The Office Cat
Ready for the Tour all over town

Tour of Homes weekend has arrived and with it comes a busy time. The Candlelight Tour featuring three Downtown lofts gets underway at 5 p.m. Friday and the Day Tour with fivehomes to be toured will be open from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. See The News-Reporter's beautiful full color tour supplement which will give you all the details. . . . Members of the Kiwanis Club, with help from other individuals, will be providing transportation around the tour circuit, so take advantage of their service and cut down on the traffic.

• There will be a ribbon-cutting Thursday at 6 p.m. for Alfred's on The Square, newest restaurant in the Downtown area. Jeanne Davis- Blair with Southern Elegance Bed & Breakfast and Tea Room (across the street from The News-Reporter) is the owner of the new business which is named for her grandfather. . . . On the south end of The Square, Karen Carter's Restore Galore (old Blackmon building) is almost ready for a ribbon-cutting. The brown paper has been removed from the windows, so we can now see the beautifully restored interior.

 

• "Fiddler On the Roof" will be presented by the Washington Little Theater Company at the Bolton Lunceford Playhouse on North Alexander Avenue this weekend. Directed by Dr. Stan Coe and with a cast of many, performances will be given on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights at 8 p.m., and Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m.

 

• Patrick Vandiver, another young Washington-Wilkes musician who has made a name for himself, has produced a new CD. Patrick is a Christian music vocalist and instrumentalist based in Atlanta and this CD is titled "Absolute Surrender." He is the son of Marianne Adams of Lincolnton. He is the grandson of the late Alma Vandiver who was a beloved teacher in the Wilkes County School System and Wilkes Academy.

 

• The award-winning Robert Toombs House Performers, dressed in period costumes, will represent the Abbott, Webster, Quigley, Harris, Toombs and Colley families at the historic site during the Tour. These families made unique contributions to national, state and local history from 1797 until 1973. "As they made history, their home was 'A Celebration of Southern Culture,'" says Marcia Campbell, site curator. Marshall Styles, a connection to the family, will be present to answer questions and will have copies of the book, John W. Colley of Wilkes County, Georgia.

 

• Rain last week amounted to .4 of an inch. Total for the month of March is 3.5 inches; and for the year, 10.3 inches. We're about three inches short for the year.

 

• There are several sidewalks in Washington which are being repaired or replaced.

 

• Kay Nelms, hummingbird enthusiast, says she sat down on her patio to read this column last week and just as she read the line saying the hummingbirds have arrived, she saw one of the beauties come to her feeder. Needless to say, she was excited. . . . Mary Burt has also had one at her feeder and probably has more by now.

 

• There is nearly always a "new" or special house that emerges for each year's Tour of Homes. This year, the home of Frank and Beth Petersilie on Water Street is the house we've been watching as it has been in the restoration stage for nearly three years. Beth says that many Washington Wilkes people have helped with the restoration and that she could not begin to name them all. She did say that Deb deShazo stripped all the woodwork in the house, taking it back to its original state; and that Joe Barnett has done the window treatments. Mike Dyches was the contractor for the project. If you don't want to take the whole tour, you can pay $10 at the door to see this house, or any of the houses or lofts included. Each one is different, interesting, and important.

 

• Whitney James and Jacob Richards were married at the First Baptist Church Saturday. They left the church in Guillaume Slama's fancy Rolls Royce with the owner himself as the driver. Whitney is working part-time at Radio Shack and The News-Reporter and is a student at Augusta State University.

 

• The Braves have already started the 2008 season and I know lots of people who are glad. Even though they didn't win the first game with the Nationals Sunday, they looked good and I'm anxious for them to get going. Chipper Jones hit the first homerun in the new Nationals' stadium in Washington, D.C. There were some other designations of "firsts" in the stadium, but this is the one I remember.

 

• Chinaberry trees always bring comments from many who played in them, under them, and with the berries as children. Carolyn Gammon says her sister, Kay Tyler, was a real tree climber as a child and they both loved the chinaberry trees at the homes of both sets of grandparents. .

Cat ... . . Stephen Jones on the Metasville

Road says that "Winter is not over until the chinaberry buds pop wide open," and as of Sunday they were just beginning the process. Norma Hopkins and Susan Pope both say that we haven't even had "Blackberry Winter" yet, so we're not "out of the woods yet" with winter weather. Sunday was a very cold day.

 

• When a group of Briarwood Academy students toured Berry College a couple of weeks ago, they were interested to see a photograph of Washington native and Berry College alumnus Col. Wallace Hopkins and his P51 Mustang aircraft, "Ferocious Frankie," included in the exhibit. Wallace and his wife Frankie received the Distinguished Service Award from Berry College in 1981.

 

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