A Nice, Easy Going Day For Once

Last Saturday turned out to be a pretty good day for me. First, a friend from another ward at church asked me if I wanted to help take the Boy Scouts to the Marshall University vs Tulsa University football game. Since I had lived in Huntington and volunteered at Marshall’s radio station (WMUL) I of course said yes. It turned out that the tickets were free for us and I only had to forego a little sleep because the game was at 11 AM. We ended up having more adults than scouts. I showed up wearing my Marshall t-shirt and my Tulsa hat but ended up keeping the shirt covered by my zip up hoodie due to (a) the extremely windy and cool conditions and (b) the fact that Marshall got the snot beat out of them. It was if they didn’t practice or even watch any game film. Still, it was the first time I’ve been to a football game in four or five years and it was nice to get out with friends.

We ended up leaving the game a little early, which normally I loathe to do, but it was clear that Marshall had no chance to come back and win and it was rather cool in the wind so I agreed. After I got home I took a short nap until my wife and son got home and they ended up falling asleep so I got on the computer with my headphones and watched the UFC preliminary fights on Facebook. It was the first time I have ever done this and it wasn’t a bad experience. During the breaks between fights I would do something else until the next fight started. Then it was time for the main event, the heavyweight title fight between the champion Cain Velasquez and the challenger Junior Dos Santos. This looked to be an exciting fight and was tabbed to be the only one shown on the inaugural UFC show live on Fox. In order to explain the sport to those who had never seen it before (this was the first time MMA was ever shown on free television in the U.S.) there was a lot of footage showing who the fighters are and where they came from. The diehard fans (like me) would of course preferred that they had shown more fights but hey, it was free so I won’t complain (too much).

Unfortunately I had run out of time. My brother Tommy and his son Chris came to pick me up and we went downtown to Joe Mammas Pizza. A band led by Tommy’s co-worker was playing and he wanted to go and show some support. Although the music style wasn’t what any of us would regularly listen to it was nice to go hang out, listen to live music, eat some pizza and soak up the atmosphere. As we get older things like this just don’t seem to happen enough which speaks loudly about how convoluted our lives have become. We spoke with Tommy’s co-worker between sets and stayed for a little while longer before calling it a night. I made it home while my wife and son were still awake and we spent some time together too. All in all it was a nice day. Not too hectic but not too slow paced either. I had no deadlines to meet or someplace that I had to speed to get to. It showed me how important it is to periodically get away from it all, relieve the stress and relax. Trust me, the way things have been going lately that is something that I sorely need. The trick now is to make it happen more frequently. By the way, Dos Santos beat Velasquez by technical knockout in one minute and four seconds. Just wished I could have stayed home a few minutes longer and seen it.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.