Mark, a former student of mine who signed up before high school graduation to attend Highlands and possibly play football for the Cowboys, made a mistake.

With several buddies the night before a big final game in the capital city, he partied, got drunk, got caught, got busted and got sent to the principal’s office the next day. At issue was whether anyone involved in the party would play that day, even though hangovers may have made the question moot.

Assuredly, Mark and the others faced issues with their parents, the school itself as well as their status on the team. According to Mark, who’s now raising three football players of his own, one by one the players reported to the head football coach, who asked one question: Were you drinking last night?

His penchant for honesty made him say, “Yes, Coach, I was.�

“That’s all I want to know. Turn in your uniform. You’re off the team.�

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Mayor Henry Sanchez attended the premiere of a documentary, “The Spirit of the Midwives,� Tuesday night.

I sat next to him, and he asked my take on the commonly used term “sapo.� Now all of us know that “sapo� is Spanish for toad and “rana� is a frog, but I’m not enough of a biologist to make a distinction. If it hops and has buggy eyes, it’s a frog. Period.

Sanchez said all of us are aware of what the term means and when it’s used, but he wants to dig deeper: why do we call lucky strikes sapos? As a long-time high school and college coach, Sanchez certainly has seen a number of sapos.

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How often do people use tired expressions about which they have little or no understanding? They seem like the appropriate thing at the time, but on numerous occasions we don’t put much thought into them.

I was almost a senior citizen before I grasped the meaning of “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.” Well why not? Though cake is the last thing I’d order at a restaurant (unless they’re out of pie), I understood the expression to mean you can’t have it and therefore can’t eat it. Why not? Too many calories? Too expensive? One ought to be able to have (own) the cake and then eat it.

Someone finally explained that it means you can own a beautifully decorated cake and admire it, show it off, bronze it, photograph it, but if you eat it, you can’t have it (any more).

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