“Don’t sweat the small stuff
Keep your chin up
Just hang tough
And if it gets too rough
Fall on your knees and pray
And do that everyday”
“Better Get to Livin’” – Dolly Parton
An absolute icon in music and simply in life, Dolly Rebecca Parton turned 80 earlier this year. This year also marks 60 years since Dolly signed her first solo record deal, though she had already appeared on the Grand Ole Opry for the first time in her career almost a decade earlier, when she performed at the legendary venue for the first time at just 13 years old.
Dolly’s certainly had many challenge her choices in life, whether it be her plastic surgery and big hair or her unwillingness to step into the political foray, but there is no doubt that few will leave a larger mark on the world when they leave it (and let’s hope that’s not for many more years). That legacy has only a little to do with her music.
Her music success allowed Dolly to do a number of things, but one of them, the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, has been an incredible resource for many families throughout the country and the world to combat illiteracy. Dolly was inspired by her hard-working father, who never learned to read or write, and wanted to ensure children, no matter their economic background, would have access to stories that made them want to read.
This weekend is Easter, and Easter always gets me thinking about and appreciating Dolly, in part because of her version of the song, “He’s Alive”, which, for my money, is the best recorded version of an already-impactful tune.
In an ode to Dolly, who has quite literally recorded a top-ranked song in rock, pop, county, and Christian music charts as well as winning awards in movies and theater with shows she either starred in, produced, or wrote, I’m going to have a bit of an “all-over” column today.
First topic of the day is the Huron Tigers winning the Class AA boys’ basketball championship. I’ve been blessed to cover some very fun teams in my time here at the Plainsman and in my life covering professional baseball. However, this was a unique team. Talking with the guys on the team and the coaching staff, the term “brotherhood” came up over and over, and that was evident on the court and off the court.
Thank you to the coaches, the players, and the parents and family of the team members and staff for a group of young men willing to sacrifice for one another in order to reach a greater team goal.
Last week’s column discussing items that have changed with the paper struck a chord with a few people. I did think clarifying a couple of things would be smart. One thing to be clear, this section of the paper is never going to break the paper. When we closed in August, we only had one columnist whose columns were paid for, and that was George Will. That’s one reason you’ve not seen his material on these pages since we restarted. A suggestion to use local columnists rather than statewide or national columnists is a great one, though that’s something we’ve already called out for, and the response was not strong. We will have a column forthcoming, but anyone locally who wants to contribute a consistent column with editing for content and space would be more than welcome. Until then, the columns and cartoons you see in the editorial section are from sources that are free use for the paper.
While putting exact dollar figures out there is not my place within the paper, the folks who want to have us utilize crosswords and puzzle, weather, markets, and comics utilized in the past should also understand that the newspaper remained at the same cost while all of those things went up by as much as 200-300% in the last 10 years. To have AP access, the previous weather page, markets, and the previous daily comics page would likely mean subscriptions would need to go up twice their current cost, if not three times the amount. The paper ate that cost for many years, and the price of the paper still has not gone up.
Finally, my favorite time of year is underway, as Major League Baseball has already played a week of games. Minor League Baseball has now opened up at all full-season levels, so I can have games on from morning until evening as I work at all levels of professional baseball.
Something very interesting this year is that MLB implemented an automatic ball-strike (ABS) system this year. Baseball is both the sport most based in its long-standing traditions as well as the sport that has made some of the biggest changes to the game’s history to go along with modern media culture. A few years back, enforcement of the pitch clock rules that were already on the book led to a reduction in game time of more than an hour on average across the game. Baseball has had call challenges on certain plays for more than a decade to make sure the calls were right, but the most objective call in the game, balls and strikes called by the home plate umpire, were not able to be challenged.
Now, teams get a limited number of challenges to balls and strikes during the game that can be used, and the challenges are answered within a matter of seconds, allowing game flow to be quick, even with a challenge play.
With grass starting to green, school entering the final stretch for the year, and Easter weekend here, baseball is a fitting addition!
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