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.

As of last week, I don’t have to listen to static from my neighbor about being the older one of the two… she caught up with me and do you know what? She spent her birthday sick in bed! I’ll be reminding her of that for a long time.

I hope all motorists realize that school is starting and there are going to be youngsters all over the place… just like termites… early each morning and from about three or so each afternoon. We need to watch for them because they are easily distracted that they sometimes forget to look for cars. I travel Third Street several times each day, from one end of town to the other, and there are two or three blocks where I use extreme caution since I’ve about learned the houses where there are children.

Speaking of termites, let me tell you what all took place at the house the other evening… on the way home from work, friend Beverly caught up with me and followed me home. We went into the house, and I put Putter out in the yard. Before this job was completed the termite man came and while he was still there, Beverly left, and neighbor Dot came over and I got a long-distance telephone call. Next the termite man left and while Dot was still there, the man came to mow the yard. Before he left, Dot had gone home, and Beverly had come back, and Putter was having a temper fit because I wasn’t providing him my undivided attention… and I had washed and dried two loads of laundry. And then out-of-town talkers will ask, “What do you all do to stay busy around here?”

Another downtown landmark is being torn down. This one on Second Street across from the theatre. The building had a partition through it and always housed two businesses, some of which I remember as being the Sunshine Café, Doby’s Arcade, Smith Furniture, Smith’s bowling lanes, and a gift shop.

I was down by the courthouse the other day when a group of youngsters were hoping to pass the tests and get drivers licenses. I know how nervous they must have been because I traveled on that same old road. I did, however, luck out and was issued a license without having to take the driving portion of the test.

I never had any trouble keeping the car in the road so long as I was traveling forward, but in reverse I was helpless. The day I went for my driver’s license, my dad had to park the car out in the yard and head it toward town and nobody was more surprised than he was when I came in home waving a driver’s license around in the air and doing my version of a tap dance in the middle of the kitchen.

The Weight Station (Permit Station) was located near the intersection on Highway 67 and there was a field of tall weeds in back of it, thank goodness. See, I had completed the written portion of the test and passed with no trouble, but by that time someone had set fire to the weeds, the Weight Station was filled with smoke and flames were lapping at the sides of the building.

Everyone got in on the act and the policeman who was to see how well I could drive, got both hands burned and was in such pain he needed to go to a doctor. He just went ahead and issued my license because I had done well on the written part. I could hardly believe it myself, but I never let on until I got away from that place.

Even though it was my car, I was still traveling with orders every time I left home, and I had a getting-home time that was enforced. No use trying to sneak in late at our house, mama locked the doors at 10:00 p.m. and anyone who came in after that had to knock on the door to get in.

Once my parents went on vacation to Niagara Falls, New York and into Canada and Michigan for a week and my dad secretly wrote down the car mileage before leaving. While they were gone, I never missed a minute’s work, but somehow, I managed to travel more miles during the week than they did!