Marvin’s M, “There’s no place like home.” I just returned to Sabetha on Wednesday after a trip to Auburn, Ala., to enjoy my grandchildren performing in volleyball and marching band at Auburn High School.

Stopped by my golfing friend Jim Whittaker’s to catch up on Thursday. Then, Friday morning breakfast with friends and then, conversation with my first coaching assistant, Tom Palmer, and then the man, who Sheri Lay always calls by first and last name — John Garber — who is the one who told me about the opening in Sabetha for the athletic directors’ position and basketball head coach and PE teacher. Changed my family’s life.

Then, a downtown homecoming, pep rally with the candidates riding in the AC Surrey, which should become a tradition. Then, back to the high school for a community pep rally with fun games. Then, a great tailgate, followed by an exciting football win by the Bluejays over St. Marys.

Then, a highlight on Saturday morning when Les Brooks came into the Buzz Café and we enjoyed breakfast and reminisced about the most exciting basketball win in my career. This was the 1981 team with seven seniors that got third in the state thanks to “Mr. Tom Rokey,” the rebound man who stuck a rebound in as the clock expired to give us a one-point victory for third place. Please continue to pray for Tom as he continues to battle cancer.

But I reminded Les how we were behind 18 points at the end of the third quarter against Nemaha Central at Seneca. I substituted Les and we used a half court trap with Les at the point and two 6-4 wings and came back to win in an overtime. This was played as the last game before Christmas and was quite a Christmas present for the Kohlmeier family.

Karen stayed home that evening with my daughter, Kam, who was participating in a spelling bee at the old Midtown gymnasium with poor acoustics and a portable speaker. Kam was a first grader and went out on the first word, “cat.” She misunderstood and thought they said “cap” and didn’t ask for the word to be used in a sentence. Karen quickly snuck out with her and went home to listen to the game, but turned it off at the end of the third quarter. When I came home excited to ask her if she listened. She said, “sorry about the loss.” I explained we had won but she wouldn’t believe me, so I had to go to the high school and retrieve the scorebook.

Then, the weather cooperated this past Saturday, and we had an amazing Old Time Saturday Night, which reminded me of growing up as a little farm boy in Washington County, and doing this every Saturday night. How fun to enjoy all the friendships and camaraderie. I am so proud and pleased to have spent 49 years in this community and hope to continue many more.

Oh, I didn’t mention that I got to enjoy a wonderful meal at Sidelines with Steve Aeschliman and share pictures of my week with my grandkids and going to the production of David so that he could share those with Karen at the care home in Manhattan on Sunday. Steve and Jim Whittaker both epitomize the vows of loving and taking care of their spouses for better and for worse, for richer for poor, etc.

One sideline about Kam, who was good friends with Dr. Brett Lukert and was a good enough athlete to beat him in races, but he always reminded her about going out of the spelling bee on the word, “cat” and would ask her, “how do you spell cat?” Then, she had a reply of how she beat him in horse, but they shortened it to pig and asked him how he would spell pig when she beat him.