By MONTE DUTTON

The weather outside is lovely. The storm in the Gulf is headed the other way. West Texas, which used to be an unlikely locale, is flooded. For some reason, buildings have been collapsing and trains crashing.

God’s will, undoubtedly.

I spent some time at the local library making sure none of my books had been banned. So far, so good.

The Clinton High baseball team, champion of its world, is still being feted, fed, commemorated, lauded, celebrated and, quite possibly, bathed in honor and Gatorade. All of it is richly deserved. One day they’ll write a play entitled “That Championship Season.” Oh, wait. That was already done. I’ve seen the movie. It isn’t all hugs, kisses and sis-boom-bahs.

Most of us find our future entwined in the arms of fate / But we ain’t worried now ‘cause Clinton won the state.

Championships are catapults. They are launch pads for young men and women. They send the freshly educated off to the next level of life with belief and confidence. It doesn’t matter whether they play ball somewhere else or not. It doesn’t ultimately matter whether the championship occurred on a playing field, in a lab or on a stage. Clinton has put out some juggernauts in the great science Olympiads of the land. Laurens has built some fine marching bands, and Raiders are into robotics. Laurens Academy plays a mean volleyball and has been known to go hunting for skeets. The women of  Presbyterian College have been known to wrestle, not to mention tumble acrobatically. The school is so pleased a building is going up for nothing else.

One would almost think it doesn’t matter what you do. Just do something. One would be wrong. There’s a heap of things to do, and not all are things one would write Mother about.

Success builds confidence. Winning is as contagious as COVID and as addictive as cocaine. (Not that I would know, having never ridden that particular train.) Remember that rain makes corn, and corn makes whisky. Whisky makes my baby feel a little frisky. That’s from the gospel of Luke. Luke Bryan. Rain is a good thing, it’s true, but it’s complicated. Ask the folks in west Texas.

All you super boys and girls, keystone combos, gold-dust twins, fearsome foursomes and monsters of the midway … don’t forget to keep your chinstraps latched, your mouthpieces in, your fingers crossed and your toes on the line.

One way or another, pretty soon, you’ll be in charge of keeping the star shooting on your own. Even though there will still be assistance – coaches, profs, counselors, supervisors and many people who want to sell you something – nothing is going to prevent you from expanding your horizons or narrowing your fields of view.

Success taught you discipline, confidence and belief in yourself. Freedom can whisper in your ear that you’re a butterfly, or, it can become just another word for nothing left to lose. A championship does nothing bad at the time it’s won, but somebody’s going to get busted next weekend at the beach anyway.

Freedom cuts both ways. For the college bound, pretty soon you’re going to face a decision between hitting the books or the bars, learning Spanish or video-game tricks, chasing learning or love. My considered advice is from the noted philosopher Elvis Presley, who advised his fans to “live a little, love a little,” way back in the form of a 1968 movie.

Dean Martin had a hit with a song called “The Glory of Love”: You’ve got to laugh a little / Cry a little / Let the clouds roll by a little / That’s the story of / That’s the glory of love.

As usual, I like what Tom T. Hall had to say on the subject in the form of a song called “Everything from Jesus to Jack Daniel’s”:

There’s a man in Tennessee who’s got it figured out completely / I guess that he’s as happy as a thinking man can be / I asked him what he thought and he said, brother, let me tell you / Try a little bit of both and leave out everything in between.

When I was but a lad, men and women older than I gave me great advice that I nonetheless ignored. Some also gave me bad advice. I heard what I wanted to, and it is hard to try Jesus and Jack Daniel’s and leave out everything in between.

Give it your best shot. Learn from your mistakes. No problem can be solved by denying the mistakes that led up to it. It’s my wish that you be smarter than I was.

My new novel, The Latter Days, ties in nicely with the subject matter of this blog. Even a cruise ship goes through choppy waters. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is full of tough breaks and hard knocks, none of them on a diamond.