Faith, Folklore, and Friends

Ball games were a little different during Mayan times, but I'm sure they were just as exciting as they are today. Chichen Itza has a huge ball court, and history tells us that players came many miles to compete.  It was a game similar to soccer. The teams didn't have a regular season, but played when the stars and planets were in the proper positions. The object of the game was to get the ball through these rings in the wall.  The ball was made from the fruit of Manilkara chicle , the same source of our Chiclets chewing gum. Here's where it gets a little crazy.  The captain of the winning team, because he had proven he was the best in the land, was promptly sacrificed to their gods.  The carvings in the photo above tells the story of these sacrifices.  Wonder if many of them lost the game on purpose? Below, another snake guards the stadium carvings. And we think football is too rough.

Don't forget to remember. Play Have a safe Memorial Day.

It was late September, 2001, and we were bombarded with fear and disbelief and images of burning buildings falling to the ground. He was sitting there, watching it again, when the phone rang. The doctor, with a voice that indicated he had done this many times before, told him that the stomach ache he had been experiencing was actually fourth stage colon cancer that had metastasized to his liver. The doctor instructed my little brother to find an oncologist and set up a course of treatment. The doctor told him that there was little possibility for long-term survival. He was living in Tennessee, alone, having been recently divorced. There were relatives that lived nearly, but no one able to care for him, no one to help with the chemotherapy schedule or the meds or to talk to when it all became overwhelming. My sister, BG, is possibly the only living human who dreads cold weather worse than I do. She lived in North Alabama until she was financially able to move to Florida. In Se...