Tips from the Garden Lady
by Mary McNair, Gardens Editor

      This is the season most celebrated in music and poetry and for the wonderful reason that it represents the cyclical return of life when most creatures have the urge to engage in sex. Just look at the birds. They’re mating everywhere. All my birdhouses will have new little occupants this year if nobody eats their little eggs and the cats don’t kill their little fledgling babies. How marvelous!
      I’ve already got some lettuce coming up, do you? If not, shame on you because you need to get your lettuce planted before it gets too warm. It’s “nellybout” too warm already.
      This also applies to turnip greens. My neighbor, Mr. Kitchens, loves my fresh turnip greens with some of my hot cornbread. We get together on the back porch and have a little snack sometimes. Mr. Kitchens likes to dip his cornbread in the juice --- what I call “pot liquor”. This gives Mr. Kitchens gas.

A brew or two might help

      To correct this problem, I now serve up some cold beer with the greens and cornbread. Beer does not actually cure the gas, mind you, it simply makes it easier to tolerate. This is one reason we stick to the back porch, even when it rains.

No trouble getting to sleep

      I remember when my late husband, Howell, and I used to drive from Earnest all the way over to the First Chance Tavern across the state line to buy a keg of draught beer which was not legal to sell in Earnest back then. We loved having backyard get-togethers. Howell and Jimmy Philpot would stay up after the guests left to see if the two of them could run the keg dry. They always went to sleep in their chairs, though.
      People still ask me why our parties were so successful. It was the peanuts.
      Well, the birds are chirping, the sun is hot, there’s a thunderstorm coming this afternoon and life inspires, as always.

Local Writer Publishes
New End-of-Time Book

      Most people in their right minds never consider the possibility that Chicken Little actually ever existed.
      Apparently some are not in their right minds and we should like to include in that category Grady Claiborne Butts, of Earnest.
      Mr. Butts has self-published a detailled “biography” of the famous chicken, going all the way back to India to ferret out what he calls “archaeological proof” that the sky actually did fall on what would equate to Tuesday, August 17, in 144 BC, long before “Tuesday” or “August” or “BC” actually existed.
      According to Mr. Butts’ research, the “sky” or portions of the “sky” did “fall” and strike Chicken Little on the head, “proving” that if it happened before, it can happen again.
      Mr. Butts’ tome, entitled The Science Has Already Been Done, argues that the sky will fall in about seven and a half years, “give or take a couple of fortnights”.
      Mr. Butts feels that his book will give people time, as he deftly puts it, “to leave the barnyard before it’s too late.” His next book will be about trans fats but he says you’ll only have 17 months left in which to read it.

Earnest High’s Class of ‘68 Will
Hold 40th Reunion on Saturday
by Ann-Marie Steadman, Goings-On Editor

      It seems hard to belive that 40 years have passed since Larry Thigpen and Dewey Snavely suspended Ed Vickers upside down outside the windows of Mrs. Hale’s civics classroom and got suspended.
      Or that Quinn LaGrange and Frymont Claypool spent the night strapped to the top of the water tower on prom night and got arrested and had to spend the summer painting City Hall. (That’s right, Frymont --- I bet you thought we’d all forgot!).
      Or that Mary Margaret (Brown) Simmons and I won the $10 first prize in art class with our clay statue of Elvis Pressley. Our teacher, Mr. Quidley, thought it was Napoleon because the hair looked kind of like a hat, I guess, but it was really Elvis. We took the $10 anyway and kept our mouths shut.
      Incidentally, Mr. Quidley will be attending some of the festivities. Volunteers are needed to help him get to the bar and also to drive him home.

          Who could forget Col. Fancher?

      Welcome, indeed, will be two more of our esteemed teachers; Mrs. Dolly Staples, who taught biology and even got Judy Lynn McElroy to cut a frog into pieces and Col. Millard Fancher, who brought history to life by dressing up in class as Millard Filmore.
      Col. Fancher will also need help at the bar and volunteers should remember that he must be given a salute instead of a handshake.
And last but definately not least, our wonderful building custodian, Mr. Denman Deadman, who is 87 years old now, will join with the band and sing ‘There Ought to be a Mioonlight Savings Time”.
      Festivities will be held at the Dilly Dally Lodge (that used to be the Linger Longer Lodge) on Saturday starting at 6:30 with a “wide open” bar on the terrace. Music will be by the Jive Satin Quartet --- yes, the same group we had at our senior prom, although the original four members are all dead..

       “Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress.
      But I repeat myself.”

Mark Twain

Earnest Garden Club Projects Aimed at Beautifying City Hall

      The ladies of the Garden Club were busy all day Monday, spreading ten cubic yards of manure over the flower gardens on the property.
Neighbors and surrounding businesses complained to Mayor Felton Claypool about the strong odor but the mayor was also complaining and wanted to know why manure was being used within city limits.
      “Unfortunately,” said the mayor, “it’s illegal.”
Club president, Betty Claude Coates, told The Herald that she had personally ordered ten yards of dark brown mulch to be dumped in the front yard.
      “Are you telling us this isn’t mulch?” Mrs. Coates asked the mayor, “”I specifically ordered mulch. This is mulch. So what if it smells a little, it’s mulch.”
      The mayor took opposition by responding:
“If that’s not manure, I’m the bastard son of the Duke of Wellington.”
He gave the ladies two days to clean the manure up and offered to help them find some genuine mulch.
      Mrs. Coates was given a small glass of whiskey and escorted to her car. Other club members continued tree trimmi ng the holly trees.

We don’t have
a volcano, either

          Earnest has been derisively termed “the town without a shopping mall or even a well-known individual” ever since malls became popular back in the ‘50’s.
      The second half of the statement is questionable since Dr. Franklin Milledge, the entomologist who wrote about aphids is buried here.
      There is no mall, however.
      Some people, who think it would make Earnest more upscale, say we should just go ahead and get one.
      And put it where?
      Is a 400-acre plot of asphalt better for Earnest than the pecan orchard? Or, for that matter, any randomly selected 400 acres of pine woods?
      Cletus has a mall. Anybody who can’t do without one can go there if the need overtakes them. Some do.
      But the Cletus mall doesn’t have a front porch with rocking chairs on it like Mitchell’s Fertilizer & Hardware and they don’t know your kids’ names and the bank doesn’t put out free coffee and a tray of brownies and they don’t offer free alterations like they do at Grimshaw’s Mens Store.
      Admittedly, there is music in the mall.
Only it’s not Ella Fitzgerald and it’s not Charlie Byrd or Allison Krause or Carlos Jobim. It’s the same music you’re forced to listen to while getting a root canal.
      Plus, you could search that whole mall and not find a single hush puppy like Chiswell’s Cafe makes, much less a full basket of hot ones with a plate of fried catfish.
      And you wouldn’t be allowed to bring your dog, either.
      Malls have their place I guess.
      I’m happy with the one we don’t have.
Iit’s okay with me if we keep our well-known individual a secret, too.

Medical News with Disturbing Views

      Genetic biologists, researching the DNA of famous lawmakers, have concluded that both Senator Joe Biden and erstwhile Vice President, Al Gore, come from our own planet and not another galaxy.

Thought for the Ages
    Yesterday’s woes and tomorrow’s foes
Won’t change the way that this day goes.
So find the simple things that you can do,
And Forget the drop of that other shoe.

 by Dorothy Hawkins Pennebaker

(If you have a favorite inspiration, maudlin sentiment or syrupy poem that you would like to share with our readers, send a typed copy (only) to The Editor here at the Herald where it will either be used or thrown
away. Iambic pentameter is prefered but not required. Scented envelopes will be discarded without opening.