When my brother-in-law Mark came up last week to hunt pheasant he was reminiscing about what a great football coach Rollie Wiebers was. We explained to him that he’s coaching again, on top of serving as COU’s principal. Your impact has been felt by generations of Bobcats Coach.

 That’s when something occurred to me about my column on coaching a few weeks ago. It was clear from the column that I probably wouldn’t be coaching if Bethany hadn’t coached first. She probably would have never coached if she hadn’t cheered at COU. That means that I probably wouldn’t be coaching if Linda Nepper hadn’t coached. So, Linda, thank you, for the last nine years. I’ve learned as much as I’ve taught.

Support your local Gunslinger- I mean Playwright
Lucia Lincoln, the other half of COU’s English department has done it again. This weekend is the school play. "The Saga of Sagebrush Sal" was such a hoot, how could you not want to see "Hurtin’ for Certain?" Lucia always tries to involve as many kids as she can and her scripts are often provocative. Advance word on ‘Hurtin’ is that it deals with some serious issues that today’s teens have to face.

No doubt the kids will make us proud, Lucia will make us think, and we’ll be talking about it next week. Come out for a night of theater, I’m sure it will be worth it.

Remember, Pray
Monday is Veterans’ day. At 11am on the 11th day of the 11th month, the armistice ending WWI was signed. As a history buff I wonder how many boys from our area fought in that one. I know that’s about the time that Lutherans finally had their services in English instead of German.

Now we remember all our veterans on that day. We should thank the WWI vets in our midst; they literally helped save the world. Decades later, Korean and Vietnam vets are finally getting the honor they deserve. All of these folks, including the ones who didn’t see combat, even the ones who were in the guard rather than active duty deserve our thanks. They risked and sacrificed to protect our rights.

This year is a good year to remember to pray for the members of our armed services, with the specter of hostility with Iraq looming on the horizon and the war on terrorism still going on. Keep an eye out for the service stars in people’s windows. That means they’ve got a family member currently in the armed forces. Pray for their safety and stress, pray for their return, pray for success, and also for peace.