There has been quite a bit of interest in the beautiful fiberglass tree in the yard of a home on East Robert Toombs Avenue (the yellow brick home diagonally across the street from the Washington Historical Museum.) Not until this week have I been able to find the right person who knows about its origin. Thanks to Karen Moore and Amy Howard, I have some facts about the tree. Amy works at AFG-USA (non-wovens) on the Sharon Road here. The owner of the business is Madanjit Oberoi, who is called simply OB by those who know him. He was born in India and has several businesses around the world. He and his family arrived in the United States on the Fourth of July in 1993. He was recently visiting in China when he saw a tree like this one. He purchased this one and had it shipped here. It’s called a Chinese Cherry Blossom Tree and he had it installed to celebrate the Fourth of July. (That’s when most of us first saw it.) Amy says the trunk of the tree is made of cast iron and the lights (red, white, and blue) are LED. OB has plans to ship machines from China in the fall to his plant here. He and his family own and use the house on East Robert Toombs Avenue when they are in Washington-Wilkes and have really made the yard and outside area look nice. I’m sure the interior is nice, too. His son is a major in the United States Air Force and his daughter is a doctor and has a Family Medicine practice in the Atlanta area.

ƒ The Pre-Kindergarten Committee and staff of the First Baptist Church had a “Boo Hoo” breakfast Monday morning. This was a first for me. Do you know what a Boo Hoo breakfast is? It was a breakfast for mothers (or dads) who were leaving their children in the Pre-Kindergarten for the first time. Neat.

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The item in last week's column about the raccoons that had given

Lisa and Ken Isham and their family a hard time recently generated several calls and interesting stories about raccoons. Nobie Keener told me about a friend who was plagued with the pesky critters eating everything in his garden. He tried to deal with them by trapping them and taking them to the other side of town to let them out. Over a period of time, he transported several of them away. He chanced to see an old friend that he had not seen lately in town one day. He asked how he was getting along and the friend said he was doing pretty good but he had had to give up his usual pretty garden because he had had such an influx of raccoons who were stripping it. The friend lived “on the other side of town.”

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Debbie (Reville) Jackson, who grew up in the Jackson Crossroads area of Wilkes County told me about “growing up in the country.” She said they had all kinds of animals that grew up in the house with them. Sisters, Sandra (Brown) and Jeana Worley, were animal lovers and befriended deer, squirrels, birds, raccoons, and any other animal. They had two raccoons named Pete and Charlie who lived in the house and occasionally went outside. They ate what the family ate and slept with the sisters. One day an insurance salesman came by. He was immediately “taken back” by the presence of Pete and Charlie, who sat on the back of the couch where he was sitting and followed the conversation. (They were just curious, Debbie said.) He left as quickly as he could. . . . And they had a pet deer that slept in Jeana’s bed while Jeana slept on the floor. You never know what animal lovers will do!

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Don't forget that this is the weekend for the Washington Little Theater’s production of “The Dixie Swim Club,” back for encore performances by popular demand. The lady that I told you about last week who had seen numerous performances of this show and said it was the best performance from here to New York City, also was amazed that the director of the show is 18-year-old Emma Collins. . . . Be sure to call for a reservation. It’s bound to be a sellout.

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The fast-moving storm that dumped two to thee inches of rain on us in a very short time last Tuesday, flooded the News-Reporter building again. We were ankle deep in water from the very back of the building to more than halfway to the front door. The pumps couldn’t handle it fast enough and all us “girls” had brooms trying to sweep the water into the area of the pumps. We didn’t have any waterlogged newsprint or other paper products, because we have learned not to leave anything directly on the floor.

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Norris Ware reports 2.9 of rain last week; Sonny Johnson, 1.5 inches; and I got 2.5 inches on Lexington Avenue. I’m sure it was different all around the area.

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Rosemary Hopkins and her sister, Nancy Moore of Greenwood, S.C., took an unusual trip last week. They went on the “world’s longest yard sale.” The yard sale begins in Michigan, but they picked it up in Jamestown, Ky., having traveled as far as Knoxville, Tennessee, Wednesday to be ready to get on the road Thursday morning at Jamestown. They traveled on U.S. 127 to Chattanooga, then on to Gadsden, Ala. The highways were lined with yard sales, some elaborate, some not so elaborate. Antique dealers were set up in tents. They got in a big storm that dampened spirits a bit. They returned home Friday night.

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Madeline Heard Poteet lives in Granbury, Texas, but she was born and grew up in Tignall. She loves Wilkes County and we hear from her from time to time about things she has seen and noticed about Washington-Wilkes. Not only is she a Washington-Wilkes fan, she is also a “marbles fan.” Knowing of my interest in marbles, she sent me a couple of interesting things. Her notepaper has beautiful colored marbles on it and I have to admit that I’m envious. I’ve never seen any like it. She goes to marbles shows and sent me a picture from an old calendar that she found at a marbles show in Tacoma, Washington. The picture is similar to Norman Rockwell’s painting titled “The Marble Champ,” which shows a little girl collecting all the marbles in a game of marbles with two boys. The one Madeline sent is of a gray-haired, obviously older lady, who is down on her knees as she shoots the last marble out of the circle, while two unbelieving little boys watch. The calendar is a 1953 one. Madeline didn’t say who the artist is. The lady is wearing what appears to be a taffeta dress with lots of ruffles and lace.

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It's not too early to announce that the next Cruise-In on The Square sponsored by the Memory Lane Cruisers is scheduled for Saturday, September 11.