Monte Dutton's Blog

By MONTE DUTTON

It did everything but rain on Clinton High School in Inman, S.C., on Friday night.

I got up Saturday, trudged through a wretched account of Chapman’s 45-13 victory — I shall not lie; I left the game early — and just wanted to go out and see something wholesome.

Watching (on TV) the Clemson-LSU debacle and its various and sundry rumpuses, the swindle of Western Michigan, and news from South Carolina that a blue-chip runner from one private school transferred to another in the midst of the season, I realized I was having no fun.

Watching the Red Devils lose makes me sad … but not often.

Rion Gordon plays at Brevard College. He and I played on state championship teams 49 years apart. The Tornados opened their season against the University of the South (Sewanee, Tenn.). Neither school gives scholarships.

When I first moved up here, I left my old Ford pickup in Clinton. I hitched a ride home with Rion to pick it up. Yeah. I picked up the pickup.

Running late, hungry, buckets bouncing on the ground from the rain they were carrying, ducks outside marching around, quacking merrily because rain is the only time they are truly happy — I set out against all odds and my better judgment.

Brevard was already well in front as I patiently snaked my way around the little campus.  I think each fan came in two cars. Persistence found success. I parallel-parked my pickup less than a hundred yards from the visitors’ side. I got out, looked across at the game and thought, gee, a lot of folks just watch the game from outside.

As I walked across a mushy field, carefully, it occurred to me that there was no apparent way to pay my way in. I sat down in the Sewanee stands — purple makes me feel right at home — and it immediately started raining harder. I had pulled a pullover over, as pullovers are wont to do, and was wearing my floppy brown hemp hat.

Though hopelessly behind, Sewanee never gave up, and as I sat among parents and grandparents, it was all carried out with admirable sportsmanship.

Confirming the notion that the visitors’ bleacher at Brevard College is a small world, the 80-year-old man behind me was a coach at Greer High School while I was playing at Clinton. It went without saying that he didn’t remember me.

This pleasant chitchat began when the man asked me where I got my hat. He called it a word I had not previously heard, and, at first, I didn’t know what he meant. He might have called it a “panny,” which might have been short for Panama.

I don’t know.

We reminisced about Keith Richardson, Bill Rhodes, Robbie Caldwell, J.D. Fuller, Willie Varner, Whitey Kendall, Pinky Babb, Cally Gault, Bo Strock, John Carlisle and Jim Few.

And it rained. Brevard won, 39-14.

I hung my short pants in the shower, which is the only place in the shoebox conducive for hanging. I put on some dirty, but dry, sweats and, yes, a sweatshirt.

Furman upended 14th-ranked Mercer in Macon, Ga., 20-13. Given the times, it was a great defensive performance. Texas — I have a family connection with the Longhorns — rose to edge Ohio State, 24-23.

I feel fine. I’m like one of those ducks.

The site is supported by reader contributions. If you’re interested, you can make modest monthly payments on my Patreon page or a one-time contribution via Venmo (@DHKSports).

Or, if you’d like to make a contribution by check or cash, my mailing address is: Monte Dutton, Adventure Village, 15 Adventure Ridge Rd., Brevard, N.C.  28712 (hutdut@outlook.com).

It means a lot to me that you enjoy what I write.

Most of my books are available at Amazon. Two of my novels, Cowboys Come Home and Lightning in a Bottle, are available in audio versions. Most of the Kindle versions are free with Amazon Prime.

By MONTE DUTTON

INMAN, S.C.  – Chapman High School’s football team wore chrome helmets that were somehow navy blue. Looking across the way, a cluster of quicksilver glinted on the sideline, similar to a group of tubas in the Panthers’ band.

Chapman (3-0) just shone more brightly on Friday night. The 45-13 score was not a fluke. Quarterback Ashton Moore torched a young defense for 227 yards and three touchdown passes, connecting on 12/17 passes. Kellion Tucker caught seven of them, for 105 yards and two scores.

Early in the second half, Moore hit Eric Gaffney with a 79-yard strike. That put Chapman up, 24-7. It was all over but the crying, and the rout was on.

It was not that the Red Devils couldn’t move. It was that the Panthers moved faster. Angelo Cromer, who missed the Newberry game, netted 92 yards in 18 carries, and quarterback Owen Glenn rushed for both TDs and gained 56 yards on the ground, but the passing – 3/14, 25 yards – was lackluster.

As a team, Clinton (2-1) rushed for 249 yards but lost two fumbles. A vital cog in the rushing game, Rhett Gillliam, left early with a left-knee injury.

Clinton head coach Corey Fountain and Chapman’s Harry Cabaniss are 4-4 against each other. The loss will likely cost the Red Devils second place in the Class 2A rankings and vault the Panthers into the 3A top 10.

But it’s early.

Clinton’s only respite from a string of five road trips in six games is next week when Union County (0-4) visits Wilder Stadium. Woodruff (3-1) visits Chapman next.

The key to stopping Clinton is not to stop the Red Devils’ high-powered running game but to contain it. The Chapman defense slowed Clinton down, which the Red Devils could not do to the Panthers’ passing attack.

Clinton never led but tied the game, 7-7, on Glenn’s 8-yard run with 6:20 remaining in the first half.

Though the Red Devils outgained the Panther, 249-185, in rushing yardage, the game’s leading rusher was Chapman’s Teagan Cantrell with 123 yards on 13 carries. The Panthers led, 17-7, at halftime and stretched the lead to 38-7 on Kelton Tucker’s 43-yard catch from Moore with 10:31 to play.

A 75-yard kickoff return by Gaffney – yeah, the guy with the 79-yard pass reception – made the ending even more bitter for the Clinton faithful, who were outnumbered about 2/1 by the home partisans.

It may have been the first time the price of gasoline held down the Clinton crowd. I filled up for the bargain price of $3.73 on the way down from Brevard.

One game does not a season make. Sometimes a dose of mortality steels a team’s resolve.

The loss broke an all-time win streak of seven in games played on Sept. 11.

The site is supported by reader contributions. If you’re interested, you can make modest monthly payments on my Patreon page or a one-time contribution via Venmo (@DHKSports).

Or, if you’d like to make a contribution by check or cash, my mailing address is: Monte Dutton, Adventure Village, 15 Adventure Ridge Rd., Brevard, N.C.  28712 (hutdut@outlook.com).

It means a lot to me that you enjoy what I write.

Most of my books are available at Amazon. Two of my novels, Cowboys Come Home and Lightning in a Bottle, are available in audio versions. Most of the Kindle versions are free with Amazon Prime.

By MONTE DUTTON

Perhaps one reason writers struggle is that truth is getting progressively stranger than fiction.

Journalism is not really about telling the truth. It’s about getting as close to the truth as possible based on what people say the truth is.

If a man or woman wants to tell the truth, he (or she) has to write fiction.

Such is the time in which we live. It beats the Middle Ages. Civilization teeters over a chasm of ruin. At least see the humor and absurdity of it all.

Sports offer little relief.

Michigan beat Western Michigan by election fraud.

Louisiana State University signed two (truly) professional players. The Southeasten Conference rose in mock outrage. Lane Kiffin, doing his best Steve McQueen, told his charges to take no Clemson prisoners. The SEC threatens to kick the Bayou Bengals out. LSU backs off.

What is this? The Cuban Missile Crisis? Everyone take a breath. The president won’t have to send his son-in-law in. One SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, won’t have to investigate the other.

Now, if this were a movie, this is how it would end. Clemson would sign the two true pros. Cue the credits.

The site is supported by reader contributions. If you’re interested, you can make modest monthly payments on my Patreon page or a one-time contribution via Venmo (@DHKSports).

Or, if you’d like to make a contribution by check or cash, my mailing address is: Monte Dutton, Adventure Village, 15 Adventure Ridge Rd., Brevard, N.C.  28712 (hutdut@outlook.com).

It means a lot to me that you enjoy what I write.

Most of my books are available at Amazon. Two of my novels, Cowboys Come Home and Lightning in a Bottle, are available in audio versions. Most of the Kindle versions are free with Amazon Prime.

By MONTE DUTTON

On Saturday night, I slept well on paper.

I’d been sick for a few days. Not on paper. In the toilet. I was better, but not enough to be too far away from the bathroom. Even in a shoebox, the bathroom is  still a long way when nature calls in the dark of night.

I started feeling ill on Wednesday night, when I performed at the Cedar Mountain Outpost’s weekly open night. One of the songs was “Go Big Red,” my ode to Clinton High School football. I’ve been adding verses since the 1970s. I also did a humorous ditty, “Bills to Pay,” and my favorite obscure Charley Pride song, “Able Bodied Man.”

For more about Cedar Mountain, click here.

A road trip to Newberry was out of the question. I listened to the broadcast as the Red Devils conquered the Bulldogs. Locally, the Rosman Tigers won. Rosman is Joanna with a high school. I’ve developed an affinity for the Tigers, not to mention the Apapulco Mexican joint, the Country Skillet and the laundromat. A lot of friendly folks live in Rosman.

I did not expect to be more dismayed by Clemson’s 51-10 loss to Louisiana State than Furman’s 56-9 loss to Tennessee . During most of the latter half, I watched a film noir, “The Yellow Canary,” that starred Pat Boone and Barbara Eden. Boone was a bad guy, not too unlike Andy Griffith as Lonesome Rhodes in “A Face in the Crowd.”

A perfect choice. Not a perfect movie but an appropriate one.

Part of this is the stodginess of age.

My screenplay, The Graduate Transfer, is an irreverent commentary on the times. The principal character, Caleb Penn, is a quarterback who plays through six years, four colleges and four knee operations, only to become a small-college head coach at age 24. His hiring is a publicity stunt by a prominent evangelist who wants to turn his college into the Notre Dame of the fundamentalists. Caleb, his best friend and his best friend’s wife, inexplicably dive into the job.

It’s meant to be satirical. It was a novel first. When I was re-editing it, I was amazed at how plausible it seemed in today’s world.

Everything’s a farce.

I decided to make it a screenplay..I could save a lot of work by just buying a lottery ticket a couple times a week, but I’ve been diligently reading books on how to write a screenplay, and who knows? If, somehow, some way, and by some strange set of circumstances, The Graduate Transfer becomes a movie, it might become a novel, too.

I’ve always believed in sports. I’ve devoted most of my life to writing about it. When I observe the kids who play sports at Clinton High School and Furman University, it restores my faith.

Sports really is a microcosm of life. I used to think the decline in fundamentals was a matter of athletes getting faster, quicker and more powerful, thus not needing fundamentals as much.

I was wrong but not about sports. Fundamentals, in every other aspect of human behavior, are receding like the ice at the earth’s poles.

“That’s just not the way it is anymore.”

Niccolo Machiavelli’s latest adherent is a football coach named Lane Kiffin.

In The Prince, Machiavelli wrote that rulers have to take on unsavory policies in the furtherance of their society. 

“The end justifies the means.” Machiavelli advised rulers to engage in evil when political necessity requires it.

What seemed ridiculous last year is acceptable this year. I was expecting, last Thursday night, when Massachusetts ended a 16-game losing streak by hammering Rutgers, several Minutemen to switch uniforms at halftime. That’s next year. The current rage is for college players to go pro unsuccessfully and then return to college.

I thought about driving up to Knoxville — after all, I’m now halfway there — because I’ve never seen a game at Neyland Stadium before.

It was hard enough to see the Paladins pummeled on TV. No good could have come from being there.

What Dabo Swinney of Clemson and Clay Hendrix of Furman are going through is what drove Nick Saban to TV. God love them for holding the line.

There was one American left who was loved by everybody. She died last week.

At some point, we’re going to have to stop saying “that’s just the way it is,” and start working toward the way it should be.

Sports is just a small part, but it’s a start.

The site is supported by reader contributions. If you’re interested, you can make modest monthly payments on my Patreon page or a one-time contribution via Venmo (@DHKSports).

Or, if you’d like to make a contribution by check or cash, my mailing address is: Monte Dutton, Adventure Village, 15 Adventure Ridge Rd., Brevard, N.C.  28712 (hutdut@outlook.com).

It means a lot to me that you enjoy what I write.

Most of my books are available at Amazon. Two of my novels, Cowboys Come Home and Lightning in a Bottle, are available in audio versions. Most of the Kindle versions are free with Amazon Prime.

By MONTE DUTTON

After road trips to Greenville, S.C., on Thursday night and Clinton, S.C., on Friday night, I’m still playing catch-up. It took most of Saturday writing about two football games, processing the photos and posting the blogs.

Here it is Sunday, and I’ve still got stuff to write.

I’m thankful that sporting events leave me keyed up for hours. If I’d been sleepy on the mountain roads from Furman, I wouldn’t have made it.

Friday was just evidence that sports can never be as good on TV as in person. This was the first Clinton-Laurens game that has figured to be a toss-up in a while. People figured right. Clinton pulled it out, 29-22, on a touchdown pass with two seconds remaining. The Red Devils have won six in a row.

When I was watching video Sunday, on social media, I got a little weepy watching the stadium go berserk in the background, but also feeling some sympathy for the Raiders’ players, staggering, dumbfounded, looking at one another.

Not again.

I’ve been writing about sports for a long time. I’ve seen the agony and ecstasy. They keep me going back for more.

Amidst all this color – Clinton’s band playing Notre Dame, Laurens’ Ohio State – was the comfort of home. I don’t regret leaving, but I love going back.

One aspect of a long drive is time to ponder what I have seen. The job doesn’t demand the feverish deadline pressure of a Bristol night race, but I enjoyed that tension and thought I managed it well.

I drove one truck to Furman, and the highlight of the day was meeting Rudy Jones in nearby Travelers Rest for a pregame meal. Furman played fine, building a 17-3 lead at halftime and finishing it, 20-3. I watched a good bit of Presbyterian’s opening-night win on my laptop in the press box.

The following night I took the other truck, old C.W., down to Clinton. During the game, I spent some time chatting with Matt Rahl, the first-year PC head coach, who brought most of his staff along to watch the Laurens County championship game. It’s a damn good snapshot of what Clinton and Laurens are all about.

Then along came the baseball team, honored at halftime. The Red Devils’ state championship in the spring was my last beat. I’m not going to write about anything day to day anymore. Mainly I’m going to write about what happens where I am.

My last two visits to Clinton High – Wilder Stadium is actually at the middle school a half mile or so away – have been astonishing. The baseball team won the state title via Luke Young’s home run on the first pitch of the eighth inning. One of his teammates, Owen Glenn, threw the pass that beat Laurens in the football game.

I finished my screenplay last week. I’m going to set it aside while a friend gives it a second set of eyes. I could fiddle with it forever. I’ll submit it when it’s ready. No hurry. I could buy a lottery ticket any day. I may even put some time into deciding a next project.

Oh, yeah. I played music in front of an audience for the first time in quite a while. I played three songs I wrote. Original songs have to be my modest niche. I can’t play guitar or anything else like the folks up in these hills. I’m a writer who likes to sing, not a musician who likes to play.

The site is supported by reader contributions. If you’re interested, you can make modest monthly payments on my Patreon page or a one-time contribution via Venmo (@DHKSports).

Or, if you’d like to make a contribution by check or cash, my mailing address is: Monte Dutton, Adventure Village, 15 Adventure Ridge Rd., Brevard, N.C.  28712 (hutdut@outlook.com).

It means a lot to me that you enjoy what I write.

Most of my books are available at Amazon. Two of my novels, Cowboys Come Home and Lightning in a Bottle, are available in audio versions.

By MONTE DUTTON

CLINTON, S.C. – A grueling road trip home – after a similarly taxing down-and-back-up to Furman – was, incredibly, worth every minute and mile.

The previous time I saw Clinton High School in action was an extra-inning victory that claimed the Class 2A baseball championship. Those hometown heroes showed off their rings at halftime. Several were wearing their Red Devil football uniforms.

One threw the game-winning pass. Another scored two touchdowns.

On Friday night in front of, oh, about 7,000 fans, the outcome was decided with two seconds remaining. A relatively gentle rain fell during the first quarter, which may have lessened the crowd, but not by much. This one was must-see.

Even though Laurens is Class 4A and Clinton 2A, this game is a big deal. The Red Devils won the Laurens County championship, 29-22, for the sixth year in a row. The Raiders (1-1) are much better. Clinton (1-0)  won last year’s game, 50-0.

I took the old good-luck truck, C.W., downhill Friday afternoon and uphill in the wee hours of Saturday.

With seven seconds to play and the game tied, first-and-goal from the three, senior quarterback Owen Glenn calmly found Caleb Gary in the middle of the end zone for the winning score. Glenn, one of the baseball champions, led a 10-play, 75-yard drive in the final 2:28. He handled the ball in each of the final eight plays. His 25-yard scramble on third down preceded the winning TD play. Four of Glenn’s five completions were in the final two minutes.

“I was just a part of a great team win,” he said. “This is an awesome way to start. It was a great opportunity for all of us to play together and pull it out.”

The Raiders – buses, fans, kits and kaboodles – came to Wilder Stadium loaded for bear but couldn’t quite handle the Red Devils. The Raiders play three of their next four games at home. Clinton is on the road for five of the next six. Another nearby rival, Newberry (1-1), is next. Southside Christian (1-1), a Region 2-2A opponent of Clinton, visits Laurens next week.

Corey Fountain, 6-1 against Laurens (the teams did not play in COVID-impaired 2020) and 63-22 at Clinton, playfully declared it “Clinton (not Laurens) County.”

“We’re young, and we’ve got a lot to improve on,” Fountain said. “We got backed up with not much time, and we kept plugging away and we kept playing hard. Laurens is a good team. Coach (Greg) Porter has turned that program around.

“We’ve got a hard road in front of us, but this was certainly a great way to start.”

Angelo Cromer led the Red Devils with 17 carries for 152 yards. Rhett Gilliam rushed for 66 yards and two touchdowns. Glenn also gained 66 yards on the ground. Bryland James rushed for 40 and a touchdown.

The Raiders’ sophomore quarterback, Logan Bragg, hit 16/23 passes for 132 yards and a touchdown.

Another sophomore, Travion Robinson, gained 123 of Laurens’ 132 net rushing yards. Clinton rushed for 359 yards and outgained the Raiders, 393-264, overall.

Laurens broke on top on Robinson’s 62-yard, first-quarter dash, and the Raiders led, 14-8, thanks to another Robinson ramble of 35 yards. Clinton led at halftime, 22-14, but Laurens tied the score with 8:59 to play on Bragg’s 59-yard connection to Brayden Patterson and an Elijah Cheeks run for the two-point conversion.

Damajia Crooks counterattacked Laurens with three kickoff returns for 151 yards. He also rushed for a two-point conversion.

Laurens ran out of downs at the Clinton 13 in the third quarter. The Red Devils ran out of downs at the Raider 17 with 5:41 remaining. Laurens punted it back to Clinton, which started the decisive drive at its own 25.

Most of my books are available at Amazon. Two of my novels, Cowboys Come Home and Lightning in a Bottle, are available in audio versions.

By MONTE DUTTON

GREENVILLE, S.C. – The night has never shone more brightly at Paladin Stadium than on Thursday night.

The lights are brand-new.

Furman proved on Thursday night it can be good. The Paladins are not there yet. A 20-3, opening-night football victory over nearby Anderson was seldom in doubt but rife with missed opportunities.

The Furman defense limited the Trojans to a net of six rushing yards: 36 gained, 30 lost. Seventeen second-quarter points decided the game, but it was a modest output for 451 yards of offense. Furman had to settle four times for Nathan Chapman field-goal attempts, and the junior missed two of them.

What was most impressive was the tackling of the Paladins’ defense. Anderson (0-1) quarterback Wilson Edwards hit 19/31 passes, many of them, in the first half, tossed out to the sidelines. In most instances, Paladin defenders — particularly bandit Eli Lipscomb, linebacker Raleigh Herbert and cornerback Caleb Easterling — were there in a hurry and en masse.

The two head coaches, Furman’s Clay Hendrix and Anderson’s Bobby Lamb, played together in high school (Commerce, Ga.) and at Furman. They grew up on the same street. Lamb was Furman’s head coach for nine seasons (2002-10). Hendrix is in his 10th. They are among the purplest of purple bloods.

The game was scheduled because they wanted to play, and Furman needed a 12th game. Hendrix wanted a game to prepare the Paladins for a visit to Tennessee next week.

“Give Anderson a lot of credit,” Hendrix said. “There’s a lot we have to get better at. Our defense played well. We were solid up front.”

It goes without saying that rising to the challenge of Division II Anderson is a far cry from the SEC might in Knoxville.

Furman’s well-traveled quarterback, fifth-year senior Jake Garcia, completed 15/28 passes for 183 yards but impressed as much with his feet – nine carries, 51 yards – as his right arm. C.J. Nettles (10-99) and Ben Croasdale (11-67) led the rushers.

Edwards hit 19/31 for the Trojans, producing 154 yards. Kenneth Brown caught six of Edwards’ passes.

Hendrix said Furman has thus far avoided the injuries that plagued the last two seasons.

“I didn’t see a lot of missed tackles,” he said. “We came in healthy and came out healthy.”

Furman started eight fifth-year players, five seniors, four juniors, three sophomores and a freshman. It’s the way of the transfer-portal, NIL world. Six played previously at other colleges. Six is relatively modest for the age of revolving doors.

Take a look at the stats here.

Most of my books are available at Amazon. Two of my novels, Cowboys Come Home and Lightning in a Bottle, are available in audio versions.

By MONTE DUTTON

From time to time, the world is perfectly described by a three-word Jackson Browne song title from the 1970s.

“Before the Deluge.”

From time to time is gradually becoming all the time about everything.

Thirty years ago, jaded newspaper hands used to laugh about every day’s paper having a section front that was “the shame” of something.

THE SHAME OF OUR SCHOOLS!

THE SHAME OF OUR ROADS!

THE SHAME OF OUR FOOD!

Over time, shame gave way to shames that were shocking and the grinding heartbreak of psoriasis. Nowadays, all the shame, shock and heartbreak leaves us with too much anger and too few laughs.

As John Prine sang, “blow up your TV, throw away the paper, go out to the country and build you a home.”

Let’s face it. Most of the deluges have hit.

Right now, though, is before a regular, yearly deluge. High schools are already playing football, American style. The colleges begin playing for dear old alma mater and money soon. The pros are well into their play-toy games.

Next week this time, I will not be watching pickup trucks racing in New Hampshire. Trump will have his IndyCar Peace Prize. Looking ahead through my crystal ball, I see me, really tired, watching The Citadel play Wofford, secure in the notion that one will lose.

Right now, when it’s late, I’ve been writing and I can’t sleep, I’ll watch an Andy Griffith Show episode for the umpteenth time since I was five. In coming weeks, I’ll rely on Oregon State versus New Mexico to make me drowsy.

It’s been so long since I’ve visited Fansville.

With their hearts they turned to each other’s hearts for refuge

In the troubled years that came before the deluge

A good bit of my time these days is spent writing a script for a movie. It’s a free-wheeling tale called The Graduate Transfer.

Wellpilgrim.com takes its name from John Wayne, who liked the phrase, and the Kris Kristofferson song “The Pilgrim: Chapter 33, Hang on, Hopper.” The title of the site comes from my favorite song, Michael Burton’s “Nightrider’s Lament.”

I can be reached at Adventure Village #6, 15 Adventure Ridge Road, Brevard, N.C.    28712.

I’d appreciate it if you’d consider buying one or two or five of my books, which are available on Amazon and at other bookseller sites. Two novels, Cowboys Come Home and Lightning in a Bottle, are available in audible versions.

By MONTE DUTTON

The Golden Skillet was jammed late Friday afternoon. I was the only person there who didn’t know everyone else there, and they were all talking to everyone else. I sat there, reading about Rosman High’s football team in the Transylvania Times, and then I drove down the road to watch it.

The Catfish Special was excellent. One woman picked up her take-out and talked to almost everyone there before she left. I complimented her on her Red Sox cap. I wanted her to get a perfect score.

Rosman edged West-Oak, from across the border, by a score of 21-19 in a practice game. It was a shocking outcome. The Tigers only dressed 21. Four or five others were banged up, wearing their game jerseys. Junior varsity players comprised the chain crew. The Warriors were quite a bit larger in numbers and weight, but the score went back and forth all night. West-Oak had a last gasp with 2.3 seconds on the clock, but the desperation pass appeared to be intended for nobody.

I figure about a thousand folks were there. Maybe. Some bucks were raised. It cost five dollars to get in.

Why was I one of them? Well, Clinton and Laurens were scrimmaging — or jamboreeing — at Byrnes, where both won. The Red Devils defeated Riverside, 19-14, and the Raiders turned lots of heads by upending Woodruff, 35-13.

At about 3 p.m., I checked the weather: high 90s in the Upstate. Clinton was playing first, Laurens third. I figured the wet-bulb thermometers would push back the start, and I’d be damn near all night in Duncan.

Rosman is just a few miles away. I wish I’d gone to Byrnes High in retrospect, but I had a good time at Silversteen Memorial Stadium.

It’s pretty. Hills rise all around the artificial playing surface. Sunset was pretty.

It’s a different world, though. 

Rosman is Joanna if it had a high school. The Carolinas are alike in that most high-school football teams make the playoffs. The Tigers won a playoff game but finished 3-9 last year. They open at home against Owen (Black Mountain) next week. The Warhorses won, 35-0, last season.

What a friendly place, though. I needed to get back in the hang of shooting photos at night games, but I mainly circulated, chatting with the referees, the Rosman trainer, a retired English teacher, a policeman, a fireman, a West-Oak lineman and several fans whose way to make a living is unknown to me.

It also pleased me to receive information of what happened at Byrnes.

The Raiders have been batted around in recent years. Their fans are going to arrive at Wilder Stadium with high hopes, which hasn’t been true in a while.

Clinton has won the past five games against Laurens by an average score of 42-13. Only so much can be learned from preseason scrimmages, but it’s clear that the Raiders are much better. It’s also clear that the Red Devils remain strong.

I was still sweating from the Rosman game when I started getting excited about Laurens visiting Clinton on Aug. 28.

Wellpilgrim.com takes its name from John Wayne, who liked the phrase, and the Kris Kristofferson song “The Pilgrim: Chapter 33, Hang on, Hopper.” The title of the site comes from my favorite song, Michael Burton’s “Nightrider’s Lament.”

I can be reached at Adventure Village #6, 15 Adventure Ridge Road, Brevard, N.C.    28712.

I’d appreciate it if you’d consider buying one or two or five of my books, which are available on Amazon and at other bookseller sites. Two novels, Cowboys Come Home and Lightning in a Bottle, are available in audible versions.

By MONTE DUTTON

I awakened recently thinking about running backs. I certainly never was one. Neither was my brother, though he would have been better suited.

Football has many great running backs. Some, however, are magic. Some are unstoppable. Some have a knack for making an impossible play when it’s impossibly needed.

This goes for athletes, in general, and one would hope, leaders in every field of endeavor. A market for those who “love to get after it” exists at all levels, particularly among the young who aren’t yet making enough to have their jobs eliminated.

A joke. The world is spinning so fast, sometimes I step aside.

I want to reassure the folks back home. I’m fine up here in the hills, living in my shoebox. I haven’t blogged in a while because I have been obsessed with the screenplay into which I have been converting my unpublished novel, The Graduate Transfer. It’s almost wrapped up, though I’m still backtracking and polishing it up a little.

I think it’s good. I’m not objective. It’s a long shot. It’s what I came up here to do.

I crept out of the shoebox Wednesday for an adventurous afternoon in Rosman, which, in addition to being closer to me than downtown Brevard, is the home of both a laundromat and a Mexican joint. While I was at the local Acapulco, three cheerleaders were enjoying one another’s company.

By the way, it’s hard to beat a Mexican joint in a small town.

Rosman is Joanna if it had a high school. The Tigers, 3-9 last season, were practicing nearby. The cheerleaders invited me to Friday night’s practice game. West-Oak is crossing the border.

Brevard High (14-1), the Blue Devils, went to the state finals last year, but according to a comprehensive story in the Transylvania Times, Brevard is rebuilding behind a new head coach.

At the laundromat, I felt a little like one of those TV reporters interviewing disgruntled Trump supporters.

A nice lady complained about how the cost of a washer went up 75 cents. Like everything else, I said, and off we went. Neither she, nor I, nor her husband, said the president’s name.

Didn’t have to.

Is every place crazy? I now live in the 11th Congressional District. The incumbent, Chuck Edwards, pulled out of the race on account of some women in his office thought he was a bit much. The one before Edwards was Madison Cawthorn. I had to refresh my memory on that treasured past.

Meanwhile, back in South Carolina, several candidates who rail about “career politicians” and term limits have been running for something all year.

Wellpilgrim.com takes its name from John Wayne, who liked the phrase, and the Kris Kristofferson song “The Pilgrim: Chapter 33, Hang on, Hopper.” The title of the site comes from my favorite song, Michael Burton’s “Nightrider’s Lament.”

I can be reached at Adventure Village #6, 15 Adventure Ridge Road, Brevard, N.C.    28712.

I’d appreciate it if you’d consider buying one or two or five of my books, which are available on Amazon and at other bookseller sites. Two novels, Cowboys Come Home and Lightning in a Bottle, are available in audible versions.