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

It was a great idea and would have worked… but my timing was about five minutes off. See, I was getting company last week and as a joke on them, I was going to put one arm in a sling and wear it until they got the supper dishes washed. I had the sling in my pocket and was headed across the yard enroute to Dot’s for help in getting it on when I heard a car horn, looked around and there they were… I’ll keep that one in reserve for the next batch of company.

You know what, people can hear the same thing over and over for so long, then they begin accepting it without question… take the sales tax as a for instance. Over and over, we hear “the sale tax is the only fair tax.” Maybe so, but it is still misrepresented to the people…We are supposed to have six cents sales tax per dollar, right? Wrong! We have a six cents sales tax on 93 cents. If you don’t believe me, try it. Anything 93 cents and over will coast six cents sales tax… that’s six cents on 93, not six cents on the dollar! The tax breaks should be revised to where the six cents will start at $1.00 not 93 cents. It is only seven cents, but seven cents often enough soon mounts up.

Don’t tell me that people don’t pay attention to little things… I betcha that a dozen different ones have asked me about the water that has been trickling across Second street near Cate Pharmacy for the past two or three weeks. I called City Hall and was told that it is caused from a broken water line below the ground… what they didn’t tell me was why it wasn’t fixed right away!

Don’t ever hesitate to go North for fear of what the folks up there will think when you have to ask questions… I have just had visitors for several days who were making their first visit ever to Arkansas and you know what? They didn’t know much about anything down this way! I got tired of explaining that every thing growing in every field in not rice… that the tall building is the rice dryer where farmers haul their grain after harvesting it… that those ponds are not flood water, but catfish ponds… why we don’t have a traffic signal at the intersection… who is responsible for the excellent upkeep of Corning Cemetery… What all happens at Wynn Park on July 4th and yes, we really do give away a brand new Cadillac!

The confusion really started when we loaded all of them up and took off for Eureka Springs… that, they still do not believe! They loved everything about it from the scenery, the country music shows, the miniature horses, the train ride, the glass chapel, riding the trolleys, the crowds in the downtown area, the stair-step layout of the town, all the delicious food and, most of all they could not believe the friendliness of Arkansas people and their willingness to help out or to just stand and talk!

I had three Michigan guests (Olga, Walt, and Mary) in my home and they, Beverly and Therman Shephard and I planned their one and only weekend in Arkansas. I made arrangements for Putter to stay with friends for the weekend but the more trips we made to put things in Ole Blu (my van), the more excited he became… and the bigger and sadder his little eyes became. Thursday night I decided that there was no way that I was going to go away and leave that little stinker. I gathered up his pillow, some food and his favorite play pretties and we were off. He was the best little thing, sleeping all the way… he didn’t cause half the confusion that Beverly and Olga kept stirred up. Anyway, we had a good time, we got to do a lot of bragging about Arkansas, and I didn’t have to worry about Putter, he was there all the time, so overjoyed to be a part of the action that he was giving kisses to everyone.

As a grand finale to their Arkansas visit, they stopped at the Tourist Information Center on Monday shortly before noon and were surprised to have State Representative Jim Holland, Corning Mayor Carolyn Williams, Mrs. H.N. (Catherine) Robinson, and Miss Lilly Pillow of the Center, and me to give them a royal welcome… and goodbye. The received Arkansas Tourism pins, a bumper sticker for their care, free road maps and lots of brochures to study and make them want to come back to “The Natural

I got a nice surprise from former resident, Mrs. Bertha Motsinger recently. The box contained some really neat, colorful, butterflies made out of magazine pages. She said for me to share with my neighbor, Dot, which I did. Naturally, we are going to try making them. See, I use butterflies in my bathroom, so I just fastened three of them to the wall and like the way they look. The Motsingers are former Corning residents and Leonard and Judy were both about my age. In fact, Leonard and I were classmates until they moved off to Michigan. If any local senior citizen of Bible School group would like to have the pattern I will share. They are fun to make and require a minimum of materials. Bert said that she learned to make them at a Senor Center. The Motsingers lived next door to the Smalleys (Dot’s folks) when we were growing up and the way Dot tells it, she and her sister, Elsie Mae, along with Judy, Emaline and Caroline Wright, Rachel Bailey and Betty Grant used to have some pretty heated arguments while playing paper dolls. Speaking of Elise Mae, one day after school, Elsie Mae and Lilly Pillow sat in the Smalley porch swing and ate a whole pound box of soda crackers… that night Elsie Mae had to have an emergency appendectomy!