MY FAVORITE QUOTES
My Current WoW
Awakening to Life’s Pivotable Moments
A Journey Through Pages
A Selfless Act of Friendship
Knowing Your X-Factor
🎵 The Magic of Music 🎵
🎋Embracing the Golden Years-A Humorous Reflection🎋
🎋Cherishing The Little Things🎋
The Paradox of Positivity
Just Go Outside, Please!
🎋 Spiritual Integrity 🎋
Guest Missives
Sick Duck… by JoAnn
Setting The Alarm… by JoAnn
Something Odd… by JoAnn
Car Shopping… by JoAnn
The Bike… by JoAnn
Mama Boo… by Jane Strebel
High-Times on the 4th Floor… by Larry Fields
Anatomy of a Fall… by Larry Fields
Cookie & Brownie… by JoAnn
My Favorite Therapy… by JoAnn
![Tommy's Window on The World A smiley face wearing a cowboy hat and bandana.](https://tommyhale.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Word-Icon-blue.jpg)
AS MY WORLD TURNS
My Brush with Fame
I have never been around anyone famous, not that I haven’t been around anyone important, just that they were not known by many people.
However, I had a brief brush with fame. Growing up in the mountains of southwest Virginia, I found high school football and basketball to be equivalent to Major League Baseball or the National Football League. Our Friday night football games were jam-packed with residents from all over Buchanan County.
Until the start of my junior year of high school, I had friends, but few, and the girls mostly ignored me. That football season, I moved up from the JV team and led the varsity team in points scored (64). My popularity increased. The following senior year, I led again with 103 points and made the All-County team. The attention I garnered instilled the feeling that the world was my oyster and all I had to do was crack it. I will always cherish that feeling of confidence and determination.
Our games were broadcast every Friday night on our local radio station (WNRG), and the recording was played over the air again the next morning for everyone to enjoy. I always listened to that broadcast to see how many times my name was called, as did every member of our team. Oddly, I was more proud of my defensive skills than my offensive feats. Great success is hard for a teenage boy to handle!
I had gone from someone who others thought was perhaps generic to what felt like to me, superstardom! Girls that previously ignored me now went out of their way to engage me in conversation. The non-football guys wanted to be my best friends and were always hanging around, trying to make conversation. Adults from all over our county would see me on the streets of Grundy, our only town, and stop to make conversation.
I graduated high school in 1959, joined the US Air Force, and fame disappeared, never to return. I never craved its return and didn’t miss it. I always knew it was temporary, even at that young age. Its only value was that it showed a kid, who felt his only value in life was to do chores and stay out of the way, he was important.
To me, there is no better feeling than being loved and respected. As a teenager, that was what I lacked in life, and football handed me that on a silver platter. The great college basketball coach, Bobby Knight, said, “The will to succeed is important, but what's more important is the will to prepare." Unintentionally, I had prepared myself for my brief brush with fame with the discipline I gained under my father’s tutelage. For that, I am forever grateful.
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