We are still a couple of months away from the first season in more than a decade of Navarre Raider football without Jay Walls on the sideline.
But what we’ve seen so far through spring football is the indication that the Raiders are going to be just fine as they continue to work in preparation for their first season under the direction Garrett Bagley.
Recently, our skies were the canvas for some spectacular natural phenomena – a solar eclipse and the northern lights. Despite having been born and raised in Canada, I cannot recall ever having seen the Northern Lights, yet people here in north Florida were posting stunning photos of them. My wife and I even doused the porchlight and stood in the driveway gazing into the northern night sky but saw not a glimmer. I woke up very early the next morning and decided to try again. It was raining. I still have not seen the Northern Lights.
I’m learning new traditions and entitlements as my children get older, and I find myself having conversations with them that weren’t even a topic when I was their age. My daughter’s husbands have brought up evaluating jobs on how long they will have off for paternity leave when they start have babies or continue to do so. Really? I was lucky my husband was in this country when I had babies.
I’m not complaining that the spring football game between Navarre and Pace was postponed a couple of weeks ago.
I was driving back from Fort Myers after covering a state baseball championship game the night before.
I have a vivid imagination and have had it all my life. It is so vivid that I imagine myself to be six feet tall with brown wavy hair and sporting washboard abs. Others see a man whose hair has turned white, some of it turned loose, and who is sporting washtub abs. They just lack imagination!
We are only a few days away from Navarre High School Class of 2024’s graduation, a milestone in every teen’s life. It’s the first step toward adulting. Some will go to college, some will take on a trade, some will become executives. Some will stay home.
There are moments in your life where you know you’re crossing a significant milestone off of life’s journey.
Graduating high school is definitely one of those moments.
Sports seasons are complete and the only thing remaining for the senior athletes in the area is to walk across the stage and receive their high school diploma.
They’ve spent the last four years representing their schools on football fields, baseball fields, softball fields, basketball courts, tennis courts, volleyball courts and more.
I came to faith in Christ 40 years ago in a church in southeast Florida. The members of that small congregation embraced me as family, inviting me to their homes for dinners and cookouts. I marveled that such a loving group of people existed and even came to perceive them as being without fault. It wasn’t long before I realized that they, like me, though redeemed in Christ, were real human beings who had to deal with a sin nature.
