Harlon rode one-wheel bicycle in parades

Today is October 15, 2012. The birthdays for the week are: Oct. 15: James Campbell, Robert J. Giddens, Kenneth Bush, Dave Garrie, Betty K. Hurst, Margie Bowlin.

Oct. 16: Betty Samford, Mickey Wulf, Davis Foster, Douglas Cross, Barbara Permenter, Sandra Brown, Mollie Harmon and Martha M. Caddell. It was the birthday of Wilma Adams, Billy Ihlo and Delores Hughes.

Oct. 17: Nancy Lacy Warr. It was the birthday of Chuck Otterman, Jackie Cruse and Dean Biggars.

Oct. 18: Grover Cook Hicks will be 103, Wayne Christian and these will be one year older: Randy Massey, Dickie Gilchrist, Ward Hernden, Sarah Olive and Mary Frances Moore Boss. It was the 97th birthday of my brother George M. McLendon, Bill Warren and Zack Brittain Jr.

Oct.19: Paul Pederson, Ken Boles. It was the birthdays of Frank Edward Parker, Wilburn Hairgrove, Hulon Dance, Charles Powdrill and Willard Reeves.

Oct. 20: Mona Campbell, Rhonda McSwain, Ursula Samples, Beth Bussey. It was the birthday of Taylor Ross and Billy W. Dockens.

Oct. 21: Thelma Scates, Betty Wicker, Betty Martin and Mark Johnson. It was the birthday of Mrs. Robert Earl Watson.

Oct. 22: Lisa McLendon Welch (my cousin), Charles Barr, Judy Bradshaw, Dusty Watson, James Curry at Pine Grove. It was the birthdays of Lucy Hutto and Mrs. George (Ruth) Bullock.

Oct. 23: Marguerite Adams. who will be 97.

••••••• Suggested birthday cards to James Curry, Pine Grove Nursing Home, Center, TX 75935. He will be 69 and has been confined in a wheel chair all his life. Please remember him. Thelma Scates and other friends are also at Pine Grove. Thelma will be in her 90’s on her birthday Oct 21. Send her cards and gifts too. Send Grover Hicks at the Assisted Living apt. on the loop 500.

••••••• Sue Hagler called during my birthday time and in our conversation, she told that her older sister Marguerite Wallace Adams will be 97 on Oct. 23. She was my beauty shop operator in Center, and she still goes to their shop, The Lemon Tree in Lufkin owned by her son Ted Adams. She doesn’t do hair any more but answers the phone and visits. Her brother Bud Wallace and wife travel in their motor home. Sue does private home duty work.

••••••• I’m making a list of folks who are 100 and more now and if you will be 100 this year, please write me at Box 744 and we will print the list. You’ve heard people say “Oh, I don’t want to live to be a 100.” Mama had this little saying taped on her telephone: “To live to be a 100, I do not aspire, but ask me when I’m 99.” Actually, if you’ve still got control of your mind when you’re 100, you’re having a good time and do not feel too different or out of place. In other words, you can be as happy and content as you want to be.

••••••• I believe in guardian or personal angels. I know I have two. I think of them as Mama and Pete. When I was mowing on Holly, my riding lawn mower, after an hour or more, I heard a voice say “honey, quit right now.” Pete and Mama, both called me that. I heeded the voice and quit. I found my legs weak, and I needed to stop. I misplace things, but I have faith that my guardian angel will guide my hands to the lost item. Billy Graham said he believes in personal angels and wrote a book about them.

••••••• Jim and Ann Forbes made a Friendship cake which is good and tasty. I like something sweet after meals. I have ample cakes to last awhile. Sisters Charlotte and Annette sent me one of the famous Corsicana fruit cakes, Janice Butler brought a fresh baked real rum cake.

••••••• Another late birthday gift came from Deanna Cross Collum. It was a pint of mayhaw jelly and a pint of sliced peaches. At the beginning of canning season this year, I was concerned that I wouldn’t be physically able to make jelly and preserves. I have ample jelly and preserves thanks to friends like A. J. Procell and Deanna.

••••••• Do you remember when Harlon Riley rode or pedaled a one-wheel bicycle in Center parades? We marveled at how he could balance and peddle that one big wheel. I wonder if Harlan can still balance on the wheel.

••••••• I enjoyed a complimentary supper basket of beef ribs and other dishes from the popular Moodyville Restaurant. Freddie Moody brought it to me October 5. It was enough for several meals, and I do appreciate it. Ann and Willis Blackwell are doing a good service with their cooking and putting Moodyville on the East Texas map.

••••••• Weather signs include: “The larger the halo around the sun or moon, the nearer the rain.” “When bees stay close to the hive, rain is close by,” “the higher the cloud, the better the weather,” “when smoke descends, good weather ends,” “Rainbow in the morning, shepherd take warning; rainbow toward night, shepherd’s delight”.

••••••• RE: overweight? “Subtract your waist measurement in inches from your total height in inches, if the answer is less than 36, you’re overweight.

••••••• When I was active in TOPS Club (Take Off Pounds Sensibly), we sang songs like this: (sung to the tune of “Show me the way to go home.”) Show me the way to lose weight, I’m tired of dragging it around. I had a nice shape, long, long ago, but now, I’m much too round. Wherever I may be, there’s just too much of me. So, you’ll always hear me sing this song, Show me the way to lose weight.

••••••• I’ve lost the words to the 1920s popular song “Among my Souvenirs.” I could always ask Kate as she kept a big file on her music. The words to the song would be in keeping to those of us now living among our memories of our youth.

••••••• When we lick an envelope to seal it, do you think about what we were told that the glue was made from horses hooves? Is it?

••••••• My A Piney Wood’s Home Health worker, Kathy Ford, and her co-worker Kim Acuna baked me a Mississippi mud chocolate cake for my birthday. It is one of the most delicious chocolate cakes I’ve ever eaten. I do appreciate their doing this for me.

••••••• The Just for Fun phone number last week, LY8-3320 was that of Weldon and Ruth Sanders and their teenage daughters Annette and Charlotte.

••••••• The Rev. J. Carrol Chadwick, pastor of Center’s First Baptist Church for 31 years died on this date October 8, 1973, in Schumpert Hospital from a heart attack. He was the minister of our church from 1942 to his death in 1973. He was called into the ministry at age 18. Bro. Chadwick will be remembered a long time.

••••••• Jack Barron, my cousin, enjoyed his 100th birthday with the party at his daughter Polly and Larry Smith’s house next door Saturday October 6. Friends kept coming and they finished the celebration with dining out at the Country Club. Out of town guests included Jack’s sister Kathryn’s three daughters.

I wish that Jack, Booty Harkrider and I all 100 plus could attend Center Homecoming next week, and just sit in our wheel chairs at the back. Jack and Booty might be able, but my need of oxygen keeps me confined to my room. I have a portable oxygen generator, but it is the stress that keeps me inside.

••••••• I appreciate Blanche Haley bringing me the weekly literature from our Baptist Church every Thursday. It seems that in our church, every member is a worker, no matter how small the assignment and it is all important.

– Mattie