Kobe

From the day I was born until the day I left my parent’s home at the age of 22 we had pets. As I recall one of those pets was a brown tabby cat named Tom. I was probably less than 2 years old, but I loved Tom and had always wanted another brown tabby just like him. We also had numerous dogs, parakeets, horses and chickens, to name a few. So I knew what goes into taking care of a pet – the feeding, watering, cleaning up after and attention they require. I had missed chances to go with my family to North Carolina and Disney World because I was the one left back at home taking care of the pets.

But once I got out on my own I didn’t necessarily want that responsibility of taking care of a pet anymore. When I married Alice I found out that her parents had told her she could get a pet when she grew up and moved out of their house. The first couple of houses we owned had fenced-in backyards. I told Alice we could get a dog if she’d promise to take care of it. She never made that promise…

So over the years I grew less interested in a pet, while the girls grew more interested. But no one could ever convince me they were ready to take care of one and I didn’t want to have to do it myself. After a while I became adamant about it. Until last spring…

Our married daughter Faith called and said her friend Hattie had adopted a kitten from the local pet store, which was having a promotion that week with one of the local shelters. She talked about what a great kitten it was and how Hattie had taken it home and her mother told her she couldn’t keep it. Now she had to take it back to the pet store. Would we consider taking it so she didn’t have to return it? After refusing, I finally relented and told Faith we’d meet Hattie at the pet store parking lot to see the kitten. We were on our way to a birthday party and stopped along the way. Hattie came up to me, put the kitten in my arms and he climbed up on my chest and laid down. He was a brown tabby, just like Tom. I told her we had somewhere to be and asked if she could keep him another night while we thought about it.

During the party I became convinced that 14-year-old Kelly, who had never had a pet, would be responsible enough to take care of this one, along with her mother, who had never had a pet bigger than a parakeet or a hamster. I told them to call Faith and tell her to have Hattie bring the kitten by that night. I had lived 32 years without a pet and wasn’t feeling like I had missed anything. But I did have a point to prove about the responsibility of owning a pet.

About 11 o’clock in the evening of May 7 Hattie and Faith delivered the kitten. They put him down at the front door and he started sprinting through the house, from one room to another, up and down the stairs, exploring his new digs. He hasn’t stopped running since, except to sleep and occasionally saunter through the house as if he owns it. And he thinks he does. After four or five days and several name changes, Alice and Kelly decided to call him Kobe. I liked Bo Kitty, but Kobe somehow fits.

Kelly’s kept her word and has done a good job of cleaning his litter box. Kobe’s done a good job of keeping his business confined to the litter box. Though feeding and watering him was supposed to be one of her chores I’ve found myself doing that most every morning when I get up and every night before I go to bed. But first he finds his way into my lap, where he cuddles and loves on me for a while. 

He jumps on everything in the house. He’s already pulled the Christmas tree down twice since we put it up Friday. He was 12 weeks old when we got him, and we’ve had him for six months. He’s the only cat I’ve ever known that will play fetch. He’s smart, funny, sweet, affectionate, has Ninja moves and is as fast as greased lightning. We’ve done a little male bonding, and if he’s not sleeping on his loveseat in the basement he’s either following me around the house or sleeping somewhere nearby, at my feet on the floor or near my head on the back of the couch upstairs. He has his own Facebook account. He can even sleep through me watching an Auburn football game, which usually involves a little bit of yelling. Maybe getting a pet wasn’t such a bad idea after all. He’s my little buddy. He’s a great companion. He’s all right for a cat…

Monday Bible Study

What do you do when a mission field comes knocking at your front door? How often does someone come around wanting to talk about spiritual matters? One Friday back in August, two women from a local religious sect came to my front door and asked if I thought we were living in the End Times. I said, “Yes I do.”

Then they asked, “Do you feel like you know much about that?”

Eschatology – the study of the End Times – is one of my hobbies, so I answered, “I feel like I know a little bit about it.”

They got all excited and wanted to know if they could come back the following Monday and have a Bible Study with me. I said okay and made sure I told my wife, Alice, about it. She said I could have them in the living room if I’d leave the front door open. They came back, we had a good 40-minute study, and I never saw them again. Two days later two men came to the door and said they had been talking to these women, and they thought I might have some questions about what I believe. I assured them I had no questions about what I believe, but I did have quite a few about what they believe, and told them they could come back the next Monday if they wanted to discuss it further.

I’ve been asked why I bother. I could’ve told them I wasn’t interested in what they were selling and sent them on their way. I’ve done that many times in the past. But I had sat in on a similar Bible study back in May that my old friend, Laran, was having on his front porch in Randolph County (Ala.) with a member of the same faith. Laran said the study usually went about a half-hour, but that day it went about 90 minutes. I realized then that developing a relationship would be the only way to reach someone whose beliefs are just about the exact opposite of your own.

So for three months now, almost every Monday I’ve met with Keith and someone else from his local congregation. So far I’ve had eight members of that local congregation in my living room, primarily their most learned men, and they’ve all left hearing the Gospel, and hearing their beliefs refuted while I defend what I believe. They may be using me as a training ground for their folks, I don’t know. But while they’re in my house they’re not knocking on anyone else’s door. And I’m having the best personal Bible study times I’ve had in years. Not so much on Monday afternoons, though those generally go quite well, but on the other days of the week as I’m preparing for Mondays, which I consider to be frontline spiritual warfare. And God has carried me through it so far.

I’ve let them know my Mondays are clear the rest of this calendar year, and I look forward to the weekly mission field that comes knocking at my front door…

And Thus It Begins

Nov. 6, 2010

Why “Keeper of the Buckskin?” When I was an 8-year-old, third-grade Cub Scout, “Keeper of the Buckskin” was how I signed my weekly reports to the local daily newspaper in Opelika, Ala. It was also what I would call my column when I edited a small chain of weekly newspapers in Southern Indiana in the late ’80s and early ‘90s of the last century. I considered calling this “Faith, Family and Football,” because most of my ramblings will likely fall under one of those categories.

It was at Northside Elementary in Opelika that I recall being given an assignment to “publish” my own newspaper. It was a sheet of paper, front and back, but I took the project seriously, and as many writers do, I wrote about what I knew. My dog Roby (rhymes with Kobe, our current kitten) was running loose in the neighborhood and I was following him around, writing stories about his wanderings. I also started keeping a journal in elementary school. “Walked to the store, bought a Coke and three candy bars, spent a quarter.” I didn’t say I’ve lived an interesting life, but the truth is I have.

I’ve lived a few decades beyond that, met many people (at least a hundred you’d call “famous”), traveled halfway around the world, had more than my share of adventures, and I don’t mind talking about most of it. So I will from time to time. And I hope you’ll take the time to drop by and read when you can. I really do tend to procrastinate, but the plan is to post something here about once every three days or so…

As previously mentioned I edited a small chain of newspapers for a while. I also edited my college newspaper, The Chanticleer, at Jacksonville State University in Alabama for two years (1980-82), was a sportswriter and sports editor for the Jeffersonville (Ind.) Evening News in the mid-to-late ‘80s, and briefly published my own sports monthly, “The Southern Indiana Sports Herald,” in the ‘90s. In 2003 I won a first place award for an unpublished (still) non-fiction book I wrote. And I’ve been on the Internet almost daily since its inception, or its public debut anyway, in 1989. I’ve had a couple of unsuccessful (so far) runs at trying to be a hit songwriter in Muscle Shoals (Ala.) and Nashville.

I was born in Montgomery and grew up in Alabama, and according to David Housel, former sports information director and athletic director at Auburn, I’m the biggest Auburn fan on the Internet. Big Dave was known around the Loveliest Village on the Plains as “Mr. Auburn,” so he should know. I hold a B.A. degree from Jax State in political science with a minor in English, and a Master of Divinity from the Billy Graham School at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, so two of my favorite topics are what you’re not supposed to talk about in polite company, politics and religion. I will occasionally give an opinion on both.

And we’ll call this the end of my first blog post, because there’s still some college football left to watch. And maybe a horse race…