Weekend at Lew's

I want to thank everyone for the prayers for my dad. He's making slow improvement, and is in for a long recovery from his heart surgery, but so far, so good. I'll be getting frequent updates, and splitting my time between home and the hospital. My dad's one of the good guys. We need him on this Earth as long as possible, because it's a better place as long as he's here.


Bridget and I joined the NBA scouts Saturday night in Martin, TN to watch Tennessee-Martin standout Lester Hudson as the hometown Skyhawks played Eastern Illinois. I don't know a lot about what to look for in an NBA prospect. I only saw a few play, most notably Popeye Jones at Dresden High School, and later at Murray State, and then Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway, who I first saw as a sophomore in high school. Hardaway could have played in the NBA then! Popeye had talent but needed to work on some things. To his credit, he was an incredibly hard worker and he did. He fashioned a very respectable NBA career! I should mention too, that Popeye was a joy to cover in college and in high school. He was just a good kid and that kind who is easy to root for.

It's easy to see Hudson is a cut above the others players on the floor. This night, he scored 29. Currently, he's the nation's second leading scorer, behind only Davidson's Stephen Curry, but he's the only player who has scored at least 20 ponts in every game this season. He's scored a lot in the "second tier" Ohio Valley Conference, but he's also lit up the big name colleges who he's played against. He's also the only player to ever have scored a quadruple double. At UT-Martin, Hudson is not the team's only option, but when they need him, he turns it up a notch and really can take over a game. He's the real deal. He has an interesting back-story. In the second half of the game against Eastern Illinois, the Skyhawks needed him, and he took over. I don't know if he'll be an NBA star, but he's a joy to watch.

I got 2 of my old guitars down off the wall so I could dust them. The ones I had signed by people I admire. I'm not big on celebrities and most of the ones I admire you've probably never heard of. Some of them, you might have: Bill Monroe, Porter Wagoner, Kim Wilson, Scotty Moore, Sheryl Crow, Candye Kane, Snooky Pryor and more. Also some regional heroes of mine like Wes Henley and Terry Mike. How many autographs can you find?

The Super Bowl is next weekend. My heart says the Cardinals because it's so easy to root for Kurt Warner, but my head says the Steelers because their defense is that good. I've already started planning my Super Bowl Menu: MY hot wings, brats, etc, etc, etc. Diet be damned!