August 31 '02
Volume 326
My Birthday
The Real One
Though a surprise birthday
party
was held on August 9th, in my honor, my "real" birthday
party came along a week later on August 16th. Both parties were
special with the first including family and friends and the second one having
family only. Before I forget it, should there be a surprise birthday party
for me next year or at some distant date, feel free to ignore my wife’s
request of "no gifts, please." I’ll enjoy your being there with or without
a gift, but a gift is okay.
The sixteenth of August, found the usual weekend group gathered around the
table at my house, wife, son, daughter, son-in-law, granddaughters, and sister.
Felicia was either working or trying to get settled into new housing in Oxford
for her sophomore year at Ole Miss.
One can tell when he or she has gotten to the age where it’s hard to
"buy for," when one gets a gift card from an office supply store. However
impersonal it was, kids, I thank you for it, and if I can’t find something
I don’t already have, I’ll use the gift card to purchase supplies
for this newsletter.
I asked Barbara about my gift from her and discovered she considered the
surprise party my gift. Perhaps, that’s partial payback for all the
years I’ve lumped her birthday gift and her Mothers Day gift into a
single present.
In lieu of a birthday cake, a still-warm banana pudding served the purpose
of a dessert quite well. However, since a traditional birthday cake was served
at my surprise party the prior week, I was happy with the banana pudding.
It was not the first year I can remember having something besides cake on
my birthday, but cakes appear on the list more frequently than any other
dessert. I think it was the occasion of my sixteenth birthday that I asked
my mother for a lemon icebox pie, rather than a traditional birthday cake.
Several individuals have asked me about "turning sixty." To most, I’ve
responded that I’ve not given it much thought. I remember thinking about
it last year and got somewhat depressed. Thus, if I don’t think about
it this year, maybe I won’t get depressed. Why, in no time at all I’ll
be sixty-one, and by then being sixty probably won’t bother me.
Some have suggested that getting a year older is better than the alternative,
but that’s usually a conditional response, where there’s an assumption
of ones continued wellness. For most of us, living is preferable to dying.
A third alternative not often considered, even among Christians, is not
predicated by choice but by Divine intervention. It’s called "Rapture."
Bodock Salute
Festival Turns Nine
There's something about gathering the people of a community together for
a common good that instills a sense of well-being into the collective body.
Last weekend, I watched as the Ninth Annual Bodock Festival did just that.
Following a musical presentation fashioned after the U.S.O. shows of the
forties and sponsored by the Pontotoc Historical Society, Mac Huddleston
firmly shook my hand and exclaimed, "This is Pontotoc at its
finest!"
Mac Huddleston is a respected veterinarian, having established himself here
in the early seventies, but left in the eighties to pursue a yearn for teaching,
then returned in the nineties to make Ecru his home while practicing his
veterinarian skills in nearby Amory, MS. Mac and I are roughly the same age,
but he has children who have not yet made it into their
teens.
I don't have the occasion to socialize as often with Mac as I once had. In
the seventies, he and his first wife were members of a card-playing Supper
Club that met monthly and consisted of six couples including my wife and
me. In those years, the Huddlestons were the only members of the Supper Club
who had no children. Mac and his first wife, the former Ann Campbell, had
a son about the time the children of the rest of us were becoming involved
in school activities that infringed upon the Friday night meetings of our
Supper Club. I use those events as a way to anchor the time of the beginning
of the end to the club and not to lay blame on anyone. Now that the children
of the other members are grown, there is a possibility we may revitalize
the club.
Mac's assessment of the U.S.O. program may have pertained more to the musical
talent of Pontotoc's citizenry than perhaps was meant for the larger festival,
but I took it to be inclusive. Mac Huddleston is representative of those
individuals born outside of Pontotoc County who have chosen to make Pontotoc
or Pontotoc County their home and do so less out of necessity and more out
of a recognition of the collective offerings of the Land of Hanging Grapes
and its people. Thus, when he acclaims our community values, he does so void
of any prejudice present in those of us who are Pontotoc’s native sons.
Floyd McCullough retired from the Postal Service a number of years ago but
remains a tireless worker for First Baptist Church in visiting the bereaved
and the sick. Also, he pays enough attention to community affairs to be a
reliable voice of assessment.
Floyd's comment concerning the Bodock Festival was also succinct, "If it
had been twenty degrees cooler, Pontotoc could not have held all the
people."
I believe Floyd's right, because the crowds were huge even with temperatures
in the mid-nineties, and I imagine the hot weather kept more than a few folks
from attending the gala that seems to grow larger each year.
Those who know my sister's aversion to hot weather and festivals may be surprised
to learn that I managed to get her to walk the booths, late Friday afternoon.
Most booths are setup by noon on Friday. This year, we noticed booths had
not only spilled out of the perimeter of Court Square Park and the adjacent
streets to the north and east but were also lining both sides of Main Street.
I don't have a count of the booths, but it appeared there were more this
year.
Sarah, Barbara, and I visited briefly with Gail Sappington and Don Howell
both of Hattiesburg, MS. They were peddling Gail’s own collection of
inspirational cards and framed prints and woodcarvings by Don. Barbara needed
more of the "potter’s hands" series of cards, having used up her supply
of a year ago. Sarah found a cluster of grapes carved by Don and hinted it
would make a suitable present for her September 11th birthday.
Gail updated me on the Howell family’s recent reunion, while Barbara
and Sarah shopped.
I was tempted by the offerings of several booths, but in the aftermath of
the last fish fry, deemed it wise to resist the impulse to spend. Anyway,
Barbara found a straw hat for me to replace the too-small one she purchased
the previous week and ultimately gave to Jason. Her mistake only cost me
$15.00.
Yes, the booths were varied and interesting, the entertainment on the Square,
entertaining, and the chance to speak to persons seldom seen, inviting, but
the best part of the Bodock Festival was the U.S.O. (United Services
Organization) show presented by the Historical Society.
If the Historical Society plans to continue to produce such extravaganzas
for subsequent yearly festivals, I would suggest someone look into the
possibility of moving the production indoors. For the past three years, the
Society has utilized the Post Office/ Museum facility to showcase their exhibits
and events. However, space does not permit an indoor activity needing to
accommodate hundreds of people. The loading dock and parking lot serve the
purpose, but are inadequately equipped for the comfort of performers or audience.
Barbara and I took our youngest granddaughter, Katherine Adams, to the U.S.O.
show, where we sweltered beneath a tent with approximately 125 other folks.
We were fortunate to have the shade of the tent, because the other two hundred
or so folks outside the tent had to rely upon one another for shade. We managed
to keep Katherine, model child that she is, hydrated and cooled with a hand
fan until she dozed off.
The Historical Society solicited a number of locals to portray notables from
the World War II era. Though they did borrow a master of ceremonies from
Tupelo Community Theater, Jess Mark, who, dressed in an Army cammo
shirt and cap, did a reasonably good impression of Bob Hope. Larry Young
even had us believing he was Bing Crosby crooning us with "I’ll Be Seeing
You" and "White Christmas."
Garyon Judon, a young Black male, was the personification of Louis Armstrong
in his rendition of "It's A Wonderful World." Jimmy Walker, to anyone with
eyes closed, would have passed himself off as Frank Sinatra with "New York,
New York."
Not all tunes were from the forties, but there were enough to inspire veterans
and others to "keep time" with feet or hands. With more than two-dozen groups
or individual performers, the program ran long for my tastes, lasting a full
two hours, and outlasted roughly half the audience.
I walked away from the U.S.O. styled program and the Bodock Festival with
a refreshed spirit in a "spent" frame knowing that others hardier than I
had survived the entire day and would be there into the night. I salute all
who contributed time and talent in order to make Bodock 2002 a success. I
also salute those veterans of World War II who honored our country in a time
of war and live on to honor us by their example and determination to leave
the world a better place with their having been here.
Bodock Beau
Curds & Whey
Scuppie and I had just watched Krippendorf’s Tribe starring Richard
Dreyfus on the big screen TV when Sadie walked in the backdoor. Most readers
have never heard my mention of Scuppie, but that’s my wife’s name.
She was named after one of the varieties of muscadines, the scuppernong.
Sadie, my much younger sister, had had a long day and wasn’t up to my
shenanigans, as she attempted to complete an unfinished crossword puzzle.
"What’s a four letter word for Mongol dwelling?" she asked.
"Don’t rightly know," I responded.
Later, she filled in enough surroundings to announce, "It’s a yurt."
"I knew that," I proudly exclaimed.
"Yeah, right," she said skeptically.
"Sure, I read about them in National Geographic," I stated, trying to convince
my sister of my superior intellect.
I really had read about yurts, but she wasn’t convinced, because earlier
I had made up an answer to one of her questions and had not regained her
trust.
Plus, it hadn’t been five minutes earlier that she wanted to know,
"Don’t you read your Geographics?"
To which I sarcastically responded, "I just look at the pictures."
I guess it was my "curds and whey" that did her in. She had asked me something
and I didn’t have a clue to the correct answer, but I answered, "Curds
and whey."
It made no sense to her, but for some reason Scuppie recognized the absurdity
and thought it was funny, especially when I had to repeat the answer a couple
of more times for the hard-of-hearing Sadie.
Scuppie laughed aloud, I laughed, and then we both laughed until we hurt.
And Sadie, poor Sadie, all she could say was, "I don’t get
it."
Actually, there was nothing to get. The fun was in making up something so
nonsensical that my sister was bamboozled. You may not get it either, but
then you would have had to have seen the movie to be in the right frame of
silliness.
Purely Beau
A lot of folks turn to "Advice Columnists"
when looking for someone to support their view or tell them what to do. However,
the following are actual letters that Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abby)
admitted she was at a total loss to answer. Thanks to Powell Prewett for
the following submission.
Dear Abby,
A couple of women moved in across the hall from me. One is a middle-aged
gym teacher, and the other is a social worker in her mid-twenties. These
two women go everywhere together, and I've never seen a man go into their
apartment or come out. Do you think they could be Lebanese?
Dear Abby,
What can I do about all the sex, nudity, language and violence on my VCR?
Dear Abby,
I have a man I never could trust. He cheats so much I'm not even sure this
baby I'm carrying is his.
Dear Abby,
I am a twenty-three-year-old liberated woman who has been on the pill for
two years. It's getting expensive, and I think my boyfriend should share
half the cost, but I don't know him well enough to discuss money with him.
Dear Abby,
I suspected that my husband had been fooling around, and when I confronted
him with the evidence he denied everything and said it would never happen
again. Should I believe him?
Dear Abby,
Our son writes that he is taking Judo. Why would a boy who was raised in
a good Christian home turn against his own?
Dear Abby,
I joined the Navy to see the world. I've seen it. Now, how do I get out?
Dear Abby,
My 40-year-old son has been paying a psychiatrist $50 an hour every week
for two-and-a-half years. He must be crazy.
Dear Abby,
Do you think it would be all right if I gave my doctor a little gift? I tried
for years to get pregnant and couldn't, but he finally did it.
Dear Abby,
My mother is mean and short-tempered. Do you think she is going through her
mental pause?
Dear Abby,
You told some woman whose husband had lost all interest in sex to send him
to a doctor. Well, my husband lost all interest in sex years ago and he IS
a doctor. What now?
I really ought to have a go at some of these, but maybe I'll start my own
advice column. It shouldn't be that hard to tell such folks that they're
just plain stupid. B.B.
Kut Jok
The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached
to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather
than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations,
the British government conceded that English spelling had some room for
improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known
as EuroEnglish (Euro for short).
In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c." Sertainly, sivil
servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be replaced
with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have
one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome
"ph" will be replaced by "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20 per
sent shorter!
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted
to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments
will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent
to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"s
in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.
By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th"
by "z" and "w" by " v".
During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining
"ou", and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.
Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze
forst place....
Submitted by Bob Jackson
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