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Mine Creek Revelations: Flickering Firepit

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YES, I AM STILL HERE peeking out of the newspaper’s window on Main Street and I am anxiously awaiting an evening cool enough so that I can enjoy a modest firepit on my patio.

Have not been able to light a fire in a looooong time, it seems. For the past two or three years I have set aside unopened bags of fragrant pinon pine chunks.

The pinon pine takes its own sweet time burning down to ash, and puts off a wonderful scent which repels devilish bugs.

I don’t want to go camping, but I want a campfire. Mornings are wonderful; the exact right temp for a firepit. But at sundown the temp is still hovering around 90 and that’s just too warm for a firepit.

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IN THIS ISSUE of the newspaper there is a quarter-page advertisement announcing that the Howard County Children’s Center has been in operation for 50 years.

Next week we’ll have an article about this wonderful agency.

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THE LONE SPARKLING JEWEL of my senior year as a mediocre offensive lineman for the Scrappers was an upset win over the De Queen Leopards who were real good back in the day. That year, especially.

Our star was a guy named Joe T. White who would later become our town’s chief of police. Joe was a running back who didn’t take training seriously.

Nevertheless, he broke loose on two long scoring runs. On the second one — about 50 yards — he nearly got caught at the goalline by a pursuing Leopard.

“Those Camels (cigarettes) got on Joe’s back and slowed him down,” one coach commented humorously after the game.

Judging from our season record, a lot of my teammates may have also humorously indulged in Camels. Not me, though, it didn’t take Camels to make me mediocre.

I got on this subject because of Nashville’s recent tussle with the Leopards. De Queen didn’t break its 28-game losing streak against Nashville, but they DID break their consecutive game ‘Mercy Rule’ losing streak.

That streak had gotten up to 18 consecutive games. Nashville won by 14 points and, poof, the Mercy Rule streak was gone.

Let me explain: If a team gets behind by 35 points the officials let the clock run mostly without stopping, thereby mercifully cutting the slaughter short. I do not know if there was a parade around the square in the Sevier County seat but diehard Leopard fans deserved one.

Plus, their team broke the mercy streak against the hated Nashville Scrappers.

Last Friday the Leopards finally broke the losing streak by defeating Fouke. Granted, De Queen is 5A and Fouke is 3A. But still.

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POWER OF THE PRESS? A couple of weeks ago this column asked about the unused building built for the Bread of Life soup kitchen down near the Farmers’ Market on S. Washington St.

Shortly after that, some volunteers cleaned up the site and this Saturday from 11-1 there will be an open house. Did someone see the column?

Previous and current sponsors, soup kitchen directors, and all current and past volunteers are invited to come out and see the new place. Organizers will begin serving Tuesday night meals there on Oct. 5.

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PLEASE GET the Covid vaccine. To the best of my knowledge there have been few reports of anyone who died from vaccination side-effects but lots of stories of people who died and hadn’t been vaccinated at all. Vaccination deaths do happen but they are so rare you shouldn’t worry.

If you wear a mask in crowds you’re not only protecting yourself, you’re protecting people around you. Little kids can’t get the vaccine, but they CAN catch the virus from YOU. So, please get your free shot.

I saw a news article last week about a right-wing, ultra conservative talk radio show host in Colorado who had been preaching about the fake virus and false vaccination.

He died. Covid.

Then I saw another article, one about a nurse who began believing social media posts about the ‘danger’ of the vaccine.

So she didn’t get the shot. Everyone in her family caught the virus. Her mother, her children. Then the nurse herself.

Then she died.

If you truly believe that the vaccination is just the government’s deceitful way of inserting a tracking micro-chip into your body then there is no hope for you. Please wait outside the building until the Neptunians come to whisk you away in their deepspace cruiser.

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WORD GAMES. The Siblings: X and O. They like to appear in play diagrams for basketball and football and women’s water polo.

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HE SAID: “Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” Nathaniel Hawthorne, novelist (‘The Scarlet Letter’ and others)

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SHE SAID: “There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” Edith Wharton, Pulitzer Prize novelist and WWI relief activist

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SWEET DREAMS, Baby

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