The Rock Wall

I forgot to tell you last week the story behind the photos at the top of the front page with school kids looking at the eclipse.

I was getting ready to head out the door to find something to shoot when Sharon Barger called to tell me that from Mike & Joe’s she could some Elementary classes outside looking at the eclipse. I headed that way and found classes from first grade to High School out getting a natural history lesson. I followed the High School students down to the football stadium and found Brad Steward with his entire Middle School on the track. The High Schoolers went to the practice field. Brad helped me find the best vantage point then had his entire Middle School student body put on their glasses and look at the eclipse a few minutes early.

I bought the camera back to the office and never saw any photos I had taken. Kimball, our resident artist, picked them. She decided it would be more “hometown” to show the kids’ faces looking at the sun which you could only see here rather than try to compete with the national media on showing the eclipse you could see any where. The pictures we used on the front page above the flag could not have been any more random. We didn’t recognize any of them. Hope you did.

– I got a surprise when I received the obituary and photo for Rodger Culbertson. I guess we ran photos of him and someone else who retired in January, but I didn’t realize he wasn’t there anymore. When we had a problem with dim lights at Dad and Mom’s house years ago, Rodger diagnosed it was low voltage and replaced a step up transformer a couple of miles away. At our house, when we had flickering lights, he diagnosed it while standing by my front door as a loose connection in the main box on the pole because he could hear it arching. In at least one case he figured out the problem some of his co-workers didn’t.

And Rodger saw the humor when I over-wrote a headline saying he was electrocuted several years ago.

Nice guy. Gone too soon.

– I was listening to a report from Hurricane Harvey devastating Galveston when comments by the mayor and later the city manager, really got my attention. Each one said that if you were not going to evacuate, but instead shelter in place, “write your name and social security number on both arms.” If they told me that, they should then be sure to get out of my way.

We checked with Adrian at her home in Baton Rouge. No dire forecast of heavy rains, just an inch or two. She and Cain’s pup, Merle, doesn’t like being cooped up. Baby Boudreaux (that’s what Kimball has named the baby for now) is kicking a lot. KL