Interesing beginning to the new year

Published 11:19 pm Saturday, January 1, 2011

I’m not sure if I have ever found reason to quote Forest Gump in any column throughout the years. That’s not to say the movie and book do not provide dozens upon dozens of quotable quotes, they do. But I’ve never interviewed a Lt. Dan nor covered a story aboard a shrimping boat.

But I will gladly compare the job I do each and every day working in community newspapers to Gump’s box of chocolates; “you never know what you’re going to get.”

We work to plan out each edition of the Times-Journal a few days ahead. We know what events are scheduled and the build our plans around them.

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Then, like every well laid out plan, it is often shattered to pieces by a piece of late-breaking news, accident or announcement.

Then there are the days where you know exactly what to expect from the day, only to be pleasantly surprised by the people you meet and the stories they tell.

My plans for Saturday, a day I thought I had perfectly planned around my couch, my remote and 93 hours of college football was slightly shaken when I received a call from the nurses in the nursery ward at Vaughan Regional Medical Center shortly after 9 a.m., letting me know the first baby of the year in Selma was born.

Just before noon, I headed up and met La’Quinsha Smith and her new baby daughter, Ja’Nhiya Elise. They were tremendous people and little Ja’Nhiya has a birthday no one will ever be able to forget.

I then ended my day with a plate of black eyed peas with Kathryn Tucker Windham. To sit around and talk with someone as iconic as she is, made the peas a little better, the cornbread a little sweeter and the coffee a little tastier.

I had the chance to speak Windham, now 92, oh so briefly about the tradition she has kept and a little bit about Auburn’s upcoming national championship game. To that last point, we agreed to disagree.

Saturday proved the best-made plans are often disrupted and often for the better.

If Saturday — New Year’s Day — is any indication, 2011 ought to be an interesting year and a year I’m not sure what I’m going to get.