The Mountain Eagle
WHITESBURG WEATHER

Cash is one size fits all




Merry Christmas once again, everyone!

Have you started your Christmas shopping yet? Maybe several have already got it done and over with. I don’t buy gifts anymore since I don’t know what to get, so I play it safe and give that little green slip of paper called money as it comes in one size fits all.

I don’t even fool with gift cards as I don’t know what stores, etc.

I don’t need anything as I have more in my house than I know what to do with. I do really enjoy getting subscriptions to The Mountain Eagle and to magazines as those are gifts that keep on giving all year long.

We had a few snowflakes and the weather it is sort of chilly in the Harrison area. Actually it is freezing cold when you go outside and I am very glad it isn’t worse.

While making my bed thoughts drifted back again to childhood days, when Mom made tack quilts for covers. Sometimes she would save enough material from leftover jeans (she called overalls) from Dad or someone would give her to save up and make a quilt top. This would be very heavy with a worn blanket in the middle and a sheet for the outside. It was very diffi cult for Mom to push the needle through the thickness of three layers.

Now you might think this was warm and it was, except we didn’t have a blanket next to our bodies!

To this very day I don’t like sleeping with a sheet next to me. I have a soft blanket on the bed and then my electric blanket.

I can remember how the fire in the fireplace would be banked at night to hold for the morning, which meant it would be chilly in the house after the fire died down.

The older I get the more I wonder how Mom survived all the hardship that she went through raising us children.

The house was sort of warm when Dad got up to get ready to go to work as Mom had the fire built in the cookstove, breakfast ready and Dad’s lunch waiting in his dinner bucket before waking Daddy up to start his day. This was about 3 o’clock in the morning.

I think back to sleeping with my brothers and sister, getting out of bed and being soaked where one of the younger ones had wet the bed, standing in front of the fire trying to dry out the front, and have your nightclothes steaming while the backside of your legs were freezing.

No, I am not feeling sorry for our childhood, I’m just glad my children had it a lot better than I did growing up.

Nowadays it is awful if a little brother and sister don’t have a room of their own at infant age, much less sharing a bed. When we were first married and the kids came along, my two oldest shared a room for quite some time.

I was thinking last night how my life has come full circle in lots of ways. Southern Ohio

The house that I have lived in for 38 years was home to another couple many years ago as Elwood and Edna Ison Sturgill lived here when it was a fourroom house with no bathroom. Elwood and Edna are Jerry Sturgill’s parents. Jerry lives on Kingscreek.

Edna was the daughter of George and Polly Ison, and the parents of my friend Polly Maucher. When I lived on Kilby Road almost 50 years ago, Edna would stop in the summer and buy green beans from my garden to can, so as I said life has come full circle with different things in my life since I came here from the mountains so many years ago.

The same way with Johnny and Ann Calihan knowing my parents so many years ago, and now they live within walking distance to me.

Johnny and Ann are still having a hard time adjusting to their daughter Sue and her family moving to South Carolina. I haven’t talked to Ann for some time as it seems as if there’s just not enough time in the day for me anymore.

I am still trying to clean up my mess from the smoke damage, and I will have to repaint my kitchen and bathroom. I am just about ready to throw in the towel and say heck with everything as my furnace is acting up once again. The blower keeps running even though the furnace is off.

Would someone like to adopt an older woman? I think I need a caretaker sometimes, or at least part time.

Would you believe several in this area received a copy of The Mt. Eagle from the week of Oct. 26?

Polly Maucher was at the local post office in New Trenton, Ind., and I don’t think the postmistress believed her when Polly told her how long it took for her to get her newspaper.

While at the post office Polly observed two or three cars with government license plates, and then she saw some guys checking mailboxes. Polly rolled her window down and told of the difficulty of having her mail delivered. One guy was a smart aleck to put it mildly, as he told Polly that at least she got it! Polly was not about to be quiet after that remark, and she said, “Well it sure took a heck of a long time.” (Not exactly the same words.) I would have said a little more if it had been me!

That goes to prove a point; don’t mess with us misplaced hillbillies who want our Mountain Eagle!

My husband could never understand why I wanted the paper when I already knew what I wrote. I like reading other people’s articles, not just mine. I enjoy the other news as well.

I got to see the best looking man, Mark Roark, on my computer. Oh I forgot, the second best looking as Bruce Jones is the first. Mark was talking about the break-in at his work. I really hope they catch whoever was brave enough to do this.

Mark, I hope you are feeling better along with my brother Richie Hall. I guess I am going have to come home and give you guys a talking to. Wanda and I are going to gang up on Richie if he doesn’t go to the doctor.

I stayed at my daughter Angie Wiederhold’s to take care of my little sidekick Bennie. Bennie has a Smurf outfit with the white beard and red hat and little red houseshoes that he used for Halloween. Bennie put the beard on me, then tried to get the hat on my head, and stuck his red shoes on my toes. I said “Ho-Ho-Ho,” and he said “Mamaw, you are Papa Smurf not Santa!”

Hello to Gwen Huff Farmer and Shirley Wells, and to my sister Loretta Church and my brother Jerry Hall and Mattie.

I went to the Coon Hunters Club and the music was good as usual. I think I will stay home for awhile as the weather is starting to get colder. I think I am getting old as for some reason I have chilled for two days and it seems that I can’t get warm no matter what I do.

My son Keith Ballard somehow managed to get some metal in his eye so he had to go to the emergency room at University Hospital. He has to go back to have it checked.

Until next week, Rose Ballard, 9110 Lawrenceburg Road, Harrison, Ohio 45030, email: Bluegrassmama4@aol.com.



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