Priorities

ByHal Hammons

Here’s another Gene Stallings story.  Apologies if this offends any Auburn people out there.

Coach Stallings took his national championship team to the White House, as is customary.  (Or used to be, anyway.  Crazy world.)  Anyway, …

Nervous

ByHal Hammons

Coach Gene Stallings (who was a Texas Aggie long before he hooked up with the University of Alabama) likes to tell the story of a young kicker who was struggling in practice.  “Coach, you make me nervous,” he said.

“Son,” Coach Stallings replied, “I’m going to be at every game.  If you’re nervous now, you’re really going to be nervous on Saturday.”

 

Lifeboats

ByHal Hammons

The RMS Titanic was the largest ocean liner of its day.  It was four times the size of the ships that set the standard when laws regarding lifeboats were written.  So the company provided the legally required number of lifeboats when it set off on its maiden voyage in April 1914.  There was room on the ship for more, and the company fully intended to supply the “extra” lifeboats when the law required it.  But on that fateful day, they knowingly (and legally) set off for New York with one-fourth the lifeboats they knew they needed.

Obnoxious

ByHal Hammons

My retreat from sports has been well documented.  I didn’t watch nearly as much football last year as in previous years, and I am sure I will watch even less this year.  That’s not a value judgment.  This is the value judgment coming up.  Brace yourselves.

Cool

ByHal Hammons

The tagline was, “25 Dumb Things People Think are Cool.”  I was drawn in.  The caption led me to believe it would be a list of things that are inherently dangerous, or that are based on pseudo-science.  Turns out, as a couple of clicks revealed, it was basically a list of things that many people in our culture like but the one making the list does not like.  I really need to spend less time online.

Steam

ByHal Hammons

As I left the house this morning, I saw a strange thing.  I saw steam rising up from the roof of two houses across the street from me.  Nowhere else.  Now, I remember enough about high school chemistry to know steam is water in gaseous form; it is normal on hot afternoons after a rain for steam to come up from the asphalt as the heat of the surface essentially boils the water that hits it.  But this was morning time — warm, but not unbearably hot.  And it was just the two houses, as far as I could tell.  (I’m virtually certain the houses were not on fire, in case you were wondering.  The thought did cross my mind, though.)

Polling

ByHal Hammons

The famous Gallup polling company recently did some research as to why people attend church assemblies.  The biggest two reasons: sermons that teach about Scripture, and sermons that help relate Scripture to everyday life.  The smallest response came with regard to “a good choir, praise band, or other spiritual music.”  Interesting.