WHAT’S CAUSING ALL THIS? / By MITCH LUCAS | Sometimes, not everything is as it seems

Some things, you can just count on.

Some things, you can’t.

Filed under the “things you can count on” department: when you leave your kids alone for the first time, you’re leaving the neighborhood, and no matter how nice your neighborhood is, some guy that looks like he’s No. 3 on the FBI’s Most Wanted list is turning the corner and headed down your street.

Also in the “things you can count on” column: Want somebody to call? Get in the shower.

And when you have to run in a store to grab JUST ONE THING – who’s at the front of the line? Well, it’s the person doing their shopping for the week.

Here’s one: me, sticking my foot in my mouth at the worst possible moment.

I’ve done it forever. Like my whole life.

Some things you can just count on.

One of those things: mistakes. And misunderstandings.

I make a bunch of them. A BUNCH.

When I was in college at Alabama, I was briefly, VERY briefly, seeing a girl named Sandy. She was also a student at ‘Bama. I hadn’t heard from her in a couple of days, and I thought I’d go into the Winn Dixie where she was a checker, and see what was up.

I went in, saw her checking out an customer, and picked up a pack of gum (hey, big spender, I know). I got in line behind the lady, she finished up, and it was my turn.

“Hey,” I said, with a grin.

“Hey,” she said, and smiled back.

That was like, a nice smile, but kind of weird…?

“Hey, what’s going on?,” I said.

She acted like I had just asked her Social Security Number.

“Not much,” she said, and smiled. “Work. That’ll be” and she told me whatever the price of the gum was.

Ok, now I’m just kind of offended, and a little irritated.

I gave her the money for the gum.

“So, can we talk later? Or no? I mean, what’s the deal?”

She ripped the ticket off the register and handed it to me. “I guess we can! I don’t even know who you are!,” she said, and laughed.

I took the receipt, and stood there a minute. “What the heck are you talking about?”

She had another customer, so I told her I’d see her later, and she weirdly told me, ok, bye.

I got a call from “her” a couple of hours later, and found out the checker I had been talking to, wasn’t Sandy.

I was talking to her TWIN SISTER that she didn’t tell me about, that also worked at Winn Dixie as a checker.

Not everything is always as it seems. Huh, Mitch?

Now, this next one really wasn’t a mistake, so much as it was maybe speaking out when I might could have had more tact.

Twenty-two years ago, I took the position that a lot of you remember me for, as the sports editor of the Kilgore News Herald.

Before then, I didn’t even know where Kilgore, Texas was. I’m glad I do now. It’s been a lot of fun. I’m still here, swinging the bat. I hit a double ever so often, and I can leg ‘em out.

So on my very first day, I meet the publisher of the News Herald back then, and for many years after that, the head of Bluebonnet Publishing, a gentleman (emphasis on “gentleman”) named Bill Woodall.

Bill welcomes me into his office, asks me to sit, and after several quick questions, he asks me, “So, where do you see the newspaper business in 20 years?”

I don’t want to answer that.

And I tell him so.

“I don’t know that you want my answer,” I told him, as soft-spoken as I could. He told me to give it to him, anyway.

“You won’t be holding one,” I said.

He grinned. “You’re right,” he said. “I don’t like it.”

I told him I thought most everyone would be reading papers online, that the newspaper industry would move largely to the web.

Chalk one up for Mitch. I do miss it the way it was. But things have changed so much.

At any rate, Bill would become a close friend of mine; I still call him a close friend today, after he has sold the paper, and retired, and I’m obviously no longer there.

It was pretty bold – or stupid – to tell the man who just hired me that the business he loved would be 180 degrees different in 2022.

Not everything is always as it seems.

You know who else may have made mistakes?

The folks who vote in the Dave Campbell’s Texas Football poll.

We’ll know more this weekend. And any team can lose. I mean, Joe Montana lost games. Not many, not many. But he lost.

So does Carthage.

But I’m not sure that Carthage should still be number one after losing to Kilgore two weeks ago – and not having played a game since then.

On top of that: other schools that were at the top of other rankings in the Dave Cambell’s polls have lost. They have fallen.

What’s the quote from Orwell’s “Animal Farm?” “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Carthage visits Liberty-Eylau on Friday night. Now, I’m by NO means suggesting L-E is going to pull that off. But I watched the Leopards last week against Henderson. The defense? They’ll give up some plays to Carthage. But L-E’s offense? They’re going to make some plays.

I’m taking a long road to say Carthage probably should not have been ranked No. 1 in the 4A-DII poll. And Kilgore probably should have been ranked HIGHER than fifth in the 4A-DI poll.

And there are probably others that need to be reshuffled.

There are some come-to-Jesus meetings this weekend, so to speak, on the football field: Kilgore at Gilmer, Carthage at L-E, Chapel Hill vs. Whitehouse in a rivalry game, and so on. And they’re going on throughout the Dave Campbell’s rankings. We will know a LOT more on Saturday morning.

Will it be open mouth, insert foot for the poll folks?

One way or another, remember: not everything is always as it seems.