I hope your month has started off on the right foot. As I present my first Thursday Rundown of September 2020, I want to thank you at the start of my blog post instead of the end of it for your readership. Thank you. Now, let’s get started…

Look at Those Tomatoes – At the end of July, I wrote about something my dad did with Sloan. He gave Sloan her own tomato plant. They planted it and then watched it grow as I documented the progress. Earlier this week, they picked all of the tomatoes, bringing in quite the harvest. The photos below were all taken 3-4 weeks apart. What a wonderful grandpa/granddaughter activity! 

The progression of Sloan’s tomato plant.

Monte’s Roommate – It was seven years ago when I became a very minor Missoula celebrity. In a blockbuster 2013 opening weekend football game, the Montana Grizzlies hosted Appalachian State. In front of the largest ever Washington-Grizzly Stadium crowd at the time, we debuted a Monte movie on the video board that starred yours truly. I look at the video now and cringe, but I do vividly remember sitting in the press box and listening to the collective laughter of the 26,000+ fans in the stands as the movie rolled.

The opening scene of the movie!

Grandma’s Birthday – If my maternal grandmother was alive today, Virginia Fazzari would be 103. She was a quiet but strong woman who was committed to her family and her faith. Three years ago, I wrote one of my all-time favorite Don’t Blink entries about her life and the traits that defined her.

My grandma would have turned 103 today.

Not New – Yesterday I took the early morning, my lunch break, and right after work to watch a movie called “Here Comes the Boom.” It stars Kevin James, who I really like, and Henry Winkler, my hero. In the film, James is a slacker teacher who ends up participating in MMA fights to raise money to save his school’s music program and the music teacher’s (Winkler) job. Here is what is funny: I discovered this movie on the IMDb section of Firestick and thought it was a new release. I announced out loud to Sid that I thought Salma Hayek, who also plays a key role in the film, looked really good for 54. Coincidentally, yesterday was her birthday and I found out her age by watching the news, a couple hours before watching the film. Anyway, when I turned on the movie to watch the final 20 minutes of the film last night, I saw that it was made in 2012! A movie I thought was brand new was actually eight years old.

I watched “Here Comes the Boom” as if it was made in 2020.

Directionally Challenged – Every Thursday, my friend Lindsi shares a collection of memes on her Instagram Story. This particular one below made me laugh as it definitely resonated with me. Sidney and I always smile when my dad gives us directions somewhere because he will always say “go west, turn east, head south, etc.” Although I should be more competent with this type of direction expression I do much better with landmark point of references. Or, better yet, I just use the navigation app on my phone.

This resonated with me.

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That will do it for another week. Have a relaxing and safe Labor Day weekend. Please pray for the end of the Coronavirus. Don’t Blink.

A couple weeks ago I was scrolling through Instagram on a Tuesday and it was almost comical. During one stretch, I must have encountered back-to-back-to-back-to-back Taco Tuesday posts…yes, I follow a lot of local restaurants. The mania for the taco special was so intense that I had to tweet about it.

Seriously!

Not that I didn’t know about this “trend” before my feed was flooded by it. Taco Tuesday is a tradition that is beloved by restaurants and customers alike. Although I once referred to it in jest as “cliché,” I do appreciate that it is something embraced by many. Are you surprised? Bars can capitalize on a popular promotion that costs them a minimal amount but packs their establishments. For customers, it is one of the best excuses to drink beer on a weekday.

Sidney eating a taco.

I have been aware of Taco Tuesday for almost 20 years (really dating myself here). When I was a freshman in high school, our football program partnered with the local Zips on a Taco Tuesday bargain. After practice on that special day of the week, a lot of hungry high school football players would pay $7 for all-you-can-eat tacos and tater tots. For those who live in the Inland Northwest and are well aware of what a Zips is—an extremely popular BURGER drive-in restaurant—you are probably scratching your head wondering how such an highly esteemed business could jump so far off brand.

Well, it was possible because Taco Tuesday is such a major piece of Americana that even Krispy Kreme could probably get away with offering its own version. People want tacos on Tuesdays and are willing to travel to places that give them what they want, even if these restaurants and taverns would otherwise have absolutely no business adding tacos to their menus.

Every Tuesday, my Instagram feed is inundated with Taco Tuesday plugs from local restaurants that I follow.

Although Taco Tuesday has been on my radar for nearly two decades, I have seen it really explode in the past five years, evidenced in part by my Instagram feed. In fact, it has done more than just infiltrate every corner bar in the country—it has entered the home.

A couple tacos prepared at our family Taco Tuesday last night.

As the World’s Most Interesting Man might say of our family, we don’t eat tacos every week, but when we do, we prefer to do it on Tuesdays. If we do have a taco night, we do make an effort to stage it on a Tuesday evening. Take last night for example. To celebrate it not being Monday anymore, we had our own Reser Family Taco Tuesday. It was delicious.

Sloan enjoying our Taco Tuesday last night.

Whether in your home or local watering hole, keep Taco Tuesdaying it up! As something that benefits and satisfies pretty much everybody involved, I approve (and happily participate). Don’t Blink.

September is here but in a way it doesn’t feel like September. In a normal year, I wouldn’t need a calendar to tell me that it is the ninth month of the year. Rather, I could tell by the tailgates springing up around whatever campus I was working on. Or, I would know by flipping on the radio and listening to the opening topic on any sports talk station. Or, I could turn on the TV during the first Saturday of the month and see stadiums filled to the brim under the beautiful sunlight of a late summer day.

Basically, September always arrived when the college football season kicked off in earnest.

We all complain that the Coronavirus has stolen sports from us. But of course, there are so many other implications besides the big picture of no athletic competitions. We miss our traditions, our fantasy leagues, our television packages, our evenings at the ballpark, our escapes from reality. Those of us who are sports fans feel the sting in countless different ways.

For me, I miss the way sports serve as my calendar.

I know it is September when college football is in full swing.

Throughout most of my life, I have used major sporting events synonymously with different times of the year. Sports rightfully took a backseat when COVID-19 ripped through the U.S. in time to wipe out all of the NCAA basketball conference tournaments. This of course led to the cancellation of March Madness. Well, I guess it should come as no surprise that the greatest sports tournament on the planet made me think of March because of its namesake, but it also made me think of other things. I have always equated March Madness with the start of spring and the ushering in of warmer weather…light at the end of the tunnel if you will. With COVID, all we got was a false sense that there could be light at the end of tunnel in terms of the virus being defeated.

I have always known it was April when golf’s greats converged on Augusta National for the sport’s most riveting tourney. The Masters remind me of Easter and the start of my own personal golf season. I would become aware that showers turned to flowers when the Run for the Roses was contested in early May (don’t forget that the Kentucky Derby will run this Saturday!). Although I would never actually forget the very special day, the pink bats used on Mother’s Day weekend in Major League Baseball never failed to drive the point home that my wife and mom deserved nothing but the best in mid-May.

The NBA Finals in mid-June always signified for me the early start of summer and a slate of fun activities coming up in the ensuing weeks. The month of June also screams golf again with the U.S. Open, usually taking place during Father’s Day weekend.

You know it is the heart of summer when a couple of big time July sporting contests take place. Wimbledon occurs during that first week of the month and then what I recognize as the epitome of all summer athletic events, the MLB All-Star game, takes center stage not too long after. Seriously, I didn’t know how I was going to enjoy Summer 2020 without the Midsummer Classic (I somehow managed).

The Little League World Series, along with training camp for all levels of football, wind down the summer in August. The month is always a little bitter because the days start to get shorter and we head back to work/school fulltime but there is tremendous optimism because the football season is right around the corner…

Which is where we should be right now…at least in terms of the college season. But we aren’t, and that’s okay—there are more pressing issues in the world. But I would be lying if I said that the sports calendar didn’t keep me up to speed with the Gregorian calendar. It has definitely been a little strange navigating through the past several months without athletics to keep me on track. But dang it, what a small thing to trivialize over, right? Don’t Blink.