RSS Feed
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
News-Reporter kids are great
Friday, December 7, is the anniversary of the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. Many of us will remember where we were and what we were doing on that day and how we sat "glued" to our radios (no televisions) to hear all we could about it. We were a united country at that time and literally everybody contributed to the war effort in any way they could. I salute every family who lost a son or daughter in that horrible time and to the veterans still surviving -- I can't thank you enough. You are the bravest men ever. . Boots Gunter and his Kettle Creek Arms and Sporting Goods store Downtown will mark 35 years of business Friday, December 7. We're all invited to help him and his family -- Shirley, Allison, and Alicia, and their families -- celebrate from 9 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. . Here at The News-Reporter we have the best crew of teenagers working in our circulation and delivery department that we have had in quite some time. They are Thomas Booker, Mariah Crew, Norae Early, Rebekah Echols, Josh Goldman, and LaPorsha Johnson. They work hard and are very careful to get things done right and the deliveries to the stores and post officeon time on Wednesday nights. I got a surprise last Tuesday night when I went to the back shop to see if they needed anything. They were "inserting" papers in the dark except for a string of colored Christmas lights which they had strung over their work area! When Sparky saw what they were doing, he supplied a Christmas tree which they promptly decorated. I think if they had a piano back there for Rebekah to play we would be hearing Christmas carols all the way to the front door. We appreciate all of them. . Two Wilkes County churches got "hit" by vandals and burglars during the weekend. Vandals went in the Phillips Mill Baptist Church in the Tyrone community and did lots of damage with fireextinguishers and writing on the walls. The fireextinguishers left a heavy powder on everything and other damage was done. The church did not have services Sunday but hopes to have them this next Sunday. . . . In addition to vandalism, burglars entered the Church of God on the Tignall Road, doing some damage and taking a safe. I think there were other burglaries in the county, too, but I don't know about them. . It's time to place Christmas greeting advertisements in The News-Reporter's Christmas issue on December 20. Please call The News-Reporter at 706-678-2636; or Tara Townsend at 706-678-7370 right away. . The Christmas Tour of Homes sponsored by the Washington- Wilkes Historical Foundation is the big event of this coming weekend. Homes on the Candlelight Tour Friday night are those of Mark and Emilie Waters, Buzzy and Jo Randall, and Rosemary Hopkins, all close together on East Robert Toombs Avenue. The Washington Historical Museum will be open and will be featuring its quilt exhibit. The Church of the Mediator will have Christmas music. . . . On the day tour Saturday will be the homes of Phil and Maggie Rothman, Ricky and Kathy Lindsey, and the home of the Charles Wagners, which is the Barksdale-Thomas home on North Alexander Avenue. . . . The loft apartments of Steve Saunders and Linda Ludwig Saunders (over the old Harper's 5 & 10 store), and John Horton and Rita Bell Horton (over the old Blackmons' Store) are included on the day tour, as is Jackson Chapel AME Church. The country homes of Diana Blackburn and Mr. and Mrs. John Howard, Hardin- Howard Plantation House, are also on the day tour. . . . The Robert Toombs House Historic Site will have an ongoing presentation of "A Dickens Christmas." . . . Christmas at Callaway Plantation is also an event of the weekend. . Saturday is the day for the Washington Wilkes Humane Society's "Silent Auction Extravaganza." It will be held at the Lions Club on Spring Street and will benefit the Washington-Wilkes Animal Shelter where there are lots and lots of homeless dogs and cats. The Society already has a variety of items for us to bid on and will have refreshments and bidding from 2 until 4 p.m. . . . We have a Shelter dog at our house and he's a real joy. I wish all the other Shelter animals could have a home. . . . The Christmas Parade is Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. . The Washington Historical Museum is featuring "Covering Time with Quilts and Coverlets of Wilkes County," a quilt and coverlet exhibit of 19th Century Georgia. The quilts are on display from December 1, 2007, until February 29, 2008. . I had a real treat Friday night. I got to see the upstairs interior of the building which John Horton has recently restored across the street from the Rider House on Court Street. Bradley Barber, who has an officein the building (along with others), invited me to "Come see what your house (the Rider House) looks like at night from a secondfloor angle." The building is very spacious and nice and I was so glad to see it restored. It still bears the marks of the devastating firethat almost destroyed it in 1936. The fireis the first memory that I have of anything. It was Christmas Eve and all was quiet until a "tramp" (that's what we called transients in those days) arrived in town. The city hall was on the corner where Charles LeGette's law officesare now and the police station was also there. The night policeman was out patrolling, so the tramp stoked up the old wood-burning stove and it caught the building on fire. People lived upstairs on the Court Street side and I remember seeing two lighted Christmas trees fall out the windows onto the street. Daddy was a fireman. I don't know when Santa Claus came to our house that night. We watched the fire until nearly dawn because there was danger of our house catching on fire. It's so good to see the building looking good again. . Wilkes Health Care Center has a new name. It's Heritage Healthcare of Wilkes.
.
|
for larger version       |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
