Standing eight count

Has it really been just a week since Lent started and I vowed to give up fast food? Feels like eons. Well, it's been a hard week to give up my drug of choice (french fries and cheeseburgers are drugs, right?) Good friend and all-around character John Keith passed away; I toiled in the sports writing field with him for about seven years and never tired of his stories about life on the road in the good old days with people like Barry Switzer, Jackie Sherrill and Dave Bliss. (We had a few good old days ourselves with My Brother's Place happy hour and other venues.)

My son, who faces kidney surgery, has battled a kidney infection and 104 degree temperature and my parents, who've been in town from Pennsylvania since December waiting for the surgery - which has been scheduled and rescheduled five times - finally had to give up and head back to the great Commonwealth. (Actually that's a good new-bad news type of thing ;-) - love ya mom ) But none of that is an excuse for what happened to me today, Wednesday.

I discovered that I did not have a spoon for the blueberry yogurt in my lunch and, to make up for that bitter piece of injustice, I had a cheeseburger from one of our fine, fast food establishments. Yes, I stumbled after one week.

But I still have five weeks to go and I know I'll have more successes than failures during that time period. I may fall again, but then again, maybe I won't.

Just ask boxing writer extraordinaire Felix Chavez: many a fighter has gotten knocked down in the early rounds, only to come up off the canvas with time to impress the judges or even land just the right blow.

"Don't call it a comeback. I been here for years."
— LL Cool J 'Mama Said Knock You Out'