This is a hodgepodge of a column, cobbled together from bits of things that’ve kind of gotten trapped in recent weeks in the mental lint screen.

But first, a sad story that popped up over the weekend on my cell phone’s news feed usually one of those things I try to avoid.

It was a local TV news story, naturally (they get more advertising from personal injury lawyers than anyone else and can afford reporters) on a supposedly rabid fox spotted by folks near the KFC and Taco Bell on Highway 17.

It turns out the poor animal, which the story said may have crawled into a drain somewhere and died, likely wasn’t rabid.

Instead, the online story quoted a DNR biologist who viewed “exclusive” TV video and said it looked like the poor creature had been hit by a car.

That pink foam around it’s mouth could have been blood from an internal injury; the fox was breathing shallow and staggering and evidently on its last legs in a place where I’d certainly hate to meet my maker - the side of a busy state highway jammed up with semis and fast food restaurants and gas stations and motels and people cadging beer money.

So it was this mental image of one of God’s creatures, terrified and mortally wounded staggering on the side of Highway 17 stuck in my head for days, and is there still.

Sure, it scared the humans who saw it and thought it might be dangerous. The fox, well, there’s no personal injury lawyer to take up its case.

I have no clue why the animal was in such a loud and noisy place, but I know animal habitats are shrinking as development drags on and on.

I wish we could find some kind of happy medium on the environment, but money tends to talk.

So, it’s a sad deal for humans who hate to see animals mistreated - and I’d suggest bulldozing to bits the places they live to build strip malls and subdivisions and all the other supposed necessiies of 21st century life qualifies as mistreatment - but it’s a deadly one for the animals themselves.

Builders lawsuit: From what I understand as of this writing, the judge presiding over the Savannah Home Builders Association’s lawsuit against Bryan County is still considering the case, which in part is aimed at overturning the county’s design standards and prohibitions on vinyl siding. UPDATE: Ruling issued late Wednesday. More to come on this.

Perhaps the county should enter a Bryan County Sheriff’s Office incident report as evidence of why they want to stop the use of vinyl siding. I copy and paste from a recent BCSO blotter, which is a compilation of narratives from initial incident reports. I’ll just go with what I typed up then.

“A Castle Oak Drive, Richmond Hill woman reported July 10 that workers with Mungo Homes “placed a screen on her window without her consent.”

The woman said the screen was put on a picture window facing the side of another home.

“(She) stated when it was asked why this was done; Mungo replied the window was causing the vinyl siding of (a neighbor’s house) to melt. When it was told to Mungo that they did not have the consent to place the screen, they stated ‘don’t you want to help your neighbors.’” She was given a case number.

If I read that right, the glare off sunlight off a window was melting the vinyl siding on another house. Seriously?

The real AP:

Adrian Peterson held a sports camp last week at Henderson Park and I didn’t find out until Friday, too late to change my plans. I hate I missed that. Peterson, a College Football Hall of Fame member, was the greatest football player I ever saw in person, and his numbers boggle my mind. He carried the football 1,378 times for 9,145 yards (counting playoffs) for Georgia Southern over his four year career and went on to a solid pro career in Chicago.

I saw a lot of those runs back in my sports writer days, and I still have a t-shirt the school gave out during AP’s senior season promoting him for the Heisman Trophy. I try to watch “The Run” and “Son of the Run,” at least two or three times a year. Google them if you want to see a real football player, and a real man.

Life hasn’t always been kind to AP. He and his wife Angela lost their 7-year-old son A.J. to cancer in 2015, but Peterson is out there making a difference. He works with kids and is also on the staff at Georgia Southern now, working to help players get used to college. And if he ran for mayor of Statesboro today, he’d probably win in a landslide. I’d almost move there just to vote for him.