Since August passed the torch to September, things have been going at a furious pace in Platte County. It all began the Labor Day weekend where there were two home football games, one in Guernsey and one in Wheatland, and of course I had to race to catch a bit of both. Yeah, OK, it you cut me on one side I bleed black and white and if you cut me on the other side I bleed Blue and Maze. My blood type is Chugwater positive and my blood pressure is 80 over Glendo.

Add Hartville and Sunrise and EVERYTHING happening at once, it can get pretty busy. You know what they say, busy life… no wife.

So. The Friday football games were entertaining and heartbreaking all at the same time. Maxx Meyer broke not one, but two bones in his right leg and as much of a warrior as he is, he had surgery and was back in school less than a week after his accident on that football field.

Saturday morning I got up and got to Chugwater for the K9 5K, 10K and half-marathon which would have been cool enough, but people actually ran with their dogs (and thus K9 5K). Clever. There was also a classic car show featuring the original school bus  from the ‘50s that took kids to school in Chugwater and the park was filled with vendors and games and food and drink. At the risk of sounding like an infomercial, “but wait, there’s more.”

They had a three-story obstacle course set up and a full zip line for those who felt called to tempt fate and take their lives in their own hands.

By the time they started packing up and heading home, I drove PAST my home and headed up to Sunrise which was 65 miles away because they were holding the inaugural Sunrise Street Dance outside of Wyoming’s oldest YMCA. The one man band of John Voight who plays a foot-organ bass, bass drum, guitar and occasional keyboard all at the same time, wowed the crowd. They were raising money to restore a 1927 antique firetruck that was once used in the mining town of Sunrise.

I then found out that there was a New Mexico woman who had grown up and who went to Guernsey-Sunrise High school who wrote a play about the town of Sunrise. It will be on the schedule for Sept. 18 and will be performed at the Sunrise YMCA. And that’s not all. She recruited me to be in the play!

Now, to make a long column very short, I landed the lead of a play as a freshman in High School. It was called “The Boy Next Door” and I WAS in fact, the boy next door. It was back in the ‘70s when Ronald McDonald was riding around in his hamburger plane and Hamburgler was scaring the children in the play area.  Anyway, On opening night I was supposed to say to my leading lady, the girl next door, “Some phony guy gives you a ride in his convertible and buys you a hamburger and you fall all over him, and I want so bad for you to notice me.”

Easy right? Well… no. Not for me. I got flustered and said, “Some phony guy gives you a ride in his hamburger and buys you a convertible and….” Well… you can guess that it was curtains for my career. The leading lady was laughing so hard that her makeup had run all over her face, she was no longer attractive to me and her laughing shrieks were only drowned out by the roaring of the crowd.

Somehow. Some way I was transported into a Tim Conway, Harvey Korman skit on the Carol Burnett show. I swore off acting after that… until now. So please, come watch me embarrass myself at the play “Coming of Age” at the Sunrise YMCA at 3 p.m. on Sept. 18.

Labor Day eve was filled with the Hartville picnic – navigating through the Hartville deer who now think it’s their town and down to Guernsey for the Hub City Motorcycle Club’s End of Summer Poker Run. Which, by the way, I should mention was the coolest day of the weekend at 101 degrees.

Every time I think, “I’ll do something next week when it calms down,” it doesn’t. So began the Guernsey Homecoming Power Pep Week culminating with the Homecoming game Friday night at the same time Wheatland was playing a game in gale-like conditions at Bulldog stadium.

Oh… and during the week of powder puff football, peachfuzz volleyball, pep rallies, poking fun at the ‘70s by dressing like we used to dress (believe me it wasn’t all that great the first time through it – you will remember my play story…)  And that’s not all. We had a massive fire between Guernsey and Dwyer that burned 866 acres of land which somehow summoned the gods of blustery wind and it took 72 hours and a continual rainstorm to help firefighters put out the blaze. Big thankyou to the 12+ fire departments that were called out to help.

And finally, Saturday with the Historical Society’s 69th awards weekend in Wheatland and then (almost done) back to Guernsey for taking pictures for the Homecoming Dance. Now you see why Kim Zimmerman made me a T-shirt that said “DRIVEN” on the front and “I thrive in the drive” on the back.

Life certainly is NOT boring here in Platte County and if someone ever says, “There’s nothing to do…” I am going to douse them with a super soaker.

Sorry, I didn’t mention the volleyball games going on at Guernsey or Wheatland’s brutal volleyball road trip or the fact that the lady golfers won the 3A high school conference tournament, both our junior high boys and girls cross country teams took first in Kimball and I ate massive quantities of doughnuts because I simply had to “carb up.” I just didn’t have enough time.

So, enough about me. How has YOUR first 10 days of September been going?