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

Friend Beverly Shephard accompanied Putter and me to Naylor, on a recent Saturday morning, to see what was going on at the Pioneer Heritage Celebration. We saw a woman churning butter the old-fashioned way; watched as some women quilted by hand; tasted a sample of hominy being made right there and saw a kettle of home-made soap brewing. There was live music and lots of craft and flea market items, all outside in the beautiful Fall sunshine.

All went well until we started home, and I happened to look back and see that Putter was “crippling” along. Thinking that maybe someone had stepped on his little foot, I got down to inspect… and made an amazing discovery! He had been in the sand burrs and had them almost solid from his chin to all points South, especially his tail. (Anyone who has ever stepped barefoot on a sand burr knows what I am talking about.)

I carried him to the car and told Beverly she would have to drive Ole Blu home while I “worked” on Putter. All the way from Naylor to Corning, he was stretched out on my lap with me picking out sand burrs, we were both doing a lot of yelling and Beverly had a good laugh out of all the commotion. I was telling my neighbor about it that evening and she said, “I guess you are finally going to learn to leave him at home instead of taking him places where he doesn’t belong.”

What she doesn’t understand is that he has such a friendly, loving nature that he “belongs” anywhere he might be and I feel guilty about leaving him at home on Saturday when I know he would have a good time… besides that, he likes to ride in the car and look for cats!

After all the mileage I had of sloshing a churn dasher up and down to make butter while growing up, I never thought I would be interested in watching someone churn, but I did. I stood there and took it all in just like I was seeing something for the first time. But all the while my mind was wandering back to the days that Old Daisy, our jersey cow, was the main source of spending money for my brother and me… there she was and there was money to be made, but it was up to us. We took over the job and, with the help of our mom (our health inspector), sold sweet milk, buttermilk, and butter, dividing the profits. Mom held out some money each week to put back for the day we had to buy a new sack of sweet feed. I already had a pig that I was feeding in a pen that my dad had helped me to build down on the ditch and occasionally we had to buy a bag of sweet feed for Old Daisy and a sack of shorts for the hog in the same week… that’s when it was hard to convince me that there was a future in raising hogs and selling dairy products.

Even though the work got boring at times, especially the churning, never once did we ever have to ask our parents for money to go to the picture show. We knew there was a matinee on Saturday and another one on Sunday and a double feature on Tuesday… we also know that if we planned to attend, we had better save the money back, because that was the way the bargain was set up, our dad furnishing the cow and pig and the two of us making them pay off.

We’ve got a busy schedule for the remainder of October: This is a B. and P.W. Week (14-20) with planned activities for every day; October 27 is the Harvest Festival, plus the Rice Cooking contest, which is part of the Festival, is on Tuesday, the 23rd; There is an Earthquake meeting in the Chamber office on Tuesday morning, the 23rd; the County Farm Bureau meeting is tonight, the 18th; Change to Standard Time on the 28th and Halloween on the 30th. All of this is in addition to the regular work schedule, committee meeting and time devoted to family, church, school, and social events… and folks still come here from other places and ask, “What do people here do to keep from being bored to death?”

A group of us enjoyed the beautiful Fall weather at Eureka Springs on a recent weekend and I had to laugh at my uncle, Elmer, who was visiting there for the first time. We road over 200 miles, walked, climbed steps, and got in and out of Ole Blu about 15 times on the first day. Elmer said that when he got up the next morning one knee and leg were giving him a fit and he just looked at them and said, “You about as well cut that out, because we are going again today” and sure enough, by mid-morning he was having such an enjoyable time he forgot all about his leg hurting. Little Putter went along and stayed at his own little doggie motel!

I am sorry to report that the local chapters of Beta Sigma Phi have decided to discontinue the Community Christmas Tree. The main reason being lack of interest on the part of the public, plus vandalism. It is not going to seem right without that Christmas Tree in the middle of Second street, but I can understand their thinking… there is a lot of hard work, and some expense, involved and why do it if no one appreciates it. They would, however, like to see some other civic minded group adopt the project to see if they can generate enough community interest to warrant it. Any group who would consider the project should contact Mrs. Glenda Rouse or any other sorority member because they might be able to help with lights.