It’s surely a safe bet that most all of you might be just about as weary of the Christmas Holiday season as we are around the Harkey House. It seemed like a fairly long weekend, what with all the visiting, food, gifts, and a few football games. Well, be advised that we might all be fore-warned that it’s not over as of yet. That being said, we still realize that I didn’t have enough time nor material to pen the "Column" last week. The afore-mentioned statement still stands, but now we’ve gotten through another long holiday weekend, adorned with a bit less celebration, not quite the overage of eats, but with about as many football games. Speaking of football, we’re surely not beyond all that by a long shot. Most of the guys enjoy it fairly well this time of year for several reasons. The weather precludes most other outdoor sporting activities such as some hunting, fishing for sure, and tennis; however, some of the more dedicated golfers dude up in their Paine Stewart garb & tough it out. I seem to recall a few folks that sort of regard most golfers with somewhat of a wary eye, anyhow. As far as some of the more recent games, R.T. Miller & I agree that the Aggies actually won the Independence Bowl up in Shreveport, but the Georgia Bulldogs did severely outscore the Ags. Fact of the matter is that I happen to owe my ol’ Georgia buddy, Joe Griffin a 6 pack of soda pop. Cousin John Scott Harkey & wife Terry went to the Bowl Game and said though there were a lot more Aggies in the crowd than Georgia fans, The Aggies were hightailing it out of the stadium quite a bit before the end of the game. I’d guess there might be a lot of "two-percenters" down at College Station now-days. I was proud of the TCU Horn Frogs, even though they did keep me up fairly late Monday evening. Though they played their tails off, it was the Boise Broncos’ time to win. Son, Will was scheduled to fly out to L.A. for the National Champ BCS game on Thurs., with the Crimson Tide and the Longhorns. He is supposed to meet up with several of his ol’ classmates & surely there will be enough Orange in the Rose Bowl to give Texas an even chance with the ‘Bama boys. Then if that’s not enough on your football platter, we get to try and pull the Cowboys through another encounter with the Eagles of Philly. In between all that, Shaw & I have to make time to try & harvest some late season Venison and see what lane the Whitewings are using on their evening trek to town. If this predicted Arctic front meets expected predictions, my deer stand might well be the pickup with the heater running and the Doves can make it into the trees of town unimpeded.

Lady Z & I were pretty quiet on our New Year’s celebration as she was fairly well under the weather for a few days during the holiday weekend. Son, Will was in so he & I stepped out on the back porch at Daddy’s right at midnight and fired off a couple of "cracker" shells from our ol’ trusty single shotguns. I’m also pretty sure that a lot of folks have already given you plenty of New Year greetings, but the Mayor & yrs. truly will be doing our darndest to help it work out that way out around——Harkeyville!!!!!!!!!!