DreamWorks

CHAMPION – May 20, 2007

        The very Good news in Champion this week is that Bob and Sue wish to announce the birth of their only granddaughter, (3 boys before), Elizabeth Heffern, born at Cox on May 15, 2007.  She weighed 8lbs l.2oz.  “We could not be more pleased and wished to share this with all of you.”  Shamus will be an excellent big brother and Ethan and Zach will be the kind of cousins that will keep a girl on her toes.  She is a lucky girl indeed to have devoted Champion grandparents living in the country but not too far away.

        Dillon and Dakota Watts will be in the country visiting Grandparents this week.

        There will be stories to tell of the Tennessee turkey hunts and much reveling to be done concerning the end of the school year.  Some Skyline students have been stunned and heartbroken over the loss of the enormous tree from the playground at the school.  Laying on its side with its great limbs lopped off it looked like a huge fallen giant.  Generations ahead will not enjoy its expansive shade and the secrets of its long past will have to live in the memories of Tigers young and old.  They will say, “Goodbye, Old Friend.”  The tree was assessed to have lived beyond its maturity.  Let that be a lesson.

        Alumni of Denlow U. are getting ready to swarm!  They will be saying “Hello” to old friends and new ones at the Denlow School Reunion on Saturday, May 26^th.  The festivities will begin around eleven in the morning, but people will be arriving earlier.  North Woods, a local band, will be playing at eleven and the pot luck lunch will take place at 12:30.  At two in the afternoon there will be a dedication ceremony for the kick off of the Civil War Veterans Memorial Project.  This is a fine opportunity to show off the new pavilion.  The weather is portentous for a lovely event and it is hoped that the turn out will be substantial.  Everyone is welcome.  Cleetus Upshaw will be there and hopefully some old stories can be wrung or pried from him.  Robert Upshaw will most likely have something to say.

        Armed Forces Day was first celebrated in 1950.  It is a day that affords the welcome opportunity to pay special tribute to the men and women of the Armed Forces … to all the individuals who are in the service of their country all over the world.  This year it was celebrated on May19^th.  Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in Our Nation’s service.  It will be celebrated Monday, May 28^th.  Champions observe these holidays with Love and Gratitude.

        As of May 20^th, there have been 3,404 confirmed deaths of US Service Personnel in Iraq.  There are currently 18 Deaths that are pending Department of Defense Confirmation.  The total since the beginning of this conflict is now 3,422.

        It is good news to hear that Mrs. Vivian Floyd is making some substantial progress in her recovery.  Some of her old friends are getting in touch with her again to wish her well.  Things are going well generally in Champion.  Hay is down waiting to get bailed if it will dry out.  Louise has tomatoes the size of quarters already.  The Race for the first Local Ripe Tomato is on!– The First Ripe Tomato in Champion Contest.  A quorum of Local Yokels (to be appointed) will judge and verify ripeness and the Grand Prize will be an Antique Genuine Ball Mason Jar—a Blue one!  It will be on display in Henson’s Store in the Heart of Champion.

        Auxiliary Ladies of the Skyline Volunteer Fire Department are busy already with preparations to provide the concessions at the Home Coming Bluegrass Festival to be held at the Wagon Wheel Bluegrass Park on the first of June.  E-mails with schedule information are flying back and forth on the internet, phone calls are being made about ice cream and trips to the big town for supplies are being cooked up.  It promises to be a lively affair.

        “Well, what happened to Linda up in Spotted Hog in 1981?” someone asked.  Well, it must have been pretty early in the Spring because Linda was wearing her heavy denim coveralls and the pigs were still quite small.  Bob was on the tractor moving a big bale of hay.  Uncle Kenneth and his friend, visiting from Shreveport, were just out enjoying the beautiful morning.  As it happened, one little pig out of the litter wandered off and became entangled in the brush.  Linda saw the situation and set about to free the little fellow.  As she struggled in the tangle of the brush to pull the piglet out, it began to squeal in a frantic panicked way.  It wriggled in her grasp and continued its desperate squealing.  This alarm reached the Sow whose attention had been elsewhere.  She turned her fierce pink eye toward the sound of her young one in distress.  This is a good point to talk about this pig.  She was a Chester White.  All three breeds of white pigs commonly raised in this area are considered desirable for their large litters and excellent mothering ability.  There is a breed called Landrance and then there is the Yorkshire which has a long big frame and erect ears.  The Chester White is large and has medium sized drooping ears and boars of this breed are usually quite aggressive.  This was a huge white sow.  Herman Melville devotes an entire chapter, Chapter 42, of Moby Dick to “The Whiteness of the Whale.”  He goes into the awe-filling spiritual aspects of the color with its array of angels and its specter of death and ghostly foreboding, its history of heraldry, the symbolism of purity and surrender and on and on.  On this day, this enormous beast vied with Ahab’s nemesis for fury and speed and cunning.  It bore down on Linda with a rage, knocking her down and then picking her up in incredible strong jaws, tossing her in the air like a rag doll.  Linda yelled for help and tried to protect her head and neck while the sow continued to throw her about.  Bob, with the tractor running, couldn’t hear her, and by the time Uncle Kenneth and his friend ran to her aid, this nearly 400 pound monster had thrashed Linda soundly.  The men armed with sticks, beat the sow until she relinquished her prey.  It was Linda’s good fortune to be wearing her heavy coveralls so the sow did not break the skin with its massive gnashing.  She managed to walk away from the scene but with deep bruises on both arms and both legs, on her shoulders and torso.  A friend asked her the other day if she still felt the effects of that incident and she reported that until quite recently she still had some knots in muscle tissue as a result of the hog bites.  She said that she has been using an herbal drink called Mangosteen that seems to have caused these knots to dissolve.  So that’s what happened all those years ago.  Linda doesn’t raise pigs any more.  She spends her time in town at The Plant Place enjoying the calm benignity of the botanicals.  Her almanac says that from the 26^th through the 30^th it will be an excellent time to plant corn, beans, peppers and other crops that bear yield above-ground.  These are also good days for starting seedbeds and planting leafy vegetables.  Her almanac also fills us in on the Blue Moon this month.  Once in a Blue Moon … is a common way of saying not very often, but what exactly is a Blue Moon?  According to the popular definition, it is the second Full Moon to occur in a single calendar month. The average interval between Full Moons is about 29.5 days, whilst the length of an average month is roughly 30.5 days. This makes it very unlikely that any given month will contain two Full Moons, though it does sometimes happen.  On average, there will be 41 months that have two Full Moons in every century, so you could say that once in a Blue Moon actually means once every two-and-a-half years.

        “Blue Moon, You saw me standing alone,/ Without a song in my heart/ Without a love of my own.”  There are many artist who have recorded this song and it is indeed a lovely one, but for Champion purposes Rudy Valley’s “Keep A Little Song Handy” will be the focus of the musical news this week.  It goes:  “Keep a little song handy where ever you go/ And nothing can ever go wrong./  Keep a little song handy and sure as you know/ The sunshine will follow along. /  Any little single jingle that sets the toes a tingle/ Is welcome when you mingle in any single throng/ So Keep a little song handy wherever you go/ And nothing will ever go wrong!”  Rudy Valley was quite a popular fellow in the early 1930’s.  Even Chimera Bea Latent liked him.  It was because he parted his hair in the middle and had big round eyes that smiled down on just her from the movie screen.  S.T. would mimic Valley crooning and wearing a bow tie with his overalls to aggravate Chimera, which was not a difficult task to accomplish.  It’s a wonder he lived so long.

        Wonders, once in a Blue Moon stories, escapes from pigs, happy songs, any kind of Good News about Champion is all welcome at Champion Items, Rt. 2, Box 367, Norwood, MO 65717 and at Champion News.  The First Ripe Tomato in Champion Contest rules and Grand Prize may be viewed at Henson’s Store in the municipal center of Champion.