By ALLEN FARLEY / Guest Columnist
Our youngest daughter, Karen, and her husband, Patrick Kennedy, were on a trip to New York last week.  That put Muriel and I right back in the thick of “Softball heaven” as our granddaughter Bella Grace Kennedy’s manager for a Hoover softball tournament.
On this third Saturday in October, the Crimson Tide was playing Tennessee, the Magic-City Classic was in Birmingham and Auburn was hosting Steve Spurrier’s South Carolina Gamecocks down on the Plains. But, there were several hundred families with motor-homes, pull-carts, pop-ups, and crock-pots, gathered at a ballpark in Hoover to watch a group of grade-school young ladies play their hearts out. It really doesn’t get any better than that.
I can’t say enough about the hospitality shown to Muriel and I by the families that surrounded Bella Grace’s 10-year-old and under girls’ softball family.  Like their team’s name, they really go “ALL OUT.”
When Muriel and I first arrived at the ballpark Saturday morning, the “ALL OUT” families immediately began helping us unload our pull-cart and set up our pop-up next to the center field fence.  All of a sudden the “ALL OUT” families asked if we were going to slide our pop-up next to the others. I just stood there.  They all smiled and started moving our stuff next to theirs.  They let us know with a warm smile that everyone there stayed together.  (Thank you LORD. I really needed to hear that.)
As we drove home Saturday afternoon, I found myself thinking about the awesome families God had allowed us to spend the day with. It was all about going “ALL OUT” for their children and families.
Can you imagine what the Alabama Legislature could accomplish if we would drop the partisan politics and go “ALL OUT” for all Alabama families?
Matthew 5:16  “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”
God Bless America!!!
Allen Farley represents Jefferson and Shelby County’s House District 15 in the Alabama Legislature.