June 07 '03
Volume 366
Sailing At Seven Readership Exceeds 100
Ridge Rider News
As surprised as I am by this newsletter being seven years old, I am even more surprised by the number of folks who enjoy reading it. I can't explain why the newsletter is so popular, unless it has to do with the jokes found in Bodock Beau's column or the fact that for the average reader this newsletter is about as close as it gets to being a letter from home. If the past is any indication of the future, readership of this newsletter will continue to grow. Indeed it has grown from a distribution to three households in 1996 to more than one hundred households today. By RRN's first anniversary, the newsletter was read by thirty households. The second anniversary issue did not reveal how many households received RRN, but a historical note dated October of 1998, indicated forty-three households, and by June of 1999, readership tallied fifty-three households. The anniversary issue in June, of 2000, records approximately sixty-three households were receiving RRN. A grand total was not projected in June of 2001, but the records indicate no less than the year before. Subscriptions fall into one of three broad classifications, U.S. Mail, E-mail, and Internet with the first two being the most quantitatively identifiable. Each week, sixty-six copies of the Ridge Rider are printed, of which sixty-four are stuffed into an envelope, with one given to Barbara's mother, and one filed in a binder for posterity. The bulk of the newsletters that are stuffed into envelopes are stamped and mailed, but five are hand delivered to family members and friends seen on a regular basis. With computers becoming more common in households, more persons are finding that being connected to the Internet for personal communications is preferable to other forms of mail service. To illustrate the growth of readers using email to receive this newsletter, consider that as of June 2001, only four persons were receiving RRN through email. Records for 2002 show a total of nineteen email recipients. This year, thirty-six families receive their weekly copy via email. Thus the combined total of newsletters mailed and emailed is one hundred one. Geographically speaking, a breakdown of locations follows with more than one household indicated by the number in parentheses: Foreign Countries: Germany Out of State: Georgia (8), Tennessee (5), Louisiana (3), Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, and Texas - A total of twenty-six households across thirteen states. In State: Pontotoc (49), Greenville (2), Jackson (2) Ripley (2), Thaxton (2), Tupelo (2), Vicksburg (2), Belmont, Brandon, Caledonia, Carrollton, Florence, Forest, Greenwood, Gulfport, Indianola, Mississippi State, Southaven, Utica, and West Point - A total of seventy-four Mississippi households. Ridge Rider News is also available to anyone having Internet access. The web-based version of RRN is named Ridge Rider News Online and can be found at the URL www.rrnews.org. Each week, ten to twenty persons visit the website, and of these, perhaps, a handful are regular readers that are not counted in the totals above. Costs associated with producing the newsletter (paper, envelopes, toner, ink for postage meter, meter rental charges, etc.) when added to the postage pushes the cost per newsletter to roughly fifty cents. There are no plans at the present time to move to a subscription-based publication. Were there a charge for subscriptions, then based on 101 readers, it would require an annual fee of $23.75 per subscription in order to reach "breakeven." RRN remains a free publication and will continue to be provided at no cost to the reader until such a time the expenses pose an undue hardship on the publisher. Meanwhile, contributions are accepted and appreciated from individuals who wish to help offset the expense of postage, but no records are kept in this regard. In celebrating the seventh anniversary of RRN and the beginning of the eighth year of publication, the editor, his family, and the staff of RRN invite the families of all readers to join us for a backyard fish fry on July 19, 2003, at the home of the editor.
Old Things New Grill Refurbished I don't remember the year it was made, but I've had an oil-drum grill for a dozen or so years. My "used to be" brother-in-law, Jerry Brown made it for me. Actually, he sold it to me for fifty dollars, and my sister told me, at the time, he had one of his shop buddies make it while he supervised the work. The grill was well constructed but for the fact there was no clean-out door to remove the ashes between grillings. This made ash removal more difficult and may have indirectly contributed to the bottom portion of the grill rusting out. Yet, given the fact it has been kept outdoors and pretty much neglected for months at time, I suppose it's remarkable the grill did not rust out sooner. I don't think I used the grill at all in 2002, except as a drying rack for the catfish we ate at the fish fry last July. It was then that I discovered the grill's state of deterioration. I thought about hauling it to the landfill but didn't follow through with the idea. Anyway, I thought I might know a way to shore it up for another cooking season. The frame holding the drum portion of the grill was still intact and sturdy. I always liked the full-length metal shelf on the front of the grill. I also reasoned I might get another year or two's service out of it as a catfish drying rack for our annual fish fry. So, I hung onto the old grill and kept it under a line of trees on the backside of our property. My idea of restoring the old grill was fueled by a large section of heavy sheet metal that workers left after installing a new heating and cooling system in our home last fall. I figured it would cover enough of the hole in the bottom of the grill to keep the charcoal briquettes from falling out. However, it wasn't until January of this year that I felt inspired to try patching up the old grill. It was a warm Saturday morning in late January, of the sort that alarms global-warming people, but the warm morning awakened my dormant thoughts on restoring the rusting hulk of metal in my backyard. After dragging the grill onto the patio and placing the sheet metal inside the bottom of the grill, I decided the unit was too damaged by rust, the hole too large, and it would be too unsafe to use. But, that was before another thought came to me. I had purchased a roll of aluminum flashing, years earlier, the sort of material used to line valleys of rooflines and flash the base of vertical objects such as chimneys. I no longer remember how I used the flashing, but I kept the leftovers to sell to an aluminum recycling facility or have on hand in case I ever needed more flashing material. I had also kept a pair of tin snips in my toolbox, just in case I needed to snip the flashing. I attribute my tendency to retain useful things well beyond their day of usefulness to the frugal nature of my grandfather, Hayden Carter, who, as far as I can tell, never threw away even a used nail but kept several containers of old nails in his shop for whenever he might need an old nail. So great was his influence that I have a container of bent and used nails on a shelf in my carport. My old grill needed a new bottom, and, in a flash, the flashing material came to mind as a possible solution. I had only begun the restoration project when my nephew, Brett Brown, showed up to help. It was Brett's father who had originally supervised the construction of the grill, and now his son was on hand to help restore it, or rather help supervise the restoration. The soft aluminum flashing was easily snipped, and together we had soon lined the entire bottom of the grill. I still used the heavy section of sheet metal by placing it on top of the aluminum flashing, where it made a perfect base for the rack that holds the charcoal. When we had finished, the grill was almost as good as new. While it didn't look new, it worked as well as it did the day it was first fashioned. The grill was later moved from the patio onto the deck, and because we did such a good job in relining the grill, I don't worry about a chunk of hot charcoal dropping onto the wood below. The old grill has breathed new life into mealtime, too. On at least a handful of occasions since January my family has enjoyed the likes of barbecued pork steaks, pork spareribs, chicken, and hamburgers. Yes, we could have had any of these entrees cooked on the gas grill, but there's something aromatically wonderful about a charcoal fire that also makes familiar old things new. The aluminum flashing may one day corrode. The rusted portions of the grill will continue to rust and flake away, but as long as the grill and I have a leg to stand on, it will survive. After all, I still have enough flashing to line the bottom of the grill one more time.
Purple Ears First Published In '98 Realizing that the readership of this newsletter has increased significantly during the past five years, I will be reprinting several articles that first appeared five years ago in 1998. Chances are some readers who've read them before won't remember them, and new subscribers may enjoy them. The selected articles are not necessarily my favorite ones from 1998, but they do reflect a variety in writing style and content. The first selected article follows, having debuted in the March 21, 1998, issue of Ridge Rider News as Year of the Purple Ears: I am not sure, but I believe that my older brother is the reason my mother became the sort of overprotective mom she was. Fred, you see, gave Mom plenty of reason to believe her neighbors' admonition that she might not "raise him 'til he starts school." It was a fear she never got over, because in the days of his childhood and youth Fred never gave Mom much reason to believe he would survive from one school year to the next. I haven't written of all the mischief that he got into, partly because I don't know all of it and partly because what I do know is too much to put into a single article. I believe that because of the worries Mom had with Fred, especially in his early years, she devoted herself to worry and fret over each of her other children, during their early years, in hopes of avoiding having a second Fred on her hands. It must have worked, for neither of my siblings nor I brought Mom the frustration or worry that Fred's mischievous early years gave her. I can recall several occasions where Mom was a doting mom over me. Whether or not you like this story, you may thank Sarah for reminding me of it. She remembers Mom telling it. I was about six years old at the time the events described in this article took place. Sarah was still up in Heaven awaiting her birth some three years hence. You can believe that if you choose, but I know better. If that's where babies come from, Heaven would have sent her a lot sooner. The folks in charge of such matters could not have stood all that chattering and would seen to it that she got moved to the front of the line to wait for the stork. Well, no, now that I reconsider my thought, they would have found the stork and tied her to it. It seems that the house we lived in during our stay in Iuka was within walking distance of everywhere we had to go. Fred and I walked to school. We walked to the park to play. We walked to town. We walked to a nearby gas station to buy Sugar Daddy suckers. I don't know if such things are still made, but the same company produces Sugar Babies, a more chewable caramel confection than the Sugar Daddy. You had to lick the Sugar Daddy to eat it. It was too hard to bite off and too sticky to chew. It could pull the filling out of a tooth. Where was I? Oh, yeah! We walked just about everywhere except to Church. I don't know why we didn't walk to Church, since it was only about a block farther from our house than the Kroger Store that Daddy managed. First Baptist Church, Iuka, is the first church I can ever remember attending. If I ever went to a church in Corinth before I was five years old, I have no memory of it. I don't know who was responsible for interesting my folks in attending Church in Iuka, but it may have been one of our neighbors or perhaps someone that worked with my dad. I remember hearing Mom and Dad speak of a pastor there, named Jack Cranford. I believe he was the pastor who baptized both my parents. I can recall attending worship services in the Church sanctuary, but about all the happenings I can recall relate to congregational singing. Once, I could remember two or three hymns from my early church years, but today only Heavenly Sunlight can be remembered. I have a bit of memory of singing along with my parents on the chorus. We sometimes sat near a tall, bass singer, and I remember his deeply resonate voice. He has since gone to glory, but he remembered me as the little blonde-haired kid that would turn his head to the side and cut his eyes up to see him when he bore down on a bass part. If Mama were still with us she would remember the man's name. She used to tell me that the bass singer told her that the sight of me looking curiously toward him would almost cause him to burst out laughing. One cold Sunday morning, in the dead of winter, we awoke with a heavy snow on the ground. Fearing the possibility of an accident Daddy did not want to try driving us to Church in the car. He decided we could walk. I seem to remember that Fred walked with us, but I know Mom stayed home. Maybe she was afraid of falling; maybe she wanted to have a hot meal ready for us when we returned. For whatever the reason, she stayed put. I remember parts of that Sunday morning, but nothing about our walk to the Church or even being at Church. I remember a bitingly cold wind, a cloudless sky, and a beautiful sunshiny morning. I can remember walking in the deep snow, and I remember how cold I was, walking back home from Church. It seems strange that I do not remember the brightness of the white snow, though it must have nearly blinded us with the sunlight reflecting off its crystalline surface. Times have surely changed. When was the last time you awoke on a Sunday morning with snow on the roads, and you still went to Church? Heck, First Baptist Pontotoc, not unlike most area Churches, calls off the services if much more than a dusting of snow falls. "We don't want any of our elderly to fall," is the excuse given for the closing. I guess the Church leaders didn't care about the elderly back in '48, or at least in Iuka. (Historical Note: FBC, Pontotoc has since relaxed its policy and presently does not close for icy or snowy weather.) Arriving home from Church, Mom had a fit when she saw my condition. Perhaps, she had wrapped me up for the bitter cold before I had left with Dad, and perhaps he neglected to see that I stayed wrapped up on the return trip, I do not know. However, Mom was taking on something fearful over my ears. I imagine the conversation went something like this, "Just you look at this child's ears, Henry Carter! What do you mean you didn't know his ears were cold? I wrapped him up good before you left with him, and you let him come in looking like this. Look! Look at these ears! They're purple! Ears aren't supposed to be purple. His ears are froze. Oh, dear God! His ears have froze (in moments of hysteria, Mom didn't always use the correct verb tense)! No, No, No! Don't you dare touch his ears! I've read about our boys, back during the war, having ears freeze—they turned black and just fell off. Dear God! Oh, dear God! His ears are gonna fall off!"
Whew! after Mom's tirade, I was glad she was not mad at me. But, her statement about ears falling off gave my little heart grave concern. My heart may have been little, but my brain wasn't. I knew, even at the age of six, that a kid with no ears would be ridiculed by the whole school. Being the object of derision by classmates is something I always worked hard at avoiding. Yet, in this situation there was not a lot I could do to avoid having my ears fall off. Maybe, I prayed. I feel certain Mom prayed for me. After so many years have passed, I cannot tell you what steps my parents took to doctor on my ears, but I can remember feeling better about my situation when Mom said something about how my ears were beginning to get some of their color back. At least they did not turn black, and I didn't have to go to school without any ears. While we lived in Iuka, there were other problems with my ears, causing doctors to think I might suffer permanent hearing loss, but I believe I will put that story on hold for now. My wife thinks the doctors were right. She maintains I don't hear a thing she says.
Bodock Beau Cajun Fishing Boudreaux is a common name in southern Louisiana. Many Louisiana natives are called Cajun, having descended from French colonists exiled from Acadia in the 18th century. The following is written to reflect a Cajun dialect, which makes it a little hard to read. Stay with it, and your effort will be rewarded. Boudreaux been fish'n down by de bayou all day an he done run outa night crawlers. He be bout reddy to leave when he seed a snake wit a big frog in his mout. He knowed that them big bass fish like frogs so he decided to steal dat froggie.
That snake hit be a cottn mouthed water moccasin, so he had to be real careful
or he'd get bit.
He squirmed and wrapped hisself roun Boudreaux's arm try'n to get himself
free. But Boudreaux, him had a real good grip on his haid, yeh. Now, Boudreaux knows that he cain't let go dat snake or hit's gonna bite him good, but he had a plan.
He reached into the back pocket of his bib overhauls and pulls out a pint
o'moonshine likker. He pours a couple of draps into the snakes mout. Wit dat Boudreaux toss's dat snake into the bayou den he goes back to fishin. A while later Boudreaux dun feel sumpin tappin on his barefoot toe. He slowly look down and dare dat water mocassin was with two frogs in his mout. Contributed by Powell Prewett, Jr. Where Things Are Just Ducky
Three women die together in an accident and go to heaven. When they get there,
St. Peter says, "We only have one rule here in heaven...don't step on the
ducks." St. Peter chains them together and says "Your punishment for stepping on a duck is to spend eternity chained to this ugly man!"
The next day, the second woman steps accidentally on a duck, and along comes
St. Peter, who doesn't miss a thing, and with him is another extremely ugly
man. He chains them together with the same admonishment as for the first
woman. The guy says, "I don't know about you, but I stepped on a duck!"
Submitted by Rhea Palmer
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starts its eighth year of publication
with this issue. With the possible exception of my sister, I doubt anyone
is more surprised by this newsletter's longevity than this writer. My sister,
Sarah, presumed an early demise for
RRN, based
upon her contention that once I had told all my childhood stories, I'd have
nothing else to write about. I figured the newsletter would survive beyond
my sister's predictions, but I thought in terms of another year or two, not
several years, a hundred or more issues, but certainly not three hundred
sixty-three issues.
