May Madness

I'm sure that the NCAA or CBS or somebody has a copyright on the words "March Madness" but I'm thinking about getting one for "May Madness" because it always seems to be the best description of our Mays.  The fifth month of the year is a big one around town because of Memphis in May -- that annually sodden welcome to Spring in the mid-South -- but apart from a trip down to the World Championship of Barbecue by Josh, we don't much participate in the other aspects of the festival anymore.  Still, we always manage to fill every hour of the month with various outdoor activities.  Gotta get it in before the heat of the summer forces us back into the cool embrace of the air conditioner.

In addition to our normal May activities, this year Walt and I decided to throw in a quick trip to South Carolina to crash Gram and DeeDaddy's beach vacation.  Our trip there included an unscheduled night (sans luggage) in Charlotte, NC, after we missed our connecting flight to Hilton Head.  Good times.  But hey, if it hadn't, we might not have this cool picture of Walt with the Jeff Gordon car that was parked in the airport.  Totally worth it.  Ahem.

Once we got to the beach, I was an absolute slacker with the camera -- maybe Gram or Aunt Mimi will email me some of their good ones -- but here's at least one.  It was seriously windy on the beach that day.  So much so that we ended up spending the rest of the day at the pool.  But not before Walt and Collier got in some sand time.

We followed up the beach trip with a stop in Macon, GA, to attend the wedding of my first cousin John Sawyer to his lovely bride, Amy.  The theme of this trip was my extreme neglect of my camera, so I have no pictures of any wedding event, but rest assured that we had a terrific time.  The highlight of the weekend was the rehearsal dinner (a low country shrimp boil -- one of my all-time favorite meals) where John and his band, The Deacons of Disaster, rocked the house.  John is a Presbyterian minister, a job to which I know he was called and is very good at, but this guy totally could have been a professional singer.  What's the age limit for American Idol again?

Back in Memphis this week, Walt had his final week of school for the spring semester, which is always finished up by the Spring Program -- a musical production in a slightly different vein from that of The Deacons.  Mainly it involves the teachers and a few of the kids who aren't too star-struck by all the parents' flashing cameras singing selections like "Waltzing Matilda" and "Have a Happy St. Patrick's Day" (in May).  Typically, Walt was on the back row of the risers behind a kid taller than him, so I've got no decent pictures of the actual performance, but I did manage to snap a few at the festival that followed.  'Cause nothing says festival like farm animals in a rolling cage in Midtown.

 

 

As if singing and pony-riding weren't enough for one day, Walt also had his swim lesson "graduation" that afternoon.  Parents and grandparents were treated to outstanding displays of athleticism, such as jumping through a hoop into the pool, holding on to a bar and kicking around in circles, and for the finale, jumping off the side and swimming to the teacher!  It's going to be a whole new ballgame at the Rhodes pool this summer.

 

 

 

Look out, Michael Phelps.