A long hot summer, just about over…

This summer has sucked. It’s been so incredibly hot, and sticky, and blech the whole time that I haven’t wanted to go out with Sammy hardly at all. We’ve taken very few walks, and basically I’ve had a lot of cabin fever trying to keep him entertained all summer long.

Fortunately, we’ve actually had some brilliant weather in the past few weeks. In late August, I took Sam up to my mom’s house in NJ and we spent a gorgeous week pretty much in the swimming pool. And this weekend has been beautiful so far, too. I was able to take Sam out for walks last week, and today I had him in the stroller outside while I was doing a little gardening in front of our house.

Onto another topic…

If you saw PTI on Friday, then you saw the letter from the woman who pretty much thought that life (well, sports specifically, but life in general) should stop until all the chaos brought on by Hurricane Katrina has been addressed and all the people evacuated and so on and so forth. Well, I disagree. What has happened in New Orleans and the rest of the gulf coast is tragic, life in the rest of the country cannot come to a standstill because of it. After all, what can most of the rest of the country do? Contribute money. Okay, that really is needed, but that takes, what, 10 minutes? Then what? It’s not like every able-bodied man and woman can go down to help deliver supplies, rebuild houses or pluck people from rooftops. There are volunteers and uniformed personnel doing so, but there is not the capacity in that region for millions upon millions of volunteers.

True, life will never be the same for the hundreds of thousands of people in the affected areas. But the fabric of our society, from commerce to culture to, yes, even athletics, cannot simply stop and mourn. There is no enemy to rally against as was the case in 2001. The engines of our economy must continue to run if we are to help those in need in the South.

The exception to this would be the athletics (and other aspects of life) in the states that have been affected, such as at LSU and Ole Miss. After all, the student bodies at those schools have more to worry about than their football teams (or even their academics). But in places where the connections to the hurricane are a little more tenuous, life should continue on as before, but keeping the residents of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama in our minds and hearts.

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