When I moved to Butler County eight years ago I began my Eagle subscription immediately so I could get acquainted with my new location. After about a year I got way behind reading my papers but didn’t dispose of them (I had paid for them, after all!) — instead I organized them chronologically by month then put stacks of them out of sight and out of mind. After a while I started reading the current editions again and have kept up-to-date ever since.

Then in March the pandemic hit. While homebound and bored, I started going through some old boxes, came across the outdated newspapers and decided to read them in order while concurrently reading each new daily (2020) issue.

Besides reading world, national and local news of late 2013 and early 2014 (for instance, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was around 15,300), I also enjoyed reading about all the local sports. I happened upon a short blurb from the Jan. 30, 2014, paper titled “Area youths win Hoop Shoot event” and one of the kids listed as a winner was Ethan Morton in the 12-13 age category.

On another page in the same issue was a photo of the winners, and he was pictured.

What I found so fun about this was that as I was reading that issue, I was simultaneously reading the sports stories in the March 2020 papers where Ethan Morton was featured almost daily as a high school senior leading his Butler High basketball team to win numerous exciting playoff games, and was still getting a ton of press and his photograph in the Eagle!

I understand the sports seasons for all of our county students — and especially the seniors, including Ethan Morton who I do not know personally — were impacted negatively by COVID-19, and many of us have been devastated by other losses over the last few months. But maybe, like me, others who have had forced spare time were able to uncover something that brought an unexpected smile and a “How ’bout that?” comment to mind. I hope so.