The Ring Engagement Is Official
"If after one year, we still feel the same way about each other," Felicia told her mother, "we plan to marry the following June." I suppose such an arrangement might be called a pre-engagement engagement. Many serious couples announce engagement plans on or around Christmas. Felicia’s roommate, Leslie Johnstone, was given an engagement ring just before Christmas, and I would not have been surprised had the same happened to Felicia. Apparently, Cullen and Felicia didn’t feel pressured to modify their timetable. Within the past month or so, Cullen and Felicia visited a jeweler in New Albany, where they managed to narrow the many possibilities down to three different rings. There was also a possibility the jeweler could use some of the diamonds from a ring Felicia's Grandmother Brown gave her a few years ago. The heirloom ring was sent to a designer in California for his assessment, and as I like to say, "Ten thousand miles and ten thousand dollars later, a different choice was made," because the designer concluded the stones wouldn’t work as imagined. Near the end of 2006, Cullen apprised his parents, who live in Tupelo, of his and Felicia’s plans. Cullen then told Felicia that his parents had given their okay. Felicia updated her mother of the situation and reminded her that, prior to making a formal proposal—ring and all—Cullen had to seek permission not only from her mother but also from her Uncle Wayne. Sara Sue may have been more nervous about how to respond than Cullen was in asking permission. Either way, a few weeks went by before Cullen felt the timing was perfect enough on his part.
"I don’t know what I’m supposed to say," Sara Sue bemoaned. "I
guess I could say what Mr. Crouch told you and Barbara." However, both Barbara and Sara Sue tell me that Mr. Crouch commented, "I reckon y’all are old enough to know what you’re doing." In hindsight, I would add that perhaps he was wrong. Cullen passed on a good opportunity, one recent Sunday morning, to ask permission from Sara Sue and me at the same time. He had driven over from Oxford to go to church with Felicia and arrived to find she had already left to sing at First Day. I stopped to see if Sara Sue wanted to ride with me to church, and soon the three of us were in the same car on the way to church. He later told Felicia that he didn’t have his speech finalized and elected to postpone the request. Cullen missed at least one more good opportunity, stating he didn’t want Felicia present when he asked Felicia’s mother or me. However, on the Saturday that Cullen picked up the ring at the jewelers, he drove to Pontotoc to find Sara and me. When he saw a truck parked at Sara’s he presumed she had company, so he drove by my house to make sure I was at home. This time he was determined to put the permission task behind him. When Cullen entered Sara’s house he found Linda Maddox, who Felicia describes as ‘Mama’s truck driving friend,’ visiting Sara. He talked to Sara, with Linda hanging onto every word, and Sara happily consented to his request for her daughter’s hand in marriage. At my house, Barbara welcomed Cullen at our front door. I believe I was in the computer room at the time, but upon hearing the doorbell managed to get to the living room just as Cullen entered. He mentioned he had been by to see Sara and told me that he thought it was a good idea to ask my permission to marry Felicia, since I would be giving her away. He also offered to show us the engagement ring, which he withdrew from his pocket. The beautiful ring consisted of a large diamond solitaire flanked by diamonds on either side, all in a white gold mount. Barbara asked, "Does Felicia know you have the ring?" "No, she’s working at Chaney’s. I told her I’d probably be at home watching basketball games on TV." I had no objections to Cullen’s request, though I asked him several questions of a general nature, such as, "Where do y’all plan to live; when will you finish your undergraduate work, and are you still planning to attend Law School?" His answers were: Oxford, this August, and yes, I hope to be accepted by Ole Miss’s Law School. He also mentioned he might soon be in line for a better paying position at the Ticket Admissions department at Ole Miss. As if to assure us that living expenses would not be significant, Cullen commented that he and Felicia would live in his Grandmother’s house, where they would not be required to pay rent, only the utilities. This arrangement would allow Felicia and him to save some funds for Law School. I should have quoted him my dad’s remarks on young couples making ends meet, "Two can live as cheap as one… one woman."
In spite of my best efforts, I'm often misunderstood. I have no explanation for why that is the case. Cullen would later tell Felicia that he made it okay talking to her mother but Uncle Wayne gave him the third degree. Apparently, I didn't smile enough to put him at ease or else my body language was threatening. I'm okay with Cullen's assessment for I know that given sufficient time, he'll get used to me. Prior to his leaving, Barbara and I expressed our best wishes to Cullen and stated we looked forward to his becoming a part of our family. Cullen made it back to Oxford before Felicia got off work. Prior to their going out for dinner, Felicia met Cullen at his house. She said she found him on bended knee, bathed in candlelight in the sunroom, extending the ring toward her as he repeated the ages-old refrain, "Will you marry me?" Her response was an enthusiastic, "Yes!"
Daylight Saving Different This Year Ben Franklin is credited with conceptualizing what we now know as Daylight Saving Time. (And, if the reader didn’t already know there is no "s" at the end of "saving.") Franklin’s idea, originally introduced humorously while he lived in Paris, gained some popularity among those Parisians with whom he corresponded upon his return to America. Yet, it took World War I and a congressional resolution to enact Daylight Saving Time in America, and even then, only as a means to help the war effort. America’s first observance of DST lasted seven months and was so unpopular that following WWI it was repealed shortly afterwards in 1919. Franklin D. Roosevelt, a.k.a. FDR, instituted year-round DST over a three year period from early 1942 until late 1945, but states and localities had the option of observing DST or not. I was too young at the time to remember if Mississippi observed DST under FDR or not. "On January 4, 1974, President Nixon signed into law the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act of 1973. Then, beginning on January 6, 1974, implementing the Daylight Saving Time Energy Act, clocks were set ahead for a 15-month period through April 27, 1975." I remember a lot of folks were adamantly opposed to year-round DST, especially those persons in rural areas who worked in factories and whose children had to wait in roadside-darkness to ride the school bus. "In the early 1960s, observance of Daylight Saving Time was quite inconsistent, with a hodgepodge of time observances, and no agreement about when to change clocks. The Interstate Commerce Commission, the nation's timekeeper, was immobilized, and the matter remained deadlocked. Many business interests were supportive of standardization, although it became a bitter fight between the indoor and outdoor theater industries. The farmers, however, were opposed to such uniformity. State and local governments were a mixed bag, depending on local conditions." "By 1966, some 100 million Americans were observing Daylight Saving Time based on their local laws and customs. Congress decided to step in and end the confusion, and to establish one pattern across the country. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 (15 U.S. Code Section 260a) signed into Public Law 89-387 on April 12, 1966, by President Lyndon Johnson, created Daylight Saving Time to begin on the last Sunday of April and to end on the last Sunday of October. Any State that wanted to be exempt from Daylight Saving Time could do so by passing a state law." "The Uniform Time Act of 1966 established a system of uniform (within each time zone) Daylight Saving Time throughout the U.S. and its possessions, exempting only those states in which the legislatures voted to keep the entire state on standard time." "In 1972, Congress revised the law to provide that, if a state was in two or more time zones, the state could exempt the part of the state that was in one time zone while providing that the part of the state in a different time zone would observe Daylight Saving Time. The Federal law was amended in 1986 to begin Daylight Saving Time on the first Sunday in April." "Under legislation enacted in 1986, Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. began at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday of April and ended at 2:00 a.m. on the last Sunday of October."
"The Energy Policy Act of 2005 extended Daylight Saving Time in the U.S.
beginning in 2007, though Congress retained the right to revert to the 1986
law should the change prove unpopular or if energy savings are not significant.
Going from 2007 forward, Daylight Saving Time in the U.S.
Below are a few actual happenings related to Daylight Saving Time: Minneapolis-St. Paul: The Minnesota cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul once didn’t have twin perspectives with regard to the clock. These two large cities are adjacent at some points and separated only by the Mississippi River at others, and are considered a single metropolitan area. In 1965, St. Paul decided to begin its Daylight Saving Time period early to conform to most of the nation, while Minneapolis felt it should follow Minnesota's state law, which stipulated a later start date. After intense inter-city negotiations and quarreling, the cities could not agree, and so the one-hour time difference went into effect, bringing a period of great time turmoil to the cities and surrounding areas. Halloween Trick-or-Treaters: Through 2006, Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. ended a few days before Halloween (October 31). A new law to extend DST to the first Sunday in November will take effect in 2007, with the purpose of providing trick-or-treaters more light and therefore more safety from traffic accidents. Children’s pedestrian deaths are four times higher on Halloween than on any other night of the year. For decades, candy manufacturers lobbied for a Daylight Saving Time extension to Halloween, as many of the young trick-or-treaters gathering candy are not allowed out after dark, and thus an added hour of light means a big holiday treat for the candy industry. Bombing Thwarted: In September 1999, the West Bank was on Daylight Saving Time while Israel had just switched back to standard time. West Bank terrorists prepared time bombs and smuggled them to their Israeli counterparts, who misunderstood the time on the bombs. As the bombs were being planted, they exploded—one hour too early—killing three terrorists instead of the intended victims—two busloads of people. Indiana: Indiana has long been a hotbed of Daylight Saving Time controversy. Historically, the state’s two western corners, which fall in the Central Time Zone, observed DST, while the remainder of the state, in the Eastern Time zone, followed year-round Standard Time. An additional complication was that five southeastern counties near Cincinnati and Louisville unofficially observed DST to keep in sync with those cities. Because of the longstanding feuds over DST, Indiana politicians often treated the subject gingerly. In 1996, gubernatorial candidate Rex Early firmly declared, "Some of my friends are for putting all of Indiana on Daylight Saving Time. Some are against it. And I always try to support my friends." In April 2005, Indiana legislators passed a law that implemented Daylight Saving Time statewide beginning on April 2, 2006. Eighteen counties observe Central Daylight Time and the remaining 74 counties observe Eastern Daylight Time. So, there you have it, a little history of DST. Portions of this article were excerpted from http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving. And, ready or not, observance of DST begins anew on Sunday, March 11, 2007.
Bodock Beau Men Beware We received the following from Ralph Jones of Germantown Tennessee. Though it’s not so stated, we suspect finalist #3 is blonde. Men Beware The FBI had an opening for an assassin. After all the background checks, interviews, and testing were done there were three finalists. Two men and a woman. For the final test, the FBI agents took one of the men to a large metal door and handed him a gun. "We must know that you will follow your instructions no matter what the circumstances. Inside the room you will find your wife sitting in a chair. Kill Her! The man said, "You can't be serious, I could never shoot my wife." The agent said, "Then you're not the right man for this job. Take your wife and go home." The second man was given the same instructions. He took the gun and went into the room. All was quiet for about 5 minutes. The man came out with tears in his eyes, "I tried, but I can't kill my wife." The agent said, "You don't have what it takes. Take your wife and go home." Finally, it was the woman's turn. She was given the same instructions, to kill her husband. She took the gun and went into the room. Shots were heard, one after another. They heard screaming, crashing, banging on the walls. After a few minutes, all was quiet. The door opened slowly and there stood the woman. She wiped the sweat from her brow. "This gun is loaded with blanks" she said. "I had to beat him to death with the chair."
MORAL of the story: Women are evil. Don't mess with them. Copyright © 2000 - 2007 RRN Online.
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My niece, Felicia Brown, has been
dating Cullen Pollard of Oxford slightly less than two years. They came to
an understanding, approximately one year ago, that each would not date anyone
else for a year. It would be a time to test the seriousness of their relationship
and a time to discover if their shared devotion could withstand cupid’s
barbs from other interested parties. In my dating years, our terminology
for a similar arrangement would be to announce that we were "going steady."
These days, it’s hard to get young lovers to admit they are dating,
let alone use the term "going steady."
Cullen must have been at our house for
around forty-five minute to an hour. I remember only one cautionary statement
that I made, and that dealt with the fact that between now and June
9th, the wedding date, he could expect to see Felicia and her
mother under a tremendous amount of stress, and the stress factor would rise
as the wedding date drew closer.
