Talk about fast hands …

For those of us classified among the awkward side of humanity, cup stacking competition is a concept hard to fathom. The phenomenon swept through Shady Grove Elementary School physical education classes a decade ago. There are a few who have proven very adept at the sport.

The reigning world champion is William Orrell, now a Clemmons resident and student at Mt. Tabor High.

On Jan. 7, he completed the stacking competition in under 5 seconds.  As someone noted, on Oct. 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier. Roger Bannister ran the mile in under 4 minutes on May 6, 1954. Now Orrell has broken five seconds — setting a new Guinness World Record time of 4.813 seconds. You can watch him on video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay8s6vgLZ1c

Orrell has practiced relentlessly. His bedroom shelves are piled high with trophies. He has a gift.

His hands move with lightning speed.

• • • • •

Mix a few pleasant days in mid-January with some rainy days followed by sunshine and you get …

Chickweed.

The early spring weed suddenly bloomed on the lawn this week, pushed by fertilizer that I applied last fall. The lawn is now mint green. The weed is persistent and hardy. I have sprayed for years, but the weed just keeps coming back.

It’s still mid-winter, but the chickweed follows its own calendar.

• • • • •

There is a designated day for just about everything, it seems. Saturday, to my amazement, was National Squirrel Appreciation Day.

I don’t appreciate squirrels on any day of the year and recently bagged a few who were raiding the bird feeders.

• • • • •

New Congressman Ted Budd of Yadkin Valley made his first speech on the floor of the House of Representatives on Tuesday when he gave a tribute to the late Ruth Samuelson of Charlotte.

Budd has been turning heads in his first days in Washington. He was included in a recent Breitbart news story, “11 freshmen Congressmen to watch in 2017.”

Not a bad start.

• • • • •

Just when you thought there was nothing left to disagree about … we get to argue about crowd sizes.

Were there more people at President Obama’s inauguration in 2008 or at President Trump’s ceremony on Friday?

I saw one set of comparative photos, and it certainly looked like the crowd was bigger for President Obama’s first inauguration. But leave it to Republicans and Democrats to argue about it. Another set of photos of both events was impossible to judge which was larger. Nobody, of course, actually counted.

What neither side bothered to explain was why it mattered. It mattered for no other reasons than ego and the desire to prove the other side wrong.

I was reminded of the old comment, “Are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?”

Certainly we have bigger fish to fry — more important issues — that we can quibble about.

– Dwight Sparks