Champion News

CHAMPION—August 25, 2008

        In Champion the Labor Day celebration starts off with the Champion School Reunion, which is traditionally held on Saturday.  People return to the old place so full of memories of precious days gone by, of good times and bad times of their youth now spent.  They always pull someone along with them — some spouse or child or cousin or friend and then those persons have Champion as part of their lexicon of good experiences.  Before you know it people who never darkened the door of the School are ‘reunionizing’ and reuniting from one end of town to the other year after year.  Then some Champions who are great fans of Theodore Roosevelt say, “Bully!”  Bridge players say, “What a Deal!”  It is a Champion Notion!  Saturday is also the traditional date for the Haden Family Reunion over in Ava.  Champions hope to get some spill-over in the form of some visits from some Hadens and McCallies.  Celebrating friends and family is a Champion notion no matter where it happens.

        The Sunday part of this Labor Day week-end is to be taken up with the usual Sunday Fair of Love and Gratitude.  The Civil War Memorial will be dedicated at the Denlow Cemetery at two in the afternoon.  Representatives of the Douglas County Historical and Genealogical Society will officiate in what promises to be an interesting and informative program.  It would be a good idea to get there early so as not to miss any of the preliminary entertainment sure to be provided by the esteemed Alumni of Denlow U.  Board members of Denlow Savings and Loan and National Indemnity Life Assurance of Denlow, LLC, as represented by the firm Upshaw, Upshot, and Unshod will also be on hand to oversee the propriety of the presentation.

        Jenna Kaitland Brixey and Kalyssa Ariel Wiseman will both celebrate their first birthday on Sunday, August 31^st!  It is amazing how quickly the year has passed and it is a delight to see the happy changes wrought in the lives of so many people by these delightful little girls.  Love and Gratitude meets them wherever they go.

        Labor Day has been celebrated on the first Monday in September in the United States since the 1880s.  Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those ‘who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.”  Someone else said that it was Matthew McGuire, a machinist, who first had the idea of a holiday.  Anyway, the form for the celebration was outlined in the first proposal of the holiday—a street parade to exhibit to the public “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations.”  When Monday rolls around the Champion Labor Day Parade will spontaneously erupt the way it does every year and in a short while the throngs will disburse to resume their orderly lives.  What a Champion place!

        Americans also celebrate Labor Day as the symbolic end of summer.  The summer was green and passed quickly.  The fast green summer of Champion still leaves time for some planting and Linda’s Almanac from over at the Plant Place in Norwood indicates that the 3^rd all the way through the 7^th will be good for planting crops that bear above ground, particularly leafy vegetables.  So much of gardening is just paying attention.  The rest of it is hard work — It might require a thousand shovels of manure to get the plot ready, then maybe a thousand more!  September’s Moon is the Harvest Moon and its birthstone is the sapphire.  A gangly garden crooner with romance in his heart might woo successfully with, “The night was mighty dark, you could hardly see, because the moon refused to shine. There’s a couple sittin neath the willow tree.  For Love they Pine.  The little gal’s kind of scared of the dark, so she says, ‘I think I’ll go.’  The boy began to sigh.  He looked up in the sky and told the Moon his little tale of woe.  ‘Oh! Shine on shine on Harvest Moon up in the sky…”  Or he might fall off the porch while he’s singing and get his foot stuck in a slop bucket and then get chased by a bad dog and knock a knot on his noggin and loose his hat on a low branch of a walnut tree and then roll his foot on a walnut and go sailing hip pocket over tea kettle and hit the ground flat of his back with the breath whooshing right out of him.  Maybe he should just go home before he starts singing.  Music is good medicine, but in some cases it ought to be applied sparingly.  Perhaps a nice original poem written in a legible hand and folded neatly in a box with a pretty sapphire would do the trick.  Wooing is tricky business in Champion as elsewhere and can easily turn into a calamity.

        Calamities come in many forms and they are almost always unbidden.  Those many thousands of wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan certainly didn’t plan to live out their lives missing limbs, eyes, motor function or mental acuity.  Some are making remarkable recoveries and some are not.  They and all their families could use the support and understanding of a Grateful Nation that Loves them for their Sacrifice.  On August 26, 1998 it was reported that Air Force Senior Airman Bryan J. Proctor had graduated from the Airman Leadership School at Yakota Air Base, Tokyo, Japan.  He is the son of Pete and Kathy Proctor of Mountain Grove.  At the Skyline Picnic this summer Pete reported that Brian is now a Staff Sergeant and that he has served multiple tours of duty in the Middle East where he is currently serving.  “It’s my job,” he says.  He’s a Champion.

        Part of the prize give-away at the Skyline VFD Picnic this summer was two Angel Food Packages.  Foster Wiseman won one of them but the other one has not been claimed.  Louise Hutchison has collected the food and has it on hand for the winner, but this person needs to contact her in order to make arrangements to pick it up.  Her number is 948-2443.  The certificate says: “Good for One Menu from the Angel Food Ministries donated by the Skyline Full Gospel Church.”  It is quite a lot of food and it represents quite a generous donation made by Louise’s church organization.

        Champion notions or tricky business or examples of generosity can be reported to Champion Items, Rt. 2, Box 367, Norwood, MO 65717.  Calamities of a romantic nature should be left untold, unless they are particularly humorous, then e-mail them to Champion News.  Search the archives at www.championnews.us for references to Champion Parades.  Think of some happy, uplifting song to sing on the porch at Henson’s Store on the North Side of the Square in Downtown Champion.  Get those endorphins moving, but hold on to the porch railing and be sure that you’re Looking on the Bright Side!