Outlook

Hello, hello to all of you dear and special folks who may now be scanning this week’s Richland Beacon news to learn about  what has been going on in this area lately.  I hope all of you readers are enjoying this fine summer weather which we are now having in this area of our state.  We had a little spell of rainy, blustery weather that wasn’t too bad.  It didn’t cause me to lose any sleep anyway.  I don’t do well when I am short on sleeping hours at night.

So, we are finally into what I call the real summer months of June, July and August.   But, we still haven’t  got around to having those blazing hot days when you avoid the hot sunshine and try to keep cooler with air-conditioning.  But, I know that will soon change as June gets further along and then with July and August.

I still remember so well my growing up years on that rural farm in the SE corner of Arkansas.  We had no electricity nor indoor plumbing.  We had portable lamps which had glass bottoms that held kerosene and a wick came up into the upper part of the lamp and a large, round shade was held in place over all of that.  The wick was several inches long and it would last for weeks before it was all burned down.  My mother would trim the wick every now and then to keep it tidy and burning correctly.  And, it was usually my job to wash the lamp globes when they would get streaked up once in a while.  Oh, yes, those were the days.........

Another experience I might share is that of learning how to milk a cow.  On our farm, we usually had two cows giving milk at the same time.  So, when I was about twelve years old, I learned how to milk a cow and that wasn’t the easiest thing I have ever done.  My dad was quite a carpenter and he had built this structure to hold bales of hay which were stacked in layers.  Our other farm animals also included mules and my personal horse and they were kept in the south side of the enclosure.

Now, try to picture this in your mind.  The north side of the structure was where the milk cows were kept.  Dad went out into the wooded area of our land and cut down tall sapling trees and peeled the bark from them.

Then he laid down a center piece of a peeled log (maybe two logs end to end) to reach long enough to make a foundation for the building which was also to contain bales of hay later on.  I know I am not describing this very well; but, when the building was finished, half of it was in the fenced-in area where the milk cows were kept and the other half was on the south side where the mules and my riding horse were kept.  Of course, a wire fence went all around this area and it had two gates - one leading into the north side where the milk cows were kept and the other on the south side where the two mules and my riding horse were kept.

I learned to milk a cow when I was only about twelve years old and my mother milked the other cow.  There is a knack to this; but, it came pretty easily to me then.  I had to watch the cow closely - sometimes she would take a notion and try to step forward and almost put her foot in the milk bucket.  That wasn’t fun at all.

So, I will admit that I enjoyed riding my horse more than I did milking the cows; but, that was a real part of my growing up years.  And, since my dad only had a big truck in which he hauled cattle as he bought and later sold them at auction sales in a nearby town, I would never have dared to ask for permission to drive the truck.  It was way beyond anything I ever wanted to drive; but, I was glad to go with him and my Mom when the weather permitted us to go shopping. (More about the car driving further down in this article.)

CHUCKLE #1 - A man helped a sick friend get to his hotel room and then asked the clerk to call for a doctor.  The doctor asked, “Do you see any pink elephants or green tigers?”

“Nope,” mumbled the patient.

“No snakes or dragons?” the doctor continued.

“Nope,” was the answer again.

“Then just sleep it off and you’ll be all right,” pronounced the doctor.

But, the helpful friend was worried.  “My pal is in bad shape,” he confided to the clerk. “Didja hear him say he couldn’t see any of them animals, when the room was just full of them?”   

As I said just before the chuckle, I never learned to drive a car in my early teen years since we only had the big truck which only my Dad drove.  I sure didn’t want to drive it out anywhere by myself.  So, that is why I found myself living in Rayville many years later -  married to a fine husband and with a young son, Kirby.  And, we did not have a car; but, we needed one.  So, we found an old beat-up Ford and I think it was probably a l940 model.  It didn’t look like much; but, it ran pretty well and we drove it for a year or so before we were able to buy a newer vehicle.  And, I had also learned to drive by that time so I was able to get myself to and from my office job.  

I do have a sad report of the death of a dear, longtime friend here in Rayville - Mrs. Lola Porter died May 28th and I attended her funeral at Brown Holly Funeral Chapel along with my friend  (and hers), Laura Pierce.  Mrs. Lola was my one of my favorites to visit through the years and I always felt a warm welcome there.

Some of you folks may not know or recall that I had never heard of Rayville in my growing up years in SE Arkansas where I finished high school and got married and moved to Colorado where our son, Kirby was born the next year in the city of Grand Junction.  After two years, we returned to SE Arkansas where my husband’s parents still lived at that time.

My husband had an aunt living in West Monroe then and she and her family came up to visit one Sunday shortly after our return from Colorado.  So, I got the idea of going to Monroe to find office work since I knew I could stay with his relatives for a few days.  But, it was the wrong time of the year with the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays soon coming.  And, it seemed to rain nearly every day, so I gave it up and headed back to Arkansas on a bus early one morning. Imagine my surprise when I got off the bus and found my husband and all of his family moving to Eudora, Arkansas.  They were all loaded on a big truck somehow with the furniture and so I just climbed on and moved on with them.

A few months later, Uncle Dick Hendrix came up to get me and my husband and our son to bring us down here to visit with all of the kinfolks who lived in the Rayville and Mangham area.  I think we spent five weeks down here on that trip.  And, I thought Rayville was the most desolate looking town I’d ever seen since a big snow had fallen and it was partly melted and dirty looking.  I never dreamed then that it would soon become my home, sweet home just three months later when Uncle Dick came back to tell me that he had found a job for me in Rayville if I wanted it.  Wow!!  Again, I didn’t question this - I just packed a suitcase and came here to take a job as secretary in the office of the Soil Conservation Service, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.

I will tell you more about our early days in Rayville - probably in next week’s column.  But, this is just about enough for this week.

I do have a few birthdays to list and they are:  Wende McManus and Cindy McManus on 6/4; Annie Grissom, Amanda Cade,  Meagan Hogg and Morgan Hogg on 6/5; Bobby McGlothlin, Neal Thames and Annie Doughty  on 6/6; LeWayne Allen on 6/7 and Gloria Traxler, Waymon Hesser;  Mandi Hollis and Rev. Jeff Smart on 6/8;  Mary Mohl, Donnie Gilley, Cortney Adcock and Kim Barfield on 6/9 and for Karen Gilley on 6/10.  May all of these birthday folks enjoy a most happy celebration of their natal day and we wish them many more in the  years ahead.  PARTING THOUGHT:  May we all take a moment to think about the future and consider where we may be in  years to come or what we may be doing.....Think about it.....And, then think again......????  Wow!!  That is enough for this week.........Yes, indeed.......