Summer is officially over!

The 2014 US College Football season has begun.

At precisely 7:00 PM Eastern Time on Thursday, August 27, the Abilene Christian Wildcats took the field against the Georgia State Panthers at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia in the first scheduled contest of the new college football season.

Gridiron mania and the race to the bowls are upon us.

In the US, a bowl is not a kitchen utensil. It is an invited end-of-season contest between two football teams who have prevailed through the season with a record and ranking that has earned them “bowl-eligible” status. And, for the final bowl of this season, two teams will compete and the winner will be crowned the National Champion of US College Football.

But, wait, the rules have changed.

Yes, there will be bowl games. In fact, there will be 39 bowl games. In total, 76 teams will be invited, more than ever before, in more bowls than ever before.

“Hold up, there!” you interrupt. “The numbers do not compute. 39 bowls, at two teams each, would require 78 teams to play those bowls. You only said 76. What’s going on here?”

Exactly, something new is going on here. This year, there will first be 76 teams in 38 bowl games. The last two of these 38 bowls will be the Semifinals of the new College Football Playoff (CFP). That’s right, the old Bowl Championship Series (BCS) selection system to determine the top college football teams is out. A new system is in. The CFP is in.

This new system is a Plus-One System, because a final bowl, the last and 39th bowl, has been added. This new add-on bowl is the new Championship Game. In this plus-one game, the two teams prevailing in the Semifinals will play each other — to the delight of clapping and jumping and cheering fans everywhere.

For the first time, college football has a playoff.

The top four selected teams in the country will play in the two semifinal bowl games, and the winners will play again for the National Title. This is the first time in the history of the bowls that two teams will play in two bowls. The old BCS adage “A bowl for each and each a bowl” is out. The College Football Playoff is in, two teams will play twice in two bowls, and the plus-one winner will be the uncontested National Champion.

Will wonders never cease? Apparently not. Condoleezza Rice, the former US Secretary of State, will serve as one of the 13 members of the new CFP Selection Committee. She joins a current athletic director from each of the five major US football conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC) and an assortment of other former coaches, players, administrators and a lone retired reporter. Quite the crowd.

The new Group of 13 will meet at the Gaylord Texas Hotel in Grapevine, Texas, 15.7 miles from where I sit typing. By secret ballot, the group will determine and release to the world their Top 25 College Football Teams of the week. The selection committee will do this for the final seven weeks of the sixteen-week season. The first of the seven CFP rankings will be released October 28, 2014.

The top four teams in the final CFP ranking on Sunday, December 7, 2014, will be the four teams going to the Semifinal Bowl Games. This year’s Semifinal Bowls will be the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, and the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, Louisiana. On a three-year cycle, the Semifinals will rotate from Rose/Sugar to Orange Bowl (Miami Gardens, Florida)/Cotton Bowl (Arlington, Texas) to Fiesta Bowl (Glendale, Arizona)/Peach Bowl (Atlanta, Georgia) and back again to Rose/Sugar for the next three-year cycle of semifinals.

Each year, these six top-tier bowls will be played on two consecutive days that include New Year’s Day. Together, the two semifinals (with teams ranked #’s 1-4) and the other four bowls (with teams ranked #’s 5-12, although the Selection Committee has some flexibility to choose lower-ranked teams for these bowls) will be presented to the world as the “New Year’s Six.”

On the first Monday that is six or more days after the Semifinals, the Championship Game, plus-one #39, will be held at a location selected based on bids submitted by cities. For this first College Football Playoff year, the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, 24.4 miles from where I sit typing, has been selected as the site of the Plus-One, It’s-Number-39, College Football Playoff Championship Game.

Wow. I can see why they chose Former Madam Secretary Rice for the Selection Committee. That is a lot of meeting, talking, discussing, thinking and secret balloting to get to Arlington and the final game.

Not to worry. The smart guys and gal in the back room will make their selections. Ours is the joy of watching the run and viewing the games. We are in Week #1 of 16 Weeks of Glorious College Football. My teams are playing this Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, as they will every week for the next sixteen. And, don’t forget to check the score for the Wildcats and the Panthers. It was the first of many and one more. . . .

What a joy to be through the sports doldrums of summer.

On to the stadiums and the fun.

Grandpa Jim

It is corn harvest time on Uncle Joe’s farm.

The combine is racing down the rows of dried stalks.

The grain trucks are piled full to overflowing with the golden kernels

Standing tall at 8-9 feet in height, Uncle Joe says, “It’s the best #2 corn you can get.”

#2 corn is intended for livestock feed and ethanol production. #1 corn is food grade and is used to make vegetable oils and other products consumed by humans. Where I grew up in heartlands of Iowa and where I live now near the farmlands of Texas, most corn is #2.

This year’s harvest of #2 corn is a record. Uncle Joe says the yields range from 120-170 bushels per acre. The corn is clean with a heavy test weight and free of contaminants. It is excellent corn.

As the grain buggy pulls away in the evening light, the golden amber of the standing stalks and cut stubble reflect the bounty of the harvest and the beauty of the land.

Never doubt that the life of the farmer is uncertain.

In the midst of a glorious corn harvest, the harsh realities of life intrude. Uncle Joe and the other farmers have the trucks to take their corn to the grain elevators, but the grain elevators cannot send the grain from the storage bins to market. There is a shortage of trucks to move the corn from the elevators. Uncle Joe is halfway through the corn harvest, but he has to wait and time his combining to the space available in the grain elevators.

Why? That is a good question and there are apparently a number of factors contributing to the holdup. The oil & gas industry is booming in these parts, which is wonderful, and trucks are needed to support the boom. The just-completed milo/sorghum harvest was outstanding, which is wonderful, but the trucks moving the milo to market are not yet available to turn and transport the corn. And, some corn buyers, for their own reasons, are not ready to take delivery of corn and are not sending trucks to pick up their grain.

As you can see below, the bright flashing combine with the corn head is ready and rearing to keep on cutting, but Uncle Joe has had to slow down the big green muncher machine to cut only enough corn to load two semi truck loads a day, the most the elevator can process from his farm.

To add trouble to tumult, corn prices are down. Why? That is another good question. Official reports are portraying a carry-over supply of corn from last year’s harvest. Administrative communications are also touting the forthcoming harvest in the Midwestern States, including my birth-state of Iowa, to be exceptionable. In other words, the published position is projected over-supply versus present demand, and, with this forecast, the classic supply and demand paradigm has driven corn prices down.

Never doubt the life of a farmer is uncertain.

When I talk with Uncle Joe, he is even and balanced in his answers and facts. There is not a hurry to his words. The worry is there, between the sentences, in the background, but not pushing forward. The doing is in the front of his talk and his actions. He is optimistic. The milo bins at the elevator are almost cleaned out, and that will open up space to combine and deliver more corn. And, there’s always plenty else to do and keep busy at around the farm. There’s never enough hours in a day.

As Uncle Joe puts the last of the equipment away, he stays and stands a moment to watch the sunset off across the fields before heading in — to supper, a short sleep and another early morning.

Never doubt the life of a farmer.

Grandpa Jim

Near the end of their time together, Paul McCartney of the Beatles wrote and sang “The Long and Winding Road.” On June 13, 1970, the song became the last number-one hit of the Boys from Liverpool. The ballad was also the last Beatles’ song while all four remained alive. In its way, the lyrics echo a plaintive plea for help and hope that resonates the sadness and joy of parting.

“The long and winding road that leads me to your door

“Will never disappear

“I’ve seen that road before, it always leads me here

“Leads me to your door

“Don’t leave me waiting here, lead me to your door

“Don’t keep me waiting here, lead me to your door”

We buried a D-Day survivor today. He was a hero, with three Bronze Stars and a number of Purple Hearts.

A year ago last summer, we buried another veteran of World War II. We buried my Dad.

It has been a long year, a long and winding road, a year of sadness, joy and hope in the future.

D-Day was The Day of the Allied Invasion of Europe. It was the last great effort and great risk to break the grip of the German Third Reich and free the peoples of the Continent. The Day, D-Day, was June 6, 1944.

It was a long day.

Many thousands of men fell and died that day.

I never knew my Dad crossed the English Channel on D-Day. Some weeks after his funeral, my sister said simply, “Did you know Dad landed in Europe on D-Day?” I didn’t. It must have shone on my face. My sister added, “He was one of only a few from his company who survived the day.” I didn’t know.

The hero we buried today was one of only a few of his company who survived D-Day and the days after that. I don’t think many at the funeral and standing beside the grave knew.

Our survivors didn’t talk much of that day. They said little, if anything, of the long hard days that followed and the biting cold of the coldest winter in European history. They did not mention the snow, ice and falling temperatures that sapped their strength and froze their bodies. In passing, my Dad commented briefly that the Battle of the Bulge had occurred in a frozen wasteland. The Battle of the Bulge, the battle that bulged back the allied lines, was Germany’s last great counter attack. It failed at great loss of life to both sides. The soldier we buried today said little more to his children and grandchildren.

It is the survivors’ way.

We buried the Sergeant on a quiet Texas hillside. A light wind cooled the mourners as we stood in the hot sun. Behind us, back near the old white church, ran the ridge road. The road was likely the old military highway that connected the early Calvary posts when the land was wild and Native Americans camped in their teepees near the stream below. White wild flowers bloomed on the slope. I like Texas that there always seem to be flowers at the right times and in the right places. This was a good place, on the high ground with the blue sky, a good place to rest and view the fields and trees stretching to the horizon.

My Dad was a Sergeant too. He is with my Mom, who was also a veteran. They lie together, side by side, beneath the crosses, row on row, in a far place north of here. In its manner, it is also a very pleasant place to see.

The two Sergeants, my Dad and the one today, never met, that I know of. Had they met while they lived, I am confident they would have recognized each other immediately. I know, with a certainty, they know each other now.

Their roads lead to the same door.

It is the heroes’ way.

Grandpa Jim

The skies are alive with . . . what?

It is the time of summer. Since my childhood, the skies of summer have been alive with reports of unidentified flying objects (UFO’s). As a kid, I thought it was a summer news phenomenon. School is out, sports are done, nothing much is happening, reporters are bored, people are bored. Staring off into the distance, people spy strange things in the sky, things they can’t identify, things that are flying. They see UFO’s and make reports. Newspaper columnists get the calls and write the articles, because there is nothing much else to report.

Maybe, I was wrong.

On June 24, 1947, Kenneth Arnold was flying his airplane toward Mount Rainier in the state of Washington. It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon. The skies were clear. Ken put the plane on auto, sat back and gazed out, enjoying the open panorama and the snow-covered peaks of the Cascade Mountains. A flash of light caught his attention. There were nine of them: bright objects, flying objects, in formation, like knots on the tail of a kite, moving from north to south, traveling fast, faster than any plane he knew to exist. The formation banked in unison. Mr. Arnold observed the objects were shaped like saucers, thin on the side and wide across the middle. In minutes, the group disappeared from his site. Ken continued on, landed and related the sighting his friends, who called their reporter friends, sitting at their desks, twiddling their thumbs, wondering what to write about in the middle of summer.

The next day the newspaper stories began. Somewhere in one of the reports, someone coined the phrase “flying saucer.” It was the first time the term was used. Before the year was out, 140 newspapers had reported 853 sightings of flying saucers.

The race was on.

It was fixin’ to be the 4^th of July, 1947, just a week or so past Ken Arnold’s sightings at Mount Rainier, W. W. “Mack” Brazel and his son were out early on the range, riding their horses to check that the livestock was safe after a fierce thunderstorm the night before. Their ranch was northwest of Roswell, New Mexico, and that storm the night before had produced a passel of lighting. The electricity of the storm had ignited the countryside. Who knew what damage it had done?

“What’s that shiny stuff on the ground, Paw?”

“Don’t know, Son. Looks like something got blown apart. Maybe that storm last night. There’s pieces everywhere.”

Father and son got off their horses and started to examine the debris.

“This is like tin foil, but I can’t bend it,” Dad Mack commented.

“Paw, look! This little beam is lighter than a feather, and its got colored writing on the sides. Not letters I know from school?”

“Saddle up, Son. We’ve got to get back and tell the authorities. Something crashed here in the storm last night. No telling what may be over that ridge. Probably need the military. This could be one of them flying saucers we read about in the paper.”

On July 8, 1947, the military issued a press release stating that the wreckage of a flying object had been recovered near Roswell, New Mexico. Within hours, The Associated Press reported: “The Army Air Force here today announced a flying disc had been found.” Within days, the site was sealed to visitors. No reporters were allowed to see or examine the remains from the crash.

Curiously, a local mortician related to the reporters that the military had requested some small sealed coffins to preserve bodies exposed to the weather.

Soon after, the military announced the results of its investigations. The objects found near Roswell were the crashed parts of a weather balloon, not a flying saucer or its occupants.

To this day, the military insists the Roswell crash was that of a weather balloon.

For the rest of 1947 and to this day, the reports of UFO’s and flying saucers have continued.

In a 1950 interview with journalist Edward R. Murrow, Kenneth Arnold reported sighting similar flying objects on three other occasions.

In the written report of his first sighting near Mount Rainier, Mr. Arnold added a hand-drawn picture of a saucer-like object. Above the picture in the text, Kenneth Arnold noted that the Army had chosen not to visit with him to investigate the authenticity of his story. Mr. Arnold added, “If our Military intelligence was not aware of what I observed, they would be the very first people that I could expect as visitors.”

Could it be that the unexpected visitors were somehow expected?

Sometimes, silence can speak more loudly than words.

Could UFO’s be more than a summer event?

Could it be that flying saucers exist?

Maybe, I was wrong.

Who knows?

Do you?

Grandpa Jim

Dreams happen at night.

In the dark, in our minds, something happens.

We see things we don’t understand, things we often don’t remember, things that wake us from sleep wondering what and why.

Joseph didn’t have the dream.

Pharaoh did, two of them.

Joseph of the many-colored coat had been sold by his jealous brothers into slavery in Egypt. In prison for something he did not do, things were not going well for Joseph. One night, Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, had a dream. Seven fat cows waded out of the Nile River, followed by seven scrawny cows. The scrawny cows devoured the fat ones. Pharaoh woke, fell back to sleep and had another dream. Seven fat ears of grain grew on a stalk, behind them sprouted seven shriveled ears. The shriveled ears swallowed up the fat ones. Pharaoh woke and sought answers, but none of the king’s counselors could explain the meaning of the dreams. Joseph could and was summoned from his prison to do just that, which he did. In each dream, the seven fat were seven years of bountiful harvests. The seven thin were seven years of severe famine. Pharaoh was being doubly forewarned to plan ahead to save his people. To do this, Pharaoh needed a wise man to manage the good years before the bad times arrived and took their toll. Pharaoh was wise and he saw the man for the job. He put Joseph in charge of everything, for the good of everyone.

Dreams can be shared for the good of others.

Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream. On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963, Mr. King shared his dream.

“I have a dream.

“I have a dream that all men are created equal.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

“I have a dream that one day little black boys and blacks girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

“I have a dream today. This is our hope. Let freedom ring.”

That is a wonderful dream, the dream of many, of many today in many parts of our world.

My granddaughters shared their dreams with me. I listened and we talked, and in their eyes I could see my listening and our talk was important to them.

Dreams are to be shared.

Children are meant to dream.

And we are all children.

It is that which we all share.

Joseph was different, very different.

Pharaoh did not look to the color of Joseph’s skin.

Pharaoh looked deeper, to the content of Joseph’s character.

I think Pharaoh saw the child in both their eyes, heard the voice of a fiery black preacher three thousand years in the future, laughed, removed the king’s signet ring of authority from his finger, handed it to Joseph, and reached down to take the hands of the young prince and princess beside the throne.

He had a dream.

Grandpa Jim