Reflections On The Column

It is a great privilege to write in this space each week.

Beginning in May of 2016, the editors welcomed my submissions and since then they have published more than 120 installments of this column.

I’m extremely grateful to them for that, and I am very grateful to you for reading each week.

If you have followed along regularly, you know that we have examined history, sports, education, nostalgia, small town values, and matters of faith.

At this time, I have other writing endeavors and other obligations, and that means I cannot continue to provide a column in the newspaper each week.

The editors are very gracious and flexible, and have indicated they would welcome some columns from me in the future, even if it isn’t every week.

In the coming weeks we hope to collaborate so that we can commemorate the 100th birthday of Billy Graham, which is coming up in November, and also do something to reflect upon the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, which is also coming in November.

Any submissions after that would be much like those you have seen before, dealing with a number of different topics.

For instance, it is now the 70th anniversary of the toy known as electric football. I was not aware that the game had been around that long, but it has. It was in use before I came along, and it was something that both of my sons enjoyed growing up.

It’s a game that has literally been enjoyed by two or three generations.

If you aren’t familiar with electric football, and how both young and old have enjoyed it for decades, and how a person can collect any number of professional teams to use in the game, then it would probably be a good topic to explore in a column such as this.

Another possible topic would be a look back about 50 years ago in the world of sports.

On Oct. 19, 1968, the Razorbacks went to Austin, Texas, to battle the Longhorns in football, but came up short in a 39-29 decision.

Arkansas traditionally had trouble defeating Texas, and the 1968 game was no exception. The Hogs took an early lead, but then fell behind when everything went the Longhorns’ way.

Arkansas Gazette sports editor Orville Henry described how the game got away from the Razorbacks, writing, “…the Steers then ran off 36 straight points over a period of 19 minutes in the middle periods.”

Arkansas, however, rallied in the closing quarter to make the final score more respectable.

And still another topic could be the insights in books by pastor and author Ken Boa of Atlanta. You might like his book Rewriting Your Broken Story or the one entitled Life in the Presence of God.

In the latter, Boa wrote that it is important to always strive to make progress in life and in one’s faith.

“We’re never supposed to plateau, spiritually,” he wrote, “never retire from growth and learning, even in old age.”

I’ll miss this weekly experience, but I will still be engaged in various writing projects, including articles on my website at DWilsonNotes.com.

Having said that, however, I remain a big fan of community newspapers, especially the paper versions that you can fold up.

Some say the paper format of newspapers is going away, but I certainly hope not. I still prefer reading those the old-fashioned way, sitting in my recliner.

In my heart I will always be a respecter of journalistic endeavors, and I’ll always be a teacher and a writer.

And I’ll always be an Arkansan.

Those things tend to come out in my writing, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.

Thanks for reading.