We’ve got rain! We have finally had two good rains – storms, actually – in the past week. The storm Wednesday of last week (July 28) brought a deluge of rain in some areas, and just light rain in others. Here at The News- Reporter we were flooded with two or three inches of rain covering a wide area of the floor in our back shop when we came to work Thursday morning. It had come in under one of the big doors and the drain had failed to take care of it. . We had to call Trevin Burriss’ cleaning service to come get it up. . . . Other areas also got two inches or more, including East Robert Toombs Avenue, Hill Street,and Logan Woods; but up Lexington Avenue near the Pope Center, I got just .6 of an inch. . . . After Saturday night’s storm, I poured 2.6 inches out of my gauge which was comparable to other areas. . . . At Tyrone, Sonny had 2.4 inches for the week; and 4.13 inches for the month. On Hill Street,

Norris reports three inches for last week and a total of five inches for the month.

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Lightning caused a house fire at Rayle during the storm Saturday night. You can read about that elsewhere in this paper. Fire Chief Brent Sherrer at Rayle says that he could hardly believe what he was seeing after power lines were downed on the Philomath Road. The power lines were across the road and sparking, but it didn’t slow the traffic. The cars and other vehicles just drove right on over them.

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Friday (August 6) is the first day of school for the 2010-2011 year for Wilkes County schools. It seems as if they just got out for the summer.

Tiger football practice started this week, but I don’t know how they can survive in these 90-100+ degree days we are having.

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Alice Lindsey told me about another species of animals that I haven’t seen in my yard – yet. Daughter Lisa and her husband Ken Isham, who live on North Alexander Avenue, have an “outdoor cat” that has access to its food by way of an in-and-out-door in the basement. They noticed that the cat food was disappearing more rapidly than usual and discovered that raccoons were using the little door to come in and help themselves. They tried all kinds of things to keep the raccoons from getting the food, but nothing worked. They put the food up in high places, like on top of the freezer, but that didn’t work. They bought a very large and tall “poptop” garbage can and put it on top of the freezer with the food inside. The raccoons climbed up, took the top off and helped themselves to the food. A friend with whom Ken works in Thomson volunteered the use of a cage/trap that he had to try to catch the raccoons. The next morning, there in the cage were three raccoons, sleeping peacefully. The friend took them to his farm and turned them loose.

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Alice and Buddy have had problems with armadillos recently, too. Alice said the yard looked like it had been aerated, there were so many holes in it. Other people are seeing animals that are not usual for their territory. There is speculation that the clear-cutting of a large area of timber and brush on the North By- Pass has taken the homes of wildlife and they have had to move out to find other places. If you haven’t seen that clear-cut area, you ought to see it. You will be surprised. I never knew that that area was a deep gully until it was cleared. It’s toward the western end of the by-pass.

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We're having a bit of a lull right now, with not many activities taking place. There is a Lions Club chicken barbecue this Saturday, and the Washington Little Theater Company’s production of The Dixie Swim Club is coming up next week. One woman who called to make a reservation for the show said that her hobby is attending theater productions and that she has attended them uup and down the east coast from Georgia to New York City, and last year’s presentation of the Dixie Swim Club was the best she had ever seen, including the New York one. She made a reservation to see the one here again.

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Dolores McAvoy is still “cleaning out” her house and museum and finding interesting things. She brought me a copy of the August 5,

1999, News-Reporter and showed me an item in The Office Cat. It said that Bill Smith had called from the Fina Station to say that the thermometer on the Farmers and Merchants Bank was on 110 degrees. By the time Sparky got there to make a picture, it was on 111 degrees. The lack of rain was also a concern in August 1999. Norris Ware had measured only .9 of an inch of rain for the whole month of July, but at his farm near Tignall, that gauge measured a whopping 4.5 inches. Jackson Heights had 1.6 inches for the month.

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Looking towards the naming of Tiger Stadium for former Coach Charlie Davidson on Friday, September 21, Steve Blackmon brought me some memorabilia on the Tigers that he has saved through the years. Steve was a member of the Tiger team that soundly beat Lincoln County on Thanksgiving Day in 1940, and is one of the few team members who are still living. The others are Henry Sparks, who lives in Metter; Jimmy Reynolds, William Johnson, and Willis Lindsey. Judging from the program, which was a first for Washington High School, the players themselves were rather light weight. Harold Bramlett at tackle was the heaviest at 175 pounds, and Thomas Brake was a 160-lb. back. There was one player (James Wills) who weighed only 79 pounds, and if I am remembering correctly, he was a very good player. . . . More about this game and state championships as the time gets closer.