Champion News

CHAMPION –September 23, 2007

        It is suddenly Autumn and the good news in Champion in recent days has to do with sister city Skyline and the Celebration of Grandparent’s Day on Friday, September 21^st.  What a lovely day!  The school was crowded with visiting Grandparents and there were games outside and a great number of good things going on inside.  Some local Grandmothers with Grandchildren much too far away will go to this celebration in the future to stand in for some Grandparent who can’t make it because they live too far away or for some other reason cannot attend.  Young Olivia from Virginia is visiting with her Grandma Charlene Dupre, a great Champion Friend.  Olivia will be four in October.  This week they plan to visit in Champion at a certain Little Green Bean House.  They will be having a tea party with fancy sandwiches.  They will write a story and take pictures and it promises to be a delightful day!  Some Krider Grandmothers just can’t turn a corner without a grandchild underfoot!  Happy Feet!  Dillon and Dakota will be in from Tennessee for a couple of days and Foster and Eli and Kalyssa will surely be nearby.  Good for all of them!

        Friday, September 21^st, was POW/MIA Awareness Day.  An Awareness Day Color Ceremony was presented by VFW Post 3770 at the Skyline School.  Post 3770 Quartermaster, Joe Kelly, of Norwood,  presented the school principal, Ms. Jeannie Curtis, with a US Flag and a POW/MIA Flag to fly on the appropriate days.  Post 3770’s website, www.vfwwebcom.org/mo/post3770 has some excellent photographs taken then at Skyline and at a similar ceremony held later that day in Norwood. The Missing Man Table Speech given at Skyline is also detailed there.  Notes on the website say, “It was Grandparents Day at Skyline School so the ceremony was well attended by all students, staff, and visitors.”  Good for all of them!

        Champion’s own soldier, SST Raul Moreno is serving in Afghanistan.  His address is SSG Moreno, Raul/ 4-310^th, TF SABER/ FOB NARAY/ APO AE 09354/ email:  raul.morenojr(at)us.army.mil  Just any kind of correspondence is welcome there.

        Serving soldiers and Veterans appreciate having their efforts acknowledged.  The survivors of those who don’t return also appreciate the recognition.  To all of them Champions extend their Love and their genuine Gratitude.

        The Pioneer Descendents Gathering is drawing nigh.  It will be an education to anyone who will venture down, down to the ‘edge of the world’ at Yates.  It’s not so far, but such a lovely trip!  There will be blacksmithing, music, good food, and an opportunity to meet good neighbors and learn about what it took to make a go of it in these parts years ago.  It is still not an easy place to get by but it has its good points.  Molasses making will be going on and Betty Thomas reported the molasses making on Saturday the 22^nd at Tony and Linda Stilling’s place was an excellent experience though it took some time.  There will be soap making, rail splitting, demonstrations of all sorts including Native Americans, Mountain Men and Civil War re-enactors.  Very exciting!

        More interesting mail to Champion:  “You may already know that Tom and I ( Arlene) had friends from Georgia visit with us.  They were curious to know why we had left Georgia, skeptical that we had made a good choice?  Georgian’s are that way you know……..We gave them the choice of destinations on Friday between Branson and Champion.  Being interested in historical sights they chose Champion.  We went by the Henry and Minnie Cooley homeplace ( Rd 234?) and then on to Henson’s store.  It was the highlight of their vacation so far.  They enjoyed Rockbridge but were thrilled to have stepped into history, even for a brief visit.  Bob Chadwell stopped by Henson’s and we all had a nice chat, like old friends sitting on the porch on a warm day ……Marsha and Larry approve of our move!  Blessings, Arlene (Cooley).” 

        On Sunday afternoon the Ozark Video Magazine on Channel 21, had an excellent program on the reunion held twice a year by the old pros of the ‘Golden Age of Radio.’  Among others, Dr. Jim Baker interviewed Dock Martin and Carl Haden.  They talked about their live music radio shows during the 30s, 40s, and 50s.  The Haden Family was composed of the six kids and Mom and Dad, and adopted steel guitar player Doc Martin.  It was a very informative program that reinforced the notion that the Ozarks is a hot-bed of musical creativity.  Darrell Haden from over in Tennessee, also quite a music aficionado, has sent a copy of his book “The Headless Cobbler of Smallett Cave,”  published by The Kinfolk Press in 1967.  It’s an exciting read!  “The writer knows personally that the Smallett Cave Legend was often used as a bugaboo by parents to frighten children into better behavior and to keep them away from the cave itself.”

        Where is a good ‘bugaboo’ when one is needed?  Children may not be easily frightened these days, but this is a compelling story and it is just the right time of the year for such a tale.

        Jury Duty is a privilege, they say.  Some think that if they were to get railroaded or have a shenanigan pulled on them and wound up in court, they would like to have someone like themselves on the jury—a ‘Jury of Your Peers.’  One guy asked another guy in the presence of others, “So, are you still beating your wife?”  If the man were to answer, “No,” the implication is that he used to beat his wife but is no longer doing so.  If he were annoyed and said, “No!  I have never beat my wife!”  some might think that his flustered response indicated that he had something to hide.  ‘He protests too much.’  It’s a ‘loaded’ question.  The question comes to mind in a conversation concerning Champion’s Long Time Friend, Roger Wall, a Dedicated Friend to Douglas County and a Decorated Veteran.  Repeating something doesn’t make it so.  Rushing to judgment without all the facts is a receipt for injustice.  Innocent until proven guilty….is the rule.

        The 29^th Brixey Reunion will be held in North Carolina this year!  Someone said that if all the family trees from this part of the country were all drawn out they would tangle up together like Briar Rabbit’s briar patch!  A conversation was overheard referring to the wife of the son of the sister of the girl that married the person in question’s brother.  There is an old song “I’m My Own Grandpa.”  It’s very complicated.

        Complicated things, good bugaboos, rules, things as slow as molasses are all welcome at Champion Items, Rt. 2, Box 367, Norwood, MO 65717.  Any kind of report about how Louise Hutchison or Zoey Louise spent their birthday can be e-mailed to Champion News.  For good feelings as of old friendships (“Fine as frog-hair split three ways!”) the key is a few minutes spent sitting in the sun on the porch at Henson’s Store in historic Champion–Looking on the Bright Side.