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Weekly Newspaper and Tourism Guide for Ward County Trans Pecos, Big Bend of West Texas

Opinion

May 28, 1998

Monahan's Well

By Jerry Curry
It won't be long now before the geneticists discover
something a lot of us knew all along. The ability to play
and appreciate football does run in families. I'm not
talking the Griffey family here, although I could cite Ken
Griffey Sr. and Jr. as examples.

I am talking the Curry clan.

Appreciation and loyalty to the game is the strongest gene.
Many of us play passably but we are not on the Griffey plane
- unless you want to count my brother Terry, who was,
although he never swung a bat in the Show. He did swing the
bat in a couple of minor leagues.

With the way Terry could hit and throw (he was a pretty good
country catcher), I still don't understand what was going on
when they released him from Durham, I think it was in the
Carolina League. Terry was hitting about .800 at the time.
He had signed with the Houston Astros , who were then called
the Colt .45s, if you want to know how old we are.

Terry used to joke about it a little. He once said he
believed he had been released because he had a little weight
problem. But we know that isn't so. Terry weighs about the
same as me and he's a lot lighter than brother Jimmy, who
was a pretty fair country catcher himself but who gave up
baseball for love and accounting, which I never could
understand although he does make above the league minimum,
which neither Terry and I have never reached.

Terry almost hit a home run in a state championship baseball
game once. It would have won us the title but that little
centerfielder jumped the fence and caught it and the idiot
umpire called him out. That started an intense debate over
jumping fences and catching home run balls but the umpire
prevailed and we lost the championship. Terry did double and
triple that night.

Jimmy and I also had our baseball glories. I caught a pop
foul once and blood spattered all over my glove. A Texas
Mosquito had strayed north and was resting when the ball
came to rest.

Jimmy, despite his attachment to counting money, still loves
the game. He ran a League Program up in Indiana, even after
his kids had graduated from youth baseball. And that shows
commitment.

This column came about because this week Mark McGuire of the
St. Louis Cardinals (Take Off Your Hat, Son. Face Northeast
and Bow Three Times Toward the Gateway Arch) Mark McGuire of
the St. Louis Cardinals slapped another one out of the park.
That's 25 for the season and it isn't even June 1 yet.

Ken Griffey Jr. or Sr. didn't do that. Babe Ruth didn't do
that. Jimmy didn't do that. Terry didn't do that. Heck, I
didn't even do that, not even in kids ball.

But I appreciate it. I appreciate it very much. It's in the
genes.

Live long and prosper


This is graduation week at Monahans High School. Last
Friday, the seniors at Grandfalls-Royalty High School were
graduated. It seems appropriate at this time of the year
every Spring to attempt to impart some wisdom to the new
graduates.

We have little wisdom. Most of these kids know more at this
age than any other graduating seniors before them. Both
groups are lucky (In future years, they will realize that)
they have attended high school in still rural communities
and not on the streets of a metroplex where part of a
school's daily dress might need to be Kevlar body armor.

Our schools aren't perfect but they're a lot closer than
either the graduating seniors, their relatives and yes, even
their teachers, realize.

This week you new graduates can be excused a little
graduation exultation. You have proven that you can set a
goal and make that goal, a lesson you learned. No older
adult taught you how to do that. You did it. Older adults
may well have helped along the way. That is an older adult's
job and many of them actually take it seriously. But you are
to be honored this week, not them.

As we noted previously, we have no wisdom to impart. But we
do have advice.

This year, or next year, most of you graduates will be 18
years old and eligible to vote. Do it. Register and vote.

You are the bedrock of a democracy that seems frayed from
time to time with petty jealousies and petty squabbles,
petty issues that threaten our rights to live as individuals
under the laws that are there to protect all of us. Many
older adults have forgotten their obligation to vote. Don't
you forget it.

Live long, as Mr. Spock often said, and prosper.

Grads are bedrock of democracy


This is graduation week at Monahans High School. Last
Friday, the seniors at Grandfalls-Royalty High School were
graduated. It seems appropriate at this time of the year
every Spring to attempt to impart some wisdom to the new
graduates.

We have little wisdom. Most of these kids know more at this
age than any other graduating seniors before them. Both
groups are lucky (In future years, they will realize that)
they have attended high school in still rural communities
and not on the streets of a metroplex where part of a
school's daily dress might need to be Kevlar body armor.

Our schools aren't perfect but they're a lot closer than
either the graduating seniors, their relatives and yes, even
their teachers, realize.

This week you new graduates can be excused a little
graduation exultation. You have proven that you can set a
goal and make that goal, a lesson you learned. No older
adult taught you how to do that. You did it. Older adults
may well have helped along the way. That is an older adult's
job and many of them actually take it seriously. But you are
to be honored this week, not them.

As we noted previously, we have no wisdom to impart. But we
do have advice.

This year, or next year, most of you graduates will be 18
years old and eligible to vote. Do it. Register and vote.

You are the bedrock of a democracy that seems frayed from
time to time with petty jealousies and petty squabbles,
petty issues that threaten our rights to live as individuals
under the laws that are there to protect all of us. Many
older adults have forgotten their obligation to vote. Don't
you forget it.

Live long, as Mr. Spock often said, and prosper.



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Copyright 1998 by Ward Newspapers, Inc.
Joe Warren, Publisher
107 W. Second St., Monahans TX 79756
Phone 915-943-4313, FAX 915-943-4314
e-mail monnews@ultravision.net

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Copyright 1998 by Ward Newspapers Inc.