Returning to the scene

We sometimes hear stories about laid off workers being paid a few extra bucks to dismantle their factory equipment and ship it to China. Or about the people whose homes are being foreclosed and they're paid a small stipend to clean out their own furniture and take it to the dump. Well, this wasn't the same, but it was bizarre nonetheless.

I returned to the scene of the crime - so to speak - by offering to freelance for the Observer-Reporter sports department and writing a high school football story Friday night. Covering sports is something I always wanted to do, although I got a little sidetracked in college while just trying to get column inches and experience at The Daily Athenaeum. After a couple years at the college newspaper, I realized I liked writing news and was good at doing it.

But my heart is in sports. So I spent my Friday night at Fort Cherry High School in Mt. Pleasant Township. The Rangers took on the Burgettstown Blue Devils (a school board I covered in my past profession) and won 21-19 in a great back-and-forth game. It was fun, and I felt the rush trying to beat the 11 p.m. deadline (made it by two minutes, by the way). And I received a lot of enjoyment reading my new byline, M. Alan Jones, on the sports section. It's a new phase in my life, right? Maybe it's time for a different pen name, too.