For your reading enjoyment, we continue to publish Rambling Vines by the late Marylea Vines as she recalls events and names of Corning folks from many years ago. We are currently in the year 1990

We’re still celebrating Putter’s August 17th birth anniversary. He has been receiving cards from friends both in and out of town. My neighbor Dot Kellett also has an August birth anniversary, so I’m done with all the smart remarks from her about “looking after my elders” until next Spring. Each April I gain a year on her, and she fairly rubs it in until she catches up with me in August.

We have lots of walkers and joggers in Corning and they can be seen early morning and late afternoon. What makes our joggers different is that they don’t have to carry weapons! In St. Louis recently, I noticed that the joggers are either armed with a stick or have a big ferocious dog running along beside them.

Dick and Irene Berry of Success celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last weekend… I couldn’t believe it had been 50 years since we all picked cotton together one Fall. Time has a way of getting away from us.

That was back during the war and the start of the school term was delayed until November so that the youngsters could help with the crop harvest. I decided that I would pick cotton, and my mom said that if I went to the field she was going to go with me. So, armed with our lunch in a bucket and rolled-up pick sacks, we were sitting out on the steps way before daylight every morning waiting for Tom Wynn to pick us up. He ran this route about town, picking up folks to pick cotton on his farm out in Richwoods community. Worst part about picking cotton for him was that he never came back for us until it was dark… talk about a job from daylight to dark, we had one!

I wasn’t so wild about the work, but I sure like the money, and I especially like the idea of my pay being based on how hard I choose to work. I could make what ever I made up my mind to make.

There were a bunch of us from town who went to the field together every day: Modena and Helen Boshears, Helen Rhea, Mrs. Ed Ulmer, Bertha Brooks, Pauline Murphy, Mrs. Mary Moore, and others. There was also a group from Success there every day, Richard and Cort Berry and their mother. Also, there were various members of the John Holland family. We did all our waiting for our ride at the house on the Wynn farm occupied by the Ruel Green family. Green was working on construction at the air base at Walnut Ridge and some of his family joined us in the cotton field. That’s the year that Dick Berry and Irene Holland and Moloy Green and Ilene Holland were married.

Even though it was work, we always had a lot of fun in the cotton patch, and I will always be thankful for the long-standing friendships formed that Fall. We nearly froze some mornings until we could pick enough cotton to about half fill our sacks, then would crawl in to stay warm until it warmed up a bit or at least until the dew dried off; we threw a lot of cotton bolls at each other, one of my co-workers informed me that I could get by with a few hands full of dirt thrown in on top of my cotton to make it weigh heavier, but warned me to always hop up on the wagon and empty my own sack so as not to get caught. Mom made me quit that one day. Helen Boshears and I used to sit right next to Highway 67 to eat our lunch, telling ourselves that a tourist might come along and want to buy a stalk of cotton as a souvenir… but it never happened! We ate a lot of scrambled egg and fried potato sandwiches and fried pies and everyone in the field drank from the same dipper from the same water bucket.

Other times Audrey, Dorothy and Josephine Simpson, Ruby Dean Baker and I would walk all the way out to the Marr farm (corner of Lee drive and Highway 67 North) to pick cotton. First thing we would do upon arrival was to sit down and eat about half our lunch.

When anyone would tell us a place where we could pick cotton we would always inquire if it was Big Boll Rowden or DPL variety. That old DPL was hard to get out of the boll and cut down on the amount of cotton that could be picked during the day.

We also picked cotton for the Bill Maddox farm, present location of the Travelers Motel and for the Arvel Pattersons who lived in the big two-story house located across from the present-day Huddle Plaza Shopping Center. I also joined a group of youngsters who pulled bolls each Fall on the Simpson Farm (where the Carl Adams family resided just east of town). The Townsend boys, Ollie and Teddy Joe were in this group.

Ah, the good old days remembered once again!

I chuckled all the way from near Park Elementary school to The Courier one afternoon last week about another fine situation that I had just created. Driving the Courier van, I went out to find some children for a picture. I located five little girls on Harb street but failed to see them until I was past. Turning around, I got just ahead of them and stopped, then called to ask them if they would let me take a picture.

After the picture I chewed them out good and told them to never, never stop like that again for anyone driving a vehicle… if anyone tried to get them near a vehicle, to run the other way fast as they could. Soon as I completed my little sermon, the two older ones said that they knew me because of my visits to Central Elementary. Then I had to quickly present sermon number two about how it was okay to stop, so long as they always know the person calling to them, but still to never get into a vehicle. I hope it registered with them. I meant no harm, but the next person might! We can’t be too careful these days where our youngsters are concerned… there are temptations around every corner and it’s up to us to steer them in the right directions.