The Rock Wall

Hungry for some fried squirrel? The city may have an extra one they don’t need.

About 3 p.m. Tuesday the electricity here at the office suddenly went off. I called the Utility Department to tell them. Had to pull the number out of my memory bank because I couldn’t have seen the  phone book while I was at my desk. Guessed it the first time. Isn’t memory odd? The guy who answered asked if the lights flickered and came back on. Strange question, I thought.

Nope. They went off and stayed, I told him.

I called the PD and the dispatcher said theirs was off. He thought KAMO had a problem with a sub-station.

I called City Manager Bruce Rogers. The lights were on at City Hall so he didn’t think it was a KAMO problem because their sub-station feeds everybody.

After about 30 minutes, I decided to go pick up left over newspapers.

When I pulled up at Casey’s, a cashier came to the door telling me they were closed because the power was off. I told her all I wanted was newspapers.

At Pete’s the lights were on and customers were pumping gas. Peggy Snodgrass told me the lights were off at the Chamber but across the parking lot, Shannon Mays had electricity at her business.

When I pulled up at Woods, I could see that the lights were on. I called Bruce back to give him a report. He told me they had found the problem – a squirrel got into the sub-station behind the Police Department. It had crawled into the high side (59,000 volts) and affected both sub-stations. The new sub-station just blinked and went back to normal operation – hence the question from the Utility department guy. The old sub-station went off line and stayed off.

By time I got back to the office, the lights were back on.

Thank you, Utility Department crew. I’m not afraid of 110 and 220 circuits, but I have no desire to fool with the big stuff. So glad you can and do.

– The Papinville Picnic is this weekend. Kimball and I plan to go Saturday afternoon for the tour of the Bates County Drainage Ditch.

– I went to the football game Friday night expecting to have to dodge the rain. It just showered a little.

Before the game, I went up behind Ricky Huff, No. 14, who told me last week that he was the one that knocked me down a week earlier. I told him I would stay out of his way. He said he wasn’t playing because he got a concussion in practice.

I have never seen the Bulldogs play like that. They scored almost every time they got the ball. Once when they got the ball on about Slater’s 30 yard line, I thought, well, I’ll go on down to the goal line in case the improbable happens. It did on the next play and I was in position.

I struck up a conversation with a couple of the referees. One of them told me that Slater was 2 – 2. He said he didn’t know anything about the teams they beat.

When Ethan Dubois slashed through the defenders for a score, I told a ref that he was a really polite player and hard hitting. The ref told me he had been watching No. 55 who really hit hard. When I got to my cheat sheet, I saw that was Nate Marsh.

I was pleased to see that Riley Boyd got on track kicking extra points. He had plenty of opportunities with the Bulldogs scoring early and often.

I was glad Freshman C.J. Sipes got to unleash the power of his right foot on some kickoffs. Announcer Jackson Tough said, “What a kick,” when one bounced into the end zone. Wonder if CJ could kick extra points and field goals. Don’t think I have ever seen the Dawgs even attempt a field goal.

The guys on defense were just as brutal as the offense.

Friday night, our team made it look like they should be playing on Saturday (college) or Sunday (pro). Hope that holds this Friday night in Lexington. KL