The Lady Buffaloes, playing in a gym where school and classes remained closed by weather, fell to James River Thursday, 55-48 on the Alan Cantrell Court of Floyd County High School. The loss put their record so far this season at 1-10.

I could not photograph the game for our local paper because our steep home drivewayis a 500-foot sheet of ace created by snow storms that began on Friday of last week. Frigid temperatures, with wind chills below zero, and actual highs like the 23 degrees the thermometer that sits on top of a shed by our driveway and sends to our computer via Bluetooth reads as this is written.

For me, missing this game is a sad irony. A severe leg wound from a freak accident over the Memorial day weekend last year turned into a dangerous abscess of bacteria that infected my blood and other parts of body, required two operations and seven weeks on my back with a vacuum pump, draining the wound. Hospital and rehab treatment lasted until Thanksgiving and I returned home five months after the injury.

Football and volleyball were in season but I could not cover the games adequately and missed all but three. I thought I was healed enough for basketball, but Iwas just getting back up to speed when snow and ice began falling..

Hopefully, I can get out of the driveway Friday afternoon to cover the Lady Buffaloes playing Patrick County, but forecasts of snow on Friday and another Winter Storm warning could candel things again for any games until next week.

My apologies to the teams, the coaches, parents and fans for letting them down this year. I’ve been photographing and shooting video of athletic events since returning to Floyd in 2004 after 49 years as a photojournalist, spending t23 of that time working out of Washington, DC for various media operations.

We came here in 2004 in part to be with my mother, whose health was failing and to retire, but a request from now former Floyd Press editor Wanda Combs had me on the sidelines of football fields, volleyball ad basketball courts, baseball and softball diamonds, volleyball tennis courts, wrestling matches ad soccer fields for what has now been more than 20 years.

Photography is perhaps my singular talent and I have tried to provide good images for the paper, players and their parents –not as a job, but as a service. At 77, my eyes aren’t what they once were and I limp from various injuries, but I hope the efforts provide a service to the school and community.

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