DreamWorks

CHAMPION—August 9, 2010

          Champions are perforce tree lovers and the spectacle of a great intricate stack of new pine lumber is, in every Champion view, spectacular.  The afternoon sun gleams off the stately structure all golden and precise against a Champion blue sky as visual poetry. Now it has purlings and soon it will have the galvanized and will be what they call “dried in.”  Builders are special people and are given leeway to be ‘special’ because of the good work they do.  Their attentions may be required elsewhere this week as the Skyline Picnic is in the works and so if the roofing is a little slow getting on, it will just give the populace opportunity to admire the substructure all the more.  It is the very nature of tree lovers and Champions to be patient.

          Fishermen are patient people too.  Dillon Watts just returned to his home near the Cripple Creek in Tennessee from an Alaskan fishing trip.  He went with his cousin and his grandfather, Steve Watts, flying from Nashville to Atlanta, then eight hours to Anchorage, then five hours driving to the spot where they got on the boat.  There was some reported seasickness, but the catch was remarkable and great memories were made.

       There were half a dozen seven foot long fishing poles auctioned off the other night at the benefit for Sharon and Buzz Woods.  These were some very fancy rods and reels, new and donated by a local prominent professional fisherman.  Prominent Champion quilt maker, Esther Wrinkles, donated a lovely quilt to the benefit.  Tickets were sold and the winner was Mrs. Judy Hutchison.  She said that she had never won anything and was just delighted with the beautiful quilt.  J.D. Shannon did the auctioneering and made a fine job of it.  He has an excellent voice and has obviously been to a few auctions in his young life.  The first sale of the evening was a peach pie purchased by Robert Upshaw.  The basketball tournament, the good food, the quilt raffle, the music and the auction all went to making a great benefit.  Sharon and Buzz are life long residents of the area and are starting over after losing their home to a fire.  The pictures and precious personal mementoes cannot be replaced, but the friendships and support of the community are solidly in place.   Young Rowdy Woods is making a good recovery from his appendectomy so there is good news to report on many fronts.  The General was getting around pretty well accompanied by his guileless little grandchildren and saintly sweet wife. 

          The ‘Dog Days’ of summer are scheduled to end on August 11^th.  The calendar says that they began on July 3^rd.  If this means the dog gone hot weather is really gone, that will be good.  Gardeners in the area are experiencing bountiful harvests and are freely sharing with friends and neighbors.  There is still some good growing season left and Linda will have the fall Cole crops ready when she opens the Plant Place back up in September. 

          Champions are ever looking for the opportunity to improve themselves or their environs.  For example, one now says that one of the defining features of an inexpensive hose is that it frequently kinks.  Previously he had said things about the ‘dad blamed lousy cheap piece of junk hose’ and just what ought to be done with the no good miserable outfit.  Realizing that swearing at it does not keep it from kinking up at the critical moment, he now puts a little more effort in to handling it in such a delicate way to prevent the problem and is sure that when it is time to replace this hose he will do so with one that costs twice as much.  Surely someone makes a good quality garden hose.  Rich people probably do not have the problem.  They probably hire somebody to do their watering and let them do their swearing as well.  

          Some of Wally Hopper’s cousins were surprised to learn that their distant uncle John Sevier Upshaw was an Indian Agent appointed by Congress.  Wally’s letter brings up a number of historical issues and Denlowites will be most interested to learn more.  This part of the country is less populated now than it was when Wally was a boy and some think that it is less populated now than it was before Columbus made his trip.  How would current residents respond to being colonized by a foreign people with odd features and peculiar ways?  Champions are hospitable by nature but would most likely balk at being elbowed out of their hills and hollows.  History is a tool best used to understand the present and to shape the future. 

          The picnic grounds are shaping up nicely.  Firefighters and other volunteers have been out getting things ready for the big picnic.  The Skyline Picnic is the highpoint of the social year in these parts.  It looks like the weather will cooperate to make it the perfect occasion.  Friends who only see each other at this event will be out in force and the membership is getting ready to stick those pies in the oven.  The music is lined up and there are some great things coming in for the silent auction.  Local merchants are generous and there will be great prizes given away all through the evening on both nights.  It is an excellent opportunity for folks new to the area to get acquainted in a pleasant unconfined, informal environment.  Champion!  Leading up to the picnic is the Perseid meteor shower–the biggest, splashiest meteor shower of the year.  As the debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle scatters into the atmosphere, they say that as many as 60 shooting stars an hour can be seen on Thursday night into early Friday morning. Mars, Venus and Saturn will be lined up with the moon in the western sky so the whole week has promise to be celestially entertaining.

          School busses are practicing their routes, which reminds Champions that the school year is about to begin again.  The year certainly is rushing by.  For those waiting at home for their soldier to return, the time can drag out long.  Champions are reminded that the Nation’s soldiers belong to everyone. All citizens benefit from the willingness of the people in the Armed Services to put their lives at risk in the dangerous parts of the world.  Blood kin or not, all the Soldiers belong to all the Citizens and they have Love (with a capital L) and Gratitude (with a capital G) due them.  They are our soldiers now and will be our Veterans (with a capital V) when they get home.  They are Champions.

          Champions ‘of an age’ remember Shelley Fabares.  “On a picnic morning without a warning I looked at you and somehow I knew.  On a day for singing my heart went winging.  A picnic grove was our rendezvous. You and I in the sunshine, we strolled the fields and farms.  At the last light of evening, I held you in my arms. So when days grow stormy and lonely for me I just recall picnic time and you.”  Sing your favorite picnic song out in the Loafing Shed in the heart of Downtown Champion.  Send it or any good history to Champion Items, Rt. 2, Box 367, Norwood, MO 65717 or to Champion News.  Look for history at www.championnews.us and get yourself a hand full of those Champion Picture Postcards so that those unfortunates out in the dreary world can get an eyeful of Champion—Looking on the Bright Side.