Published: October 20, 2009 05:35 pm      

News, sports and weather start the day, and vacation, off right

Reading the morning newspaper from top to bottom — including news, sports, the weather and everything in between — has always been a tradition in my family.

As a young child growing up in the small town of Anawalt, I would often wonder why mom would spend so much time each morning reading the newspaper.

Today, I understand why. Reading the Daily Telegraph while eating breakfast, or enjoying a warm morning coffee, is always a great way to start your day.

I had a little bit of free time on my hands last week while enjoying a long overdue week off from work. As a result, I was able to spend some extra time each morning catching up on local and national news and sports — as opposed to racing around the clock in order to make it to work on time.

The extra time afforded me an opportunity to carefully scan the sports section, and to mull over the latest Monday morning college football polls.

I had hoped that Virginia Tech would climb up another notch in the morning polls after their convincing homecoming victory over Boston College, but I wasn’t sure about West Virginia despite their 34-13 rout over Syracuse.

As a result, the first thing I did Monday morning after picking up the newspaper was flip to the sports section. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Virginia Tech had climbed to No. 4 in the college football polls. After carefully analyzing the numbers, I began to envision a rematch between the Virginia Tech Hokies and the Crimson Tide of Alabama — but this time for the national championship. I realize such a prediction is extremely premature just six weeks (and now seven) into the season, but it was still fun to make such a prediction after mulling over the polls.

Of course — as fate would have it — Virginia Tech lost a week later to Georgia Tech suffering a crushing 28-23 defeat to the Yellow Jackets in Atlanta. That means there will be no rematch between the Hokies and the Crimson Tide for the national championship.

The defeat last weekend also means the Hokies are effectively out of the national championship picture — at least for now. The Hokies fell from No. 4 to No. 14 in the college poll rankings. The Mountaineers climbed to No. 22 with another win and a record of 5-1.

Finally, after much mulling over the sports section, it was time to move on to another section of the newspaper. I just had to shake my head in disgust after glancing at our weather graphics.

More cold weather. More rain. No sunshine anywhere to be found. The gloomy, cool and depressing weather pattern just would not go away. Plan a week off from work and you can all but expect lousy weather. And such was the case last week.

Now, we are enjoying spring-like weather with temperatures climbing into the 70s. It sure would have been nice to have had a 70-degree day or two during my vacation. But no such luck.

From there it was on to the national news. More headlines on health care reform and climate change caught my attention. I wondered why our new president is so intent upon tackling the most controversial of issues so early into his first term.

I would sleep a little bit better if everyone in Washington would instead simply focus on job creation and economic recovery at the moment. We are after all still trying to recover as a nation from the worst recession since World War II.

Topping off the local news for the day was a plane crash in rural Russell County that was covered by veteran newsman Bill Archer. It’s not every day that you see a headline about an airplane crash in our region. Thankfully, this story had a happy ending. All three occupants miraculously survived the crash.

After reading the newspaper from top to bottom and front to back, I was clearly starting the day better informed, educated and entertained for that matter. It was a great way to start my day, and an even better way to start my vacation.

Charles Owens is the Daily Telegraph’s city editor. Contact him at cowens@bdtonline.com