By Kesley Colbert
I was running past the courthouse a couple of days ago with the early Saturday morning sun bouncing off my face. After a long hot summer, the air finally held a hint of that marvelously crisp “first touch” of fall. It was wonderful, but still a fairly routine Saturday morning in this stage of my life...until my mind got to moving faster than my legs.
There was a time when Saturday mornings “jumped off the page at you”...
You should have seen the anticipation on Bobby Brewer’s face when he’d make that early Saturday stroll out to the house when we were in the second grade. We were out of school FOR A WHOLE DAY! We headed down to the big ditch to do nothing...and everything!
We chased Indians, swung on grapevines, dug holes with a broken tree limb and complained about how confining and unnecessary school was. We didn’t think to talk about a friendship that was going to last a lifetime.
Some Saturday mornings Mom would give me and David Mark a quarter and let us walk to the picture show. Talk about an adventure! We’d chase butterflies and ground squirrels and race each other down the railroad tracks. We’d grab for goldfish in the town square pool as we waited for the box office to open at noon.
And then we fought bad guys the rest of the day with Roy, Gene and Lash LaRue. We dodged bullets and rode hard. We smelled the fresh cut hay, didn’t trust the well-dressed saloon owner, lassoed stray cattle (and rustlers) with reckless abandon and, of course, tipped our hats to the ladies.
I remember the first Saturday morning with a TV in the house. We stood up for the National Anthem. And then watched in awe as Mighty Mouse “saved the day;” the Lone Ranger gave away silver bullets; Rin-Tin-Tin was the smartest thing at Fort Apache and Superman literally leapt tall buildings in a single bound!
We enjoyed the commercials, begging Mom to buy Cheerios because they would give us “go power”; Wonder Bread promised to “build strong bodies seven ways;” and we were curious to see what Chef Boy-Ar-Dee’s Beefaroni looked, and tasted, like.
I’m telling you, it might not have been another galaxy, but Saturdays took us far, far away from the ordinary and the mundane...
By junior high Leon had cleared a space for a boxing ring behind the garden. He’d seen the Paul Newman movie, “Somebody Up There Likes Me,” where Rocky Graziano won the middleweight championship. Leon made me get in that ring each Saturday morning with him so he could be declared the Champion of the Known World!
He said it toughened me up for my football career. And he might have had a point. There was nothing quite as special as a Saturday morning “savoring” of a big Friday night win!
My girlfriend used to catch a Greyhound bus to McKenzie and then walk out to the house to share in those victories with me. Mom swooned over such a lovely gesture. Dad shook his head in disbelief and warned me, “Son, this girl is trying way too hard.” But, boy howdy, you talk about some interesting fall Saturday mornings!
In 1968 I spent a whole summer of Saturday mornings working at the Grand Ole Opry. I kept visitors moving through the old Ryman Auditorium and gave talks on the history of the place and country music. I met people from all 50 states and several foreign countries.
I hosted the Happy Saturday Morning radio show on WJOE when I first came to Florida. It was not my forte, but it beat getting into the ring with Leon! I still meet folks who are laughing about me giving a weather report...by looking out the window.
Cathy and I had some very special Saturday mornings in the early years, before the kids were born. We talked of things past, present and children that we had not yet experienced, but hoped for.
And they came! Josh and Jesse and I would float down the Cascade River on Saturday mornings with Bill, Tom, Joke and Grover Cleveland Alexander. The rocks always got us. As the bed...er...uh...raft began to toss and turn we’d be thrown overboard into the raging water.
One of the boys would have to pull all seven of us safely to shore...laughing and calling for Nurse Goodbody to come to our aid. We would let our contusions and broken bones heal while we watched Gameday on ESPN.
Those could have been the greatest Saturday mornings of all!
As I circled back by the courthouse on my run home I thanked God all over again for the gift of memory...it can make things so real and so alive you’d think they happened just a whisper ago...
Respectfully,
Kes
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