| Oh Well, It's Just Money |
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Dec. 6, 2000 – A month ago today, Thursday, Sid Salter and I were in the John Grisham Room at the Mississippi State University Library to give a postmortem of the Presidential election earlier that week. We were hard pressed, to say the least. It would not be much better today. To be sure there would be more to talk about, but if there is anything solid in this election — including the candidates — it is yet to come. After three weeks I was marveling at the capacity of the CNN and MSNBC commentators to fill hours and hours of time about what was happening when it was obvious nothing was happening. Only a lot of political and legal scrambling, most of which amounted to very little. I expressed the opinion several times that it would be over when the last person in America became totally fed up and bored and switched back to the PTL Club, or whatever. It will be remembered by a whole lot more people, but for about as short a time as the Mississippi election year, which ended in an electoral vote tie and had to be decided by a Democratic legislature. •Several have agreed that Thanksgiving is also their favorite holiday. This year ours was special as on the Tuesday night before we were at the Parkview Baptist Church in Tupelo with son-in-law Michael and grandson Zachary for the church’s Thanksgiving dinner in the fellowship hall, where grandson Zachary was in one of three youth groups that sang Thanksgiving songs following the meal. We sat across the table with Bob and Allie Card, formerly of Bruce (she was a Coston) and he said he used to be in my father’s Sunday School class at First Baptist in Bruce. The food was excellent, with the highlight being Zachary selecting and eating a piece of pumpkin pie. His mother, Deanna, who stayed home with baby Eli and nearly two-year-old, Samantha was amazed. “You mean you ate pumpkin pie and won’t even taste spaghetti with the tomato sauce mixed in rather than on the side.” Two days later we joined with most of the rest of the family, including Jo Ann’s sister Kathryn of Macon, in Tupelo for a potluck family dinner. There was no pumpkin pie, but Zachary did eat some of the deep fat fried turkey cooked by his father — one- half injected with Creole seasoning and the other with garlic. We also enjoyed a sweet potato casserole, with brown sugar and pecans on top, that beat the pumpkin pie as badly as Ole Miss did Mississippi State for dessert. It was a very good Thanksgiving. •We are down to the short rows toward Christmas, with the parades and such generally behind us. Since Jo Ann agreed to include our house on the Fine Arts Club Christmas Tour, our tree has been up since Halloween. But Jo Ann is complaining that she hasn’t done any Christmas shopping and in the stores the heavy stock of Christmas merchandise is looking sparser and sparser, much of it sold between Halloween and Thanksgiving. I have proposed a new system this year to simplify Christmas shopping. Give everyone on the list a gift certificate to a favorite store, or a donation in their honor to a favorite organization or charity. It used to besomeone had to be dead for a gift to be made in their honor, but in recent years we have learned differently. Some of my favorites are the Christian Life Center at the Bruce First Baptist Church, local libraries and Christmas baskets for the less privileged. This seemed like an even greater idea when we heard about the hordes of shoppers at the various malls and stores on the day after Thanksgiving. I realize this may delay the commercial ramifications of gift giving, but it probably works out in the long run. •Sometime while our new grandson, Eli, was in the process of joining the family, I was volunteered to take his old brother, Zachary, to see “How The Grinch Stole Christmas, The Movie.” This I am delighted to do and also invited Jo Ann to come along with Zachary’s sister Samantha. With several of our seven grandchildren we have read the book by Dr. Suess several times and seen the earlier cartoon video. If I were a cynical person, I might think we are being given the opportunity to pay again for the privilege of seeing a different version at as much per head as the original tape sold for. Oh, well. It’s just money. |
