Columns/Opinions

 Extremely lucky or unbelievably blessed, you can take your pick (personally, I think it is a combination of both) would pretty much describe my life in the last two and a half months.
 “Lucky” is having a heart attack, driving eighteen miles home, sitting around the house for a couple of hours and then seeking help and having it all work out just fine. Well, after a quadruple by-pass and some dandy rehab at the local hospital.

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By Amber Counts
acounts@campcountynow.com
I recently had the opportunity to see the movie “The Butler” starring Forrest Whitaker as Cecil Gaines, an African American man who served as butler to eight American Presidents, first ladies, and their children over three decades. Though I usually find dramas boring and unsatisfying, I walked out of the theater with a new respect for the genre after this film.
Though there were moments when tears freely flowed down my face, (one of the reasons I don’t like dramas), as I walked out of the theater, I experienced a myriad of emotions which ranged from nostalgia to pride that our society has come to this point to a renewed sadness at the complete disregard in which the black community was treated with during this time frame.

Fall is right around the corner bringing with it cool nights and comfortable days, and just the perfect time to go camping. I say that, and I probably have not spent a night away from someone`s house or at least a hotel since Russ was a child.
Now, I`m willing to walk through swamps, endure almost any hardship as long as I know there is a hot shower and nice bed waiting at the end of the day.  
That was not the case when I was a child. Almost every three-day weekend would find my family camping in the mountains. We lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico so we had many options on where to go, and there were many campsites at each location.  We managed to stay at most of them.
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• The use of chemical weapons in Syria forces us to take action. It is imperative we find and destroy their stock pile. Just because I have little faith in this administration, as long as it is left in the hands of the military experts, this goal should be achievable.
•  A 40-21 BYU win over Texas Longhorns doesn`t even begin to explain the mental and physical beat down suffered by the boys from Austin. Expect coaching changes if this situation is not corrected by the next game. I don`t think it will be.
• The Pittsburg Pirates will continue their winning ways this week in New Boston in a game that pits two unbeaten teams, 28-20 sounds about right.
•  I think Texas A&M will out score Alabama this weekend. Both teams are undefeated, but neither has played much more than fodder. Unless both teams’ defenses get a lot better they will both get beaten by LSU.

Don`t come home a drinkin (with lovin on your mind)
Not even a near death experience is going to make a “country” fan out of me, but Loretta Lynn`s classic is perfect to  describe Hillary Clinton`s expected run for the presidency. The “lovin on your mind” part is the 55 to 60 percent of the votes her camp expects to receive from American voters. Don`t laugh, how many hundred thousands of white votes did President Obama receive just because they didn`t want to be perceived as racists?
Do you really think the misogyny card will not be played often and extremely loud? I`m guessing each time one of her shortcomings is discovered it will be used to misdirect the truth and to explain away all manners of sin.

Dear Editor,
I was headed to watch my 13-year-old grandson compete in a Regional tournament, the Texas Twister, the biggest event of the year at Allen Event Center in Allen, Texas, on Saturday at 8:30 a.m. Not real sure where I was going or how long it would take me to find it, but was traveling on Highway 271 to Mount Vernon, and right before crossing the bridge to turn west, a warning light came on that I had a low left front tire.

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 “A lesser man might not have made it through this” is the only foolish statement I can remember saying during my better-than-expected 10-day stay at East Texas Medical Center. The real truth is: only by the grace of God and the efforts of many highly trained medical professionals, in Pittsburg and Tyler, the outcome of my medical emergency could have turned out much differently.

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