March 7, 2016
CHAMPION—March 7, 2016
Smoke-filled valleys…
A Sunday afternoon drive home to Champion from an outing had an old couple remembering the Great Smoky Mountains. The wind was stiff from the southwest. They observed that from any high spot it was smoky as far as a person could see in every direction. The predicted rains will be welcome. Hopefully they will be gentle and building, rather than torrential and violent. Until the rains come, Champions will observe all fire safety rules and will greet the showers with gratitude.
Frances and Wayne Sutherland have celebrated 66 years of marriage. They are an inspiration and have been since 1950. Other inspiring people are Mrs. Vivod and Mrs. Casper. They are teachers at Skyline School. They have birthdays on March 10th and March 12th respectively. Cadence Trimmer is a seventh grade student there celebrating on the 11th. Second grader, Cason Evilsizer, celebrates with Ms. Casper on the 12th. The students and staff at Skyline are enjoying spring break this week. As old timers look back on their school days they often remember the good times, the significant times, their dear friends and sweethearts. Most likely Frances and Wayne were school mates. The hard work of being a teacher and of being a student is considerable. Their little vacation is well earned and for a week they will all be released from the rigors of education. Free range children sometimes get into mischief, but old timers can probably remember their own mischief making and give these youngsters a pass if they do not get too out of hand.
The weather was wonderful, if a little cool, and cool was the world for the Wednesday Salon. While there was not an actual ‘elephant in the room,’ the mood was pensive and somber. With a room full of people, long moments would go by (you could count to twenty) before anybody would say anything. A few old jokes were told and the one about the traveling preacher’s demonstration of the evils of alcohol was appropriated and changed on the spot. There were stories about sending women to the lumber yard to get board-stretchers and Mr. Stone had some poor woman looking for a left front tire for a wheelbarrow. Dailey Upshaw agreed to sell Dobro tickets at the Vanzant Bluegrass jam on Thursday and an interested party tentatively picked out the Wabash Cannonball on the beautiful instrument. It was pleasant enough even with the awkward silences. One must wonder what was on their minds on a Wednesday morning after Super Tuesday. Reports were that some fashionably late arrivals picked up the mood.
Dailey did a great job of Dobro ticket sales on Thursday evening at Vanzant and has agreed to do it again one last time. The instrument is on display at Hensons Grocery and Gas on the North side of the Square in Downtown Champion. It will be taken to the jam again on Thursday and then on Saturday night at the Skyline VFD chili supper, M.C. Steve Moody will officiate as the winning ticket is drawn. He will, in all likelihood, ask those dear ladies from Downtown Pawn to stand up for a round of applause for donating the beautiful thing. Some lucky music lover will have the pleasure of taking it home or of making arrangements to pick it up in the case of a distant granddaughter who might just let her grandmother keep it for a little while. Who knows? A person does not have to be present to win, but music lovers in attendance will be treated to a great show with Whetstone, The Lead Hill Players, Backyard Bluegrass and Stringed Union. The hard working volunteers of the Skyline Auxiliary will be serving up that wonderful homemade chili and the membership will be donating pies. Diane Wilbanks, (who has a great upright piano to give away–417-683-9239), is an excellent pie maker and a genuine appreciator of the Skyline Volunteer Fire Department. She became a fan when their place was threatened by a grass fire that the volunteer firefighters were able to stop just in time. Champion!
Mushroom season is about to happen. It will not be long. Sometime toward the middle or the end of March, depending on weather conditions, those edible treasures will start to pop up and for a few weeks will be all the rage. Spring turkey season will open for youth April 11th and 12th and the regular season will begin April 20th and go through May 10th. Epicureans will be salivating. That old saying about how thunder in February means frost in May may have a few gardeners second-guessing themselves as they get their cabbage and broccoli in the ground. It was a joy and a relief to one old Champion to see bees in her garden the other day. The resident swarm in the Behemoth Bee Tree on the South side of the Square seems to be doing well and gardeners are grateful as they depend heavily on those brilliant little pollinators. Gardening is a gamble in the best of times and an abiding opportunity to express optimism amid the uncertainty of weather.
Uncertainty is certainly the political situation these days and while many are tired of it all already with the presidential election still many months away, many are thinking this election will be a most critical one. Ignoring it does not make it go away or happen any faster. The cost of living, the cost of beans, of flour, of rent, of medicines all depend on political decisions. If you plan to be out of pocket on March 15th, absentee voting is easy. Just go to the County Clerk’s office. The people are nice and the process is efficient. In 1950, about the time Wayne and Frances were getting married, they could have gone to Norwood and boarded a train that would have taken them anywhere in the country. We cannot do that now because public transportation in the United States is all but nonexistent for much of the country, other than expensive air travel. This condition is the result of political decisions after World War II that encouraged the building of our wonderful interstate highway systems and our love of automobiles and of petroleum. Who knows what the policies of the next administration will have on the future of generations to come? Each of us is participating in the outcome whether or not we vote.
Share your news and views, your history, your philosophy, your poetry and music with champion@championews.us online or send it via the wonderful socialist snail mail of the United States Postal Service: The Champion News, Rt. 72 Box 367, Norwood, MO 65717. Come down to the wide, wild, wooly banks of Auld Fox Creek for a spring break from your troubles. Sit out on the spacious veranda in the warm sunshine among friends and neighbors to sort out your politics or to get away from them for a spell. St. Patrick’s Day is on the way next week and the Irish will be up to mischief and fun with The General, The Wild Rover, leading the parade with the fair Colleen Malone and Whiskey in the Jar. He will probably be in his leprechaun (Robert-Hood) costume belting out “Oh! Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling from glen to glen and down the mountain side.” He will undoubtedly be all right until he gets to the emotional part that says, “It’s you must go and I, I, I must bide…” (sniff) in Champion—Looking on the Bright Side!
