Football, life and farming

How 'bout them Hogs?! Isn't it great to end the year with a huge bowl win over Texas?! The football Razorbacks have a winning record this year for a change, 7-6, and everything is looking up for the future!

Sometimes I am amazed at the impact on people's general outlook on life which comes from the current fortunes of their football teams. It often seems that our self-image as Arkansawyers depends a lot on how things are going with our football Razorbacks. And, for some communities, the football influence on their outlook is not drawn just from university sports, but from their local high school football teams, as well.

Several years ago, through the 1970s and 1980s, my family lived in Alma, then Atkins, Searcy, and Berryville, Ark., while I was pastor of churches in those communities. All these were and are big football communities accustomed to winning traditions. For years, the Alma Airedales have had a great rivalry with the Van Buren Pointers, and, of course, if the Airedales win the latest football outing with Van Buren they bask in the glory of their victory in the grandest of ways, and life is all bright and wonderful. When we moved from Alma to Atkins in 1976, Atkins Red Devil football had had grand successes in the early 1970s with Donnie Bobo and other star players, but Bobo was off to the U of A, and the Red Devils were into a "rebuilding year" as we say. Then when Bobo messed up as a Razorback and had to leave the university, the whole mood around Atkins seemed full of gloom and pessimism.

The situation was not too different when we moved to Berryville in 1985; things were not going well with the local football team, and the general community mood was bleak and doleful. Several years ago our state newspaper was carrying a cartoon titled "Tank McNamara." It was a football-oriented strip, with every now and then a bit of wit and wisdom. In one strip that I recall, two fans were discussing the football outlook, and one commented, philosophically, "Well, after all, football isn't the meaning of life." To which, after a stunned silence, the other responded, "It isn't?!"

So, our Razorbacks have been able to end the year on a high note, and by all indications can look forward to a better year ahead. Interestingly, both the Longhorns and the Razorbacks have been in the doldrums, both have promising new coaches, good players in many positions, some strengths to build on, both are progressing, and both still have a ways to go.

Isn't it interesting that when our year ends on an encouraging note, we tend to go into the new year with a positive outlook prevailing? Whether we are talking football, or farming, or life in general, if we can end a year with a sense of things looking up, we seem to spring into the new year with a fresh vigor, with expectations of better things ahead, and with an optimism that sees the possibilities more than the obstacles in the path ahead. I've seen some years when we had to search for awhile before spying that encouraging note, but it is still a spark to our expectations once it is found.

I have always thought it interesting that in the old Jewish calendar, the end of the year followed the season of harvest, so it was celebrated as a time of thanksgiving and of appreciation for the blessings of divine providence. Our modern Gregorian calendar is a bit off from that pattern, but the end of the old year and the beginning of the new still falls in the season between the harvest time and the beginning of the new growing season. New Year's celebrations let us put a measure on the old year, and allow us cap off the old season and turn toward the opportunities of the future with a fresh perspective and a hopeful outlook.

Capping off the old year always carries a certain sense of sealing off the "downers" from the old year. I have always felt that the cycles of farm life encouraged a positive way of doing that, since each new growing season calls for a fresh start, preparation, planting, cultivating and anticipating a harvest to come. Regrettably, this is not the case with many New Year's parties, especially if their focus is on a drink-induced temporary hilarity and illusory feelings which contribute nothing to starting the New Year on a higher note. Whether in football, farming, ministry, business or life in general, I'm all for that starting the New Year on a higher note.

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Editor's note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.

Editorial on 01/07/2015