Columns - Topics from July, 2011
Consider the Lilies
I never knew my wife to read the local paper so I did not fear being honest in relating the story about the Clunker Deal. One of the local bigmouth biddies told my wife she needed to read that particular edition, however, and she did.
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Mind games and good old days
During the days of my childhood, our modest house sat under four huge pecan trees. Today as I swelter in triple digit heat anytime I step out the door, I wonder if all that shade made the summers cooler than the present ones. Was it really cooler back then than it is now? Is my mind playing games with me? Age or selective memories perhaps color my thinking today. We had no air conditioner. I don’t even remember a fan. Other than Mother Nature’s breath, the only breeze that cooled me came as I flew through the air in the swing Daddy had hung for me in one of the big pecan trees.
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What a boor I am!
Last Thursday night I attended a Friends-of-the-Library meeting in Hazlehurst’s beautiful new facility. After a business meeting, Carole Jones Graham was to speak on etiquette. She is quite the expert and has even written books on the subject. I am quite the amateur and can hardly remember which fork to use for which dish. I watch the people around me and hope they know their etiquette. Hopefully, they’re not watching me for the same reason.
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Man’s best friend
I recently installed a PVC water line along the fenced in area in my back yard. I have a chocolate Lab, Fox. I didn’t like him but the family did so he was in like flint. They think he is human and treat him as such.
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Funtabulous Alpine Helen
The mountains of north Georgia and western North Carolina have been my and B. J.’s second home since the early days of our marriage. We have been going to Helen, Ga. since Richard was just a kid and Betty’s Country Store was indeed “country”. This was Big Red’s second trip.
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National debt
I was just listening to a man on TV telling that every citizen in this country owed 80,000 dollars as their part of the national debt. He further stated the Obama bailout would wind up costing each American 28,000 dollars.
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Laurie Jo inspires Magnolia Manor
Laurie Jo Upchurch and her daughter Triniti, wearing a pretty cowgirl outfit including shiny white boots, arrived at our house on St. Simons Island around 10:30am. They loaded their music paraphernalia into Big Red’s saddlebag. Shortly thereafter, we mounted the wild red Mustang and I reined him across the Torras Causeway and headed him south on I-95 toward Magnolia Manor, our United Methodist Retirement Center at St. Marys, Ga. where I serve as chaplain.
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Is it still summer?
According to the calendar, summer started officially on June 21 at 1:16 p.m. Eastern Time. However, I didn’t notice at all because it’s been HOT here for months now. National Geographic tells me that June 21 was also the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere as well as the summer solstice, which is a result of the earth’s north-south axis being tilted 23.4 degrees relative to the sun. This tilt causes different amounts of sunlight to reach different regions of the planet. Now all that information is fascinating, but the crux of the matter is that it’s agonizingly hot and dry here where I live. We are a mere eighteen days into the summer season. Can I possibly survive all the pleasures of summer, which doesn’t end until Friday, September 23? That sounds like light years from now. Besides, we all know the heat doesn’t evaporate from Georgia air in September. It could be November. Maybe summer would slip by more quickly if I enjoyed its various pleasures more.
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Swing low, sweet crookneck
The Kentucky Wonder beans are canned, the garlic dried and put up, the potatoes are keeping well, and the tomatoes are ready for canning.
This leaves me with the okra and what a job it has turned into. I am not one to waste the bounty of the garden I have worked so hard to have what with the drought and hot weather, so the okra must not be wasted. It has become somewhat comical, though, when I go up to a neighbor’s house with a bag of the fresh okra to give away. They have got to where they won’t answer the door. I guess they are as tired of the okra as I am. I have pickled it, stewed it, fried it, boiled it, and have taken to eating it raw if it is small and tender. I wish it would stop bearing, but it won’t. You can literally see it grow. Like any weed, it loves chicken manure. If anyone wants a mess, they can come and get it, please. [Full Story »]
This leaves me with the okra and what a job it has turned into. I am not one to waste the bounty of the garden I have worked so hard to have what with the drought and hot weather, so the okra must not be wasted. It has become somewhat comical, though, when I go up to a neighbor’s house with a bag of the fresh okra to give away. They have got to where they won’t answer the door. I guess they are as tired of the okra as I am. I have pickled it, stewed it, fried it, boiled it, and have taken to eating it raw if it is small and tender. I wish it would stop bearing, but it won’t. You can literally see it grow. Like any weed, it loves chicken manure. If anyone wants a mess, they can come and get it, please. [Full Story »]
America, land of the free
When I was a child, I considered myself my mother’s slave and knew her to be the cruelest task master on the planet. She rarely left me alone so I could read to my heart’s content. Before I could finish one task, she’d be calling me to do another. “Mary Ann, aren’t you finished with those dishes yet? You don’t have your book in the kitchen with you, do you? I want you to sweep the living room floor. And the kitchen floor needs to be mopped sometime today. You’ve put it off long enough!”
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