Greetings from tropical Hoxie!

While other college students flock en masse to places like Cancun, Panama City and Destin or wherever, this guy goes to the glorious chunk of earth known at Northeast Arkansas.

But, I'm leaving out tomorrow. It's just the first stop on my weeklong adventure of sport.

Sunday I watched college basketball at my house in Conway to start the week off. I then made the drive up to the greater Hoxie metropolitan area in hopes of catching some Lady Mustang softball action on Monday and Tuesday. Monday was supposed to be the big crosstown rivalry game against Walnut Ridge, but rain took care of that one. It's too bad, too. For one, I was really looking forward to seeing my little sister dominate. For another, I was getting ready for a good solid hour of heckling one Shoddy Scotty Gauntt, my old baseball coach who now heads the Lady Bobcats softball program. It's always fun seeing that guy lose.

I actually used to like him when he was here. But after last year, I am overcome with joy after each defeat his team suffers. I wish there was some way his mother-in-law could coach, too. Maybe every sport, that way she could lose in something every day the rest of her life. For those scoring at home, she was my 6th-grade teacher and not a very good one. Even at the ripe old age of 11 I was building grudges that would last a lifetime. Oh well, some people are surly and have no business being around young children. They shouldn't teach elementary school ... or leave the house.

Since no softball was happening Monday, I had to get my sports fix some other way. What better than cards, right? Since ESPN is hellbent on convincing us that poker is a sport, I figure all forms of card playing should be considered a sport. I mean, I like poker as much as the next guy but it's not a sport. It's a card game. But, if for no other reason than public satiation, we'll call it a sport here.

With poker being a sport, I figure spades should be one as well. So, Monday's sport du jour was spades. Me and my sister versus the parents. I'm living every college kid's dream right there ... Spring Break. Parents. Spades. Hoxie. In the words of Cassidy (the rapper, not Butch), it don't get no better. Just like in poker, I really think I'm starting to make a turn in spades. Last time I played I was consistently throttled. This time, however, I was in the zone. Getting two, sometimes three aces on a consistent basis helped -- as did once getting the 10, Jack, Queen and King of spades in a single round. Regardless, it was a thorough beatdown in the Goff household with the offspring prevailing by a mean 149 points.

With Tuesday now at hand, I sit in anticipation of a softball game at Highland -- a place that has produced such greats as Allyson Sample, Ginger Murphy, some Subletts and Hyslips, Nick Snearly, and of course this one guy (whose last name may have been Nicholson) who nearly attacked me during a basketball game in 8th grade. Highland is a great place ... if you're white and enjoy smokeless tobacco.

Given the weather conditions, it looks like that one will be called off, too. One way or the other, later today I'll be en route to Heber Springs and the little slice of trout-fishing heaven that is the Little Red River. Three nights, four days on the river with some friends making futile attempts at catching fish and sleeping in a tent without going completely numb. After looking at the extended forecast, I'm fairly certain we'll be able to shoot the sequel to March of the Penguins during our stay, but it should be fun nonetheless. I mean really, given the choice of taking body shots off bikini models at some fancy bar in another country or sitting on the muddy banks of a sub-arctic river throwing slimy salmoniformes in a bucket ... you've got to go with the latter every time, right? Well, I'm telling myself that and nobody's convincing me otherwise for the rest of the week.

Upon returning to Conway, the plan calls for turning around and heading to Fayetteville to visit my cousin and his wife and hit up some Razorback baseball games. Free lodging, free tickets to SEC baseball at a beautiful stadium, and hopefully some much-needed sunshine. Should be a good way to cap the week.

So there's a brief (hah!) synopsis of a sportswriter's spring break. Nothing overly exotic, but hopefully something column-worthy or at least memorable will go down. Maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to coin the phrase "What happens at John F. Kennedy Campground stays at John F. Kennedy Campground."

Or die of hypothermia.