For your reading enjoyment, we continue to publish Rambling Vines by the late Marylea Vines as she re-calls events and names of Corning folks from many years ago. We are currently in the year 1992

This Friday, March 20, is the first day of Spring, if the calendar-makers know what they are doing. Hope that doesn’t mean we are going to have those old scary thunder and lightning storms.

From the best I can tell, a lot of folks would like to see more accelerated physical education classes for our school children because they are growing up to be weaklings due to lack of exercise… they sit around watching too much television and eating junk food.

Along with moving into the new high school building at the beginning of the 1943 school term came the announcement that everyone would be taking physical education classes every day… those of us who got trapped in one of Emma Jean Turner’s PE classes nearly died the first few weeks, then it turned into a real fun class. She had us running and turning flips in midair, building human pyramids, playing basketball, doing calisthenics, also an exercise called the Russian Dance and the duck walk where the gymnasium would be full of people all squatted down trying to walk from one end of building to the other without touching the floor with their hands… impossible! We each had a change of clothing, old slacks, sweatshirts, tennis shoes which stayed at the school for a week at a time… phew-eee!

We had no showers at school, so for the ones unlucky enough to have PE the first period, it was a complete waste of time to try to look (and smell) nice. After PE and all the crawling around on the floor and sweating, we just changed clothes and went to the next class.

This was also before the schools had lunchrooms, so the students had to walk home and back in 45 minutes. It was painful for the first couple of weeks, trying to hurry along with every joint in the body sore and aching. On the time or two my knees completely took out I went only part way before going back to school without lunch. Shucks, we lived a good mile from the school, even with all the shortcuts through the Methodist Church yard and Mrs. Zerna Robinson’s yard. After the initial pain, PE was a fun class. All my buddies and I were in the same PE class except for Sally Hardesty who got assigned with a group of younger students… one day after school first started, she was telling the rest of us, “You are not going to believe it, but my PE partner is this little, bitty girl names Alaska.” (she misunderstood; it was Laska Robertson).

We, her best friends, had never seen Sally in her PE get-up until the day we were all in big trouble for playing hooky and Mr. Snow sent someone to PE to tell Sally to join us in the chairs lined up around his office. It wouldn’t have mattered if the old booger man had been sitting there, and knowing that we were in serious trouble, we all just fell apart when Sally appeared in the office door wearing an old baggy pair of peddle pushers, a shirt that was about three sizes too big and high-top tennis shoes, one of them tied with a string instead of a shoelace. Even though he was the superintendent, just about to show his authority, he is bound to have seen some humor in that… did he laugh, no siree, he just chalked up more points against us.

See, we had this little habit of just leaving school about mid-afternoon and no matter how closely the teachers watched the doors, part of us would manage to sneak out. Usually, we would hitchhike someplace like Poplar Bluff, to have a soda at the dime store fountain, just like we couldn’t buy anything like that in Corning! Without fail, every time we arrived back in Corning, a classmate, Dixie Polk, would be hanging around out at Mrs. Sprague’s corner so he could be the fist to deliver the news that we had been caught and would be called to the office first thing the next morning.

Anyway, PE is a good program, and I think any student who is physically able to do should participate… I know for sure I would be better off had I kept up through the years the exercise program that I learned in high school.

Killed a mosquito in the bathroom at home one day last week… hope that is not an indication that all those mosquitos we had last Summer made it through the Winter.

I understand we are having a lot of school class reunions this year around the 4th of July. All C.H.S. graduates might want to touch base with someone to see if their class is having a get-together. Or better still, just plan to spend the 4th of July in Corning. Even if your class is not having a reunion, you can have a great time at Wynn Park… all you have to do is back up to a tree and wait… eventually everyone will walk past you.

Some good things have been taking place at Corning Library, a new Library direction sign has been set up on Fourth street near the Post Office, a ramp has been built at the front door and the restroom doors have been enlarged to make visiting the facility easier for the handicapped. Librarian Cathy Buchanan said that the City of Corning sponsored the work financially and Edwin Ahrent was over there sawing and hammering last week.

I am disturbed over the E-911 Election held last week… not over the fact that it won or lost, over the lack of interest of the county’s voters. It costs a lot of money to hold an election, and it seems like such a waste of money to find out how such a small percentage of the people feel about an issue. In checking around, I’ve learned that some folks who have been right here in Corning for several years are not even registered to vote… what are they planning to do in the event some issue that would really affect them, their families or the neighborhood in which they live, should show up on a ballot and they would have no sayso whatsoever? Seems to me that we need to get people to register to vote, then, and only then, will it do any good.