10:51 a.m. - August 09, 2007
One Week To Go
It's one week until I move. Wow. One week.
Anyway, I wrote a goodbye column for The Paper Of Montgomery County since I won't be covering any games this year for them. That's a heck of a commute for $25 and free popcorn.
Anyway, here 'tis:
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If this were like last summer, I would have my fall schedule filled with games and matches to cover. I would wonder how the Athenians soccer and football teams would do without big stars that graduated, and be sure I could see the North Montgomery / Crawfordsville volleyball match. I�d also work on the proper pronunciations of the names of the latest football recruits for the Little Giants, and also wondering if this was the year that Wabash and the NCAC moves past the OAC hurdle in the Division III football playoffs.
I also would be looking forward to working with the Youth Service Bureau in the CASA program and serving on the board of the Family Crisis Shelter, and leading some committees at my church.
Instead, I�m calling a realtor to schedule showings of our house, wondering how to remove Katie�s artwork from the walls, deciding what to pack, and hoping that it won�t be long until our house sells and the rest of my family can join me.
In life, you don�t want to get too complacent because situations can change quickly. They did for me, and after entertaining potential offers in several locales I have decided to move to the Twin Cities area in Minnesota to start a new career as a fundraising and advancement services consultant for a well-respected national firm.
Soon, my life will be filled with airports, hotel rooms, meetings, and expense reports. Until then, my life is filled with packing, cleaning and sweating in the Indiana heat. Though I must say Liz is doing a large share of that � she knows that I�m not the best in the world at cleaning, as you remember in her columns for Montgomery Woman magazine.
I am moving to a small apartment in a suburb of Minneapolis on Thursday, August 16. Hopefully, someone will want to buy our nice, unique house on Market and West Streets quickly so Liz, Katie and Kristin can join me up there.
I am leaving the area that I�ve lived in for almost all of my 41 years and it is definitely going to be hard to drive away come Thursday. There will be a lot of great people that I will leave behind � too many to name. The core group of friends, the sports idiots, always got together during major (or minor) holidays for cookouts and fun times. Soon, they were joined wives and children, and the sports idiots gatherings took on a fun family atmosphere.
I�ll miss those times, but I�m still going to try to make Bowl-A-Rama this coming New Years Day, so if Brent could save me a seat on my old couch, that would be great.
I also hope to be back for a couple of Wabash games, especially the Monon Bell game. Besides, I have to train the new PA announcer on how to properly say, �It�s another Wabash College�.FIRST DOWN!� (You have to do it just so, or it doesn�t work�)
I�ll miss the players, coaches and fans of Montgomery County. When I moved back here I was pleased to see many of the same faces at the local high school games. In many parts of the state interest in high school sports is down, but here support is strong for the young men and women athletes.
So it�s with a heavy heart that I leave this county. I�d like to thank Tim Timmons and Barry Lewis for inviting me back on the staff of a local paper, and I plan on keeping up on the doings of the county on the paper�s web site.
Goodbye Montgomery County, and good luck!
