My weekly treat

I like to begin Sunday mornings with an orange juice or some form of caffeine, Charles Osgood's velvet voice on the television, and read the paper.

The highlight of it, the one piece of work I savor, is Rheta Grimsley Johnson's syndicated column.

Which is funny because for years her political views drove me nuts. Seems like I wrote a letter to the editor of the News Sentinel years ago asking why they didn't run her on the editorial page. But, time and philosophical evolution give you a different perspective.

Besides, even when she caused my blood pressure to skyrocket, I knew Rheta could write.

A friend told me a story once, about taking her to an Olympic games as part of a national wire service's coverage team. And how adept she was at hunting down a story.

Rheta now leads one of those charmed lives about which a writer dreams, saying what she wants, for one column a week, from her base of operations way down South. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. Rheta has a new book about falling in love with Louisiana. It is on its way to the Halls Branch Library in my name. I will tell you about it sometime.

Meanwhile, the rest of us lose ourselves in the minutiae of life, seek beauty where we can find it, toil at our vocation the best we can, do whatever it takes to make it through the wee small hours.

Me? Well, I laugh a lot, forget about the screams by cranking up the music, love and despise everything about small-town life, and curse the school board three times a month for keeping me from watching a good black-and-white movie on Turner Classics. (Just kiddin'. I love you guys. You're my free entertainment for the month.)

And, after waking up on Sunday mornings, I drink my coffee, halfway listen to CBS, read a crafter at the top of her game, and dream of what could be, and what might have been.