Friday night blow-out!

Well Friday night we called a game in West Arkansas, the home team was ranked high in the state polls and the visitors haven't won a game in several years, kind of reminded me of the Electra Tigers teams of the mid-6o's to the early 70's, where victories were few and far between but we always showed alot of heart. The score for our game Friday night was 37-0 and we were on the "mercy clock" before the end of the first half. The second half was scoreless and was considered a victory by the losing team. Those boys showed a lot of heart and never just threw in the towel.

The home school knew how to take care of their referees and and the visiting school. When we arrived for the game they had steak, mIashed taters, green beans and they topped it off cake and from what I understand the visiting school was also fed by the home school; not bad for hospitality. The school was about 2 and a half hours away, which meant I didn't make it to the bed until around 1:30 a.m.. Which leads me to my next problem which was getting up early today in order to make it to the first of three grandchildren's soccer games.

Soccer went great today and cost PaPaw a total of $4.00 before the morning was done. Landry was first with 3 goals scored, followed by Skylar and 3 goals, and finished off with Dallas and 7 goals. Yep, it's not a typo 13 total goals scored by the Rowland grandbabies!! What a day!!

Why I do what I do!

I never was never anymore then an average athlete at best, with baseball being my best sport; however, I loved to play, when I got the chance, football. At a whopping 98 pounds and maybe 5 foot tall I played fullback and linebacker for the 2nd team Electra Tiger Cubs. I was back-up to Don Cook who was probably around 140 lbs and at least 5'6" tall and meaner than a snake on the football field. So you can see that unless Don was throwing up on the field, knocked out cold, had some bone protruding from his body, or we were up/down by 30 points, I was not going to see much playing time. Oh I almost forgot, I was on the first team kicking team, which in most cases meant again, very little playing time, (the team has to score to be able to kick more then once in a game). Once I realized that the Dallas Cowboys were probably not going to be looking to me to be their back-up fullback of the future, I turned my interest to other things. One interest that caught my eye early on and stuck with me was officiating sports. I started out officiating Little League baseball at 16 and from then until now I have been physically involved in sports either as an official or a coach. Even today I help my son coach my grandson's baseball team and for the last 13 going on 14 years I have refereed football and I love it. I feel like where God didn't bless me with size, speed, or ability, He did bless me with enough intelligence to understand the sports I love so much and the ability to be discerning in applying the rules of those games.

Officiating baseball became to difficult for my knees and back to take so I have turned all of my officiating attention to football, hence the name change to "Rowland Around and Friday Night Stripes". I started my 14th year of officiating football this year. The primary crew of Wesley Harville (Referee), Todd Self (Umpire), Chuck Winer (Line Judge), Mark Overman (Back Judge) and myself (Linesman), have been together for most of those 13 years. This is a group of Christian men that love the sport of football and I love calling with. On our crew we have three preachers, a minister of music and a deacon so instead of having men's prayer breakfast each week we have prayer football and fellowship a couple times a week. These gentlemen are like brothers to me and when the season has passed, I miss them and look forward to the next season. What I would like to do with my post in the coming weeks is write about some of our adventures on the gridiron. I might even throw out some "rules of the game" sort of stuff and inform you how we, as a crew, interpreted those rules. I left the "Rowland Around" part because I would still like to post some happenings within the Rowland Family adventures. Hope you enjoy what I write and I look forward to your feedback.

Weekend Past

Well, this past weekend was quite a trip! First off my birthday was Friday and the goal for Friday was to be in Wichita, KS. watching a play at the Crown Uptown Theatre which my son Billy was performing. Shelley and I had decided to both take the day off so we could get an early start for KS. and have some time to spend with Billy before he had to be at the theatre. Well, we left at 0930 hrs, so much for early. I'm one of those guys that likes to get on the road between 4 and 6 in the morning, (thanks mom). Mom used to like to do that as well, of course she would also want to drive until dark. There was one trip we made driving straight through from Electra to Phoenix AZ.. The trip was being funded by an Uncle of mine and she didn't want to use his credit card for anything but gas, Uncle Mel was very upset, anyway I digress. The trip took us about 7 hours with the rain and storms that we had to pass through, but we made it. Billy decided that he would just meet us at the motel and visit with us until he had to leave for the theatre. On this trip we also did something that we have never done before and that was bring our family pet, which meant staying at a pet friendly motel, our selection was Motel 6. We had a pretty good visit before it was time to go and off we went to the show.



The show was the same show that he performed in Branson and he was in the same role that he played in Branson, the only difference were the actors around him. Well, that made a BIG difference in the quality of the show. You could tell by the way the show went that this was a group of professionals that truly enjoyed working with each other. All of the cast members played a musical instrument and most of them played three or more instruments including Billy who played the stand up base, mandolin and guitar. Oh BTW the leading actress was played by Ms Kim Dugan, former Ms KS. and she was brilliant! Anyway, after the shows each evening the cast set around and visited with each other and we were invited to join them Friday night which made my birthday a long long day but a very memorable one. You know that no matter how old your children get you still worry about them and want them to have positive experiences in life. After this visit we can rest assured that this is going to be a good experience for Billy. Finally, Shelley and I got back to the motel around midnight and settled in for a good snooze. Now this is where things turned sour.

At about 0230 hrs our phone rang, I picked it up worried that is was Billy with bad news but instead it was Cindy who said she thought she was calling Stacy! Not too bad right? Well Cindy decided to start getting friendly over the phone with me. What's you name? What are you doing? Do you have to work tomorrow? What do you do for a living? I played along for a bit and then I advised my new best friend that I was not interested and that I was going back to bed with my wife! She sounded hurt and was trying to say something else when I hung the phone up. Then back to sleep I fell until around 0430 hrs. when the party outside in the court yard arrived and that went on for about 30 minutes until someone from the motel staff finally arrived on the scene and broke the party up. Motel 6, they kept the light on all night and have friendly folks calling your room in case you get lonely being so far from home!

Saturday went much better, we had a brunch with Billy and then off to the Wichita Zoo we went! It was a pretty nice zoo and showed evidence of expanding and making things even better. The weather cooperated and besides the wind it was a good day for all. We went to the show again and headed for home around noon on Sunday. Anyway, if you are around Wichita between now and June 7th, stop by the Crown Uptown in Wichita, KS and see "Smoke on the Mountain" , I guarantee that it will be a positive experience for you too and as far as Motel 6 is concerned, we just unplugged our phone and had a good night sleep on Saturday night!

Now What Do We Do?

Well, I have a dilemma, we are on our way to see our youngest son perform in Wichita, KS. and we want to take Scooter with us. I'm retired military so we were hoping to be able to stay in lodging on McConnell AFB but there are no pet rooms available at this time. We are now in a search for pet friendly motels but the ones we have call so far want to charge a pretty pricey pet deposit. We could just leave Scooter with his brother and my son's family but my youngest wants to meet Scooter. Anyway, a decision has to be made soon; if anyone has any suggestions please let me know! We want so much to take him we just don't know if this is a good time or not.

My next rant is; what has happened to youth baseball? My oldest grandson Dallas starts t-ball this spring. My son, who is going to coach his team informed me that this league provides shirts only! I can understand not providing baseball pants but what about the hats? This league says that the hats have to be provided by the player. When I entered LL Baseball I was provided a t-shirt and ball cap and in case my mom couldn't afford a glove, the team equipment bag had several gloves in it to be used by the team. I was fortunate that I always had my own glove but there were kids on my team that if there weren't gloves in that bag they wouldn't have been able to play. Some folks may argue that the cost has gotten to be too much, we had sponsors and their cost went up if need be and they knew they were expected to buy t-shirts and caps. As far as the cost for field up-keep, we had work days and parents got out there before the season started and numerous times during the season to insure that the kids had a safe place to play, they were called "volunteers"! Now every facility thinks they need to hire someone to do the maintenance for the fields. People have just gotten lazy and don't even want to go through the effort to organize work days and things of such. We even had volunteers to mow the fields and when it was time to mow it, was time to repair the field. Oh well, I guess things aren't what they used to be! Thanks for listening! Oh BTW you will be receiving Dallas "the Slugger" Rowland t-ball reports as the season progresses because you know PaPaw will be right there helping out where he can!

Meet Scooter Rowland!

One of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life was having to put our family dog Dusty down. I was heart broken and I swore that I would never own another pet especially a dog. Well, this past weekend I saw why you should never say never. Please allow me to introduce to my readers the latest addition to the Rowland Family......Mr. Scooter Rowland!

He's a charmer and brother to my grandson's puppy Rowdy! I don't know why I waited 5 years to get another dog. Welcome to the family Scooter!!

You Never Know

This week has been one tough week. On Friday the 10th I received a text message that a very dear friend of mine had lost his 26 year old daughter. I was heart broken and called my friend immediately. Well as you can imagine I wasn't able to speak to Charles until Saturday morning and he and his Sharon were devastated. He tried to explain to me what had happened as he understood it to be and then Sharon completed the call. Charles has been like a brother to me and this was like losing a niece. Shelley and I spent Easter morning on the road to Big Spring, TX.. It was a long drive but Shelley and I felt like we needed to be there for Charles and Sharon. Once we arrived in Big Spring Charles shared with me his final moments with his daughter. He told me that the last words spoken between the two of them were "I love you". This child entered into eternity knowing without a doubt that she was loved by her father and mother.

Anytime I speak with my sons it often ends with an "I love you". There have been time when I wondered if I say it too much and it comes across as just another comment, but when I think of how fragile our lives are I realize how important it is to let those you love know how you feel about them. I didn't have a father at home but every time I spoke to him he told me how much he loved me and I believed it, and as dysfunctional as our family was I knew I was loved because none of us were afraid to say "I love you".

Your assignment today is tell someone that is special to you, how much they mean to you, tell them that you love them!

I love you Jeremy, Jason, and Billy aka William!

It Happened!

Well I was worried that when I started this blog that something like this would happen and it did. I am sorry to the friend that were reading my blog and I hope I can get this thing cranked back up again.

There has been so much to happen since I last wrote that I don't know where to start, so I'll just keep it simple.

My youngest, William, who was in Branson is now in Wichita, KS.. He was hired by the Crown Uptown Theatre and will be playing the exact same role that he played in Branson, only this time it has been a more positive experience.

Jeremy and Stephanie are expecting their third child so their lives have been full of trying to figure out things like a name and where to put her or him when she or he gets here.

Jason and Lindsey have had their hands full with their two boys between birthday parties, soccer, and soon t-ball.

Shelley and I are in the market for a new or very good used SUV crossover. We have been driving them all and think we are about to settle on the Saturn Outlook. If anyone has any warnings or suggestions please speak now!!

I can't believe the price of these SUV's how in the sam hill could they be broke! But that's another subject for another day!

I will try to get on here and do some more sharing about the things I love! Hey it's baseball season I should have plenty to say!!

"This is the Day that the Lord hath made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!"

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!!