September 01 '07

                                                    

Volume 587

                   


Poem & Picture More On 40th Anniversary

Way Back ThenActing on the advice and encouragement of a few friends, I purchased a diamond necklace to give my wife on our Fortieth Anniversary. All Barbara had asked for was a chance to dine out, which I had planned for us to do all along. The jewelry store gift-wrapped the necklace for me, but if I had any hope of surprising my wife with a gift, I knew I needed an accomplice.

Prior to my decision to buy the gift, Barbara and I had discussed inviting a few of our close friends to dine with us and help us celebrate four decades of marriage. Two of the couples we invited live within a mile of us, and I knew the "lady of the house" at either location would gladly assist me.

When I arrived home with the gift, I stashed it in a place I could remember and one I felt unlikely my wife would stumble upon. Our anniversary was on Monday, so we planned to eat out on Saturday night. Often, I ask Barbara to help plan our social engagements, but this year, I opted to do it all myself.

I asked Felicia to provide a list of "good places to eat." She wrote a list of four restaurants in Oxford, three in Tupelo, and one each in Como and Yocona, places which she and Cullen had found to their liking during their dating over the past two years. I told her it was important to me not only that the food was good but I also wanted a place to eat where a small party of eight could carry on a conversation without having to shout across the table to each other. Most of the restaurants had a website, so I was able to gather additional information on the Internet.

Meanwhile, commitments were received from Jerry and Dot Bell, Neal and Virginia Huskison, and Joel and Shirley Hale to accompany us for the Saturday night celebration. The day I purchased the necklace, I made reservations at Woody’s restaurant in Tupelo. I felt that all the other restaurants would have sufficed, but I remembered eating at Woody’s several years ago when it was the Sheraton Rex Plaza and liked the relatively quiet atmosphere it afforded.

"Oh," Felicia excitedly commented, when I asked her about Woody’s, "Get the Bananas Foster if you eat there. It’s great."

I don’t know why I thought of the song I wrote for Barbara when we were dating, as I didn’t consciously choose the thought. Perhaps, it had to do with the fact I was on vacation and my mind was less cluttered with the worries of work or else that a poem was recently shared at a funeral in which a wife expressed her love to her husband on the occasion of their 35th Wedding Anniversary, an event that preceded her husband’s death by some thirty years. Nonetheless, it occurred to me it would be a loving gesture to resurrect the poem and have it framed to give to Barbara on our anniversary.

Over time, things become misplaced, even lost. I thought I had a copy of the song and was reasonably certain I could find it in a box of old sheet music stored in the attic. I found a song with its hand-scored sheet music, which I had written about a lost love long before I met Barbara, but it was not the song I sought. Luckily, I remembered the lyrics and was able to reconstruct them. These are willingly shared here, not for their poetic merit, but as a matter of family record.

Every Time I Look Upon Your Picture

By Wayne Carter ~ Spring 1967

Every time I look upon your picture
I tell myself how lucky I must be
To have someone as warm and loving
As you’ve always been to me.

Well, I hope someday we’ll marry.
We’ll settle down and raise a family.
We’ll have two kids.
If that’s not plenty,
We can always try for three.

Every night I look upon your picture
For just a while, so I can sleep,
And dream your love for me grows stronger,
As my love for you grows deep.

I told a friend there’s little chance of someone other than my wife talking me into singing the song, but I can still play it on the guitar. Though unintended, the tune is somewhat reminiscent of the song "Candy Kisses" that I remember being sung by Eddy Arnold or Ernest Tubb. In addition to framing the poem, it also occurred to me to include a photo of the picture I drew of Barbara about the same time the song was written in the spring of 1967.

In July, I had used my digital camera to make a picture of the drawing as well as the photograph I used as a guide to draw Barbara’s picture. So, with the aid of Microsoft Word, it didn’t take long to type the poem and add the snapshot to the same page. After printing a color copy and shopping for a suitable frame, I wished I had found a frame first. I might have chosen a frame matted in two sections rather than one for an eight by ten. However, the poem and picture on the same sheet did look good in the burgundy frame.

I enlisted Virginia Huskison to help me with both gifts Saturday morning.

"The necklace is already wrapped, but if you could get a gift bag for this framed print and the necklace, I’d appreciate it."

"Gladly," she responded. "I need to go to town anyway, so this won’t be any trouble at all."

"One more thing," I stated. "I need you to keep it with you and sneak it in the restaurant tonight. I want to surprise Barbara after dinner."

I described the necklace to Virginia. She said it sounded like something Barbara would enjoy wearing, and she loved the poem and picture.

None of our group of friends had a vehicle capable of transporting eight passengers, so we agreed to use two cars. The Bells and Huskisons would ride together and the Hales would ride with the Carters. Shortly, after lunch the transportation arrangements were finalized with all agreeing to be at the restaurant a few minutes prior to six-thirty.

Barbara and I left our house around five-thirty. The Hales met us in their driveway. Shirley handed me a gift stating it was a birthday gift. I assumed she and Joel had purchased something for my birthday, but I soon learned that Joel had misunderstood the reason for our celebration.

"I sure thought you told me it was Barbara’s birthday," he stated, when Shirley commented she got her information from her husband.

"Shirley," I responded, "I told him I had a birthday on the sixteenth, and our anniversary was the twentieth. He just got it mixed up."

Earlier that afternoon, something happened that I feared might spoil the surprise I had for my wife. After bringing in the mail from the mailbox, I opened an envelope from my hair stylist. I expected to see an advertisement or a rate increase and was pleasantly surprised to find an anniversary wish instead.

I read it aloud to Barbara, almost choking on the last sentence, which read, "Enjoy the journey."

"Dumb me," I thought. "I should have read it to myself before reading it aloud. What if Barbara picks up on "the journey," and associates that with a journey necklace?"

Other than Virginia Huskison and the folks who sold me the necklace, my friends who keep my hair looking good were the only ones who knew about the journey necklace I had bought. I remained uneasy for the next few minutes, until I decided Barbara didn’t pick up on the subtle clue that I read as a reference to a piece of jewelry.

After briefly visiting with the Hales, we departed for Tupelo. At the first traffic light in East Tupelo, the Huskisons and the Bells pulled alongside us in the right lane. We rolled down our windows, like teenagers, to shout hello to each other.

"Where are y’all going?" we asked.

Dot Bell, who seldom thinks before speaking, blurted out, "We’re going to a surprise party!"

For a moment, I considered Barbara might have chosen our anniversary dinner as a way of giving me a surprise birthday party. Yes, it was unlikely, but Dot’s comment gave me reason to think that, like me, Barbara might have something up her sleeve.

To be continued…


Stop The Insanity Classes The First Of August

Even if many classrooms today are air-conditioned, it’s practically un-American to have children return to classes during the first week in August. Rural America once made allowances for families whose children were needed to help harvest the crops in September. I don’t know the particulars of the schedule, but I remember my parents telling that it was once necessary. Most of the years of my childhood, school opened in late August to early September, which in the days prior to "universal" air-conditioning was pretty unbearable. But, we survived, largely because our bodies were already conditioned to tolerate heat.

School administrators will cite numerous reasons why it’s necessary to begin the school year earlier than in the past, including mandates from the State legislature that school be in session for 180 days each year. And, if one examines the school calendar, one will see why an early start is necessary. After all, students now get a full week off for the Thanksgiving holiday, a minimum of two weeks for Christmas, and an entire week for Spring break. Toss in a few days for teacher-training or meetings and don’t forget the lesser holidays and Good Friday and one quickly realizes that school must begin early if students are to receive the full 180 days of instruction.

While it seems reasonable to me that administrators might want to consider shorter holiday periods, I doubt that will happen. Nor is it likely the legislature will want to shorten the school year, but that’s certainly an option that I would recommend. If via the summer school program, a school can pack a year’s worth of instruction into a six-week period, it follows that children could learn all that is required of them in a shorter period of time than the 180-day school year.

The biggest drawback to a shorter school year is the public perception that teachers don’t have to work year round like the average Joe…or Jane. However, I maintain anyone who teaches in a public school with all the constraints now imposed upon them deserves every penny he or she now receives and more, regardless whatever constitutes a year of work.

In light of the recent heat wave, a shorter school year would have made a lot of sense. While there might not have been enough Friday nights for the football team to play eleven to fifteen games (regular season and playoffs), why is that a problem? Who decided the school year should be built around athletics?

Speaking of athletics, where are all the overly-protective mamas when we need them? What mom or dad, for that matter, lets his or her child practice football in 100-plus degrees of heat? Isn’t that cruel and inhumane? If a child dies from heat exhaustion or heat stroke the parents are going to blame somebody other than themselves. But, don’t blame the coaches; they’re just following the schedule. Don’t blame the school administrators and the legislators; they’re just playing the hand the taxpayers dealt them. Don’t even blame God; the same God who gave us sense to get out of the rain, gave us the sense to stay out of the heat.

A Panola County Mississippi judge briefly suspended schools from conducting a band practice or athletic practices during the recent heat wave. It sounded sensible to me, until I learned the judge had not been petitioned by anyone or any organization to make such a ruling. A higher court quickly overturned the suspension and practices resumed.

To my knowledge, it has not happened this year, but I’m going on record to predict a wrongful death lawsuit or some other lawsuit resulting from the heat-related death of a public school student will give everyone involved with public schools cause to rethink the idiocy of the present schedule and the factors that influence it.

Stop the insanity, and write your representative. Start classroom instruction the day after Labor Day.


Bodock Beau Things You Don't Hear Anymore

There’s a heap of things "you don’t hear anymore." Here’s a partial list sent our way by Carl Wayne Hardeman.

Be sure and refill the ice trays, we are going to have company after while.

Watch for the postman, I want to get this letter in the mail today.

Quit slamming that screen door!

Don't forget to wind the clock before you go to bed.

Wash your feet before you go to bed, they are nasty from playing bare footed outside all day.

Why can't you remember to roll up your pants legs? Getting them caught in the bicycle chain so many times is tearing them up.

Don't you go outside with your good school clothes on!

Go comb your hair. It looks like the rats have nested in it all night.

Take that empty bottle to the store with you so you won't have to pay a deposit on another one.

Put a dish towel over the cake so the flies won't get on it.

Quit jumping on the floor! I have a cake in the oven and you are going to make it fall if you don't quit!

There is a dollar in my purse, go by the service station and get five gallons of gas when you start to town.

Open the back door and see if we can get a breeze through here, it is getting hot.

You can walk to the store; it won't hurt you to get some exercise. Maybe you will learn to be more careful with your bicycle.

Don't sit too close to the TV it is hard on your eyes.

If you pull that stunt again, I am going to wear you out!

Wash under your neck before you come to the table, you have beads of dirt and sweat all under there.

Do you want to go get me a switch?

Here, take this old magazine to the outhouse (toilet) when you go, we are almost out of paper out there.

Go out to the well and draw a bucket of water for me to wash dishes in.

No! I don't have five cents for you to go to the show, do you think money grows on trees?

Eat those vegetables; they will make you big and strong like your daddy.

That dog is NOT coming in this house! I don't care how cold it is out there, dogs just don't come in the house.

Sit still! I am trying to get your hair cut straight and you keep moving and it is getting botched up.

Hush your mouth! I don't want to hear words like that. I will wash your mouth out with soap again!

It is time for your system to be cleaned out, I'm going to give you a dose of Castor Oil in the morning.

If you get a spanking in school and I find out about it, you will get another one when you get home.

Quit crossing your eyes! They will get hung that way!

Soak your foot in this pan of coal oil so that cut won't get infected.

It is Yes, Sir! and No, Sir to me and your elders young man, and don't you forget it!

While we are at Aunt Mary's and Uncle John's you kids eat when the adults get though and I don't want to hear "I don't like this stuff". You better keep your mouth shut and eat everything on your plate.

Home

Copyright © 2000 - 2007 RRN Online.