Champion News

CHAMPION—June 13, 2016

Champion Skies

        An exciting thunderstorm on Sunday afternoon launched an exciting week ahead.  Champions were on the ball last week accomplishing a great deal of hay making.  They can rest this week amid daily threats of rain while they update, maintain and repair their equipment for the next wonderful hay making opportunity.  They will have a little opportunity to relax, but will be ever vigilant for conditions to be just right again.  It is the very definition of equipoise.  Equipoise–one of those beautiful words that makes a person think of horses, even though it has nothing to do with horses.  It means equilibrium, counterbalance, and the state of being both relaxed and ready.  Champion!

        Buzz Woods just celebrated a birthday.  Good manners prevent asking how old he is, but he can hardly be very old because he has that persistent youthful smile.  He knows he is a lucky man.  Skyline student Zachary Coon has his birthday on the 15th together with Ava’s sterling citizen, Janice Loraine.  Foster Wiseman celebrates on the 16th.  He was splashing in Clever Creek on Friday.  Daniel Parks will be in the 4th grade at Skyline.  His birthday is on the 19th.  Accomplished artist and artisan, Joshua Cohen, also celebrates on the 19h up in Reading, PA.  Tyler Clark was born June 20, 1988.  According to Larry Lorenzoni, “Birthdays are good for you.  Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest.”  So, many happy returns, you Champions!  Gardeners generally live a long time.  They must be old, because you see them out in their gardens all stooped over pulling weeds after a good rain.  They say that is when the weeds almost jump up into their hands.  When you see a beautiful garden, there is generally somebody in it.  The almanac at www.championnews.us says the 17th through the 19th will be poor days for planting, but good days to prune in order to discourage growth.  It is suggested to cut hay or do general farm work.  After that the 20th and 21st will be good days to plant late beets, potatoes, onions and other root crops.  Prune on those days to encourage growth.  Champions are great encouragers of all types of growth.

Clever Creek full of Kriders!

        Regular Wednesday visitors to Champion were treated to a barrage of seldom seen Kriders–Harley and Barbara, Donald and Rita, Vivian Krider Floyd with her son, Larry, and daughter-in-law, Gayla.  Breauna and Luxe were there together with young Chase and his folks, new neighbors in Champion Heights.  It was a nice crowd.  Reba Bishop came with her husband, Don, and that is always pleasant.  Some people would rather not have their picture taken or their name mentioned in the paper for reasons of personal shyness or purposes of evasion.  The General was there with his sister, a Champion Krider.  Larry Dooms, Wes Lambert and others made it a large, interesting gathering full of nostalgia and convivial visiting.  It turns out that Donald Krider is a fiddler.  He plays in a group that entertains at nursing homes and senior centers up in their neighborhood in Illinois.  He likes to tell little jokes between songs like, “Do you know anything about Eskimos?  They are God’s frozen people.”  He is looking forward to playing with Foster on mandolin and Dillon on banjo.  What a musical bunch.

The bright lights of Vanzant were outshown by these smiles. Thomas being held by Dad, next to Granddad and Mom.

        Six month old Thomas Jarnagin came all the way from Oregon to attend the Vanzant Bluegrass Jam last week.  His folks, Elizabeth and Todd Jarnagin, brought him down to get him acquainted with his Granddad, John Weber.  There was a lot of sweetness going on.  Thomas was wearing his overalls and charming everybody in sight.  He seemed to very much like the music, especially when his Dad took his turn in the musical rotation.  You Are My Sunshine, and King of the Road were a couple of his tunes.  Todd says that he finds himself playing and singing more since Thomas arrived on the scene—always a good sign.

        The Skyline School will be the site of the second Skyline VFD Fish Fry on Saturday.  From 4 to 8 p.m.  They will be serving up fried catfish or chicken tenders with all the fixings.  It is a bargain of a meal and a chance to support the fire department at a time when it can really use some support.  You can meet up with friends and eat in, or take your dinner home.  The excursion out to Skyline from any direction will be a lovely one.  The roadsides are covered with wild flowers of many varieties.  Purple coneflowers are striking to see in mass.  Those nice folks over on Teeter Creek make good medicines out of our native plants.  Echinacea is the coneflower and many are familiar with its support for the immune system.  A tincture of turmeric is proving to be effective as an anti-inflammatory.  Look up www.teetercreekherbs.com to find out more about the useful plants of our glorious Ozarks.  Meanwhile, neighbors from Teeter Creek are joining with friends and family of Josh Bradley up in Springfield for a fund raising benefit to help Josh with the enormous expenses connected with fighting malignant melanoma.  He starts his treatment this week.  Hopefully the benefit will have been a great success, but for those who could not attend and would like to help, an account has been set up at the Town and Country Bank in Ava in the name of Josh Bradley or Trish Davis to accept donations.  Josh is a young family man—a husband, a father, a son.  Neighbors helping neighbors is precious activity.

        Tragic events over the week end have many families impacted and many hearts broken over the loss of loved ones and over loss of a feeling of safety and security.  The best and worst of American spirit and attitudes will doubtlessly be on display.  Noam Chomsky says, “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”  The inevitable spewing forth of hate and bigotry borne of fear and ignorance will wash through the media and across the pages of our newspapers even in, or perhaps especially in, rural Missouri.  Extremism on both ends of religion and/or politics is fraught with threat and danger.  It is as if to say right out loud, “If you don’t love God or each other the way I do, I will kill you.”  How loving is that?  Is that a mote in your eye or a log?  “I dream of a world where the truth is what shapes people’s politics rather than politics shaping what people think is true.”  Neil DeGrasse Tyson said that.  “Music imprints itself in the brain deeper than any other human experience….Music brings back the feeling of life when nothing else can.”  Dr. Oliver Sacks said that.  “Jumpin’ Bill Carlisle (Hot Shot Elmer) said, “When you’re living in the country everybody is your neighbor.  On this one thing you can rely.  They will all come to see you and they’ll never ever leave you, saying, ‘Ya’ll come to see us by and by.’  Ya’ll come” to Champion—Looking on the Bright Side!