Champion News

CHAMPION—June 21, 2010

          The first day of summer arrived in Champion with a sizzling fanfare.  The humidity mixed with above average temperatures to make the day ultra summer like. 

All the surrounding creeks are being dipped into liberally by Champions who are ‘way cool’ thereafter.  The winter of Champions’ discontent has been made glorious summer and no one complains.  There are no grim visages.  Champion is a place well worth a second look.  That is what readers of the Champion column got last week…a second look at the news from June 7^th.  

          News from the 14^th of the month includes (1) Karen Krider won the First Ripe Tomato in Champion Contest.  (2) Foster Wiseman birthday occurred on the 16^th.  He is now five years old and going to school and loving it. (3) Champion neighbors over on C Highway have sold out and moved to Tennessee.  There was a big auction at their place, which was very well attended.  Many interesting items changed hands via the auction company and many old acquaintances were renewed out under the trees on the spacious lawn.  (4) Flag Day was celebrated on the 14^th with all the customary Love and Gratitude that Veterans have coming.  It was noted that Pete Proctor will be greeting people at The Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall, which will be in Cabool July 1st thru July 4th.  This is a 3/5 scale of the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C. and it is over 300 feet long and six feet high.  The names are all there.  (5) Rare visitors cause an improvement to almost any Champion menu.  The complete article can be found on the website at www.championnews.us.  There can also be seen photos of Miss Emerson Rose Oglesby with her Grammy’s prize-winning tomato. 

          Taegan Rae Krider’s Aunt Linda celebrates her birthday on the first day of Summer.  Next week Ms. Paula Mudd, Ms. Eva Powell, and Ms. Esther Wrinkles will all celebrate birthdays.  Ed Henson’s birthday was the 27^th of the month.  He was 95 years old when he passed away in 1998.  Still, he is well remembered and well regarded as a genuine Champion.  The stories that circulate about him and his legendary sense of humor continue to bring smiles to the many visitors to Champion who knew and loved him. 

          The haymakers are still busy at it.  They have to cut it down to put it up and hope it doesn’t get sprinkled on too many times before it gets up.  Many are reporting an excellent harvest and say that the hay is so thick it takes longer to cut and makes more bales.   It is hot, hard work and some of those farmers are getting as brown as berries.  Any given swimming hole is liable to have a haymaker or two in it at any given time. 

          Arlene Cooley says, “If you could incorporate the following into your otherwise fabulous writings……..It’s that time again!  The Cooley reunion for family and friends will be held June 26th at First Freewill Baptist Church in Mountain Grove from 10 to 3.  A potluck dinner at noon will be followed by an auction and door prizes with music provided by Darrell Cooley.”  There will definitely be some fun going on there.  Those people do an unusual amount of grinning and laughing.  Funny. 

          Last weeks news informed that the 20^th through the 24^th would be good days for planting above the ground crops and seedbeds.  Linda’s Almanac from over at The Plant Place in Norwood says that the 27^th through the 29^th will be good for planting root crops again.  Sometimes a gardener does not have the leisure to plant by the signs.   Rather, when the iron is hot, or when conditions allow, or when it can be worked into the otherwise busy schedules of the planters.  Enemies do not sneak into Champion gardens by night to plant tares among the wheat, but the blasted armadillo feels free to grub about where he will and his blundering is destructive. The effect on the garden is what a prominent archaeologist calls ‘bioturbation.’  It is a real word that means the stirring or mixing of sediment or soil by organisms, especially by burrowing or boring.  One old Champion slept out in her garden the other night.  She loaded her gun, set up her cot, hung up her mosquito net and settled in with a keen ear out for the snuffeling grunt of the wretched beastie.  She fell fast asleep and rested deeply to awaken at dawn with a little dew on her bedding and plenty of signs that the armadillo had been visiting.  Her old dog would have been an asset on that occasion because she is a light sleeper and has a wonderful nose for varmints, but gunfire and thunder send her running and it seems a shame to upset the aging family pet.   “Life gets tegious, don’t it?” is an applicable saying passed down for generations from Mother to daughter.  The word is ‘tedious’ but the saying requires the errors in spelling and grammar for effect.

          Father’s Day was another roaring success in Champion.  All the old boys were celebrated and appreciated.  The phone lines were buzzing with all the Love and Gratitude that children hoard up from one year to the next.  Foster Wiseman had his birthday party on Father’s day.  His parents, Tanna and Roger, and his sister, Kalyssa, helped him celebrate.  The party was hosted by his Grandmother Krider and attending were his paternal grandparents, Wayne and Bernice Wiseman, Great aunts and uncles, Vivian Floyd, Harley Krider, Kaye and Richard Johnston, second cousin Madelyn Ward and her parents Phoebe and Josh Ward, aunts and uncles Staci and Dustin Cline, Briaunna and Leslee Krider and their little one, Taegan, as well as others.  That birthday song was sung and everyone had a good time. 

          For a good time, head on down to Champion.  Spend a lazy afternoon over in the Loafing Shed adjacent to the Temporary Annex on the West Side of the Square.  There summertime yarns are being spun daily and summertime songs are just waiting to be sung.  Spin your Champion yarn at Champion Items, Rt. 2, Box 367, Norwood, MO 65717 or at Champion at getgoin.net.  Get a good look at the construction site where the replica of the Historic Emporium will soon be rising like Sondro Bottichelli’s 1486 painting of Venus emerging from the sea.  Champion!  Looking on the Bright Side!