Happy Thanksgiving!

We have enjoyed mild weather until today when the rain moved in. Many farmers have been scrambling to get their tobacco down while it’s in order (not dry and brittle). And for those who had any luck with soybeans they have been working to get those in before the fields get too muddy. Will Ed Osborne, reflecting on the drought, commented to me that it’s pretty sad when you can fit all the beans on the farm in the combine without having to unload it even once. (In a normal year the crop would produce many truck loads of beans.)

TURKEY X 3 AND THEN SOME. I reported last time that we had several Thanksgiving activities lined up for last week. On Wednesday we went to lunch at church where Nate goes to Mom’s Day Out and enjoyed a big meal there. This is Nate’s last you in this program as he will be in kindergarten next year.

Thursday night Mom and I went to the Cross Plains Heritage Commission’s annual covered dish meeting. Funny thing was that only one person brought dessert. This means that everyone will remember this year’s menu next year and all we’ll have a plethora of sweets next year. Gene Davidson, our former State Representative, spoke and sang for our program. He was really interesting.

East Robertson Elementary had their Thanksgiving dinner Friday. I had been saving a work order for a teacher out there so I could eat lunch with the kids. Their cafeteria ladies put on a great meal.

Saturday Bill Letsinger brought Aunt Sarah, Alec and Kate up for a brief visit. (Bill’s wife, Jen, had gone to South Carolina in preparation for a surprise birthday celebration for her mother. Bill and his family live in Georgia and Aunt Sarah lives in Alabama.) We all went out to eat at Cracker Barrel for lunch. We were joined by Hancock relatives from this branch of the family that live locally: Aunt Sue, her sons Neil and Mark, Mark’s wife Debbie, and their son Tracey. The only bad thing was that the visit was so quick. Since the Letsingers were not spending the night up here they didn’t have a lot of time to spend and had to leave.

Sunday night was our annual Community Thanksgiving service. This year it was held at our church. This service has traditionally been followed by a finger food fellowship. For some reason the participating pastors planning the service this year decided not to do the fellowship. I am hoping this isn’t a trend.

INSIDE JOKE. Sunday morning before church Vicki was ironing clothes in the kitchen while Jenna was eating breakfast. In their conversation Jenna expressed her astonishment of how quickly Christmas is approaching. Vicki who is beginning to feel the pressure of getting ready for the holidays jokingly exclaimed, “I’m going to smack the next person who mentions Christmas!”

Well, the next person to mention Christmas was Bro. Bill in the morning worship service as he was announcing all the upcoming Christmas activities. That’s when Vicki, sitting in the choir, locks eyes with her daughter in the congregation. Jenna is holding her hand over her mouth as her body convulses with stifled laughter. After the service Vicki, who tries to be a woman of her word, grabbed Jenna and found Bro. Bill. After she smacked him on the arm she filled him in on the rest of the story.

A THANKFUL REPORT. Jenna came home from school yesterday with a folder full of Thanksgiving activities. Part of this assignment included telling about all the things she is thankful for. To summarize her list included Aunt Mar (she elaborated to imply how glad she is to still have time with Aunt Mar who is 92 years old), her teacher and classmates, remote controls for the TV and DVD player, the Game Cube, and our dog. While the rest of the family didn’t make the list we were included in a very nice drawing with everyone holding hands around a table with a turkey on it. The scene included Uncle Will, Aunt Darice and the cousins as they are due to arrive tomorrow to celebrate the holiday with us.

LUCKY TO BE ALIVE. That’s what Jake, our dog, is today. Monday we came home and found him sitting by the mailbox. He would not get up. He was obviously hit by a car which broke his right femur and possibly his pelvis. Jake spent the last two nights with the vet and came home today. Right now he cannot stand on his back legs but there is hope of a full recovery as long as no internal organs are ruptured. He is to have complete “cage rest” for eight weeks.

Joe

The Pause before the Holidays

Boy, time sure is flying by! Halloween is behind us, Thanksgiving is next week, and all the stores are decorating for Christmas. We even have several Thanksgiving activities lined up for this week. Here comes the holiday rush....

HURTING FOR NEIGHBORS. The big community news around here happened Thursday night when Don and Betty Kate Henry’s chicken house burned down. It was a total loss. I guess I should explain why I am reporting this.

The Henrys are neighbors of ours. I have known them all my life. They live across the field in front of Aunt Mar’s house. The building I am referring to stood right behind their house. It was originally 30’ x 160’ and when they raised chickens housed about 8000 fowl. I remember going over there to help pick up eggs on occasion as a kid. In the late 1970s they sold their chickens and eventually started their peach/blackberry orchard. The empty chicken house became a shop for the farm, a place to strip tobacco and a front end for their orchard business. Mrs. Katie is a very creative decorator and put her talents into fixing up the place. After many years of improvements the “chicken house” featured a full working kitchen and a place to serve many guests which allowed them to operate a catering business during the off season. They had also built a nice guest room and an apartment for some of their unmarried immigrant labor. While the Henrys didn’t sleep there they actually spent about as much time there as they did in their house. We have fond memories of fun times there, as recently as Halloween night. But we’ve also had family dinners there over the years.

No one knows how the fire started but it was a full blown inferno by the time the Henrys were alerted to it. When the fire departments from Cross Plains, Orlinda, and White House got there the best they could do was protect the surrounding buildings. The worst injury I’ve heard about were some minor burns on one fellow’s arm as he was taking a shower and barely escaped the fire. Mrs. Katie had put a lot of herself into that building and I know the loss is especially tough for her.

MY BIG SCARE. The night of the fire a neighbor that lives behind Aunt Mar called and said she heard noises that sounded like they could be gunfire coming from Aunt Mar’s house. She also told us she heard their alarm system’s siren and saw a strange car in their driveway. Fearing they were in terrible danger I headed out. When I got outside I saw the fire lighting up the sky. The Henry’s chicken house is in line with Aunt Mar’s house from here and not knowing anything else my stomach sank as I then guessed the fire was Aunt Mar’s house. I was soon relieved but that sure was a scary moment. It turns out that the neighbor who called can’t see the Henry’s place from her house due to a stand of trees so it was impossible for her to understand the context of what she saw and heard (fuel explosions in the fire, sirens from the emergency equipment and curious neighbors turning around in Aunt Mar’s drive).

FINDING THE MISSING CREW. I had a really nice thing happen this weekend. As you know I have been very interested in learning about Dad’s service in World War II. For many years we’ve only known the whereabouts of nine of the eleven members of Dad’s crew. Several of us have searched for Irwin Moskowitz (bombardier) and Achilles Stathas (tail gunner) but with no luck. I recently discovered a web site devoted to preserving B-29 history (http://www.b-29.org) and signed up to be part of the discussion group there. I posted a query on these two names and within 24 hours someone replied with several potential addresses and phone numbers. This person happened to be correct on both counts and I got to talk to both men on the phone. It has been so nice for me to make these connections. Today I put out a query about finding the Star Duster’s ground crew. I have less info to go on there so it remains to be seen how that will pan out.

TELLING ON JENNA. Being an only child myself, the dynamics of a family with three children is always an adventure for me. I’ve always known that bossiness can be a trait of the first born and from our end of things Jenna exhibits this some. We have always accused Jenna of being a “little momma” over the years. This morning we were running pretty tight in getting out the door for the bus mainly because Ben was moving in granny gear and no amount of admonishment by Vicki was doing any good. Seeing this Jenna jumped in and starting nagging her brother to move faster as well. This made Vicki turn to Jenna and say, “Benton already has a Mother and I’m on the case.” Vicki was right in correcting Jenna but it sure took the wind out of her sails.

Ad then there was the conversation at supper tonight. Somehow we got on the topic of girls taking the last name of their husband when they get married. Vicki, in her explanation to Ben, used Jenna as an example with the last name of various boys in her class at school. She turned enough shades of red to give a chameleon a headache.

Joe

Halloween Fun

Can it be November already? Bill Chatman has been sowing wheat. We went trick-or-treating Wednesday night. So all the evidence points to the fact that it’s now November. Wow, Thanksgiving is two and a half weeks away!

We’ve had a lot happening around here, but the highlight of the week for us was Halloween night. Since becoming a father I have always struggled to keep a positive attitude on Halloween. It’s not that I get all hung up on whether or not we should have Halloween activities, I’m all for that, just save the Reese’s Cups for me as my chauffeur’s fee. What gets me is fooling with the buckling in and out of car seats for the 20+ stops when the kids were smaller and wearing bulky costumes.

Living out in the country you just can’t walk door-to-door to do your trick-or-treating. One of my fondest memories as a boy came courtesy of Mr. Kenneth Swann, Kenny’s dad. He would load all of us up in the bed his ‘72 GMC truck, the one we named Old Jessie Mae, and haul us all over the community. It was a truck full of Swanns, Freelands, Henrys and anyone else that would fit. I would not be surprised if we traveled 15 miles making candy stops. And a number of folks, not worried about the quantity of spooks that would be coming to call at their door, went for quality. A large part of our loot was actually homemade stuff, and we weren’t worried about it because we knew all the cooks. These days you’d probably be put under the jail for hauling all those kids around in the back of a truck like that. And a bag of brownies or cookies would be tossed without a second thought.

Well, this year has to be the best year for trick-or-treating we’ve had as far as I’m concerned. Jenna dressed as a medieval princess. We teased her about being a mid-level princess. Ben donned Superman’s cape. He attempted, but failed to leap a building in a single bound. Nate was Spiderman and was very impressed with his bulky muscles. Vicki and I went as ourselves.

Orlinda Baptist Church had their second annual Trunk-or-Treat and we started there. If you aren’t familiar with the concept it works like this: members of their church dress up and decorate their cars and all assemble at the church parking lot. Then all the trick-or-treaters come to them there. Their pastor and his wife dressed up as a nun and a priest, respectively. Another group came as the castaways of Gilligan’s Island. And then we ran into Santa and Mrs. Claus and some elves.

After leaving Orlinda we stopped by Steve and Connie Freeland’s to get some pictures around their pumpkins and then headed to Don and Katie Henry’s. They had invited several neighbors over for supper and we had a great time slowing down for a visit. We even had a costume contest for the kids who were dressed up.

The final stop of the evening was our church where we were having our own Trunk-or-Treat. This was our first one and we were impressed with the turn out. We had over 40 cars there who had come to give out candy and no telling how many kids came to do their trick-or-treating. Mrs. Judy DePriest (she cuts our hair) said she left after her 250 bags of candy were gone.

What amazed us was the creativity! Bro. Bill and Cindy were George and Martha Washington. Another couple came as Johnny Cash and Little Jimmie Dickens. One family even brought a horse trailer made up as a one room haunted house. There was simply too much variety to recount here, but I’d have to say Kenny was the most memorable. He came a Madam Kendra, the fortune teller (“she” predicted Jenna would have 16 husbands, including Tom Cruise and Donald Trump, and 35 children). If you didn’t want your fortune told she also ran a kissing booth on the side. And this was a last minute idea! If laughing is good for your health then everyone had a good dose of medicine Wednesday night.

Joe