Heard about this woman in a neighboring town who got stopped by a policeman because she was driving too fast… a fact which she owns up to… but she left the officer speechless when she asked if she would be getting a senior citizen discount on the ticket he was writing.

The Corning Grain Drying annual meeting will be held today at Wynn Park; next will come the McDougal Picnic on Labor Day and the Harvest Festival in October. Also, somewhere in there during September will be the Naylor Watermelon Festival and the Maynard Pioneer Days… there are still plenty of things to do around here, even though the summer is about gone.

My friends James and Lucy England of St. Louis called the other evening just to say “hello” and do a little reminiscing. James grew up in Datto and attended Corning High School. The Englands were some of the first people my family got acquainted with when we moved to Corning, on East Third Street. We lived on the corner of Third and Hazel, across the street from James’ grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. England, and just down the street from his uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Bedford England. (Bedford England helped my sister with her math home work when she was in High School). James’ parents were the Walter Englands and they visited with their relatives here a lot on Sunday afternoons. My brother and I liked that just fine, he and James were close enough to the same to enjoy trying to catch minnows and turtles in the nearby ditch and Dorothy Jane England and I were close in age. We spent a lot of time sitting out in the yard, neither of us able to read very well, and look at the Sears catalog. There would be a picture of a red shoe and a black one just like it and we couldn’t figure out why anyone would want a pair of shoes that both weren’t the same color. We also spent a lot of time with Maxine Campbell, daughter of the Gardner Campbells, and a granddaughter of the Pringles. We made clover chains, hollyhock dolls, ate sheep shower “pickles” and peppermint grass and sometimes played “house.” I dearly loved the Pringles, but would not go close to their front door because he had these huge deer antlers over the door. It was back in the Depression days and what one family had, we all had. Mr. Pringle had a slaughterhouse across the ditch, about the location of Corning Processing Company, and when he wasn’t busy slaughtering, he and my dad and older brother would cut wood for the two families… I can’t believe we’re talking about nearly 60 years ago, but that’s what it has to be because I was a first grader in 1933 and we lived there when I was a first grader. From there we moved to within two blocks of where I have lived for more than 25 years… on the corner of West First and Arnold, and that’s when we became friends with the Hardestys. We had lots of playmates there, including the Townsend boys, the Fonnie Wisdom children, the Walls, the Glen Tharpe boys who visited (just about stayed) across the street with their grandparents, the Jim Shepards, and with the Shepards’ granddaughter, Ruth Evelyn Bates. We lived there until high water came rushing through the railroad tile which was right in front of our house and we woke up one morning with nearly knee-deep water inside. That’s when we landed on the corner of Second and Olive streets where we stayed for five years before going to the corner of East Second and Highway 62. I liked all the neighborhoods we lived in, but the one on East Second and Highway 62 was my favorite… there were so many interesting things to do with the nearby lakes and wooded area. Sometimes I dream that Putter and I have moved back into “our” house on East Second and are in the process of restoring it to the original state… then I wake up and realize that is not likely to happen.