We don't often miss Taylor's school assemblies, but work has prevented both parents of this household from attending two in a row now. At the October assembly he received his monthly citizenship award, as well as the school fitness award for at least the second year running, surpassing every other urchin in his school. And at the November assembly (in addition to another citizenship award), he received awards from the state for advanced performance in the state science and math assessments (taken last spring during fourth grade), as well as a "Terrific Kid" award from one of the local Kiwanis clubs. Strangely, this award did not come with a lifetime pass to Kiwanis pancake feeds for the father of the honoree.

A neighbor and fellow parent at the school commented to us that it must be a bit discouraging to the other kids to see him raking in so much attention month after month. Rather than suggest that this might be a parent's problem and not a kid's problem, the other parental unit of this household wisely mumbled something about all our kids having been recognized differently (as are this neighbor's kids), and that Taylor has simply hit his stride and is having some very fine moments.

Two Football Leftovers:

1. I've watched Tennessee play only a few times this year, and even though I know nothing about him but what I've seen on television, I've been impressed by the way the coach of the Volunteers, Phil Fulmer, stands out from so many other college coaches. He never exhibits the GQ behavior and seldom exhibits the Type-A behaviors seen in so many other coaches. Fulmer looks like a social studies teacher in a body built on canned peaches and honey buns who has ended his teaching day and can now enjoy his first love � coaching kids on the football field in the late afternoon sun of a fall day � before heading home, where he'll tinker with the old Corvair his wife wants out of the driveway by this weekend or else. He appears to like his players and to enjoy their play, even when they're blowing their chance for the Rose Bowl in an upset loss to LSU. He gives the impression that he is not only the players' coach, but their biggest fan, and I enjoy seeing that.

2. During the Thanksgiving weekend I gorged myself on college football, including an evening game from the West Coast that was called by Keith Jackson. Hearing him reminded me just how much I'll miss his voice and his take on the game when he retires. (He has already eschewed cross-country travel and limits himself to broadcasting from the Pacific time zone.)

Earlier the same day, I had watched a nationally televised game that was called by another sportscaster, a national network celebrity who often gets the call wrong and then allows his mean-spirited commentary to overlap the call of the next play. Jackson gets the call right, and before the next play begins, he still has time to describe the moon.

In his Thanksgiving column, Joe Posnanski, a sportswriter for the Kansas City Star, published a list of things he was thankful for. Among those things was a neighborhood in Kansas City (he guessed it was 67th Street off Ward Parkway) where all the residents decorated the streetside trees for several blocks.

After a dinner at Arthur Bryant's barbecue place (also mentioned in the Posnanski column) in Kansas City a week after Thanksgiving, I drove through the Country Club Plaza to see the lights there, and from the Plaza I went on to see the lights which Posnanski had mentioned might be around 67th Street.

I continued southwest from the Plaza on Ward Parkway and found that Posnanski's guess was only a few blocks off. Turn left (east) off Ward Parkway at either West 69th Terrace or Romany Road to see how the residents of this neighborhood of gingerbread homes have lit up the elms along the verge between street and sidewalk. Add snow and you'd have some fairyland stuff here.

This weekend Owen spent Saturday night at a lock-in at the Lutheran church, the guest of his buddy Smiley (named for his congenital guileless grin) and he chose not to join Taylor and me in some afternoon excursions to local rivers and lakes Saturday and Sunday.

On Saturday, Taylor and I hiked around the Pfeil Creek area downstream from the outlet tubes at Tuttle Creek Reservoir, and later we visited the River Pond area. On Sunday, we ventured farther downstream to Rocky Ford and found that what had once been a favorite peninsula is now an island. The river has finally wiped out the isthmus that connected the riverbank to a sandbar, a sandbar so big and venerable that it was forested with sixty-foot cottonwoods. Only three cottonwoods remain there now, and the sandbar is no longer accessible by foot. The rocks do remain, however, and Taylor and I did our part to rebuild the isthmus by skipping stones from the bank to the island.

When Taylor and I returned home, we went with the others to the Optimist Christmas tree lot. The tree now stands fragrant in the house, but we'll wait until Josh returns from Virginia on Friday to decorate it.

Enough for now. I didn't mean to carry on so.

Reading: Steeling myself to reread The Plague after having finished reading A Prayer for the Dying (Stewart O'Nan)

Watching: Presumed Innocent and The Natural