Champion News

CHAMPION—May 9, 2016

Through the trees across the valley to the hills beyond…Champion greenery.

        Mother’s Day brought a deluge of emotion–gratitude, joy, sorrow, nostalgia and longing.  Champions lucky enough to still have their mother with them do not take the dear lady for granted.  The rest of us have our memories and the good example she set for us.

        Miss Elizabeth Heffern, Champion granddaughter, is celebrating her birthday on May 15th.  Linda Cooley celebrates that day as well.  The next day is for Karen Griswold Somebody who has been riding around in a car that had “Just Married” written on it.  The 16th is the 46th birthday of a red haired boy, an alumnus of Skyline School.  Meikel Klein, a first grade student there now has his birthday on the 17th.  The 18th is a special day for many reasons, but the current one is for Bud Hutchison’s trail ride.  It heads up in Champion in the morning and ends there as well later in the day.  Bud is a nice guy and will not mind spectators reviewing his outfit.  How inviting!  Perhaps there will be music.

        Pete Proctor made a guest appearance at the Champion Senior Center on Wednesday.  He met up with a number of fellow Vietnam Veterans there and they fell immediately into fellowship, though some had never met.  It is a phenomenon unique to that group.  Pete serves with the American Legion Post 30 and is an Adjutant officiating at the funerals of Veterans in the area.  He said there have been fourteen such funerals since the beginning of the year.  Love and Gratitude is due all our Veterans.

Champions are looking for information about this tool. It is about 3 1/2 feet long and weighs four or five pounds.  What is it?

        Mark Upshaw brought an item for the ‘show and tell’ part of the meeting that remains yet unidentified.  It was suggested that it might be a haying tool.  It is about the size of an average walking cane, but made of heavy steel with an open channel down the middle and a fairly sharp V point at the bottom.  A mechanism on the handle causes a pair of barbs about three inches long to fold out of the channel very near the end.  It is a curiosity.  Get a good look at it on the facebook page of The Champion News or at www.championnews.us.  If you know what it is, let us know at TCN, Rt.72 Box 367, Norwood, MO 65717, or drop in to the Historic Emporium on the North Side of the Square with your information.

        Poke is up and beautiful all over the place.  Deward’s Granddaughter mentioned on Wednesday that she had heard a story of some college students who had prepared it as they would have with any other greens like collards, kale or spinach—just wilting them into a frying pan of bacon grease and onions.  The report was that the students slept for several days and were fortunate to wake up.  Old timers know how it is supposed to be done, but if you do not have an old timer at your elbow to ask, the folks at Google can help you.  The folks at Teeter Creek Herbs are local and a good source of information about the countless number of medicinal and edible herbs in the Ozarks.  They have a great website at www.teetercreekherbs.com and they now have a facebook page where they will be making weekly posts featuring photos and information about the many local plants and a great variety of other things.  A person never knows when it might be imperative to be able to identify what plants are edible and which ones will stop bleeding or quell infection.  Good neighbors over on Teeter Creek will be our huckleberries.  Champion!

Young poke blowing in the breeze…

        The bond issue for the $.48 per hundred tax levy increase failed by 15 votes they say.  It will be on the ballot again in August and hopes are that enough information will get out between now and then for it to pass this time.  The increase will bring the total levy up to the minimum amount required in order to receive matching funding from the State.  These are taxes that will definitely stay home and be used for genuine good in our own neighborhood.  School busses are expensive to operate and to maintain.  This was one of the topics of conversation at the Skyline VFD meeting on Tuesday.  It was noted that when a community loses its school, the community often disappears.  Other things covered at the meeting were the need for a new bingo parlor on the picnic grounds.  Bingo is a major part of the fund raising efforts for the fire department at the annual picnic in August.  Membership dues do not cover the expenses of training and equipping volunteers and maintaining firetrucks and other vital equipment.  Both the wonderful little school that is turning out good citizens and the terrific little fire department that protects our lives and property could use more community support.

        An accumulation of quotes by James Madison, Bill Murray, W.E.B. DuBois, Jimmy Carter, Anne Frank, Shannon Alexander, William Golding and anonymous others are presented here in no particular order:  “When the wealth of the nation will be in the hands of a few, then we must rely upon the wisdom of the best elements in the country to readjust the laws of the nation.”  “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”  “So, if we lie to the government, it’s a felony.  But if they lie to us, it’s politics.”  “Either the United States will destroy ignorance, or ignorance will destroy the United States.”  “We can’t be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of arms.”  “Go outside…amidst the simple beauty of nature…and know that as long as places like this exist, there will be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be.”  “If you can’t give the public a good reason to vote for you, scare them into believing something terrible will happen if they don’t.”  “The legitimate object of government is to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they cannot, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves.  That American can-do spirit is sadly missing in this campaign of small ideas.”  “If you cut a hole in a net, there are fewer holes.”

        The Champion News Almanac says that the 16th all the way through the 20th (next Monday through Friday) will be excellent gardening days, particularly for crops that bear their yield above the ground.  Some gardeners whistle or hum or sing while they tend their crops.  Others listen to the KZ88 Community Radio or to their iPod.  A good song in a person’s head can make the work lighter and less monotonous, can replace pain and worries.  This part of the country has music all over it.  Find a local jam like the one at Vanzant on Thursday nights and get an infusion of live music to help carry you through your difficult tasks and hard times.  “There’s a song, a sigh of the weary: Hard times! Hard times, come again no more.  Many days you have lingered around my cabin door, oh! Hard times come again no more!” to Champion—looking on the Bright Side!