Home Opinion Mine Creek Revelations: Cooking Contest

Mine Creek Revelations: Cooking Contest

2831
0

YES, I AM STILL HERE peeking out of the newspaper’s window on Main Street and I am struggling to understand how the Southeastern Conference is able to maintain its fine image of impartiality among the member schools. 

For instance, the Arkansas Razorbacks just won the SEC baseball tournament after also winning the regular season championship. 

In the championship game the Razorbacks beat the Tennessee Volunteers 7-2. Yet, when the All-Conference team was announced, Arkansas had just two players listed while Tennessee had four.

If I didn’t know better I’d think that the conference office caters to Tennessee over those upstart Arkies.

But that is just the working of the weak mind of the Number 1 Razorback Football fan who is now fair weather for other sports.

It was easy to expand my #1 Fairweather characteristics to baseball.

As both of you know, when things get tense in a football or basketball game, I merely stroll away from the tv screen. Now I’m doing the same for baseball.

After awhile sitting on the patio I go back to the tv room to see how we’ve managed to throw another game away. Or, how we’ve been robbed by those lying, stinking refs!

Therefore, I missed many of the Razorbacks’ tournament’s finest moments. I still claim credit for the baseball tourney win.

=—-= — =

THANKS FROM VETERANS. County Veterans Service Officer Milton Puryear says thanks are due to: (1) Charlie Pinkston for providing some of the flags of the five service branches to beautify the area around the monument on the courthouse lawn; (2) Donna Hardin at Picalily who provided the swell red, white and blue wreath that was placed on the monument; and (3) Bob Williams who trimmed the big landscape bushes that flank the monument to the soldiers, sailors and airmen who died during our nation’s wars. 

The young musicians who used to play ‘Taps’ during the ceremony have all graduated from high school, so Milton is looking for someone to step in. The gig doesn’t pay much and you are expected to show up on the courthouse lawn twice a year — Memorial Day and Veterans Day. You must provide your own horn.

It might not be traditional, but I don’t think Milton would mind if the ‘bugler’ played a tenor sax. Or a tuba, for that matter. Any instrument will do.

Milton also noted, Monday, that the number of participants was down from previous years. Several Veterans Day and Memorial Day observations have passed since there was a WWII veteran present. I can actually remember when the county’s last surviving WWI veteran attended the courthouse lawn events. It was the late Homer Northum, a fine gent.

=—-= — =

HEARD FROM. Mayor Billy Ray Jones says that the city of Nashville expects to receive more than $834,000 from Uncle Sam’s American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. The money is to help the city recover from the virus. I certainly hope that among the city’s plans will be a substantial amount set aside for a certain vitally-needed law enforcement position in downtown Nashville. Need more hints?

Other towns will also get checks from the Rescue Plan. If Nashville is going to pass on this opportunity, maybe Mineral Springs would be interested in hiring a J-Turn Enforcement Officer. Or Lockesburg. I understand that there’s a lot of traffic at the E-Z Mart there these days.

=—-= — =

ANIMAL CRACKERS. The ice hasn’t even broken in my pool yet, but one of my neighbors has already had to call for help in removing a serpent. Thank goodness they didn’t ask me for help.

When it comes to snakes I’m only good for advice. Preferably from a distance.

MORE ANIMAL CRACKERS. I have already seen an ad on social media to sell a doggy facemask to keep fido from eating cicadas when they emerge. You’ll remember a warning in this space NOT to let your dog eat the bugs.

MORE MORE ANIMAL CRACKERS. In a recent column, County Agent Jean Ince wrote about the return of millipedes.

There is really not much anyone can do to keep these stinky bugs away, but I do have a suggestion.

Let’s have a Millipede Cooking Contest. Boiled, fried, grilled, marinated, oven-roasted. Whatever. Submit recipes. Jean can judge.

Because I would be a working journalist writing about the event, it would be unfair for me to taste the millipede dishes. I’ll just take Jean’s word for it.

The winner will get a voucher good for one free warning ticket from the city’s Downtown J-Turn Enforcement Officer.

=—-= — =

WORD GAMES. The twins: Alive and Kicking. Doing pretty well, thank you.

=—-= — =

HE SAID: “Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself.” Walter Anderson, American artist

=—-= — =

SHE SAID: “Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life and repeat to yourself, the most comforting words of all: This, too, shall pass.” Ann Landers, newspaper advice columnist

=—-= — =

SWEET DREAMS, Baby

Previous articleObituary: Susan Carol Stevens, 67, of Benton
Next articleThe Cecil ‘Birddog’ Harris Memorial Early Files