This morning I awoke to a lengthy phone call from a frantic junior high cheerleading sponsor. She had forgotten - THE SPIRIT STICK!

There are two parts to my life. By day I am a news paper reporter, but by night I am a lean mean cheerleading coach machine. You know, like Clark Kent only without the cape and the ability to fly; at least not in the conventional way.

"Ya' know sometimes, before you go to bed, ya' remember one mo' thang," she said with her Texas twang. "Last week, I fogot to tell ya' bout the spirit stick my girls won at cheer camp. It's the most important award ya' know."

For the past two weeks Miss B, as the kids call her, has been sending me pictures, clips and all kinds of stuff to print in the newspaper about her award winning junior high cheerleaders. This is the group that, if I happen to stay sane within the next few years, will be cheering for me so I am very pleased with what she has done with the program.

Of course, at nine in the morning and a deadline looming in the air, the spirit stick is the least of my concern.

Let me explain what a spirit stick is by going back to its origins. The father of cheerleading Lawrence Herkimer (no lie), noticed a squad that wasn't quite as talented as the other squads at one of his many high school cheerleading camps in the early days of cheerleading. Thay did, however, have spirit. So he broke a branch off of a tree and told them it was the most important award you can get. He called this branch, the spirit stick. Todays spirit sticks are a bit more elaborate. They are a small wooden stick with the colors red, white and blue painted on.

Many years after the invention of the spirit stick, millions of cheerleaders continue to believe in the power of the stick. It keeps my girls jumping around like jumping beans any time I bring it to practice.

So Miss B made it a point that I mention, on top of the other awards they have won at the beginning of cheerleading season, to not forget the spirit stick.

Lately, however, a spirit stick has been just that to me - a stick. I know my cheerleaders would turn me into the cheerleading police (the cheer squad if you will) if they found out I keep it tucked beneath my passenger seat under piles and piles of paper work, interview notes and back issues of the news paper.

There just seems to be more pressing issues like, say, health care reform, H1N1, Iraq/Afghanistan and the most pressing issue for my local paper, the failing railroad system that has kept this town afloat for almost 100 years now. A spirit stick just doesn't make me jump up and down like it used to.

Of course, then again, that may be just the problem. On a grand scale, the spirit of America may be hurting just a bit. I noticed on the news the other night how both Republicans AND Democrats continue to just yell back and forth in anger. The protesters against Health Care Reform seem to not have much of a clue what they're arguing about but continue to argue for arguments sake. And now, now David Letterman might lose his job! What has this world come to?  

Maybe giving my cheerleaders a little bit of something to get excited about, even if it is just as insignificant as a spirit stick, is important. I would rather have people screaming and yelling over excitement rather than anger. It is a bit of happiness in their lives and maybe I should fish that spirit stick up from the floor and proudly display it somewhere else instead. It is the most important award; ya' know.