December 27 '96

Volume 28


Selective Sight

A gross error appeared in a recent issue of RRN. It reinforces how easily we see only what we wish to see or expect to see. It further serves to warn me that eye witnesses who view any significant happening will each have differing perceptions and interpretations of what they actually saw. Those perceptions and interpretations will also have been filtered by whatever the mind was preconditioned to see. It is especially frightening if you personalize an imaginary situation in which you are framed because of mistaken identity. It is difficult for people to accept the fact the mind does not always see what the eye beheld.

Each week as I prepare this newsletter, I choose, from a list of templates, the one I earlier named Rider.dot. It is a customized document template created using the newsletter wizard of the word processing program on my computer. I normally do not type directly into the newsletter document. Instead, I write the articles in short-story form and copy/ paste the final versions into the newsletter format. This allows me to decide at "press time" which article to place first, where to arrange any clipart images, what titles and subtitles to use, and exercise any final editorial abridgments or additions.

The text of each Rider.dot template begins as illustrated immediately below:

Replace this text with text for your story. Replace this text with text for your story.

I merely copy my articles into this template and resize the type from 8 to 10, to make it easier to read.

If you saved the Christmas edition you probably missed the fact that I forgot to replace the drop-capital letter R with the first letter of the paragraph concerning Christmas in Pontotoc. If you actually noticed the mistake, your powers of observation are especially sharp, and you qualify for the RRN Hawkeye Award.

I caught the mistake only after having printed the color copies and sealed the envelopes of 15 of the 16 to be mailed. I opted not to unseal the envelopes and reprint the first page, realizing my goal of perfection was being compromised by thriftiness (color costs about 35 cents per page). I have been told by more than one reader that the content of the newsletter is more important to them than the use of color or format. Thus, I chose to accept the imperfection of the Christmas edition and acknowledge the same of myself.

I was happy enough with the content of the story concerning the Christmas lights along Main Street in Pontotoc, that I sent copies to the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal and to the Pontotoc Progress. The Journal printed the article in the Sunday, December 22, edition. The Progress printed the same in their Christmas edition dated December 23.

...see update page 3.


Health Concerns

These are six reasons in one not to smoke:

Community health - The smokers’ cough, oft unshielded, spreads germs among the populace. Morning retchings and subsequent expectorations of phlegm are nauseating to family members. The display of the strained facial expressions of coughers, lucky enough to become senior citizens, but unable to resist the urge to cough, frighten small children and make some women faint.

A person’s health - Cigarette smoking is linked to cancer and heart disease. A warning from the Surgeon General is displayed on all packages of cigarettes sold in this country. Lung cancer is an ignoble killer, and victims of emphysema struggle to inhale adequate oxygen levels to maintain life. Death is a welcomed relief from such suffering.

Neighbor’s health - Any beneficial effect of second hand smoke on others is not known. Neither are the detrimental effects proven, but most thinking persons agree that second hand smoke is harmful. Restaurants that fail to provide smoking/ non-smoking areas do a disservice to their non-smoking patrons and thereby deserve the boycott of non-smokers.

Costly to furnishing’s health - Indoor smoking inevitably results in burn marks on furniture and fixtures of homes, businesses, and public buildings. Thousands if not millions of automobile interior’s are marred every year, by dropped cigarettes or ashes. Motel rooms show burn marks on tables, dressers, lavatories, and tubs. Many home fires are the result of smoking.

Ecological health - Cigarette butts litter our world. So widespread is the problem of discarded butts that scarcely any acre in America is devoid of contamination. Modern automobiles still have ashtrays, but few butts are stored in them. Most drivers, who smoke, prefer to flick their butts along the roadsides of an already littered landscape. This abhorrent practice professes, by deed, to condone littering.

Righteous health - The Bible admonishes believers that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. It is deemed prudent to avoid the consumption of substances that are considered harmful to the body. The use of tobacco defiles the temple of the Holy Spirit.

The foregoing, are but a few of the many reasons to kick the cigarette habit. I am continually discouraged by the great numbers of young people that I see smoking, especially girls. I have a great deal of appreciation and respect for women, and I make a conscious attempt to regard each one as a person, rather than mere sexual beings or objects of pleasure for men. As of this date, I have never found anything attractive or appealing about watching a woman light up and smoke a cigarette. If I should ever indicate otherwise, you have my formal permission to have me institutionalized among the mentally ill.

I suppose if I were married to a smoker, I might get used to the smell of stale cigarette smoke that would pervade every cubic inch of space in our home. However, I cannot imagine enjoying the atmosphere any more than one who lives near a paper mill or rendering plant enjoys the smells associated with their surroundings.

These thoughts are a little late to tie to the one day a year we refer to as the Great American Smoke-Out, an all out public effort to encourage addicts to give up smoking. Perhaps these musings best fit within the scope of a resolution for the New Year.

Disclaimer: The foregoing thoughts regarding my concerns for those who smoke are not intentionally directed toward any particular reader, but are the outgrowth of some recent observations.


Reindeer Tracks in the Snow By Sarah Carter Brown

In all my years, I have only seen one white Christmas. I was ten or eleven and far past the age to believe with any respectability in Christmas fantasies.

That year on Christmas Eve my younger brother, an all-American kid and a true believer, and I, the disbeliever, were scuttled off to bed in the sleeping porch which served as our bedroom. We had the usual conversation about presents hoped for and the "can’t-get-to-sleep" excitement. In the midst of this, we could hear our parents and two older brothers going back and forth outside and their whispered voices in the living room. We heard mother go to bed, and then one our brothers said the ground was getting white.

We sneaked out of bed and saw that everything was blanketed by snow. Back in bed, we were speculating about a white Christmas and all the fun of playing in the snow when there was a commotion on the roof. I dutifully explained to my little brother that it must be a fallen limb or loose shingle. The true believer knew better. He knew it was Santa’s sleigh, and no amount of logic about reindeer being indigenous to more northern climates could persuade him otherwise.

I had drifted off to sleep when he shook me awake to show me his proof that Santa had landed. He led me to the window to show me reindeer tracks in the snow. Just as I was about to explain that, in all probability, he was observing dog tracks, I caught a gleam of wonder and awe in his eyes. It was a look I had never seen in him before. Something stirred inside my realistic soul that transformed me. When I turned and looked again outside, I, true disbeliever, saw in the glow of the streetlight genuine reindeer tracks in the snow.

The memory of that white Christmas long ago has stayed throughout the years to remind me that sometimes in the cold, hard, real world we live in it is a good thing to be illogical and a bit unrealistic. So, each year, a few minutes before midnight on Christmas Eve, I slip to a window and secretly look for that which others cannot see. Once more, I long for a white Christmas Eve so I can see reindeer tracks in the snow.


Hamburger Pie

Have you noticed how certain foods taste best during certain seasons? Examples might include: hot chocolate which is simply better in the wintertime, turkey and dressing are at their best during Thanksgiving, lemonade is more highly appreciated in July or August, and hot dogs are better when roasted ‘round a campfire on a cool, late September’s Eve. You also know that some foods, like fried farm-raised catfish or Southern fried chicken, are good tasting anytime.

Well, wintertime, summertime or anytime is a good time for this easy to prepare meal-in-a-dish. It is especially appreciated by teens, and unless you are on a fat-free diet, chances are you will enjoy it too. It tastes best when served with a fresh green salad, and washed down the gullet with your favorite carbonated beverage.

Hamburger Pie from magazine of the 60’s era.

Contributed by Sarah Carter Brown

Ingredients:

    • 1 1/2 lbs. Ground Chuck

      Large Prego Spaghetti Sauce (any style)

      1 large can Pillsbury Grands Biscuits

      1 to 2 cups of shredded Mozzarella Cheese

      1 to 2 cups of shredded Cheddar Cheese

Instructions:

  • Grease with butter or spray with Pam, a Pyrex type baking dish or suitable substitute.
  • Horizontally halve each biscuit (as if lifting the top off to butter the insides). Line the bottom and sides of the baking dish with biscuits.
  • Press, stretch, and crimp to form a solid crust.
  • Brown the Ground Chuck, drain excess grease, add Prego sauce.
  • Transfer mixture to baking dish.
  • Scatter cheeses on top of mixture, then bake in preheated oven at 425° until biscuits are browned and cheeses are bubbly.

Prep time 10 minutes

Baking time approximately 10 minutes.

Normally serves 6 to 8.

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I received compliments from several individuals at Church Sunday morning and Sunday evening concerning the Christmastime article published by the Journal. Monday morning a leading business woman, who apparently chaired the decorations committee, called to express her appreciation for the article, and to say she had scolded the Journal for not having given any press to the Pontotoc decorating effort.

I was in the Chamber of Commerce on Monday afternoon, and the Director was complimentary of the article. I also received a phone call Monday evening from a woman, that I did not know, who thanked me for writing the article.

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