CHAMPION—October 15, 2018
The last little hummingbird straggler.
In mid-October one little female hummingbird makes her daily visit to a Champion feeder. Hummingbirds have an average life span of three years, though there are reports of some living to be more than nine years old. Maybe the old dawdler just does not feel like making the long trip to Mexico again. This time of the year has many an Old Champion happy to stay close to home. Winter is on the way and they have been busy getting the propane delivered, firewood in the shed, and doing safety inspections of the flue, the furnace and space heaters. The ash barrel had to be emptied ready for those hot ashes and coals and the last of the tender garden produce brought in. Perhaps there will be some lazy days ahead, but these are not those.
Friends and family will be celebrating Champion grandson, Carson Cline, on the 18th. That is his birthday and Darlene Connor’s as well. The 19th is a great day for Skyline kindergarten student Wyatt Shannon. The late Betty Swain lived in Mansfield; she was an interesting person and an accomplished bridge player. Her birthday was October 20th. Carson’s uncle Marty Watts also celebrates that day. Randy Abbot did not get a chance to know Anna Henson, though they shared October 21st as their birthday. Randy is a hot pepper aficionado with an appreciation of big shaggy dogs. Locals have good memories and stories to tell about Anna and all her many years at the Champion Store. Donna Moskaly and Skyline 4th grader, Haylee Surface, celebrate on the 22nd. Esther Grace Ogelsby was born October 23, 2017. Her aunt Breauna Krider has the 24th as her day to party. Breauna will have much help to party as she is surrounded by admiring family and friends. Birthday celebrations are a chance to acknowledge each other. It turns out we can do that any day of the week! Esther Grace came by her name as an acknowledgement of friendship. Her mother grew up in Champion and was a frequent visitor in the home of Esther Wrinkles. They had a lasting friendship. Ms. Wrinkles passed away in 2013, but her many friends will be reminded of her through this little girl who is about to turn one. Champion!
 The lifetime friendship of Esther Wrinkles and Ruby Proctor.
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As the frost approached, a Champion brought in the Christmas cactus that was a gift from Esther. It had summered on her Vanzant front porch for years before it began to spend the summer on a Champion porch. While it was on Esther’s porch it was witness to the hilarity of the lady climbing through her own window, having locked her keys inside. One of her old friends brought that episode to mind recently. Combing back through the archives at www.championnews.us looking for the particulars of that event, it was a lovely surprise to see Esther with another of her dear friends, Ruby Proctor. They knew each other since childhood. They were baptized on the same day in Fox Creek. Anyone with such a friendship—a lifetime friendship, should count himself blessed.
The last Friday of the month is the day we can expect the Douglas County Health Department Nurse to visit for morning blood pressure check for Champions. It is a great service to the area. The nurse will be at Skyline School on the first Tuesday of each month from 8:45 to 10:45 doing that test there. This next first Tuesday will be Election Day. It will be convenient for those folks who vote there at the Brushy Knob Church, to cross the road and get a reading of their vital signs after all the hoopla. The political advertisements on television are going to stop, hopefully, even if for just a little while, on November 7th. What a relief that will be to have the tension dialed back a notch. The last week has seen some old Champions retreating into literature—favorite books they have already read. Others have essentially crawled into a bed with side-rails, the remote in their hand. They just watch reruns. It may be that they do not remember each episode, but there will be hints along the way that let them know that nothing new or out of the ordinary is going to happen—nothing unexpected. They feel totally safe and comfortable, hearkening back to the good old days when a man’s word was his bond; when it was better to give than to receive; when we could love our enemies and empirical fact was not questioned, i.e.: fire—hot, ice—cold. Well, the weather is changing. We have to bring in fire wood, haul ashes and carry on with our daily lives. And should it occur that someone suggest he has your name on one of his millions of bullets and he is not worried about a civil war because the other side (presumably your side) does not believe in guns, it is your obligation to rare back and laugh in his face. Slap your thigh and do some guffawing, chortling, and howling. Go ahead and crack up. The rhetoric is so exaggerated that it is comical. Take a humorous, happy walk to the polls. Vote. Then come home and peel some potatoes and get on with what comes next.
Meanwhile, people in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina all the way up to Virginia are going to be a long time getting over Hurricane Michael that tore through there on short notice. We have troubles, worries, fears and doubts about all kinds of things, but we have our homes, our families are safe and we have the prospect of a future that we have planned. The world over, there are griefs and unimaginable hardships that people endure. A little gratitude for our good fortune is timely. Many people from this part of the world are traveling east to assist our countrymen. Champions!
Before this is in ink, Andrew Hardin will have led off Bud Hutchinson’s Fall Trail Ride. Horsemen and women will have met up on the Champion Square to pose for Wilma’s photographs before taking off on an adventure down Fox Creek Road and around the Shannon Ranch, ambling back in for ice cream at the Historic Emporium in the early afternoon. Probably every trail rider in this part of the country knew Bud. They will be telling stories and remembering our great old friend every time they mount up or just get together for ice cream. They might sing that Gene Autry song’ “Ridin’ the range once more / Totin’ my old 44 / Where you sleep out every night / And the only law is right / Back in the saddle again” in Champion—Looking on the Bright Side!
