I did not expect to have time to do an article this week and probably will not have time next week. But the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day observance saw school dismissed on Monday, January 19th so I had more time available this week for that purpose than I had expected.

Following Tuesday night's game with Kentucky, our local Cat fans were ecstatic but a lot of us die hard Big Orange fans were very down. But take heart Vol fans! As I have written before, Tennessee does not have a senior in eligibility and in addition to the three juniors (one plays very little), the team is basically sophomores and freshmen. And the experience that they are gaining in playing a "murders row" schedule of top ranked teams in the country - although painful to us this year in the losses and the margin of the scores - will pay off greatly next season. Although we will probably not even qualify for the NCAA tournament this year, if none of the present players leave school early for some reason and if all remain academically eligible, the team should be greatly improved in 2004-2005.

(A writer from one of the national publications who specializes in basketball coverage was on one of the local talk shows the day after the Kentucky game. He is very familiar with Tennessee basketball including the players that we have now and those that are expected to join the team next year and he was very glowing in what he thinks will happen with our program in the future. In fact he predicted a berth in the "sweet sixteen" for the Vols next year. And if everything comes together including both the talent and team chemistry, he thinks they could finish even higher in the NCAA tournament. But of course all of that remains to be seen.)

Coach Buzz Peterson is highly complimentary of the skills of Andre Patterson, transfer from UCLA who must sit out competition this season due to the transfer rule although he practices with the team. From all reports, he is going to be another very valuable addition to the squad as are Scooter McFagdon and Jemere Hendrix who sat out last year. And some who follow the team closely say that Jordan Howell who hit an incredible forty-seven percent (47%) of his three point shots in high school and who is also "redshirting" this season, is "shooting the lights out" in practice. In fact Peterson stated recently that he had been so impressed with Howell's outside shooting that he had been tempted to go ahead and play him but decided he would benefit more with an extra year to get stronger and improve defensively. As stated above, if none leave school early and if all remain academically eligible we should be highly competitive in the Southeastern Conference in future years.

And if signee Jackie Butler, the 6-11 former high school all-American whose play according to all accounts has really been outstanding in the strong prep school leagues, has his academics in order and does not opt for the NBA instead of attending UT, we may be found in the ranks of the top college basketball teams anywhere in the nation next year. In spite of our constant up and down play due to the youth of our current players, the future of Tennessee basketball looks brighter right now to some of us than it has since the days of Coach Ray Mears and the "Ernie and Bernie Show" which only us old timers can recall. (And at least it gives us hope for the future.)

I have written many times about what a tremendous asset Indian Mountain State Park is to our town and our area. After Jerome Cummins was named to the position of Park Manager, he announced that he had several ideas to further improve the facilities there. And he is already accomplishing several of those improvements. Repaving has been done to the roads and parking areas, landscaping to include the addition of trees has been accomplished and the staff is in the process of moving the paddle boat dock from behind the park office where it is virtually hidden from visitors. It is now being relocated to the lake near the camper pads where it will be in plain sight of visitors and especially to campers..

Two camper pads have been removed and the cleared area is being converted into an additional parking lot. A board walk is to be constructed reaching from the parking area to the new boat dock which should really present an interesting change..

Additionally the bath house is undergoing a complete renovation inside and outside to make it fully handicapped accessible as well as improving its appearance. The park in recent weeks has added a park ranger to the staff and a nice office will be created for her in that building as well. A more modernized registration procedure will be instituted for camping and boating and the present administration and registration office will now be utilized for administrative purposes only. Two more playgrounds are to be developed and equipped and trees will be planted around the newly created play area to provide shade in the future.

Cummins is doing a great job and all of us who love the park appreciate his ideas and efforts along with those of all of the members of his staff.

The city council has become concerned about a possible shortfall in the amount of revenue that we will have coming into the city's coffers this year and members acted at the last meeting to limit expenditures and the hiring of any personnel. We all realized when we prepared the 2003-2004 budget that the cuts in state funds, reductions in other sources of revenue due to the slowed economy at that time, unforeseen emergency expenditures, etc. might well place us in a bad situation. And that apparently is happening.

We do have reserve or "rainy day" funds but members of council have expressed a strong reluctance to tap those funds except in case of clearly "have to" situations. And what makes the problem even more complex is the fact that effective July 1st, governmental entities must submit totally balanced budgets to the Office of the Comptroller and can no longer even consider any funds that may be in reserve. We have our job cut out for us as we start budget workshops for closing out this year and preparing for next year.

We often hear the cliché that "timing is everything" and there is a lot of truth to that statement. And I would venture to say that our former United States Senator from Tennessee, Vice-President and Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore would agree. During the recent record setting and life threatening cold in the northeastern part of the country when temperatures hovered around 0 degrees and wind chill factors were reported in some areas as low as 40 and even 50 degrees below 0, Gore made an apparently previously scheduled speech in New York during the most severe cold.. That speech sure raised a lot of eyebrows at the time. Topic of his address? The Threat From Global Warming!

I don't want to pick on Democrats because my father idolized Franklin D. Roosevelt and he would not tolerate me doing so for one minute if he were still around. But a funny story that I have always heard and repeated many times that is actually true, dealt with a man in Colorado in the late 1870's or early 1880's when it was still a territory prior to being granted statehood. Reportedly only white males could vote in the territory and then only if they owned property and paid taxes. The franchise was denied to non-property owning white males, females, Afro-Americans, Hispanics, etc.. The actual electorate pool was extremely small and that was especially true in Hinsdale County.

The judge serving that county had gone west following the close of the Civil War and was a fire brand Democrat and a hater of both Republicans in general and Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, and U. S. Grant in particular. But somehow he had been able to get himself elected or appointed as a judge in the territory and heard criminal cases.

Another man, Alfred Packer and five other local residents went hunting late one fall and did not return all winter long. In the spring, Packer emerged from a gulch alone. A search for the other five men revealed that they were all dead and apparently had been killed and cannibalized by Packer. (That particular area became known as "dead man's gulch" and has been shown in countless western movies and mentioned in books down through the years.)

Packer was charged with cannibalism (possibly the only individual in our country's history charged solely with that offense), tried and convicted. After the jury returned a verdict of guilty, the understandably extremely irritated judge of the Democrat persuasion sentenced Packer with a vengeance stating , "There weren't but seven Democrats in this county - and you done ate five of them". Knowing that his chances of ever being re-elected or re-appointed to the position were ruined since Packer had eaten up most of his voters, the angry judge in his strongest southern dialect ordered Packer to "Stand up you man-eating (expletive) and receive yore sintince. I sintince you to hang until you are dead, dead, dead as a warnin' agin the further diminishin' of the Dimmycrat populashun of this county".

But before the death sentence could be carried out, Packer escaped and remained free for several years. He was eventually recaptured, retried and convicted once again. But that time he was sentenced to prison. Released from prison in 1905, he reportedly had become an avowed vegetarian and remained so for the rest of his life.

Whether or not Packer was really guilty was debated down through the years. And only ten years or so ago, forensic students on one campus of the University of Texas system (UT at Waco I believe) received permission to exhume the bodies of Packer's alleged victims to see if he had actually committed such a heinous act. After careful study of the remains, they determined that he was indeed guilty of killing and eating all of those "Dimmycrats" and destroying that judge's future on the bench.

(During all of the campus unrest and protests in the 1960's, some students at Colorado State University insisted that one of the cafeterias on that campus be named the "Alfred Packer Memorial Cafeteria". In a resolution presented to university officials in making their demand, the students cited the fact that the food served in that particular cafeteria "best exemplifies the same standards of excellence that were always demanded by Mr. Packer". And believe it or not, the Colorado tourism site on the Internet lists numerous books about that state's history including one entitled "Alfred Packer's Wilderness Cookbook".)

One of my Democrat friends in Whitley County remarked to me recently -after hearing the above story - that the Democrat candidates for president must have taken a cue from Packer since according to him, they have been "butchering" each other while electioneering for the various state primaries.

All of the above just gives me an opening to announce the fact that one of our area citizens, local businessman Jerry Sharp, plans to run for the Tennessee State Senate in the upcoming elections.

I seriously doubt that what happened to those Colorado Democrats had any influence upon Jerry's decision, but he plans to qualify as a Republican candidate. However he is quick to point out that he has as many friends among Democrats as he does among Republicans and he welcomes the support of everyone regardless of party affiliation. And he states that he has already received the endorsement of several influential Democrats as well as Republicans in areas located throughout the senatorial district. (Jerry was scheduled to make his official announcement the weekend after these notes were prepared.)

It's always good to have local representation on the state level and if elected, Jerry will be the second Newcomb resident to serve in the Tennessee state senate. Earl Sharp after moving to Knoxville several years ago, also served in the state senate as one of that city's legislators. And another of our former area residents, J. Allen Kemplen who was born in Jellico, serves as a member of the Alaska state legislature.

(And we reportedly had another former resident in the Kansas state legislature a few years ago.)