Columns

Forty years ago, Dayna and I purchased The Allen Advocate from Virgil and Jackie Guy. It has been a great journey and we have made many lifelong friends. Had it not been for Wayne and Pat Bullard, Charles and Betty Spear and Eric Pierce, I don’t think we would have ever survived those early years.

June brings on something called July. And this July will be just like a lot of other Julys. Hot. Real hot. Makes me remember the July of 1943. When I was “stuck” down on Goat Ridge in Leflore County at my grandparents. And July 4 th was coming up. Not that anyone down there seemed to notice.

So, when did these Father’s Day celebrations get started and how? Well, the first one came forth on June 19, 1910. The same year my own father was born. Men scoffed at this new day. “It’s just a trick to get people to spend money on yet another holiday,” said my dad.

Memorial Day is here. A time to remember and honor those heroes who paid the ultimate price to defend our country. There are many heroes in our area. And I salute all of them. But today I want to talk about a particular one. One you may not have known of or remember. A boy from Lula.

It’s May and this heralds’ observations of many important days. Graduations have taken place and so did Mother’s Day. I don’t know where we will hold the Memorial Day ceremonies this year, in the cemetery or some indoor venue, but the date is May 30 at 11:00 am. Stay tuned.

My friend Debbie told me a story about her father that warmed my heart and stopped me cold. Here’s the basic story as she related it:

Credit for these little goodies goes to my No. 1 correspondent, Al Wilburn. But I detected a huge number of instances that are probably common to us all. Enjoy!

People that don’t regularly read this column may not realize that the famous movie star, Cheeta is dead. His best friend and caregiver hauled this 140-pound dead Chimp around on a cart so the other primates he lived with could say goodbye.

We didn’t have any swimming pools in Stonewall, at least not like a lot of towns such as Allen have. In 1944 I was still sort of new to living there but thought I was in hog heaven anyway, having lived in Centrahoma until 1944.

Will we just have to “live” with Covid from now on? Seems that’s the way it was with the famous Spanish Flu. It peaked out back in 1918 after it had killed about 500 million people worldwide. To this day we have to take our annual flu shots since the old “flu” still lurks about.