May 2, 2016
CHAMPION—May 2, 2016
Ancestral Texas farm land
An eventful week in Champion included much needed rain, burgeoning foliage, music, and a pleasant get together at the Champion Senior Center, located in the Historic Emporium on the North Side of the Square in Downtown Champion. People of all ages are welcome in Champion, it just turned out that most of the Wednesday group was over 60—some well over—and a generally pleasant gathering it was. Age is not as important as young people used to think. Maybe they still think it is important, but old people still feel young sometimes, so what is the difference? Waldo Champion, Linda Heffern, has a birthday on May 6th. Skyline second grade student, Gracie Nava, will celebrate on the 7th and Dixie Pierson, Skyline’s bookkeeper will have the 8th as her special day. Bonnie Brixey Mullins will have a great birthday on the 9th. She is having exciting times as she and Pete settle into their new home in Douglas, Kansas. They lived in their last home together for sixty years. Champions Richard and Kaye Johnston have just celebrated 39 years of marriage. Construction on the second new house in Champion Heights in as many years will soon be completed. The coming week promises to be as full and exciting. There will be a meeting of the Skyline VFD Auxiliary; there will be music; gardens will be belching forth broccoli and kale, lettuce and radishes; and some old gardeners will get out there and get ‘it’ done.
Terraces casting shadows in the evening light.
The memorial service for a dear brother way out in west Texas turned out to be lovely and imminently fitting. It was just the way he wanted it to be. In the old cemetery where rest parents, grandparents and great grandparents, the bluebonnets had mostly gone to seed though a great variety of other wild flowers covered every grave and pathway. Enormous cedar trees swayed in the easy breeze when just at dusk the family circled his spot to sing “I’ll Fly Away.” From the hillside there at Palava, the farmland stretching out for miles appeared kaleidoscopic. Red plowed ground undulated in terraces with great smears of brilliant shades of green against blue mesas in the distance topped with their whirligigs of wind farms—all of it seemed ethereal in the mix of emotion. Family reminiscences were full of his humor and the great role he had in all their lives. He is resting in peace now and entirely unforgettable.
The Palava Cemetery in Nolan County Texas
Days pass swiftly in Champion as do the years. The admonition is, “Love ‘em while you’ve got ‘em.” Make amends while it is still possible. Come down to the wide wonderful banks of Auld Fox Creek to declare right out loud that it is a precious gift to be alive, to have loving family and friends, and especially to be in Champion—Looking on the Bright Side.
