Champion News

RIO BRAVO—October 5, 2015

2015 Pioneer Descendant’s Gathering

        Reports are that beautiful weather, if dry, is the mode in Champion these days.  Mornings want a little fire just to take the chill off though frost is not yet on the pumpkin.  Already colors are changing and soon every traveler through the area will be dazzled.  Bud Hutchison’s Fall Trail Ride through town on Wednesday is sure to be/to have been a pleasant trip.  The regular Wednesday confab at the Recreation of the Historic Emporium will have been augmented by saddle tramp stories and the wanderers improved by the regulars—shop keepers, farriers, carpenters, farmers, friends and neighbors.

        A little get-away from time to time (even from the paradise of Champion) can be beneficial.  Those things that we take for granted look more wonderful at home coming.  Lannie Hinote has just taken a nice little weekend trip to Anchorage from her Mountain Village and posted some extraordinary pictures of the Brooks Mountain Range from the air.  She mentioned earlier that she had very much enjoyed the full moon pictures that her friends a posted on the internet.  She said that it was still daylight there when the eclipse occurred and then it was too cloudy to see anything after dark.  It had snowed for three straight days.  “You would think it is winter.”  She said the snowflakes are huge.  Her friends here miss her but are excited for her to be having this great adventure.  It is a gift that she will share it with the folks back home.  Meanwhile, another Champion is off to the beach in South Texas and then on a jaunt to see granddaughters who have been growing at a rapid rate since the old girl saw them last.  They will spend Columbus Day together and Grannie will be satisfied for a while.

Children of all ages having fun

        The Pioneer Descendant’s Gathering is reported to have been another sterling success.  It was cool enough to make some wish they had worn heavier sleeves, and the cooking fires and molasses, lye soap and apple butter making were popular for more than their intrinsic interest.  The Sunday crowd was a little late in coming but they showed up in force.  The music was great as was all the food that came out of the big white tent in the middle of the field.  There were more people camping than in previous years and more wagons and horse drawn farm equipment on display.  Foster and Kalyssa’s mother kindly posted a number of interesting photographs that show lots of children gallivanting around in the midst of having a wonderful time and making memories that will last a life time.  The General said that he saw people there that he had not seen for four or five days.  He said that he had unsuccessfully struggled to avoid a certain self-proclaimed versifier from an unincorporated community southeast of Wasola.  The Pioneer Gathering is an event open to all so they probably could not keep him out.  Friends missed Bob Berry and Mary and hope to see them back this way one day soon.  When Betty and Dale are rested up they will be plied for details about who won the wonderful Elk Gathering quilt, attendance and the like.  Oh, Pioneers!

        William Tucker Clark could have been born on his old grandfather’s birthday if he had waited one day.  William arrived on the 2nd of October.  His old grandpa celebrates on the 3rd.  As of the 4th, twin Upshaw girls are significantly older than some of their friends.  Betty Dye and Vicki Trippie have the 7th as their special day and Skyline 5th grader, Draven Koepke, will party on the 9th—that is a special day known by some as the ‘ninth of ‘Tober.’  Madelyn Ward was born October 10, 2006.  Steve Connor has the 11th as his birthday and who knows how old he might be.  (That is not a question so much as an exclamation.)  Cathy Baldwin, Jill Hall and Leslie Krider all celebrate on the 14th together with William Tucker Clark’s sweet young grandma, Eva.

Oh! Pioneers!

        The Bluegrass Jam happens every Thursday at the Vanzant Community Building.  There is a potluck dinner at six and then the music starts.  Everyone is welcome to attend—to bring your instruments, your talent, and your love of music.  Participate in making it or just sit back and enjoy it.  The General said that there were enough musicians last week that he did not have to play.  There cannot be too many musicians.  The String Project in Ava is a program working toward keeping the area rich in music and musicians.  Bob Holt is still much admired for having propagated the love of the fiddle.  Anyone who has an old fiddle sitting quiet and idle is welcome to donate it to the project.  Contact Barbara Deegan at Ava High School.  They say that every time a fiddle becomes available there is a child ready to learn to play it.  Bob Holt would be proud.  An instrument that is not being played might as well be stove wood–no use having it hang on the wall collecting dust and cobwebs.

        Champions are busy getting the last of the garden in—a few more beans and black eyed peas stored up against the winter.  Up in Norwood Linda is having a half-price sale for the whole month of October on everything at The Plant Place and The Gift Corner.  There are some tremendous bargains to be had and Linda will have more time to play bridge.  Old Champions are getting the firewood in and will be hauling ashes soon.  The seasons are slipping by quickly.  Maybe the cold weather will give people more time to idle at home, to linger in quiet reflection, practice “Coleen Malone,” or to travel down to the city center to socialize and become enlightened.  When asked what surprised him most about humanity the Dalai Lama answered, “Man sacrifices his health in order to make money.  Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.  And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

        Come down to the wide, wild, wooly banks of Old Fox Creek to report what surprises you most about humanity.  Say goodbye to summer out on the wide veranda and figure that the bees in the Behemoth Bee Tree on the South Side of the Square will be just fine in the seasons ahead.  Go to www.championnews.us to see a good example of how a good community really lives.  Get ready to sing, “The autumn leaves drift by my window….” in Champion—Looking on the Bright Side!