August 2011

Volume 37

Can you believe this is our Third Anniversary Issue? It does not seem like it has been three years since we sat under that little booth during the scattered showers with our very first issue of the Bodock Post. So many of you stopped by and wished us well at that 2008 Bodock Festival; and we thank you!

As the saying goes, "Time flies when you’re having fun!" And we are having fun producing timely articles; current items of interest, remembrances of times long past, information on how to grow this and that, what we ate back then and now, what is going right and wrong, and a hundred and one other topics. We even try to tuck in a little humor. The long and short of it is; we could not do this without your help. Again, thank you and God bless you!

As you sit here under the arbor with a cool glass of lemonade soaking up some warmness of late summer, I hope you are "tollably well" as my granddad used to say. Some folks understand that to mean; "too sick to work, but well enough to eat." We hope you’re not sick; but well enough to work, that is, if you want to.

September is upon us once again, the temperature should be cooling down; but who knows, sometimes summer lingers on for a while here in the South. If the temperatures stay up and the showers continue, we’ll still be mowing grass and "Sweating with the Oldies," possibly until October.

If you have not already done so; it’s not too late to drag out the fishing pole and head for Sardis, the Game Area, or some other good fishing hole and wet a hook. If you’re just getting away for a good nap; don’t put a hook on your line. If, on the other hand, a mess of good fresh fish is your desire, I hope you get a boatload.

The other day I saw a video of fish jumping way up out of the water. It looked like hundreds of them, and some were even landing in the boats of the people out on the river. Now that’s my kind of fishing!

Kids are back in school; sure hope their classrooms are air conditioned. It seems like the system is trying to have kids go to school all year round. Sorry about that kids; I’d never vote for that. You need three months to really unwind after nine months of skull drudgery. Teachers need that time to refresh for those rambunctious little darlings as they return.

September 23 is the beginning of Autumn and it is not too early to begin thinking of what to plant for fall harvest, and what needs to be done to start winterizing things around the home place. September is a time of making molasses, finishing up canning summer fruits and vegetables, laying in fire wood, and other such fall things.

Aren’t you glad we have four seasons here in the South? I was talking to a man who came back from living in Hawaii. He did not like it there.

"There is only one season, and it requires mowing the lawn, fifty two weeks out of the year," he said.

Well, no place is absolutely perfect, huh?

You know, I must tell you some of the important dates in September: Labor Day (5), Grand Parents Day (11), Constitution Day (17), International Day of Peace (21), Native American Day (23), Jewish Rosh Hashanah (29), and others.

What others you ask? There are some real doozies: National Blueberry Popsicle Day (2), Make Your Bed Day (11), National Chocolate Milk Shake Day (12), Collect Rocks Day (16), and lest we forget; Elephant Appreciation Day (22).

We have truly enjoyed producing the "Post" for you these three years. Remember to keep sending in your stories and pictures. Also, if you happen to see Cuzin’ Cornpone, tell him I’m looking for him. He still owes me the twenty he borrowed last month....

 ~ By Ralph R. Jones

I usually worked the early shift when I was in my earlier years. There was a period of time that I would stop for a cup of coffee at a restaurant that was on my route to work. There were several other people that were usually there at about the same time. A certain man would stop in about three or four days a week, but there were days that we would not see him. On one of the days after he had missed the day before, one of the men asked why he was not there the previous day. His reply astonished me.

He said, "I am retired and don’t have much to do. So I come here one day for coffee, then the next day I drive about seventy five miles east on the expressway and have a cup of coffee. I come back here the next morning for coffee, and then drive about fifty miles west on the expressway the next day and have my coffee."

I could not believe this. I decided right then and there, "I won’t do that." There has to be to be more to retirement that driving seventy five miles to get a cup of coffee and some conversation.

I decided that I would work until I was seventy before I retired, but through a company reduction I was bought out at the age of sixty seven. One day I went to work looking to work for at least three more years, and the next day I was retired.

I owned and still own a small one man business so I did not think that retirement would bother me that much. That has pretty much proved to be true, but it was somewhat of a shocker to go from a full time job one day to being retired the next day.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I usually worked the early morning shift. This continued even after I became a supervisor and could have chosen a later work time. I grew up on a cotton and dairy farm, and getting up long before the light of day was the only thing that I ever knew.

That first day of retirement began as my days usually start; a couple of hours before daylight. I was up, had my coffee, and was ready to leave long before sun-up. I would begin my first day of retirement by taking my daily run at the park. I was out of the door and on the way to the park before I remembered that the park did not open until sun-up. So what would I do until sun-up? I did not want to go back into the house and wake my wife. She is one of those that you don’t want to even speak to until after noon. So I decided that I would just drop by an all-night restaurant that was near the park.

There was not much traffic on the streets so I made good time. I entered the restaurant, and there they were; the retired people. They probably had gone to bed at sundown the day before and were now at the restaurant reading the paper and telling tales. I overheard one of them mention his latest trip to the doctor.

For some reason seeing the older people reminded me of the man who many years ago drove seventy-five miles to get a cup of coffee just to keep from being bored. I purchased my coffee, and said to myself again, "I won’t do this." I left the restaurant and waited at the gate of the park until it opened.

I have been somewhat successful in finding plenty to do during my years of retirement. I would like to continue writing about that, but I have to leave now. Why? Because it is almost daylight and I am sure that my friends are already at the restaurant waiting for me to show up!!

My wife, Barbara, and I, along with a half-dozen others will soon be traveling to Kenya, Africa, where we will work for the better part of two weeks. We will represent Pontotoc County Habitat for Humanity, PCHFH, which is an affiliate of Habitat for Humanity International. Our purpose is to build a house for a displaced family that has been selected by a Habitat affiliate in Kenya.

In the political unrest in 2007, many Kenyans were killed. Others had their homes burned. Some six-hundred thousand displaced persons were eventually quartered in government supplied tents. Many of these displaced persons continue to live in what we would consider intolerable conditions. The house we plan to build in Kenya will be for one family that is now living in a tent.

Still, our choice begs the question, "Why Kenya?"

After all, aren’t there families in need of affordable housing right here in Pontotoc, north Mississippi, and just about everywhere in our own country?

Certainly these are legitimate concerns, and it’s a question not easily dismissed without considerable soul-searching. In fact, with that which our group will spend ($40,000) for our trip to Kenya, we could build at least one Habitat house right here in Pontotoc.

Pontotoc County Habitat for Humanity celebrates its Twentieth Anniversary as an affiliate this year. A mission trip to Kenya was deemed a fitting way to celebrate the milestone anniversary, and for seven of our eight team members, it will be our first time to visit Kenya.

Why did we choose Kenya? When the Pontotoc County affiliate of HFH International was formed, Bill Jackson was elected president of the Board of Directors. Bill Jackson’s son and family were living in Kenya where Bill Jr. served as a medical missionary.

Because Habitat for Humanity is a Christian organization, HFH International asks their affiliates to tithe on all undesignated funds received. In so doing, HFH International allows the local affiliates, who so choose, to designate where or how their tithe is to be used. Aware of this policy, the affiliate chose Kenya, AF. And, as a result of Pontotoc’s tithing, more than twenty houses have been constructed in Kenya.

During the past twenty years, Pontotoc County Habitat for Humanity has built thirty-seven houses in Pontotoc County and is currently finishing up with house number thirty-eight. Barbara Carter was hired as Executive Director of PCHFH in 2001. Under Barbara’s strong leadership and fund-raising skills, PCHFH has finished thirty houses in her ten-year tenure as Director, tripling the building activity of the first ten years of PCHFH.

Contrary to what many people believe, Habitat for Humanity does not give houses to poor people. Instead, qualifying individuals, are selected based on criteria including, family income, need for better housing, desire to partner with the local affiliate, and the ability to make monthly mortgage payments.

Those who qualify for a Habitat house help build either their home or that of another with what Habitat calls "sweat equity." The homeowner’s mortgage consists of only the cost of the materials and whatever contract work volunteers are unable to provide. And, following Biblical principles the homeowner’s mortgage is interest free.

So, all things considered, building a house in Kenya makes a lot of sense. We are already expressing our love of our fellowman here in Pontotoc, and through our tithe we are doing the same in Kenya. Our trip will merely put our hands to work in a land where some of our money is already helping.

Because each team member will need approximately five thousand dollars (a large sum outside of Washington), members are encouraged to fund-raise in order to supplement the expenses of the trip. Donations are appreciated and may be sent to Pontotoc County Habitat for Humanity, P. O. Box 486, Pontotoc, MS 38863. Please notate that your contribution is for the Kenya Mission Trip.

Donations are accepted online, too, through an organization called First Giving. See http://www.firstgiving.com/pchfh. You can make a secure donation, using your credit card, to any team member or to Pontotoc County Habitat for Humanity. All donations to Habitat for Humanity or to a team member are 100% tax deductible whether made online or via check to the local affiliate.

Barbara and I are looking forward to what we consider will be our trip of a lifetime. Yes, we have concerns about overseas air travel, being in a foreign country, and the potential for violence to erupt while we are there, but we are at peace with our decision and entrust our safety largely to others all the while knowing we are doing the will of our Heavenly Father, in whose arms we will finally rest.

Thomas Chewe and I have been friends for over fifty years. We worked together for many years with G&K Construction Company who was constructing the elementary school building in Pontotoc. We became friends while building this structure and others.

We are about the same age and at that time we were both in our middle teens. There was hardly any job that we would not attempt. On many occasions we tried to "out-do" the other. Much of the work we did was related to the pouring of concrete.

The company received many building supplies by rail and required hauling to the job site by truck. Mr. Gaskin would send Tom and me to the depot as drivers and lead men, since he knew we would keep everyone working. Often we would have a race to see who got loaded the quickest, or who could get the biggest load. We, more or less, made a game out of it, but we still moved more products than any other crew.

Thomas and I worked side by side doing whatever was needed; hauling cement, bricks, clay tiles, or whatever. That does not mean we did not do our share of digging foundations, setting forms, and a thousand and one other jobs.

Now you may be saying, "It doesn’t seem too hard to call a concrete truck and let them pour the forms full." Wrong! Back then we had no concrete trucks. Our concrete was made from scratch there on the site from sand, gravel, and sacks of Portland cement and mixed in our own mixer.

On days when we had a large amount of concrete to pour we would start at five o’clock in the morning and work till it was finished. One job, I remember, we started at five; poured concrete all day, and as dark fell, Tom and I rigged lights for the concrete finisher, and then assisted them until they were done about eleven o’clock that night.

Our union steel tiers (they tied the reinforcement rods together for footing, beams, etc.) did not work on Saturday. When asked to do so, they refused. Guess who took their place? Tom and I tied steel like pros.

When forms were ready to be removed from recently poured concrete, Thomas and I were among the first to begin pulling forms. We stripped the plywood forms, scraped them with a flat hoe, then oiled and stacked them for the next job.

While building forms one day I noticed Tom cutting lumber with a hand saw. He would cut with one hand for a while then he changed to the other.

I asked him if he was ambidextrous; he said, "Naw, I’m just either handed."

Once we were asked to take some furniture to Pascagoula for Mr. and Mrs. Gaskin. We loaded two trucks and headed out. This was before the Interstate System, so we took the best roads available. Tom happened to be in front and for some reason he just stopped in the middle of the small road. I got out to see why he had stopped.

His reply, "I think we must have taken a wrong road somewhere because this one is getting so narrower, and besides there is a herd of cows asleep on the road just ahead."

On the hospital job in Houston we needed some way to get concrete to the second floor and roof. Our boss rented an un-assembled elevator tower for the task. It went together more or less like an industrial strength bed frame.

Tom and I were assigned to construct the tower that would stand sixty feet in the air and lift concrete, like an elevator. That does not seem too tall until you are hanging by the "seat of your pants" trying to fit it together. There was no place to stand, and we did not have enough arms with which to hold and still work. We decided that if we had a tail like a monkey to hold with, it would be much easier.

As we got to the last section the wind was blowing across the tops of the hollow pipes of the frames and making a whistling sound. I asked Tom what that was, and he said he didn’t know, but it sounded like the angels of Heaven or Hell telling us we were high enough.

The boss often took on concrete jobs in the surrounding communities. One such job was a concrete slab for a chicken/turkey house down on Highway 41 for Mr. Calvin Rackley. We loaded up all the trucks, hooked on the cement mixer, and headed out. I was driving the red ’51 International truck with Tom in the cab with me. It was stacked high with sacked cement, wheelbarrows, and men. Another truck followed, loaded about the same. Our pick-up truck followed with an assortment of tools, and Mr. Gaskin came behind in his car. We resembled a traveling Gypsy Show.

While driving early that morning, we passed some state workers pouring concrete on a highway bridge. Tom leaned out of the window, and hollered to the men, "We’ve already built one bridge today and are going to build another." Grinning from ear to ear, he said, "I guess I told them."

He is a funny guy! When something would strike him as funny, he’d sort of bend his knees, stoop just a bit, slap both thighs with his hands and grin that big broad grin of his.

After I left the company, we did not see one another much. He went on to form his own successful Concrete Company in Pontotoc. I know he did a good job; he knows concrete inside and out. He also served for thirty years on the City School Board, and must have been a good board member too. He has a fine family and they are all an asset to him and our community.

We met recently at the Bodock Festival for the first time in some years. It was as if we had never parted, we just picked up where we left off. Of course we both have a few more gray hairs, more wrinkles, and don’t move as fast, but the friendship is just as good today as it was fifty years ago.

Thanks for being my friend, Thomas!

I hope by the time you read this you have already pruned your roses back to get ready for a fabulous season of fall color. If you are running behind, get on out there and prune those babies back. You can prune about one third off and cut about one half inch above an outward facing bud eye.

You can work in some granular fertilizer; 13 is a good all-around one, the first of the month. Don’t use any granular fertilizer after the 15^th of September, only water soluble. The middle of September give each rose about one gallon of a good water soluble fertilizer. I use 20-20-20 or the blue water works fine too.

The last week of the month give each rose another drink with one tablespoon each of Epsom salts, fish emulsion, and a 10-52-10(Super Bloom) mixed in a gallon of water.

Be sure and keep up your spray program, because this time of year roses are susceptible to powdery mildew as well as black spot. I use one half teaspoon of Honor Guard and one heaping teaspoon of Mancozeb per gallon of water.

Most pests are not a problem at this time of year to roses, although there are a couple of troublemakers. Cucumber beetles (look like green ladybugs) seem to be swarming and can be controlled with a chemical called Talstar. I mix one ounce per gallon of water and usually one application will do the job. The other pest is a moth that lays eggs on the blooms and foliage just below the bloom. The old fashioned "Bug Zapper" works best to control the moths that lay the eggs, however to get rid of the egg and larvae you need a chemical called Dipel. This comes in different strengths, so be sure and read the label and follow directions.

Please be careful and read the label on all chemicals, follow directions and remember more is not better. Be sure to wear protective clothing, wear a respirator to protect your lungs, and goggles to protect your eyes.

Last but not least, be sure to water. Give your rose bushes at least an inch of water a week and if you are going to show roses, you might want to water at least twice that.

The rose garden is a good place to teach your young child or grandchild colors and smells. It is also a good place to teach about thorns. My good friend and avid rose gardener, Damon Ligon, loaned me this photo of his baby girl, Macy, smelling a rose. Isn’t she just the cutest thing you ever seen.

Send me an email with your comments or questions at colorsbytim@hotmail.comor you can send me a message on www.facebook/mastergardner.com

In the South, fried chicken has long reigned supreme as a dinnertime favorite. And, it seemed to me that in my youth, most moms bought a chicken for Sunday dinner. I know that preachers and visiting evangelists were fed fried chicken so frequently by appreciative parishioners that chicken was sometimes identified as "Gospel Bird."

In my day, customers would line up at the meat counter to watch me cut up a whole chicken. Of course, in my day if a customer wanted to eat chicken breast, he or she purchased the whole bird and usually asked the butcher (aka, meat cutter) to "cut it up."

Prior to the age of supermarkets, there was little demand for specific pieces of chicken save at the family dinner table where everyone wanted a particular piece of fried chicken but had to settle for what was left when the serving platter was received. The supermarket age and subsequent fast-food age has killed off good-tasting chicken.

Some will blame the taste of today’s chicken on the new breeds designed for fast growth and huge breasts or possibly on the chemicals added to chicken feed.

In my day, I’ve eaten what folks now call free-range chicken, and just like string beans, I prefer the store bought version. I discovered long ago that frying all the parts and pieces of a whole chicken in a large skillet produced the best-flavored chicken, regardless of seasonings used and whether the cook were Colonel Sanders or Mom or me.

In my day, I was afforded time to play and roam given neighborhoods, but once I turned thirteen, the days of my youth were lived largely in classrooms and the grocery store, Carter and Austin Grocery and Market. I never asked to be a bagger, a cashier, a stocker, a delivery boy, or a meat cutter. I simply did whatever it was my dad, the store owner/manager, told me to do.

To be sure, there were aspects of every store task that were less than fun. In bagging, one had to be sure not to allow the loaf of bread to be crushed by other contents in the bag. In cashiering, one had to mentally compute how to "make change," something that is an art, which has been lost on this present generation of whom few know how to count change back to a customer. Stocking groceries on shelves was in and of itself a boring task. And, being a delivery boy was not without its challenges negotiating a Pontiac sedan through the pedestrian and automobile congested streets of Pontotoc in ’57.

While I developed a degree of proficiency in all assigned tasks, perhaps it was meat cutting that I enjoyed the most. I had to overcome a natural shyness on my part and actually learn how to greet customers approaching the meat case with a "Good morning," or "Good afternoon," or "Good Evening." and a "How may I help you?" Though difficult at first, smiles came naturally for me after a few years.

I’m convinced that the challenges meat cutting afforded me were the reasons I learned to enjoy the work itself. I learned to cut meat in a day when beef was brought into the store largely by quarters, hindquarters and forequarters. These quarters had to be broken-down into manageable pieces and further reduced to roasts, steaks, meat for braising and stewing, and ground beef.

I still remember that the chuck is separated from the rib portion of the forequarter between the fourth and fifth ribs and I even recall how to find the knuckle on the hindquarter to remove the Sirloin Tip portion. But, today, about the only people that need to know how to do either are those who work in a slaughter house.

In my youth, I learned how to do everything that was required of a meat-cutter in a small town like Pontotoc. And, gradually, I learned to be something of a showman, showcasing my talent most often when the customer asked that a fryer be cut-up.

Once the bird was weighed and the price accepted by the customer, the chicken practically flew apart on the butcher block. First, the wings, then the pulley-bone and the legs were removed precisely by a single knife-stroke. The breast was halved and the back, also, all in less than twenty seconds. On a good run, separating the eleven pieces required no more than thirteen knife strokes. Without boasting, I would say the sight was altogether "poetry in motion."

I don’t know how many customers I entertained with my Zorro-like theatrics on the butcher block, but some even made their fryer purchase conditional on me being the one to cut up the fryer.

I learned many lessons working in my dad’s store, lessons that have served me well throughout my life. I learned how to "meet the public," how to reason and to relate. I learned that "where there’s a will, there’s a way," and "if a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing well," and most importantly, "the customer is always right."

Dad always said, "A man who is good with math can do anything!"

I was quite good in math. Many of those I later taught high school math would ponder, "What good is math?" or "How will I ever use this?"

My question remains, "Who doesn’t need math to be a productive member of society?"

In my day, math and work worked to make me into the man I am today.

Photo Credit: Butcher block picture used by permission of Anny-The Red Plate

Cucumbers contain most of the vitamins you need every day. Imagine, eating just one average cucumber and all these vitamins are yours. Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B3, Vitamin B5, Vitamin B6, Folic Acid, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc.

Do you feel tired in the afternoon? Don’t reach for that caffeine boost, pick up a cucumber. Cucumbers are a good source of B Vitamins and Carbohydrates that can provide that quick pick-me-up that can last for hours. Hungry and need to fight off that midafternoon hunger, cucumbers have been used for centuries by trappers, traders, and explorers for quick meals to thwart off starvation. Now that you have had that snack, you don’t have to worry about bad breath because you can save that last slice of cucumber and press it to the roof of your mouth with your tongue for 30 seconds to eliminate bad breath.

The phytochemicals will kill the bacteria in your mouth responsible for causing bad breath.

Are you stressed out and don't have time for massage, facial or visit to the spa? Grab a cucumber, slice it up and place it in a boiling pot of water. The chemicals and nutrients from the cucumber with react with the boiling water and be released in the steam, creating a soothing, relaxing aroma that has been shown to reduce stress in new mothers and college students during final exams.

Do you want to avoid a hangover or terrible headache? Eat a few cucumber slices before going to bed, wake up refreshed and headache free. Cucumbers contain enough sugar, B vitamins and electrolytes to replenish essential nutrients the body lost.

Don’t you just hate it when you get out of the shower and the mirror is fogged over? Grab a cucumber slice and try rubbing it along the mirror and it will eliminate the fog and provide a soothing, spa-like fragrance. Are you looking for a "Green Way" to clean your faucets, sinks, or stainless steel? Take a slice of cucumber and rub it on the surface you want to clean and not only will it remove years of tarnish, but it will bring back the shine. It also won't leave streaks or harm you fingers and fingernails while you clean.

This one is for you girls who think you have a problem with cellulite. Try rubbing a slice or two of cucumbers along your problem area for a few minutes. The phytochemicals in the cucumber are said to cause the collagen in your skin to tighten and firm up the outer layer, thus reducing the visibility of cellulite. They say it works great on wrinkles too.

Have you got a problem with slugs, snails, and grubs ruining your planting beds? Place a few slices of cucumbers in a small pie tin and your garden will be free of pests all season long. The chemicals in the cucumber react with the aluminum to give off a scent undetectable to humans but drive garden pests crazy.

Do you have an important meeting or job interview and realize that you don't have enough time to polish your shoes? Rub a fresh cut cucumber slice over the shoe, for a quick and durable shine that not only looks great but also repels water.

Is that squeaky door or hinge driving you crazy, and you can’t find the can of WD 40? Take a cucumber slice and rub it along the problematic hinge, and voila, the squeak is gone.

It happens all the time, the ink pen made a mistake. Take the outside of the cucumber and slowly use it as an eraser. It is also said to work great on crayons and markers that the kids used to decorate the walls.

"Now you know the rest of the story" as our old friend Paul Harvey would say. Fact or fiction, I guess you will have to try these tidbits to see if they really work. I can tell you that they do shine a shoe pretty good and they will help with a squeaky hinge if you can get the juice in there.

So, everyone, grab a cucumber or two and keep them handy, one in your car, desk, briefcase, and a couple of other places.

Drop me an email at colorsbytim@hotmail.com and let me know what happens with your experiments in "Cucumber Science."

Happy eating, keep digging in the dirt, and plant some cucumbers

Zachary had been getting revved in anticipation each day. His first game was here.

The first game: I could relate to it, because I played football. This though, was band and something foreign to me. I would learn tonight.

Zachary had all the tools. Skills, dedication, camaraderie, desire, patience, and the nervous energy an entertainer needs to fuel performance. It was satisfying to see him step out of the car and nonchalantly wave bye to me & head up the walk to the Band Hall at Tupelo High School; friends waiting and their Director walking with Zach to unlock the door. It was time to get the "game face" on for the show.

He acted like he had been doing this for years, so it was no big deal.

But it most certainly WAS a BIG deal. This was a fourteen-year-old’s first game in "Varsity Band" and what he had been playing in his head since sixth grade in the prep group "Drum Machine" at Milam Upper Elementary.

He had wanted to be in Drum Machine since fourth grade when he saw them at an assembly.

He had, much to our surprise, wanted a drum set since he was at Joyner Lower Elementary. We never got it for him because we thought it was a whim. Children express desires, and then leave those "dreams." If we had been paying attention, we would have noticed he had been playing drums since he was a toddler.

In the kitchen, our little Buddy Rich would toddle in (I thought) to watch me cook. Actually, he was getting his trap set. He’d bang two brown pots on the linoleum and eventually he’d reach up on tippy-toes to get a wooden spoon and literally "play" his "drums."

So here he was, a tall, lean, tanned...well, kind of tanned...red headed, and fair-skinned like both his grandfathers, he had a tan line on his face, arms & ankles earned from a month of assorted Band Camps. This drummer casually strolled up the walk hiding his pre-game nerves...about to burst like a holiday mortar.

They got into formation for the National Anthem. Playing eased the pressure. I snapped candid photos trying to capture his moment. He grinned and waved, just for an instant, because Varsity Band has to maintain that stoic posture.

Tonight in Tupelo, Mississippi, because of the heat it was a tad more casual (bathed in humidity, the heat index was 107...much hotter on the turf at Robbins Field), so the band was not in their dress uniforms. Rather, this August 19^th, 2011 they were in khaki pants and navy t-shirts featuring the logo for their show, "Love and Conflict."

In a showing of brotherhood, the tenors fashioned their hair into dreadlocks. Yes, Zachary hadn’t had a real haircut in a long while. His long, wavy, auburn, shoulder-length hair was looking very hip in the dreads his fellow drummer molded in four hours.

His mother didn’t care for the idea, but was surprised and pleased after it was done. I will admit I couldn’t stand in the way of this, because as a youth I had always wanted to "let my hair down" but if it got too long, I just looked stupid...kind of like "Bozo the Clown meets 1978 Michael Jackson" {those of you under twenty years old will have to Google it}. My hair blew up like a balloon. His was cool.

Zachary wore the dreads well. His first game was shaping up in a great way. They played well. They took the field and performed better than they expected...no train wrecks...only a couple of dropped rifles or flags, and they left the field after half-time, triumphant! One of his friends told me afterward at the concession stand that some of the senior girls were crying...some before, in nerves....some after, bittersweet that they had just performed, "...their last ‘first show of the season’ as high schoolers."

Stopping in the stands to see his family before rejoining the band as their "Third Quarter Break" ended, his smile said it all for me and I wanted to bottle that excitement and keep it on a shelf forever to admire as he got older, and use it in the future to remind him of his goal if ever he’d question if all the summer work was worth it.

The night was not yet over in my learning experience that was my son’s first game in Varsity Band. Indeed, I would be brought to the verge of tears.

I stood near the band as time ticked down. Wanting to be the fly on the wall, I spied my son and his close friends in the Golden Wave Varsity Band playing during the fourth quarter. ALL fired up, they were ALL in time roaring out music with big brass, crisp woodwinds, and the angry thump from the drums.

Looking up, up, up trying to find Zach I spotted his dreads. He and the other drummers were flailing their heads in a coordinated move that would have made the Radio City Rockettes proud! Eyes welling, I looked at the abandon on his sweet face. His eyes sparkled. His smile spread across his face from ear to ear. It defied the determination with which he hammered those skins! He was at a whole new level of happiness.

He anticipated this for years. He got a taste in Middle School Band during eighth grade football. His heart sought this when he played at Milam during Drum Machine’s end-of-year show in 2009; a solo he had written and dedicated to his Pappaw after Larry died from cancer. He saw it in his toddler mind when he banged those pots hard enough to dent one back in 1998.

My "Best Ole Buddy," was at an apex, & it was precious to see it and know for this night, all was well in his world.

This is what "first games" truly are. This is the reward for hard work and dedication. The laughter, elation, and forever bond of his group was reflected in the bright, shining aura of his face with those glorious dreads swinging in the air this night.

Thank God I was blessed enough to see it.

Biographical Sketch: Tom Campbell, stubbornly lifelong resident of North Mississippi, lives in Tupelo with his wife, Deana and their children, Megan, Zachary, and Emily. He is a gorgeous house-husband and flunky.

A product of fine Pontotoc City Schools, Tom embraced the skills beaten into him honed by his English teachers, Irene Umphress, Elizabeth Bowen, Sarah Parker, and Kathryn Peeples and his Journalism teacher, Wayne Jackson, to write frighteningly bad humorous songs and comedy routines for his morning radio show at Ole Miss’ WCBH and on Tupelo’s KZ-103 from 1981 to 2000.

Son of Peggy Campbell and the late Dr. John Campbell of Pontotoc, his much older brother is Preston, and his loving sisters are Carolyn McKie of St. Louis, Missouri, and Susan Wann of Brandon, Mississippi.

Contact Tom at tlcreb17@yahoo.com

Is it just my imagination, or do people, as they get older, put more unnecessary things in the refrigerator?

Growing up, I did not think much about it, and for that matter, still don’t until the other day when something unusual showed up in our refrigerator. Now don’t get me wrong, refrigerators are wonderful machines and have served mankind for many years. But really, how far are we to take this big box that keeps some things cold on one side and things frozen on the other.

Mom was always putting odd things into the "ice box," as she called it. Many food things that would have fared well at room temperature somehow wound up in the "frig." Some things were kept there by necessity and rightly so.

For many years she worked at the school cafeteria and on occasions they received items for school lunches that could not be used. Instead of disposing of them in the garbage the overseer gave these things to the workers. One thing I remember so vividly was juices of different kinds. Huge cans of peaches, apples, pears, apricots, etc. in juice would be delivered. They used the fruit to make salads, desserts, and other things for the school lunches.

As much juice was used as possible with these items, however, there would always be a lot of juice remaining. Rather than pour the juice down the drain, the workers would save this juice in jars and whoever wanted them could have them.

After the first jar arrived at our home, we found we liked the juice. The first thing mom would do was to put that big gallon jar in the refrigerator. Then when it was good and cold it made a very good drink. In lieu of orange juice for breakfast we might have peach, pear, or apricot juice. My, my, how good a glass of that cold elixir would taste.

On another occasion when I looked into our old Philco refrigerator’s bottom drawer, there was a bundle of clothes rolled up there. They were clothes she had "sprinkled" and were ready to iron but something had called Mom away. You guessed it; she stuck them in the refrigerator drawer to keep until she could return. It kept them from "souring," as she called it and seemed to work well for her.

You might find a container of molasses, honey, a jar of mustard, partial pone of cornbread, leftover biscuits from breakfast, several small bowls of vegetables, etc. in our refrigerator. Some of those things would have eventually spoiled had they been left out, but at our house not much food spoiled either inside or outside of the ice box. An always hungry teenager and a hard working couple of adults left little for the garbage.

Here at our house today more and more odd things are showing up in the fridge. We purchased a new refrigerator a few years, and it has most of the modern conveniences. There is an ice dispenser, crushed or cubes, on the door, and a cool water dispenser there as well. And, although it will give nice cold water for drinking; there must be at least a dozen plastic bottles of store-bought drinking water stashed inside. Recently the coffee container showed up there. Someone said the coffee would stay fresher if it was refrigerated. Later we read that is not a good place to keep ground coffee, it seems to absorb other flavors and odors in its surroundings. However, the coffee can is still in the refrigerator, not to mention sealed containers of fruit, different kinds of mustard, a five year old jug of maple syrup (hard maple sugar now, no doubt), mystery meat, fruits/vegetables of all kinds and some in varying degrees of decay, black bananas, and a bath towel. The latter being the item that intrigued me the most.

When I asked my wife why we were putting towels in the refrigerator, she gave me a good and plausible answer at the time, but it evades my mind now. I do, however, remember asking her if it had anything to do with taking a bath in this extremely hot weather we’ve been having. If you think about it that might not be a bad idea. You know how it is to take a bath, get out and dry off, only to be completely covered with perspiration in just a few moments. An icy cold towel might just be the answer. She may have invented a new phenomenon for summertime bathing. Just as warm towels are very comforting in winter, cold towels might work well in the summer.

So, if you open your refrigerator and find something strange; say a bag of bird seed, a shovel, or a "road kill" possum, don’t fuss, your wife may be inventing something altogether new and different; or possibly just putting a new twist on an exciting supper.

However, be careful if it’s a snapping turtle, they can hurt, and you know he’s not going to be a happy camper all cooped up in the ice box.

A short drive east of downtown Pontotoc stands a hillside some of us call Young Mountain. Atop the mountain sits Young Manor, the home of Larry and Bobbie Young. Of course, the hill is not a mountain, and the home is not really a manor, but it doesn’t take much imagination to see how either could be viewed in this light.

The four-columned, two-story house is stately enough to grab the eye of all but the swiftest motorist on the four-lane a quarter-mile or so to its south. And, compared to the plain the highway is on, the hillside can be thought of as mountainous.

What one driving along the highway doesn’t see is that the beautiful landscape wraps around the sides to an even more beautifully landscaped backyard, where a variety of blooming plants thrive in both sun and shade. Just off the extensive patio area is a waterfall that runs into a goldfish pond. The sounds of water making its way over rocks and into the small reservoir add ambience to the solitude one can easily find while enjoying songbirds, butterflies, and moths that are attracted to food and water sources.

Holly Springs, Mississippi, a small city, is a distant fifty-odd miles northwest of Young Mountain. Each year at an Audubon nature preserve near Holly Springs, visitors pay to see migrating hummingbirds netted, examined, weighed, measured and then banded only to be released once more. Thousands of hummingbirds flock there each year, and on any given day of the weekend in which visitors are welcomed, hundreds of "hummers" may be seen feeding among the many varieties of plants and manmade feeding stations.

Friends of Larry and Bobbie Young don’t have to journey to Holly Springs to view scores of hummers at any given time. Hummingbirds start arriving on Young Mountain in early May. By July their numbers peak and don’t start thinning out until late September. The Youngs continually fill up to a dozen hummingbird feeders throughout the summer months.

"If we let a feeder run out of the sugar solution, the hummingbirds fly up and peck on our glass windows and doors alongside the patio to let us know we need to refill the feeder," Bobbie shared.

"Often, in the early spring before we get our first feeders put out, we’ll see a few hummingbirds searching for a feeder, always where we had one placed last year," Larry added. "It’s like they can remember where they stopped for food last year."

It’s almost August as I write this, and just this week, two hummingbirds finally found my two feeders. I’ve never had more than three or four hummers around my feeders, and I’ve wondered if my blooming lantana wasn’t nearby if I’d ever have any hummers in my backyard. I’m not sure how hummers communicate or it they use a sort of telepathic email, but I’m guessing the pair of hummingbirds that have started using my feeders didn’t get "the memo" about the gathering at Young Mountain.

My recent visit to see the hummingbirds that Larry refers to as Bob’s birds was time well spent. As Larry speculated, the many hummers flew away from the feeders when I arrived, but in less than a minute after I found a seat nearby they returned. I never took the time to count them, but most of the time, there were two or three at each feeder with others flying back and forth from tree branches to the feeders.

After satisfying my curiosity watching the antics of their intolerance of one another, I set my digital camera to movie mode, trained it toward a feeder and slipped away for about fifteen minutes. The camera captured a lot of activity, some of which is shown here….(click this link).

So, if you’re on a budget this year or simply don’t care to spend the better part of a day to visit the hummingbirds at Strawberry Plains Audubon Center near Holly Springs, I’ll bet the Youngs would welcome your dropping by to see the wondrous sights in their little piece of Heaven atop Young Mountain. Tell ‘em Wayne sent ‘ya.

Addendum: Larry reports that the migratory hummingbirds are flowing in from the North, and that their numbers have doubled since my visit.

Our teacher asked what my favorite animal was, and I said, "Fried chicken."

She said I wasn't funny, but she couldn't have been right, because everyone else laughed. 

My parents told me to always tell the truth. I did. Fried chicken is my favorite animal. 

I told my dad what happened, and he said my teacher was probably a member of PETA. 

He said they love animals very much. 

I do, too. Especially chicken, pork and beef. 

Anyway, my teacher sent me to the principal's office. 

I told him what happened, and he laughed, too. 

Then he told me not to do it again. 

The next day in class my teacher asked me what my favorite live animal was.  I told her it was chicken. 

She asked me why, so I told her it was because you could make them into fried chicken. 

She sent me back to the principal's office. 

He laughed, and told me not to do it again. 

I don't understand. 

My parents taught me to be honest, but my teacher doesn't like it when I am. 

Today, my teacher asked us to tell her what famous person we admire most.  I told her, "Colonel Sanders." 

Guess where I am now... 

Our loveable friend, Cuzin' Cornpone, appears only in The Bodock Post.

It is our desire to provide a monthly newsletter about rural living with photographs of yesterday and today, including timely articles about conservative politics, religion, food, restaurant reviews, gardening, humor, history, and non-fiction columns by folks steeped in our Southern lifestyle. 

Copyright © 2011 ~ The Bodock Post.

Return to home page. Open This Issue with MS Word