they're not biting, let's go

Gravelly News by Glenna Goodson

Two Rednecks were looking at a Sears catalogue; Their eyes got really big when they saw the women modeling the clothes. Number 1 redneck said "boy, look at these pretty women and they do not cost very much. I think I will order me one." Number 2 redneck pats his friend on the shoulder and says "go ahead and order one and if you get yours I will order one because they are pretty cheap. " Number 2 redneck sees his friend in a couple of weeks and says "did you get the woman you ordered"? Number 1 says "not yet, but she ought to be here in a few days--I got her clothes yesterday. "

Loucinda picked me up Thursday morning and we travelled to the Garner pet Registery, past the Mulberry Church, deep in the beautiful woods. Garry has retired and his daughter Susan and son in law Marcus Richmond own the registery now. Garry met us and we went into the Registery and Garry and one of the employees,addressed envelopes, typed and ran off the letters for our FV school reunion.We so much appreciate their help--we realize they are very busy people and it is very kind that they do these jobs for us. We were waiting for the envelopes to be done and Garry and

Sheila invited us to their home to visit while we waited. Garry and Sheila joined a crew of CBN, a few weeks ago for trips to Israel and China. It was so interesting to hear their stories of these two places, so much in the news today. When we got our material from there we travelled on to Waldron--after Loucinda stopped and got Mamie Glover. We met Dortha Putman, Peggy Brothers, Ted Copeland at a Pizza place and ate lunch. We then went to Fred Copeland's Housing Authority Club Room and folded ;letters. stuffed envelopes and stamped them. Lou Ann Copeland also helped us. We finishedat 5 PM and were very tired. But now the invitations to the October FV
reunion are ready to mail. Hurrah!!!

This will be the 50th anniversary of Roy Cost's graduation from FV, Since Roy has Vertigo and cannot drive, he probably will not be able to attend our reunion. Ted Copeland is gathering some of Roy's music together and will play selections of the music at the reunion.

My nephew, Cameron Swaim, moves into his college dorm this weekend at Jonesboro. I wish the best for Cameron.

My Copeland cousins, Ted, Dortha and Peggy came to see me Saturday. We had such a good visit remembering the "good ole days" when we were teen agers at Gravelly and at FV. Ted told about Ms. Lou Dishogn, their neighbor at Mulberry, and he and his Dad gong fishing one time. He said they had been at the pond about 5 minutes and his Dad said "they're not biting, let's go" and Ms. Lou had gotten into some ticks and she said "let's go home. ': Ted said that fishing trip ended very fast !!Of course Peggy is several years younger than Dortha and me and she remembers when she was about 5 years old a joke she played on Ms. Lou. You know you can take a rubber band and wrap it a certain way around a button and place it in an envelope and when you open the envelope, it will make a strange noise and then jump out at you. Peggy fixed one of those buttons and took the envelope to Ms. Lou and told her it was a letter from her brother who was in service and asked Ms. Lou did she want to read it. Of course when Ms. Lou opened the envelope the button hissed at her and then jumped out at her. She was so scared she almost fainted. Peggy said her mother spanked her for that little trick.

A lady called me with a story she wanted me to pass along in my column. Three high school girls from FV were trying to sell ads for the FV yearbook. They went to a business in Plainview and asked if they would like to place an ad. The manager of the business was very rude to the girls and said "I buy nothing unless it is from Plainview school. "The lady that called me said people of this Valley do a lot of business at this place and spend a lot of money every week in this establishment. She said if the manager lost the Valley's business this person's business would really suffer. So if you own a business, maybe you should be kind to whomever comes in !!

Ella McCool called me to invite me to Plainview Baptist Church's revival this coming week. I was complimenting her on her granddaughter Brittany and she told me this sad story concerning Brittany and her quarter horse she had had and trained since the horse was just a baby. Brittany was training her horse to be a barrell racing horse and she had the horse about ready to compete. A pack of dogs in Rover chased her horse into a fence where the horse got tangled up in the fence and fought the fence which just made her get more tangled. Finally the horse died. Of course Brittany is devastated. Bless her "real good "

A friend that graduated from FV is doing a lot of research as to what the State Board of Education 's Rules are governing the closing of isolated schools. There are a lot of interesting points that will be asked the Dept. of Education in the next few weeks. But one law really got my attention--it says--"The State Board of Education shall ONLY approve a local school board's motion to close an isolated school if the closing is in the BEST interest of the students in the school district as a whole." When the students have to catch a bus before daylight and ride that bus for over two hours to their school and when school is out they ride over 2 hours again and get home after dark. I just don't see that it is in the best interest of the students.

Remember---Life is 10% what you make it and 90% how you take it.

Look at Diana's feet

Gravelly News by Glenna Goodson

Dwight Nelson recently told a true story about the pastor of his church. He had a kitten that climbed up a tree in his back yard and then was afraid to come down. The pastor coaxed, offered warm milk but the kitty would not come down. The tree was not sturdy enough to climb, so the pastor decided that if he tied a rope to his car and drove away so that the tree bent down, he could then reach up and get the kitten. He did, all the while checking his progress in the car frequently, then figured if he went just a little bit farther. the tree would be bent sufficiently for him to reach the kitten. But as he moved a little farther forward, the rope broke. The tree went "boing." and the kitten instantly sailed thrugh the air out of sight. The pastor felt terriable. He walked all over the neighborhood asking people if they had seen a little kitten. No, nobody hadseen a stray kitten. So he prayed, "Lord, I just commit this kitten to your keeping. " A few days later he was at the grocery store and met one of his members and was amazed to see cat food. Now this woman was a cat hater and everyone knew it, so he asked her"Why are you buying cat food when you hate cats?" She replied, "You won't believe this." and told him how her little girl had been begging her for a cat but she kept refusing. Then a few days before, the child had begged for a cat again and the mom told her little girl "Well if God gives you a cat, I'll let you keep it." She told the pastor, "I watched my little girl go out in the yard, get on her knees andask God for a cat, and really pastor, you won't believe this, but I saw it with my own eyes.A kitten suddenly came flying out of the blue sky with its paws out spread, and landed right in front of her. "


When my son Ellis was here, Diana O'Bryant brought me Okra, pepper and tomatoes. She said she told her husband that if he planted another big garden like this one, he would have to hire migrant workers to harvest it !! Diana loves to go barefoot. When she is in Gravelly and just around here, she is always barefoot. She told me about one time when Aleene O'Bryant had the Gravelly store, Diana was in the store barefoot. A nicely dressed couple were passing through and were in the store. The lady noticed Diana's bare feet and she kept nudging her husband to look at Diana's feet. Finally the husband said "What do you want,?" to his wife. Diana said ""Sir, your wife wants you to look at my bare feet, they must offend her. " The woman said "Well, to me it denotes intelligence or the lack of it. " Diana says "REALLY!" " I have two degrees in the Sciences. What is your degree?" The woman says she doesn't have one. Diana tells the lady she needs not to equate intelligence with the way people dress--or don't dress--Yea, for Diana!!

Jessica and Justin Homan are expecting their first child. So Janice and Joe James will be first time grandparents. They are really excited. Jessica and Justin live in Aden, N.C. They are very active in their church there where Justin is a deacon. Janice and the people in Jessica's church are already calling the baby, "peanut".

My friend, Melba Reed, has a birthday the 18th. NOW Melba is as old as me--ancient!, We started to school at FV together when we were in the 7th grade and graduated together in 1949.

I was so glad to see the picture of Clay Beggs in the Record and the great article. Clay is great in many sports but of course I love to see him play basketball. To me he is just another Larry Bird. And I am so impressed that Clay is a Christian young man and has a tender, compassionate heart. . I congratulate Eva Lynn and Clint for raising 3 good kids. When parents realize that their kids should be top priority, God will bless.

My favorite part of the Sunday Gazette is the Ozark edition cause I enjoy the adult profiles and the high school student interviews. The August 10th edition profiled Brittany Mcool as the high school student. It was a beautiful picture of her and a very good interview. I was impressed when Brittany was asked "What is the best gift you haver ever received" and Brittany says "My salvation." Best answer, ever !

I traveled to Waldron Friday for Bobbie to fix my hair. My beautician,Janet, at Plainview is on vacation. I knew if Bobbke could fix my hair I could see my cousin Dortha Putman. Dortha and i met at the Charbroiler and had lunch and a good visit She and I both are excited because we'll see our cousin, Billy Highfill, next Thrusday. He is coming to Waldron to the club room at the Waldron Housing Authority, where Loucinda, Peggy, Dortha, Billy and I will meet and"stuff" envelopes with the letters concerning our FV reunion, October 11th. Last year, we had over 200 people that came to our reunion and we expect as many or more this year. We will all greatly miss Charles Daniel that always worked so hard for our FV reunion. He was such a good M.C. Margaret Bogle will be the M.C. this year and I know she will do a good job. Our tables will be set up differently this year for the registration and selling of tickets, which we hope will help us register more people. Loucinda has worked very hard, as always, on the reunion, so we sre hoping things go smoothly. Just remember, the ones she has ASKED to register are responsible for that job. --those that are ASKED to be greeters are to be greeters, and the seller of ltickets and M.C. and the musicians have been selected. We are to do the jobs that have been selected for us to do so our reunion will just be the greatest ever !.

There's a guy at my Rover church that is on the look out for mistakes in grammar in the newspapers. He told me I made a mistake in grammar in last week's Record. I said "No way " because I am very particular about my grammar. Anyone that had Ms. Jessie Buford for an English teacher at FV has no excuse when they use bad grammar. My pet peeve that you see a lot in the newspaper is people that are talking and saying a sick person is doing "good." Remember "good" is an adjective that describes. An apple is good, but a sick person is doing WELL, But Ron said I used "then" instead of THAN/ I looked back at my article and I was talking about Ellis going different places and I said "THEN he went to the Lake."I want to inform Ron that THEN was used correctly. Gosh, Ron I have a degree in English which does not mean I do not make mistakes but I do not think I make very many in Grammar. Now you watch him, he will be looking very closely at my column to see if he can find mistakes !!I do not care--it's okay. When i taught 4th graders I gave an assignment one time that they were tp spend one week looking for mistakes in the newspapers and also on signs in the city. It isamazing at the mistakes they found.

Remember Christian---This world is NOT our home and this world is NOT our friend.

Something was under their table

Gravelly News by Glenna Goodson

She spent the first day packing her belongings into boxes, crates and suitcases. On the 2nd day she had the movers come and collect her things. On the 3rd day she sat down for the last time at their beautiful dining room table by candle light.--put on some background music and feasted on a pound of shrimp, a jar of caviar and a bottle of spring water. When she finished, she went into each and every room and deposited a few half shrimp shells dipped in caviar into the hollow of the curtain rods. She then cleaned up the kitchen and left. When the husband returned with his new girl friend, all was bliss for the first few days.Then slowly the house began to smell. They tried everything--cleaning and airing the place out--vents were checked for dead rodents and carpets were steam cleaned. Air freshners were hung everywhere. Exterminators were brought in to set off gas canisters, during which they had to move out a few days. In the end they even replaced the expensive carpet. Nothing worked. People stopped coming over. Repairmen refused to work in the house. The maid quit. A month later, even tho they cut the price in half, they could not find a buyer for their stinky house. Even the local realtors refused to return their calls. Finally they had to borrow a large sum of money to purchase a new home. The ex-wife called the man and asked how things were going. He told her the saga of the rotting house. She listened politely and told him she missed her old home terribly and would be willing to reduce the divorce settlement in exchange for getting the house. Knowing his wife did not know how bad the smell was he agreed on a price that was 1/10th of what the the house had been worth but only if she'd sign the papers that day. A week later the man and his girl friend stood smiling as they watched the moving comopany pack everything to take to their new home.-------and to spite the ex-wife they even TOOK THE CURTAIN RODS !!


I saw Toby Morrison at Emerson's last week. He really loves his four-wheeler but he has wrecked it a few times. Thankfully, it still runs. He told me about going to Lake Washita with Bob Bryant, and his firend, Bob's son, Bobby. Bob has a boat andToby said he did knee-boarding and really had fun.

Lorie Jones and Susan Jones were shopping for school clothes for their boys last week. They were at the Dardanelle Wal-mart and they were going to buy Fourche Valley tee shirts. Imagine their surprise when they saw Ola and Plainview-Rover but no FV. They were pretty upset. They told me so when was there Friday, I asked to see a manager. First a lady came and she was really helpful and kind--then she calledd a male manager over to speak to me. He said they were so sorry and they did not know why it happened but they had ordered FV tee shirts and they probably would be in by Monday--the 4th. He took my name and phone number andsaid he'd call me when they came in. Now we need to buy them. I appreciated the good attitude of both managers.

I was glad to see my friends Don and Midge Whitlow in Fowler's last week. The hood of my car has not been replaced since I hit the deer and Midge says, "Ms. Glenna did an elephant sit on your hood?"Remember the commericial on TV that shows the elephant sitting on the hood of a car?Midge said she could not believe I drove from OKC to Gravelly and how did I do it? Don said he knew how--that I followed the bread crumbs someone had dropped for me for a trail. A fellow was leaving the restaurant and was talking to Don. He said he could tell us a true tale that he bet we had never heard one like it. Some of his family went to Western Sizzler in Russellville to have a steak. They became aware that something was under their table---it was a possum !!Yep--it was alive !!

Jay P. Greene ,professor of education reform at UofA in Fayetteville has done an extensive study of large versus small schools and consolidation. He discovered distrricts perform less efficiently when they get bigger and when they close schools. Larger schools are less tightly connected to the communities they serve. The involvement of the parents are less which is a critical ingredient in successful schools. The areas with the fewest school districts have 12th grade reading scores that are 5.8 national percentiles lower then areas with many school districts. Increasing school district size would decrease the graduation rates by 1.7 percent--. In education--bigger is not better.

Sometimes I wonder why students aren't asked what they want when it concerns a major change in their education process. After all doesn't this concern the kids more then superintendents and board members/ ?The students are the ones that know what works for them when it comes to learning.

I went with my sister Kathy and brother in law, Lacey, Saturday night to a revival at Valley Home Missionary Baptist Church, outsde of Onyx on Hwy. 314. . The evangelist was Gene Tanner from Casa. Kathy had taught Andy, his brother, when she taught 6th grade at Casa. Gene is pastor of a Church in Oppelo. Hesaid there wwere 80 attending when he first went there and now they have 200. He was a wonderful preacher. A young man, Joey Herd, sang several songs. Joey performs with Andy Williams at Branson 9 months out of the year.I 'm so glad I went--I was blessed!!

Remember this---The one thing I can give and still keep is my word.