Good Deeds Punished

My boss has a saying, “No good deed goes unpunished.” I doubt he’s the first to have noticed how doing a good turn for others often has unintended consequences. The first time I heard the expression, it was uttered by a coworker who was quoting our boss. In recent weeks, I’ve twice been reminded of the truth of the expression.

I was at a retail store and someone knowing of my PC skills asked for an explanation as to why the shared printer acted up when transitioning from printing signs to reports. I briefly did some troubleshooting and soon had fixed the problem. But, before I could leave, someone using a different PC found they could no longer access the shared printer. The problem was totally unrelated to the issue I fixed, but my actions were looked upon with suspicion. Thus, my punishment for doing a good deed was the seeds of doubt that were planted in the mind of the second user.

The second occurrence came about two weeks before Christmas. I had purchased several country hams, as is my custom, for the purpose of slicing them at home and distributing packages of sliced country ham to various friends during the Season of Giving. I was removing the bone from ham number four when I deviated from the norm.

Normally, the first step in boning a ham is the removal of the aitchbone. Next the hard, dry, cured skin is removed, which makes the removal of the shank or hock less difficult. The final extraction is the leg bone or femur. Once all the bones are removed, I chill the meat in a freezer for several hours prior to slicing it.

Instead of removing all the bones from the portion to be sliced, I opted to strip the meat from the hock. A small piece of skin was still on the hock and was something I felt should be sliced off before separating the tibia and fibula. I placed the boning knife near the skin and reached with my left hand to hold the hock while I removed the skin. In gripping the greasy hock, the middle finger of my left hand touched the tip of the knife.

Lightning reflexes are good only if properly applied. As soon as I felt the prick of the tip of the blade of the knife I jerked my hand. Unfortunately, the motion was toward me rather than away from me. The tip of the knife laid open a deep three-fourths inch gash in the tip of my finger.

Having once been a meat cutter by trade, I had ample opportunities to nick myself, though only once were stitches required. Folks don’t understand how a meat man might find the sight of blood disquieting, but I typically explain it is warm blood that bothers me, more especially so when it’s my blood.

I phoned my wife and asked her to come home and help access the need for stitches. She agreed sutures were needed and drove me to the ER of the local hospital, where I received five stitches and more than a little sympathy for having cut myself while engaged in an act of kindness on a mission to spread a little holiday cheer.

Truly, “No good deed goes unpunished,” though it's fair to say some are punished more severely than others.

Of Mice And Women

Reportedly, the body weight ratio of man to mouse is 2,000 to one, and I imagine a similar ratio exists for woman to mouse, but I won’t be caught guessing that it’s a slightly bigger ratio. My idea in comparing creature with critter is to establish one basic fact; people are massive compared to a mouse. And, when one factors in the superior intellect of man versus mouse, it’s almost unfathomable to comprehend how so tiny an animal can produce so great a fear among humans.

For centuries women have feared mice, and I suppose men have, too, but you don’t hear of it as often. My mother was afraid of a mouse and was always fearful that one would run up her leg or affix itself to her duster. I’m sure her fear was driven by her having read of a mouse attacking a hapless female or else her having known of a “mouse incident” in the family.

Is there a super mouse somewhere on this planet that cannot be crushed by the wearer of a number eleven shoe, or that can fend off a broom-wielding housewife? I suggest there is not. But, somehow when it comes to small rodents, humans, like the cartoon character Mr. Jinks in the mouse-saga of Pixie and Dixie, really do “hate those meeces to pieces.”

Just how fearful some folks are of mice was brought close to home this week for me. My daughter lives in Belmont, Mississippi a mere seventy miles up the highway from Pontotoc. Rayanne was hurrying to get her two youngest daughters out the door and off to school and herself to work, when she glimpsed a mouse scurrying across the den floor. A few shrieks later all three of them were safely in the family van.

It was then that Katherine, the younger child, exclaimed she didn’t have a chance to put milk in her cereal. Apparently, my grandchildren are being taught to eat on the run, and under great stress, either of which makes for poor digestion, while adding nothing to family stabilization at mealtime.

“Well, this morning, you’ll just have to eat it dry,” Rayanne cried, “because there’s no way I’m going back into a house with a mouse in it.

“But, Mama, I don’t have my backpack,” Katherine wailed.

Wailing has been a common ailment of my two youngest granddaughters, something I blame on their being raised so far away from their granddaddy. When they were younger, and arrived at my house for a short visit, they came in wailing and more often than not, they were wailing when they left. They’re better now, but I’m always concerned they’ll relapse.

“I’m not going back inside,” Rayanne insisted, but knowing full well her baby would not go inside alone, ordered, “Merilese, go with your sister!”

As the children headed back into the house, Rayanne rolled down her window.

“And, get my cell phone off the kitchen counter!”

Alas, so much for the mothering instinct that mothers are supposed to possess that makes them fearless when it comes to protecting their own.

My daughter and granddaughters made it to their respective destinations without further instances. Rayanne phoned her husband, who was already at work, and informed him to set mousetraps when he went home for lunch.

By bedtime two mice had been trapped, but when Rayanne heard a third trap throw shortly after midnight, she’d had enough. She gathered her daughters from their slumber and carted them off to her in-laws one block away, where they spent the remainder of the night.

Friday night was also a night away from home. Rayanne and Merilese stayed another night with Rayanne’s in-laws. Katherine had a spend-the-night party, elsewhere. My son-in-law set more traps before leaving for the Alabama vs. Mississippi State football game and reported no more mice were caught during the night.

While I have the feeling life for the Adams Family of Shady Cove will soon return to normal, I’m afraid my grandchildren have suffered the imprint of their mother’s fear of mice and are henceforth doomed to walk fearfully among some of Nature’s smallest mammalians and someday even perpetuate the fear of mice to their children.

Pontotoc Scarecrows

According to a recent article in the Pontotoc Progress, Main Street Association director, Ellen Russell said of Pontotoc’s scarecrow initiative, “We wanted this project to get people out walking and enjoying the fall.”

The same article also cited similar community efforts in Sherman and Ecru.

Judging by the scarecrows scattered throughout downtown Pontotoc, I would say the project has been a rip-roaring success. I tallied forty-one pictures in a slideshow I made from photos I took this weekend.

Timing of the scarecrow project was great in that school children will be able to enjoy the scarecrows when they participate in the Harvest Parade held prior to Halloween, annually.

The scarecrows were constructed by local businesses and civic clubs. Instructions were provided by the Main Street Association to assure scarecrows could withstand the elements for a few weeks. Pierce Bird, a Mother Goose look-alike, and constructed by D.T. Cox Elementary, is made entirely of recyclable materials.

At the end of this article is a link to the scarecrow slideshow. I suppose everyone has a favorite scarecrow. The linemen scarecrows in front of the Pontotoc Electric Power Association are perhaps my favorites. Certain members of my family were swayed by a creation of the Town and Country Garden Club depicting a pair of stockinged legs protruding from a giant flower pot. However, all scarecrows on display are in contention for “best of show.” The overall winner is simply in the eye of the beholder.

See http://rrnews.org/scarecrow/index.html

The slideshow is best viewed full-screen with Internet Explorer - toggle the F11 key to turn full screen on or off.

That Hissing Sound

That hissing sound is not flatulence. It’s the sound of your billfold or purse deflating as middle income Americans are called upon to bailout an ailing Financial Industry.

Generally speaking, I’ve backed President Bush on the hard decisions he’s made during his years in our nation’s highest office. However, I’m not so sure this bailout mess is the best option.  I listened to the Presidential Address last night (24-September) and came away with less understanding as to what caused the market failure than I had going into the President’s speech. 

If we Republicans have a fault, it’s a failure to do unto the Democrats as they do unto us. While, the root cause of the financial fiasco, as agreed upon by every commentator I’ve read, was formed during the Clinton administration, our modest President did not go there last night.  He missed a great opportunity to explain to John Q. Public how the arm-twisting of the Clinton administration forced lenders to take huge risks, often making loans and mortgages available to entities unable to repay. As long as housing prices kept rising, the bad loans were not seen as bad, as a foreclosure could result in a property eventually bringing more than the initial amount of the loan.

Ronald Reagan once said that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

I’m confident the latest governmental “fix” will bite the average taxpayer not only in the billfold but elsewhere, too.

Browns In Town

For some reason, parents assume their children will grow up to be perfect in every respect, regardless of the gene pool from which they came. Some of the worst parents have the best children, and some of the best parents produce offspring which give rise to speculation the mother really was abducted and impregnated by an alien. Though it may sound a little crass, even somewhat fatalistic, having children is a crapshoot.

The biggest problem parents face in raising children falls within the category I call “handling expectations.” Too their credit, most parents do a pretty decent job in getting their children from the cradle to college without killing them somewhere along the way. Children are born with a limited lifetime warranty, which is invalidated within hours of birth or shortly after the child realizes his or her world has suddenly and, unbeknownst to him or her at the moment, forever changed.

Unfortunately, new parents can’t simply return the “merchandise,” because it doesn’t fit, isn’t the right color, doesn’t look like the picture in the catalog, or doesn’t work properly. And, since infanticide is a criminal act, parents are stuck with a product they are often ill-equipped to operate.

It’s a good thing God made grandparents, especially grandmothers. Children need grandparents, preferably two sets of them. Grandparents, having survived rearing their own children, are endowed with a special wisdom, which can be most helpful to a child’s parents, especially during the early years of child-rearing when parenting skills are in the developmental stage.

My sister, Sarah, who has often stated, “I have raised two of the most ungrateful children, God ever let breathe,” will become a grandmother around April 10, 2009, or else “in the fullness of time.”

Oh, her son and daughter are not as ungrateful as she would have one believe. In fact she may have set her expectations of them too high. Even if she were the perfect mother, her children had a less than perfect father, and she’d be the first to so attest.

Sarah’s son, Brett, and his wife, Kathy, are expecting their first child. Presently, the parents-to-be are residents of Pearl, Mississippi. Brett is employed by Affiliated Computer Services and Kathy is in her final year of Medical School at the University of Mississippi. Together, the two have a bright financial future.

Brett and Kathy were in Pontotoc over the weekend to share their good news and sonogram prints of the “child within” with family and friends.

Sarah viewed the reason for their visit somewhat differently, “Brett only came home to get his birthday present.”

While, it’s true Brett’s birthday was this past week, and he doesn’t come back very frequently to see his mother, it’s not like he and Kathy live just across the Pontotoc County line.

It’s a three-hour drive for them, and my advice to Sarah is, “Cut him some slack, Sis.”

That which will be most interesting to me, should I live long enough for it all to play out, will be to find out if an imperfect son can sire a perfect grandchild.

Well Worth The Trip

Barbara and I slipped away, recently, to enjoy something of a Nature walk. After parking our vehicle in a bottomland meadow, we made our way to a forested trail that meandered gently up a small hill. The canopy of half-century to century-old trees held undergrowth to a minimum.

Additionally, the walking path was padded with decaying wood chips and care had been taken to remove any branches of saplings to enable one to walk unhindered by Nature while enjoying all things natural along the trail.

After hiking about a quarter of a mile, we came to an opening where hundreds of others had gathered under canopies both natural and manmade to celebrate a remarkable event, the fall migration of thousands of hummingbirds. We were at the Strawberry Plains Audobon Center near Holly Springs, Mississippi, to enjoy the annual Holly Springs Hummingbird Festival. Once the property of Ruth and Thomas Finley, their daughters willed the 2,500 acre estate to the Audubon Society which has transformed the land into a paradise for naturalists and lovers of Nature.

The presence of hummingbirds may be the most celebrated and visible manifestation of the work of the Audubon Society, but the abundance of native plants provide habitat for more than 200 species of birds (source http://www.msaudubon.org/hummingbird08.php) Additionally, there are more than fourteen miles of walking/ hiking trails at the Center.

Barbara and I only stayed a couple of hours, but could have stayed a full day had time permitted. We listened to Bob Sargent explain hummingbirds to an audience surrounding him as he held a hummingbird in his hand and interacted with the group. Nearby, others demonstrated how captured birds were weighed, measured, and banded, before being released. A few lucky bystanders were privileged to release the banded hummingbirds.

I could not interest Barbara in attending the lectures on bats, snakes and raptors, but she and I enjoyed visiting the booths of vendors, where we window-shopped Nature prints, paintings, and bird feeders. We did make our way into the Davis house, the Antebellum home restored by Margaret Finley Shackelford, where the first floor was partially opened to allow visitors to enjoy the view from the sun porch of scores of hummingbirds feeding in the flower garden and enjoying the sugar-water in a multiple feeders.

We plan to allow more time to enjoy next year’s Hummingbird Festival, and next year I’m sure we’ll have our grandchildren and our daughter and son-in-law with us.

Jamie - After All These Years

Pontotoc’s annual Bodock Festival was held the week ending August 23, 2008. The editors of The Bodock Post were on hand to promote their new publication and to encourage individuals to signup for the free online publication. We occupied a booth adjacent to the Post Office Museum in downtown Pontotoc. Ralph Jones and I were present both days, and Carl Wayne Hardeman joined us on Saturday.

The 10’ X 10’ popup tent we had borrowed shielded us from sunshine throughout the morning. But, to remain in the shade we were constantly moving our lawn chairs to accommodate the position of the sun, and by mid-afternoon, we found ourselves positioned slightly in front of the tent.

Our vantage point enabled us to do a great deal of “people watching.” There was plenty of foot-traffic passing by us. Many persons smiled or waved, and a goodly number stopped by to see what we were selling. Of course, we were not selling anything, we just looked like we were with a display of horse apples (bodock balls) forming a centerpiece on our display table and a stack of September issues of the Post in full view.

Of the vehicles that parked briefly in front of the Post Office, most were there because the driver needed to drop off some mail or check his or her mailbox inside the Post Office. Thus, when a car containing a man and a woman stopped in front of the Post Office and both of them began walking toward our booth, I quickly surmised we had something they wanted.

The man was smiling as if he knew one of us. I stood up to greet him, wondering if he was someone I was supposed to know. Ralph stood, as well. By this time, the woman had made her way to our booth.

As I recall, he expressed an interest in our centerpiece, stating they had driven to Pontotoc in search of some bodock balls for a decorative purpose.

I decided it was time to introduce myself and extended my hand while stating, “I’m Wayne Carter.”

The woman beside him shrieked, “Wayne Carter! Did you say Wayne Carter?” all but drowning out her husband’s reply, “Howard Thompson, nice to meet you.”

Her first words startled me, and I wasn’t sure whether to answer her or to run. But, when she removed her sunglasses, I immediately recognized her.

“Jamie!” I cried, as it was my turn to yell.

She grabbed me and hugged me like I was a long lost relative. Jamie and I had become good friends when were classmates at Northwest Junior College, Senatobia, Mississippi in 1960-1962. I had met her through my friend Ed Dandridge, another classmate, from Independence, Mississippi. Ed and Jamie had graduated high school together as had a number of other students in my class that Ed also made sure I got to know, because they were his friends.

A minute later, Ralph introduced himself. His actions provoked another round of shrieks.

“You did our house plans,” Jamie recalled. “I can’t believe it. We met you in 1969. We drove from Independence to Pontotoc to find some bodock balls, and here the two of you are together. I knew the Lord had a reason for us to be here today.”

I may have seen Jamie once or twice since we graduated in 1962, but I don’t remember when or where. The fact that I still recognized her after what may have been forty-six years is satisfying. We chatted for the better part of an hour, and I walked Howard and her to the office of Habitat for Humanity to meet my wife, Barbara.

Making the day even more amazing, for me, was the fact that Jamie asked how she could reach Fred Wicker. How she and the story-telling, retired Judge became friends is itself a long story, but it involves her needing someone several years ago to speak before a student body where she is an administrator.

Jamie went inside the museum to find a phone book and returned to state, “I didn’t need a phone book after all. There were a couple of little old ladies in there who knew his phone number, and they told me he would be speaking at the community theater, shortly. I also got directions to Jean Peeples’ house. Jean said I can have all the bodock balls I want right out of her backyard.”

Ralph, Howard, Jamie and I spent the better part of two hours reminiscing. I could easily have “carried on” a couple or more hours, but our schedules would not permit such an indulgence. Ralph and I went back to “selling” the Post, and Howard and Jamie left to visit the Judge and pick horse apples.

Rain Dampens Attendance at Festival

For the second consecutive year, attendance at Pontotoc’s Bodock Festival was hampered by rain on Saturday. It was raining when we got there at 8:30 a.m. and it was raining when we left at 4:00 p.m. However, unlike last year, the evening’s entertainment was not rained out, simply moved to the Ag Center.

We (the editors of The Bodock Post) had secured a booth adjacent to the Post Office Museum and hoped to entice additional subscribers for our new monthly newsletter. Ralph Jones and I spent Friday in our booth, and Carl Wayne Hardeman joined us on Saturday.

Of the two days, Friday had the better weather with overcast skies and temperatures under eighty degrees (quite mild for the third week in August). Friday was also the better day for signing new subscribers with eight added to our roster. Saturday is when the larger crowds are usually on hand, but with light rain falling throughout the day, attendance was very poor. We did have two more new subscribers to bring the total of our charter subscribers to eighty-seven.

Many folks expressed disappointment that our newsletter is available only on the Internet. Initially, our thought was the printing costs and postage would be prohibitive for most folks, but if there is sufficient interest, perhaps we will reconsider our decision regarding no-hardcopies.

Meanwhile the first issue can be found at http://rrnews.org/bp/BP_1.htm.

The Post will be at the Bodock Festival

Pontotoc may have more than its share of persons who love to write and are interested in Pontotoc from a historical perspective. A small group of writers with roots in Pontotoc and Pontotoc County have pooled their efforts and have begun a newsletter to showcase their writings as well as articles contributed by persons who share their love of this area.

Pontotoc Progress readers are familiar with writers Carl Wayne Hardeman and Ralph Jones, both of whom are frequent contributors to the Progress. Wayne Carter having recently retired from writing his own newsletter, Ridge Rider News, has agreed to help them publish and distribute a brand new Internet newsletter, The Bodock Post.

It is the desire of the editors to provide a monthly e-newsletter about rural living with photographs of yesterday and today, including timely articles about conservative politics, religion, food, restaurant reviews, gardening, humor, history, and non-fiction columns by folks steeped in our Southern lifestyle.

Anyone interested in becoming a charter subscriber to The Bodock Post may contact one of the editors online at www.bodockpost.com or by sending an email with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line to editor@bodockpost.com. The newsletter is free, with no advertisements, and the editors promise to protect the email address and other private information provided by all subscribers.

Carl Wayne, Ralph and Wayne will share responsibilities as editor on a rotating basis beginning with Carl Wayne for the September issue. Full color, sample issues (not for sale or distribution) will be available for viewing and perusing at the office of the Pontotoc Progress, the Post Office Museum, and the Pontotoc County Library as early as August 20, 2008.

The editors plan to have a display at the Post Office Museum on Friday and Saturday of the Bodock Festival and welcome the opportunity to speak to individuals interested in their new venture.

Welcome

Welcome to The Bodock Post! If you'd like to receive a free, monthly eNewsletter, with no advertisements, please supply the basic information on the form at www.rrnews.org/bp/contactusbp.html.

The first issue of The Bodock Post is due for release on August 24th.

For more information, go to http://www.bodockpost.com/.