Gene and Lynne Land have bought the Pure Oil Service Station from Rodney Shedd. The station is a favorite old service station location for many people and we welcome the Lands and wish them success. Lynne says the station will be full-service, which means that I can delay learning to pump gas for a while. I have been getting my spouse to get my gas for me and he's about had enough of it. The Lands are already selling regular gas and diesel fuel and the high test gas is on the way.

Darrell Shedd will still be associated with the station.

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William Rhodes at Tignall says he has lots of Purple Martins. His Martin hotel was blown down in one of the recent storms, so now the Martins are fighting to get into the gourds he has left. They're even trying to get into the hotel which is on the ground!

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Jim Caddell has had hummingbirds for several weeks now and

Buzzy Randall says his have arrived. In fact, he saw one before he put his feeder out and had to rush around and get it out. . . . Pat Mack at Tignall has seen many hummingbirds in her yard.

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Ora Mae Kirk, mother of Dr. David Kirk and Jack Kirk, had a funtime and rewarding experience recently. The last 16 years of her teaching career was at Georgia Cumberland Academy, a school for girls in Calhoun, where she was an English teacher. The Class of 1984 had a special reunion a couple of weeks ago and invited Ora Mae as a special guest. When she retired from the school, this class had made a lap quilt for her with names of all of the 29 students embroidered on it along with her name. She had a beautiful cake made for the occasion using the design on the quilt. It was a big hit with the ladies, along with their favorite blonde brownies which Ora Mae had made for them during her teaching years, and had made some to carry with her to the reunion.

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E-mail from Connie Zello says she "would like to remind the Office Cat that no mention was ever made in the column about" Washington Antiques opening in Downtown Washington. Because of personal circumstances, I missed it. The business is next door to the former location of Comcast at 3 West Robert Toombs Avenue. It is owned by

Tim Zello and is open four days a week, featuring furniture, glassware, brass, and a new line of locallymade handmade quilted items.

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Early one morning last week as I was walking north on Spring Street I noticed what appeared to be an animal around the door at Mercer Harris Photography. I thought at first it was a possum, but as I got closer I realized it was a rather large armadillo. He was not bothered by my approach and when I got close we just looked at each other a couple of minutes and then he ambled on across the street on the sidewalk on the side of Pop-Lahr Possibilities. I crossed the street and followed him. He turned the corner at the traffic light and found a corner behind a chair and stopped. I looked for him on my way back that way later but didn't see him.

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A fierce storm swept through Tignall shortly after noon Monday, blowing trees down, doing other damage, and leaving the town without electric power from 2:00 until 7:00 p.m.

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Norris Ware on Hill Street says he got 2.2 inches of rain for all of last week. . . . Sonny Johnson at Tyrone reports .247 of an inch on Friday night and will report the total next week.

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This is the shortest column that I have had for a long, long time. Please call and tell me things that you know about. I don't know unless you tell me and I do appreciate all the information you give me. The telephone number is still 706-678- 2636.