Outlook

Hello! Hello! to all you dear and special readers as I begin the Outlook column for this week. I trust that all of you folks are enjoying good health and staying warm and dry with the rain coming down pretty hard outside as I write on this Tuesday afternoon. I don’t know if the rain is wanted or needed; but, I don’t know what we can do otherwise. That’s my thinking and I am sticking to it.....

So, let’s see what I’ve done since I wrote last week’s column.....

.Hmmm, not much of anything except just get up in the morning and move through the day and then on into the late evening and then bedtime comes and I go to sleep.

Of course, in between those activities, I have a few chores to do around the house like preparing a bit of food for me and giving my little pooch, Cookie, some of it. She is not hard to please and likes most any kind of dog food and anything in the meat line such as chicken, pork chops, roast beef, etc. And, I do enjoy reading a good book most anytime, any where.....

I still have a lot of leaves on the ground in my front and back yard. I’ve managed to clear some of them off the front of the yard nearest the driveway up to the carport.

The small leaves from the live-oak tree are not much of a problem; but the huge leaves from my neighbor’s tree really carpet most of the front yard. Oh, well, if the wind doesn’t blow them across the street, I may get them raked up and bagged this week if the rain lets up in a day or so. We’ll see......

Somehow, January takes a bit of getting used to for me. I know... I know it’s the beginning of a whole new year; but, it takes me a while to get into the swing of things and develop a new outlook for the coming year. (I’m still working on that .....) I know different folks have different strokes and we have to be considerate of each other.......So, let’s just go ahead and bring on a chuckle to lighten up the mood.

CHUCKLE # 1 - A guy from Dublin proposes to his girlfriend on St. Patrick’s Day and gives her a ring with a synthetic diamond.

“You cheap bum!” she yells. “This isn’t even real.”

“I know,” he says, “But in honor of Saint Patrick, I thought I’d buy you a sham-rock.”

And, now we move on a bit further into this month and realize that we are more than half-way through January.

I always kind of feel a bit down after Christmas has passed and it takes a while for me to get into the swing of a new year. But, I am surely not the only one with this problem.......

I recall my school years when we would return after the holiday season and some of the kids would be sporting a new wrist-watch or some other piece of jewelry; but, I didn’t have anything like that until after I had gotten married a few weeks prior to graduating from high school.

I suppose you could say that I had a rather unusual growing up time in my later teen years when my folks had left me behind to finish high school in my senior year. (They had moved to Colorado in November of that year to join my next older brother who had bought a big ranch near a mountain area.)

So, the love bug worked its magic with me and my sweetie and we got married along with my husband’s older brother and his girl friend in the fall of my senior year. I was already boarding out in the town near my school and I had a part-time job in an insurance office. I was also renting an apartment there. (Our marriage lasted until my husband’s death here 47 years later; but, his brother wasn’t that fortunate. We won’t go any further with that.......)

Anyway, as some readers may recall, we did move to Colorado a few months after our marriage and our son, Kirby was born there the next year in the city of Grand Junction.

I found a good job there with the first one at a wholesale lumber company with offices in 14 cities over the state. Later on, after Kirby arrived, I went back to work at a large wholesale drug company and I was secretary for one of the vice-presidents. I really enjoyed my second year there; however, the higher altitude of that area began to effect my husband’s heart condition and we were advised to return to a lower climate in order for his heart to perform better. So, we did and eventually wound up in good ole’ Rayville a few months later thanks to my husband’s Uncle Dick Hendrix finding me a secretarial job here.

I will always love that sweet man for his taking such a special interest in us at that time.

CHUCKLE #2 - Dempsey had gone to the newspaper office to inquire about placing a funeral notice in the next edition. “How much would you be charging me for this service?” he asked.

“Fifty cents per inch!” replied the editor.

“Good heavens! And, me poor brother was six foot high!” ,,,,,,,(Slight mis-understanding, huh?)

And, I reckon this is about enough of this stuff for this week’s Outlook column. I have a craving to journey on home and join my sweet little doggie for supper which I will share with her. I have some chicken already cooked and that is one of her favorite foods - mine, too. We are both pretty easy to please......

Birthdays are coming up soon for: Lydia Walker on 1/17; for Robert Atkins on 1/18; Rose Stokes and Margie Sullivan on 1/20 and for Linda Hendrix and Donnie Adcock on 1/2l. We wish these folks a most happy celebration of their natal day and also wish them many, many more.........

PARTING THOUGHT: You should treat your friends as you do your picture and place them in their best light.