Weekend was a special time

Swine Flu, tornadoes, water balloons, bad barbecue and a busted water pump – that pretty much sums up my weekend. It was not one of the better weekends of my life. But, it was a lot of fun.
I was supposed to make a quick trip to Montgomery on Friday to watch Glenwood’s girls play in the opening round of the Alabama Independent School Association Class 3A playoffs and then return home to Phenix City to watch Central High’s girls play in the opening round of the area tournament. Half of that went well. I watched the Glenwood girls beat Prattville Christian 10-0 in that first game. As former President George Bush said, “Mission accomplished.”
The other half of my mission on Friday was a bust. I did not return home to watch Central’s girls. They did not play. The Alabama High School Athletic Association decided it was in the best interest of our state’s student-athletes not to play because of the fear of the spreading of Swine Flu. Several Huntsville area schools shut down last week because of a couple of suspected cases of the disease. The AHSAA decided to err on the side of caution and postpone all weekend events, including the state baseball playoffs and state track and field meet. It was a good decision though several media outlets have now stated that Swine Flu is not as deadly as the normal strain of flu we battle annually. Still, it was a good decision.
So instead of watching more softball on Friday, I attended the Relay for Life at Garrett-Harrison Stadium. As far as I could tell by the number of people on hand when I got there, it was by far the biggest Relay for Life in several years.On Saturday morning, I headed to Alabaster to watch my youngest daughter and her fellow Chattahoochee Valley Community College Lady Pirates at the Alabama Community College Conference state tournament. It was not the first round game I had hoped for. CVCC played by far its best defensive game of the season in a losing effort, 1-0 to Alabama Southern. The Lady Pirates played well on defense, but their offense was not what they wanted.
Because of the loss, the Lady Pirates did not play another game on Saturday. After a mid-afternoon meal at a local wings restaurant, the team returned to its hotel for the evening. It was spent at the hotel’s pool, which was indoors. The parents sat outside on the patio – me included among the group. That’s when we discovered what an evil bunch of children we had raised. It seems that sometime between the time we left the restaurant and returned to the hotel there was a stop at a store that sold water balloons. They purchased 400. The attacked the each other, the coaches and, of course, their parents – me included.
Before the night was over, I was soaked. The other parents were also soaked, but we all forgave the children and wrote it off to just plain old fashion fun.Game 2 of the tournament for was scheduled for Sunday afternoon. CVCC faced Central Alabama Community College in that one. CVCC led 1-0 through the first three innings and maybe should have had more runs. The bats were livelier than they were on Saturday. However, the weather did not cooperate.
The tournament officials ran all the teams off the fields and out of the park because severe weather was on the way. It was, but only for a short while and mostly to the north of the location of the fields. The games were rescheduled for Monday morning. Being good parents, and hoping to be in attendance for what might be the last softball game of our children’s’ lives, we stayed over another night.
Bad move. The girls bought 450 more water balloons and intended to use every one of them. Fortunately, most of the balloons wound up being used to attack a group of electrical contractors by the pool. The group, which works on power lines after being dropped on platforms to work on those lines from helicopters, seemed to enjoy the attention they received. They got soaked as well.
But, before we returned to the hotel from the softball fields and before the new balloons were purchased, we ate at a barbecue restaurant in Alabaster. Now when you refer to a barbecue joint as a restaurant, it is not a barbecue joint. We have joints in Phenix City that serve up the very best barbecue a human could consume. The place, the restaurant, we stopped at does not compare - unless you use it as a bad comparison for what barbecue should be. Heck, these folks served cheese muffins as an appetizer. What’s up with that? And the place did not have even a fingertip container of yellow sauce. It just wasn’t my kind of barbecue. But if you remember an earlier column I wrote about an experience at a barbecue place in Aiken, S.C., do not get the idea that this new place removes that one from the top, or bottom if you will, of my list of places to never, ever, ever eat barbecue. This place was not that bad. It was bad, but not that bad when you factor in the free cheese muffins.
We finished up the Sunday game on Monday and returned home. We got all the way to Opelika before the water pump on our vehicle decided to lock up. We had to be towed home.
It was a very bad, but memorable weekend. I had to deal with Swine Flu, tornadoes, water balloon attacks, bad barbecue and a busted water pump, but I will forget all that and remember the fun I had spending time with friends and our children. Years from now, I have been told, the girls will not remember the scores of the games they played, but they will remember the fun. I certainly hope they will. It was, whether they want to admit it or not, a special time - one to be cherished forever.