Bell Game Final

For those who are Brookfield Bulldog fans: this final score JUST in…they squeaked out a win in 2005, 14-13, on a missed extra point by Marceline. The Bell stays in Brookfield for the sixth straight year!

Yowza…really good game this year. But look out for the Marceline Tigers, who are an excellent football team, and state ranked to boot.

Highlights later.

Our Good Ol’ Days

Took a drive down to Columbia today to go see an ENT about my continuing sinus issues (6 sinus infections this year and still 3 months to go…ugh); looks like allergy testing and very possibly surgery by the sound of things, sometime at the first of the new year. Maybe I will finally feel almost human again.

While driving down, Jeannie and I just sat and talked and reminisced about the times we spent in our younger days dancing and being best friends during difficult times; it was nice being able to spend time as husband and wife and not as Dad and Mom, or the “preacher man” and his spouse, or “that guy who writes the column in the newspaper” and his beloved. We listened to our old songs and we fellowshipped together with sweet smiles and laughter.

Lately, it seems that we are always so busy doing God’s work and His Will that we forget to just “be” us; we willingly put ourselves on the back burner so that we might raise up our kids in the ways that they should go; or that we might be able to witness to others through song and the spoken Word; or sometimes the world’s things just get in our way and we forget how to slow down and take a deep breath and just RELAX.

Today was one of those days.

Saturday will be too.

It will be a wonderful weekend! Praise God!

The Decline of Main Street USA

I am saddened and somewhat concerned about the recent decline of values on Main Street USA here in Marceline.

Within the past year there have been several events held during the weekend that served alcohol on this stretch of blacktop that Walt Disney once trod upon; drunken individuals have been seen staggering about and using foul language in a place that prides itself as having core family values and beliefs.

Two of the downtown eating establishments have obtained liquor licenses within the past year, much to the chagrin of those who have tried to keep this away from our tourist destination. Others who are in positions of influence in local government have turned a blind eye, focusing instead on more non-threatening issues than the more pressing problem of why this has been allowed to happen.

Downtown Marceline is no place for tourists to come to pay homage to Disney and have to be subjected to rude, smelly, and obnoxious drunks. People will go elsewhere to visit if this behavior is allowed to continue.

After all, if you go to Disneyland or Disney World, there isn’t any kind, shape or form of alcoholic beverage served anywhere in the parks. Especially on Main Street USA, which was patterned after Marceline’s own downtown area.

So my question is this…if we are supposed to embrace those wonderful values that Walt Disney held in such high esteem, where have we gone astray?