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The Office Cat
Neil Simon's "The (female) Odd Couple" opens at the Playhouse on North Alexander Avenue Friday, July 27, at 8 p.m. Cindy Barrow and Elaine Filipiak star as the odd couple and Bolton Lunceford is director, assisted by Joan Baker. . I made a mistake. I included Shay Harris as one of the owners of the newly-opened Antiques Orphanage on The Square in Downtown Washington. Shay says she is not involved in any way. The owners are Katherine Sanders, Jane Bundy, and HENRY Harris. It's a beautiful store. . Friday I went to Jimmy Barnett's Tomato Time stand to get some tomatoes. When it came time to pay, Jimmy wouldn't charge me anything. I told him he had a new business and every penny counted and he ought not to be giving away his tomatoes. I also told him about my daddy in the 1940s. He had just left his job as a mechanic at the Ford Place and gone into business for himself in his new shop on North Jefferson Street. In the middle of a wintry cold night with sleet beginning to fall, he got a call from Buster Ginn who ran an allnight service station at the corner of Depot Street and West Main Street (now Robert Toombs Avenue.) He told Daddy that there was a man at the station traveling from Atlanta to Augusta and he was having car trouble. Buster didn't know what to do so he called Daddy for help. He went to the station and got the man's car going. When the man asked how much he owned him, Daddy said he didn't owe him anything (something he continued to do for the rest of his life.) So the man gave him 50 cents. And then Jimmy says to me, "Well, let me tell you what MY daddy told me. He said that they are my tomatoes and I can give them to anybody I want to." I couldn't argue with that. I thanked him and enjoyed my tomatoes. . After reading the article about Moochie Weber and her roadrunners in Arizona, Suzanne Bradley Barry, a big News-Reporter fan, sent the following message. "I can't even come close to matching the story of the road runner but we've got some neat white squirrels at our place at Alligator Point. They are dominant over the regular squirrels but are very friendly. They have a black diamond shape on their heads and a black stripe down their backs. We really enjoy sitting on our screened porch and watching them. They're very playful." Suzanne grew up in the Tyrone community in Wilkes County.. I got one call and one letter about the mention of W.R. Taylor's Band. It turns out it wasn't W.R.'s Band at that time but he was involved. Frank Beckum, who lives on St. Simons Island, says that there was a contest (with a prize) to name the band. W.R. told Frank to submit the name "Spencer Taylor and his Taylor-made Rhythm," and Frank won the contest. . . . Don Taylor of Atlanta writes that it was "Spencer Taylor and the Rhythm Boys" and that he played second trumpet behind Speedy Clements for $10 a night. Spencer's son Aaron (?) played the drums. According to Buzzy Randall, W.R. played trombone. Don says he was 14 years old at the time so that would have been in 1948. He also says that Duvall Adams played the guitar and Spencer Taylor played the piano and wrote the arrangements. . Bonnie Boatwright, our Rayle News correspondent, takes great pride in the fact that in all the years she has been writing the news, she's never missed a week. Bonnie has been having radiation treatment for cancer and is especially proud that she hasn't missed a week, even during that time. But I messed her up the Fourth of July week. She sent in a column for the paper that came out June 28 and another one for the July 5 paper when we were to be closed. Instead of separating the two columns, I thought they were meant to be one and combined them, so she did not have any news in the July 5 paper. But it was my fault, not hers. . Vonice and Michael Wells were vacationing on the beach at St. Simons Island and thought they had put their chairs a safe distance from the incoming waves. The waves kept getting bigger and they kept moving the chairs farther back, but one caught them and washed chairs, towels, camera, cell phone, and other items away. All Michael could say was, "My cigarettes are gone!" Those other things were just not important! They were not the only ones wiped out. Other people got caught, too, and everybody was helping everybody retrieve their property. . Guillaume and Sokun Slama have bought the Fitzpatrick Hotel and restaurant business. They have not bought the building. The restaurant will be called Down Under, serving seafood and steaks. The Sunday brunch will continue. Guillaume and Sokun are owners of Lafayette Manor (former Maynard's Manor) on East Robert Toombs Avenue. . Don't forget: if you know someone who looks like a celebrity, call Jo Randall, at 706-678-2083. They are needed for Washington Follies set for the first week in October. Celebrities already planning to participate in the Personality Parade are Glenn Campbell, Angela Lansbury, and Patsy Cline. . John and Suzanne Carter at Mallorysville have dozens and dozens of hummingbirds, and I still have just my two. . Linda Echols was traveling down South Alexander Avenue on her way home to Ashley Park Apartments last week when a doe and two fawns crossed the street in front of Tom and Gail Duggan's house. She says she guesses they came on over to her house because deer, or something, stripped all the greenery and leaves from her tomato plants and left the tomatoes. That was thoughtful!
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