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 persons 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.
Neighbors 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 furnishings
health - Indoor smoking inevitably results in burn marks on furniture and
fixtures of homes, businesses, and public buildings. Thousands if not millions
of automobile interiors 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 "cant-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 Santas 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 Septembers 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 60s 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.
----------------------------------------
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.
Share this article with a friend.
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