Champion News

CHAMPION—April 4, 2016

Champion Deer

        Spring arrives in Champion with morels for breakfast.  The season has begun and the little bit of much needed rain last week and some mild nighttime temperatures have made it so.  The country lanes are lined with wild phlox, red buds, peach trees, wild plum and cherry trees and it is apple blossom time in Champion.  The dogwoods seem late, though every burgeoning, budding, booming thing has residents again awash with awe at the splendor of their natural environs.  A facebook message appeared in recent weeks that said before it was Champion, this community was Goose Nibble.  “Nibbling geese played an important role in weed control in the cotton fields before poisons and carcinogens became the norm.  Weeder geese were often used in strawberry fields to control grass,” commented J.c. Owsley.  Perhaps Goose Nibble was a contemporary name with Militia Spring.  Notes from Hunter Creek was full of some very interesting local Civil War history and also located a small park operated by the City of Ava north of the Douglas County Herald Building where a person can still visit Militia Spring.  Local history is a well, well worth the plumbing.

        Deward’s granddaughter discovered among family treasures a newspaper article which she shared at the Wednesday get-together.  It concerned an ancient canoe that had been found embedded in mud in a creek bank a number of years ago.  It was a dugout canoe, probably made from a pine tree.  It was said to have still been in excellent condition considering its age.  For a while it was on display in Mansfield, but its current whereabouts is unknown.  It happened that Wes Lambert was there around the Wednesday tables.  He said that it was he and his wife who had found the canoe when they were out on the creek.  Local history goes back to prehistory.  Cletis Upshaw is well remembered in Champion.  He was another of those great local treasures who knew the history of every hill and holler hereabouts.  Visitors to www.championnews.us can go to Champion Snapshots and find pictures of the Denlow Civil War Memorial at its dedication ceremony.  Cletis provided much of the historical information associated with the memorial.  His son, Mark Upshaw, and his wife joined the Wednesday bunch.  Mark said that his grandson, who is 19, had just undergone Marine training at Paris Island just as he had.  Cletis was a Korean War Veteran and Mark, a Viet Nam Veteran.  Veterans are plentiful in the Wednesday group.  One of them shoes mules and said he met a guy from Mule Shoe, Texas when he was in Viet Nam.  Another Vet claimed to have passed through Texas one time and sported a 40 gallon hat to prove it, but he just turned out to be a hot-head.  Friends from opposite ends of the county, out on a lark, had been earlier to the G.T. Tire Shop for breakfast and thought they would sashay by Champion to see what all the fuss is about.  Any day of the week is a fine one to enjoy a tour of the village.  The creek bed is overgrown with lush green grass sprinkled with purple flowers.  The Behemoth Bee Tree is buzzing with apian life.  The wide veranda of the Historic Emporium on the North Side of the Square invites a sit and a visit.

       Penmanship used to be a big deal.  Those of us lucky enough to have letters from our Mothers can see that they were taught to be precise.  One remembers a writing exercise required by her Mother in hopes of instilling some precision, was to copy the poem, “Rejected.”  It went, “A stranger stood at the gates of Hell.  The Devil himself had answered the bell.  He looked him over from head to toe and said, ‘My friend, I’d like to know what you have done in the line of sin that entitles you to come within?’  Then Franklin D., with his usual guile, stepped forth and flashed a toothy smile.  ‘When I took charge in ’33, a Nation’s fate was mine,’ said he. ‘I promised this and I promised that, and I calmed them down with fireside chat.’” The penmanship lesson did not have a great effect on the scrawl, but the poem persisted.  It went on and on to the conclusion that Franklin would not be allowed in Hell because the Devil was fearful of losing his own job.  The poet was not a fan of Roosevelt, though today he is often regarded with a benevolent eye, having shepherded the Country through the Great Depression and World War II, enough so that he was elected four times.  Some Old Champions are grateful for Social Security and say, “Thanks, Frank.”  His fireside chats were considered an effort to circumvent Congress as he took his messages directly to the public via the radio.  Today, hardly a breath is drawn by a politician or a want-to-be that is not reported in the press or on social media.  The world has changed.  Oddly enough, polite political conversation seems scarce, perhaps because it has just all become so bizarre.  It seems that it is hard for Republicans to talk about Democrats or Liberals to talk about Conservatives or Independents to talk about anybody without the added explicative “that so and so… whatever.”  It is sad to think that a difference of opinion in a democracy might require vitriol.  Who took the polite out of politics?  One reads that respect is earned.  Does a person who wins election by an overwhelming majority of the voters earn respect, or is the respect due to the Office itself?  Or is respect only due to people like ‘us’?  Must we be so polarized as to hate the ‘other’ when we are all in this together?  When the elections are over, we will still be neighbors and hopefully friends, Champions yet.

A Champion resident…

        They say whenever you see a pretty garden, there is someone in it.  Champions are getting excited for the season.  Some are pulling radishes already. Others are shoveling truckloads of good organic fertilizer.  The Champion News Almanac says that the 8th and 9th will be good days for planting aboveground crops.  It is not too early or too late for planting lettuce and leafy greens.  The 12th and 13th will be great for starting seedbeds.  Moles have been busy and it is advisable to be on the lookout for snakes.  A copperhead could be under that bale of straw left over from last fall.  Most of our local snakes are ‘good’ ones in that they eat rats and mice and other snakes.  Black snakes will eat eggs and chickens and baby bunnies, but if a person does not have any of those things, the big snakes are allies in rodent control.  It is a matter of perspective.  Add your perspective on garden lore, snakes, music, poetry, politics, and history at champion@championnews.us or The Champion News, Rt. 72 Box 367, Norwood, MO 65717.  Take a sashay any day down to the wide, wild, wooly banks of Auld Fox Creek to see what it is all about in Champion—Looking on the Bright Side!