A movie has been made of author Ann Rule's book, Too Late to Say Goodbye, which is about Washington-Wilkes' Dolly Hearn. The movie is made for television and will air on the Lifetime Movie Network (LMN) Saturday, November 7, at 8 p.m. The best that we have been able to determine is that the channel number is 119. (You might need to check the television listings in the newspapers.) Wellknown actor Rob Lowe is cast as Bart Corbin, who has confessed to Dolly's murder. When I talked to Barbara Hearn Monday, she was not sure who is cast as Dolly or Jennifer Corbin.

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Carolyn Gammon, our Tignall news correspondent, was interviewed by Mary Morrison on WJBF Channel 6 News Tuesday, October 27. Carolyn was interviewed about the "I'd Rather Be In Tignall" Fall Festival which is coming up this Saturday, November 7, on the old Tignall School grounds. Carolyn says, "If she had asked me my name, I wouldn't have known it." She also said that if we come to the festival Saturday, she will give us her autograph!

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Norris Ware says that we are about six inches over our average of rainfall for the end of October and we have two more months in the year. His total thus far for the year is 45.5 inches. He reports 2.1 inches for the past week and 7.1 inches for October which is supposed to be the driest month of the year. . . . Out around Tyrone, Sonny Johnson says this is going to be a record year since he began recording the rain in 1985. He recorded 2.5 inches last week; and 8.4 inches for the month. October 2008's total was 4.2 inches.

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Julia Partlow, a Wilkes Countian now living in Cincinnati, Ohio, included a note when she renewed her subscription to The News-Reporter. She says, "I do enjoy the paper from home. I haven't been there for a long time but I still have family there. Washington has made big changes in these past years."

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Taylor Randall, granddaughter of Jo and Buzzy Randall, will have the lead in Benjamin Britten's opera, "Albert Herring," to be presented by The Presbyterian College Opera Workshop on November 12 and 14 at 7:30 p.m. Taylor is a very talented musician with a beautiful soprano voice. She has participated in many musicals, dramas, and concerts during her years as a student at the college.

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After the death of their five-yearold granddaughter, Claire Crittenden, last year, Ann and Wiley Crittenden's son and daughter-inlaw, and friends formed Claire's Foundation to receive contributions in her memory. Claire died of an incurable condition called Leigh's Disease. As a result of contributions to the foundation, Claire's Camp has been established at Crittenden Farms on Swann Road in the Celeste community of Wilkes County where Ann and Wiley live. The camp is for children who have cancer or other life-threatening medical conditions, and their parents. When the camp was being considered, Ann and Wiley asked their son and daughterin law, Lewis and Suzanne Crittenden of Greenville, S.C., parents of little Claire, why it would be special for children to visit a farm. And their response was that many of these children had never seen a dirt road, or held a fishing pole, or seen animals in a farm setting, etc. Last weekend, Claire's Camp had its first visitors. They were a six-year-old girl, her little brother, her parents, and grandparents. Together they enjoyed fishing, rode many trails in a golf cart, and all the other things you can do on a farm. The parents were treated to an evening out with dinner at the Fitzpatrick and all the other special places around The Square.

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Wilkes Ministers United will conduct a special Veterans Day program on The Square Wednesday, November 11, from 11:00 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. This is a time to honor veterans of all wars and also our servicemen today. We cannot give them enough praise.

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This coming weekend, November 7-8, is the time for the Fall ArtFest 2009 sponsored by the Washington- Wilkes Arts Foundation. In addition to the many artists who will be coming to Washington for the weekend, Arts Foundation members will have a special time at Holly Court Inn to meet the artists and enjoy Chef Aaron Rothman's cuisine. . . . One of the out-of-town participants in the art show will be Ellen Cowne, a former Wilkes County teacher and wife of Principal Keith Cowne. There will be other Washington-Wilkes artists participating and plenty of activities for students.

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Wilkes County 911 personnel remind us that we all need to make sure that our residences are properly marked with house numbers so that emergency workers can find us when a call comes in for help. Wilkes County 911 Director Jerry Hackney says that we need to make sure that our phone numbers and addresses match up in the 911 system.

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There is one more item in the magazine which Chip Hardin brought me. This information is from the article by Wilber W. Caldwell about "The Grand Old Courthouses of Georgia." Caldwell says that the county commissioners purchased the courthouse lot in 1899 and selected Frank Milburn as the architect. Milburn had designed the 1897 Anderson County Courthouse in Anderson, S.C. "The Washington structure, completed in 1904, partially burned in 1956 and was restored without its original clock tower."

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Early Sunday morning, Vada Hale chastised me for not including the poem, "October's Bright Blue Weather" by Helen Hunt Jackson in any of the October columns. I usually do use it. It's late, but here it is, Vada, and October's bright blue weather is still holding in these first two days of November.

O suns and skies and clouds of June,

And flowers of June together, Ye cannot rival for one hour

October's bright blue weather;

When loud the bumble-bee makes haste,

Belated, shiftless vagrant,

And Golden-Rod is dying fast,

And lanes with grapes are fragrant;

When on the ground red applies lie

In piles like jewels shining,

And redder still on old stone walls

Are leaves of woodbine twining.

When springs run low, and on the brooks,

In idle golden freighting,

Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush

Of woods, for winter waiting.

O sun and skies and flowers of June, Count all your boasts together, Love loveth best of all the year October's bright blue weather. (There are three more verses.)

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Vada also told me about an older grandmother who was trying to make sure her granddaughter didn't miss the old songs the grandmother had learned as a child. She was teaching her how to sing "She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain When She Comes," and they were working on the verse that says, "We will have chicken and dumplins' when she comes." She told the granddaughter to sing it by herself and when she did, she sang, "We will have chicken and NUGGETS when she comes." . . . Did you oldies ever wonder who "She" was?