I’m sure many of you have seen the photo. It’s not the first time it’s happened.
But a dead racoon became part of the striping on the right side of Main Street near the Greenville Cemetery.
The last time this happened, a flattened opossum was a part of the double center-line stripe on Cypress Lane.
I went looking to find the dead racoon and as I drove south on Main Street near the cemetery, I noticed a distinct pattern.
Absolutely nothing had been done to the road surface prior to the striping being applied.
There are grass clippings, rocks, trash and dead animals now spray painted white.
The striping won’t be there long as most of it never got on the road. For whomever applied the paint, it was a wasted effort.
•••
The fireworks on Thursday night in downtown Greenville were the best of the shows I’ve seen here in the last few years.
Unlike how I was as a child, my boys have no fear of loud noises or fireworks. They were more than happy to see the show and hear the booms.
Unlike the street striping, this was a strong effort and no time wasted.
We especially marveled at the finale. The people who designed the show definitely saved the best for last.
•••
Earlier this week, a missive from the Washington County Emergency Management Service had those of us who enjoy watersports a little edgy.
The email said the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks had closed the Mississippi River and all tributaries to recreational boating.
I jumped on the phone immediately to the MDWFP enforcement office in Jackson.
The officer who answered the phone was just as surprised as I was to hear his department had closed the river.
First, they can’t close the river. And, secondly, those tributaries have been under a no-wake, idle-speed only order since Memorial Day.
So, the email was from completely out of the blue.
I wonder, was somebody just trying to get the lake to themselves on Thursday or was there a genuine conflation of the speed order from the MDWFP?
Thinking there might be a heightened awareness on Lake Ferguson, we took off to Lake Washington with friends.
The water was great and the weather was perfect for the day. Reports are, Lake Ferguson was in perfect shape as well.
•••
The story won’t matter to many of you but one of the icons of cheering in football stands died on Thursday.
George Edmondson, a.k.a., Mr. Two Bits, died in Florida at 97 years old.
Before every football game I attended while I was in school at the University of Florida, he followed the Orange and Blue cheer — where one side of the stands yelled orange followed by the other side yelling blue — with the Two Bits cheer.
He wore seersucker pants, a yellow shirt and an orange and blue tie. He only missed a couple games in the almost 60 years after he started doing the cheer in 1949 at a game where the fans were booing their own team.
Once he was established as the Cheerleader-in-chief, he did the Two Bits cheer in front of the entire crowd before the games. The cheer goes two bits, four bits, six bits a dollar, all for the Gators, stand up and holler. He would run through the stadium and lead the cheer in certain sections.
During the game, he would pop out from under the stadium and take an empty seat. When there was a break in the action he’d blow his whistle, hold up his “2 Bits” sign, silence the crowd with a sweep of his arms and start the cheer.
During one such game, he happened to sit in the empty seat beside me. We chatted for just a moment and he seemed ready to burst out of his skin to do the cheer.
I don’t know if he really watched the games much, be he sure loved those cheers and the students who did them with him.
He officially retired in 1999 from doing the cheer and the photo after the first game in Gainesville Sun was of he and his wife in their season tickets seats together for the first time. He wasn’t paid to do the cheers and had to purchase those season tickets every year just to get in the stadium.
He and the guy who puts up the “Work ‘Em Silly Gators” sign on the wall in the west stands are two of the characters that help make college football the greatest sport on Earth.
•••
Angel alert goes out to the people who made sure to keep life jackets on their children while their boats were on the water this weekend.
Jon Alverson is proud to be the publisher and editor of the Delta Democrat-Times. Write to him at jalverson@ddtonline.com or call him at 335-1155.
