June 22, 2009
CHAMPION—June 22, 2009
In Champion the verdant, voluptuous topography is a delight to the eyes. For the ears, sound is captured in the folds and creases of the deep hollows and is wound among the steep hills in a mysterious way that obscures its origin. So the humming drone of the big haymaking machinery is transported to distant places and the hearer may have no idea who is getting his hay in. Some still early mornings the train whistle can be heard all the way from Norwood. It is part of the magic of the place.
Any number of Champions have taken exception to the note from Mr. Elsewhere impugning the qualities of their beloved home. The inference seemed to be that a strong delusion was being perpetrated to cause readers to believe a lie. As it turns out Mr. Elsewhere’s sarcasm was but an artful arrangement of words adapted to the purpose of expressing his great wish to live in Champion himself. Marooned elsewhere with history, family ties, responsibilities and a job, he casts longing glances this way and sees green. Envy is a brutal companion and jealousy’s green is drab and sad.
Champion’s own Barbara Krider has been struggling with bad weather in Illinois and with the resultant power outages and all the inconveniences connected with the disruptions. She may well be glad when her own Haymaker gets home. The First day of Summer was Linda Krider Watt’s birthday! She is old enough now to be President of the United States. She shares her birthday with Prince William Spenser of England. He will be King someday and he has had many advantages but when he goes home, as Linda often does, he is not in Champion. It is, however, the Mark of a Champion to be able to be happy no matter what the circumstance, and Champions congratulate them both on their special day. Another Summer Solstice baby is Kai Parsons, a. k. a. Coyote. She is home with the folks out West of Ava visiting for a week or so from Portland, OR. It may be that this is the first trip to the Ozarks for her husband and youngest child, but daughter Sierra has spent lots of time with grandparents Parsons out on the farm. She will be living the grandchild’s perfect dream of getting to spend two months with the doting old folks. There will be lots of trips to the creek and reacquainting with summertime friends. It will add to her lexicon of precious childhood memories. Champions know they are making memories every day.
It is expected that somewhere between 75 and 100 people will be attending the Cooley Reunion which will be Saturday, the 27th. Because of the fire at the Dora White Senior Center last January, the reunion will be held at the First Freewill Baptist Church this year. Bob and Lily (Cooley) Conrad have fifth wheeled down from Washington State will be joined by others from Washington and some New Yorker family members as well as a mob of other Cooleys, Proctors, Hickses, Alsups, Upshaws, Sheltons and on an on…. It will be a bash. Nacy Cooley may get to go if the physical therapist says she can. She is currently in the Autumn Oaks Nursing Home in the rehabilitation wing. She came for the Reunion, arriving on a Wednesday from her home in Henderson, NV. On Saturday she broke her hip and has since had a hip replacement surgery, according to Arlene Cooley who is the source for this information. She said that while Virginia (Proctor) Jacobs was visiting with Nacy in the hospital they talked about how the Cooley family was so well regulated. That is, they kept regular hours for their meal times and bedtime. The Proctor family, on the other hand, had twelve children and a much more free wheeling approach to life. There was fun to be had at Howard and Lola Proctor’s house and Nacy liked to spend time there. There will be plenty of that kind of visiting going on at the Reunion. Arlene said that she figured that the General would try to slip in for a while. He’s everywhere.
A movie came out in 1955 called More Rivers to Cross. It was kind of a wholesome, funny frontier story just suited to show in the drive-in for the whole family. It had a great song, “Oh, the higher up the berry tree, the sweeter grows the berries. The more you hug and kiss a gal, the more she wants to marry.” It is true that those blueberries on top of the bushes get ripe first. Lilly Ridge’s Linnie Ingram was talking last week about all the folks that had come down to Eckart’s Farm in Dora for their blueberries. It is an outing that has become a tradition among many friends. A Champion, who usually goes with a friend, made her first solitary trip this year. The acres of blueberry bushes are laid out in long rows and the bushes are tall and thick so that in some parts of the field people can be as close together as three or four feet and not be able to see each other. One person picking along quietly then becomes privy to a lot of anonymous conversation. “He just sits in that recliner and complains about his arthritis. If he’d get up and do a little something, he would feel a lot better.” Her friend replied, “Well, Jack just sits on the couch with the remote in his hand by the hour.” Some younger women were talking about a wedding when one was to have been a bridesmaid. “It was two days before the wedding and my dress wasn’t ready. I already had three fittings and it still was no good. So the night before the wedding I went to Walmart and bought some material and a pattern. I hadn’t made a garment probably in 17 years. I was in a hurry so I wasn’t all that detailed about everything, and it was a lot of fun making it. I didn’t get it finished but the woman finally did get my dress done, and it was OK, but I really liked sewing again.” She went on to talk about how a little boy was to pedal a toy tractor down the isle, pulling a little girl in a wagon…the flower girl presumably. The tractor was hard to pedal and there were a lot of people watching him so he wasn’t very happy, but they were both real cute.” Some young folks about fifth grade age picked berries in a rush in an adjacent row. They were speaking both English and German at the same time…maybe a half sentence of each. The subject matter was about a lot of boy-girl stuff, sweet and naive in both languages. A few rows over some young ladies were singing Amazing Grace and other religious songs in their high pure voices. Occasionally a little burst of laughter would rise up from among the rows. It is lovely to have friends to share these beautiful experiences, but also very nice to see the big picture some times.
Many Champions are thinking about their military service families, sacrificing at home and in dangerous foreign fields. Those left behind need those expressions of Love and Gratitude from their Nation.
The Skyline Ladies Auxiliary had a very productive meeting at Esther Wrinkles house on Tuesday. Groundwork was laid for the Auxiliary’s part in what will be another spectacular Skyline Volunteer Fire Department Picnic. It will be on August 14th and 15th this year. The ladies are planning a meeting at the Cook Shack on July 7th and then another at Henson’s Store in Downtown Champion on July 14th. There is much to do and time is flying by! What happy days for those who recognize the beauty of the present when it is happening.
Great Happenings, compassion for the drab and sad, sweet stories of summertime friends and lazy wonderful days at Grandmother’s house are all welcome at Champion Items, Rt. 2, Box 367, Norwood, MO 65717. Songs like, “Summertime, summertime, sum, sum summertime,” are welcome at Champion News. Look around on the website at www.championnews.us to read what Peggy Hancock had to say about getting poison ivy while staying with grandparents Jim and Liza Hancock. It seems that Ed Henson drove her to the doctor in Mt. Grove in his old grocery truck because her grandparents didn’t have a car. She remembered that Ed was a nice man and that he gave her a grape soda.
Find a grape soda in the refrigerator at Henson’s Store. Sit around inside to hear random yarns being spun, or step out on the porch to see an example of Mr. Elsewhere’s BS. In Champion it’s looking on the Bright Side!
