Been a while, but I've watched every football and basketball game since I saw you last in the fall of 2017.

Sports first ...  I probably would have kept Luke for another year ... that based more on his last recruiting class than anything else.  I was actually somewhat against the firing and my first thought when I heard Kiffin's name I wasn't overly impressed.  Let's say I've warmed about 10-fold to the idea.  I thought Keith Carter might be somewhat of a limp wrist, but boy he showed some stones.  I don't know whether the Lane Train runs the risk played out in the last few scenes in Back to the Future III ... or if it turns out like Doc Brown's locomotive and flies  away to glory ... but Lane is exactly what our fan base needs.  And, beating out both Upig and Missouri is huge. I think Lane will make a bigger splash in the Feb signing period and not so much this week. Also I wanted to say that I'm not a Rich Rod fan and think he had to go before every quarterback and wide receiver transferred.  I just wonder why it didn't dawn on Rich or Luke  to put Ealy and Plumlee in the backfield and Matt at QB .....  I'd have used Plumlee like Carolina uses McCaffery.  

On a personal front -- doing well, probably better than before my heart event.  What was going is the top part of the heart and the bottom part were out of sync due to a blood clot in the left ventricle,  Part of that clot had broken off and went to an artery leading to my small intestine.  I drove back from Oxford with me thinking I only had stomach issues as I had been throwing up bile for a couple of days before the trip.  Went to the ER on 28 June for three days where they focused on the heart and then sent me via ambulance to Piedmont heart institute in downtown Atlanta. I stayed there for three days and was sent home on the 4th of July.  I went back on 11 July for another five day stay for what turned out as a triple bypass.  When the doc got into the left ventricle, no blood clot was found.  They were actually looking for a mass based on imaging.  Now they think what happened is the 10 days or so before surgery on blood thinners dissolved what they thought had been a newly formed clot.  Some suggest the power of prayer, which I don't discount.

Some will recall my older sister died in April 2017 from ampullary cancer ... a form of pancreatic cancer.  In late January this year, my younger sister was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given 5 months to live without treatment. After witnessing what my older sister went through -- major surgery, chemo, etc., my younger sister said no to treatment.  She lives in Huntsville and my nephew planned a surprise birthday party for her in early May, and I planned a mini-family reunion for her up around Falkner and visited the school and some old home places.  I had planned to go back in July, but it was late August before I could visit.  I went back in early November and she looked terrible.  She died on Dec 1.  A week later, my sister-in-law's brother died of a heart attack.  On top of all of this, my sister-in-law was found to have cancer in her fallopian tubes last spring and it had spread to her  stomach.  She's trying some unconventional treatment and starting to show she's fading quite a bit.  I look at my family picture with six and now all are gone except me and my 76-year old brother.  If you are a betting man, put your money on my brother to be last man standing,  

I could go some more, but football is about to come on.  In my absence, I spent a great deal of time doing ancestry and doing battle with the VA regarding my nearly 7 year old claim and trying to get a marker for my father. I was able to get the VA to approve a marker for my great grandfather who served in the 23rd Miss and was at Fort Donelson when Grant attacked in February 1862.  

PS  Thanks Cat for the invite