Editor's Corner

By Mary E. Adair

The month in the USA for Elections and Turkeys and sometimes we can't tell the difference. This editor is soooooo tired of the campaigns and the wild promises and the even wilder accusations, the news slantings and the entire situation we face worldwide. One also remembers the little old lady in one's home town who lost her mind and roamed the streets singing half to herself the single word for excrement that one prefers not to spell out here though it does begin with S. One doesn't remember if that was an election year however.

Well, to combat such news, we have contrived to bring you a positive issue full of uplifting and humorous articles, columns, and poetry. Our teenage writer, Brooke Clifford, continued one of her stories but not the other, and we may have seen the last of the current one. That isn't positive, however, so isn't that funny? Too bad if she doesn't because she is very creative and her work is always unusual.

There is an article by Julie West (who was featured once before within the Editor's Corner) that is a workshop all on its own. Good Advice would have been a fine title for it, but she chose to call it "Being Useful." Eric Shackle adds some informative humor with his "Hoot? Hooter? I don't give two hoots!" article. His column mentions a little known award and the Scottish lass who won said "Golden Spurtle."

Leo C. Helmer aka leocthasme the cooking editor brings us an unusual recipe for Turkey in "Cookin' With Leo," and has included an interesting article that was the result of the entertainment presented at your editor's Mini Reunion held last month. Don't miss "Don't Everyone Like Good Music?"

LC Van Savage also shares both an article "Need To Know? We Don't," and a promise to one of her sons in her column "Consider This." Thomas O'Neill tells a very sweet story for his column, "Introspective," and Gerard Meister reminds us in "Thinking Out Loud" of one of the differences from his perspective between wives and husbands.

Although Mattie Lennon didn't get his "Irish Eyes" column in for November, he has alerted us to the fact that quote:

" Clip from Mattie Lennon's DVD, "Sunrise On The Wicklow Hills" can be seen on, www.youtube.com

Bruce Clifford sent two poems for this month: "Help Me" and "We Did Not Care." John I. Blair, while recovering from recent heart surgery, sent in the following poems: "Garden Shed," "Flint Hills," "On The Prairie," "Riding on The Rock Island Rocket," "Wearing My Cat on My Coat Sleeve," "Unholy Trinity," and "Woman in A Blue Dress."

Be sure to click on the author's name when you are reading any of the compositions in this ezine. Doing so will bring up their bio if they have one entered and also a clickable list of other work of theirs we have published over the years. In the interest of being able to pull up the work of some poets who have not been seen this year, the following poems from the archived Fall 1999 or December 1999 issues have been reprinted:

"Dreams and Memories" is the first of these and is by Mike Craner, our esteemed webmaster, who doesn't do a lot of poetry, but this one is very special.

"Life's Conundrum" by Robert Beaty aka pbobby.

"The Gate" by Mary E. Taylor. Mary is also the author of some delightful reminiscenses such as "The Owl and the Outhouse."

"Spiritual Cobwebs" --this one is a favorite of your editor and is by Phillip Hennessy aka Phillipo who did have some poetry in the April issue this year. We hope to have more of his poems in the near future.

"Protection," "What Colour Will the Souls Be in Heaven?" and "Where Am I?" are three poems yours truly included within her columns and so they were not listed separately as poetry on the list. This should rectify that and end the repeated emails as to where they are. So that is another positive thing, one hopes.

On a personal note, the Mini Reunion that was hosted in early October by a couple of classmates, who married shortly after high school was over, was a great success. Said host and hostess, Travis and Charlotte White, planned and executed a pleasurable event and are to be highly complimented. Marrying from within our class -- something that a few other classmates also did -- may be one reason our class has always been so close over the last half century. We do try to get together more often now than our original schedule of every ten years, then the revised every five years, and newer every two so that now we just plan whenever we think is feasible. Different ones host mini's and we still have a big class reunion at or near the school every two years.

If your class doesn't get together, perhaps this is the year you should start the ball rolling. Travis White has the hobby of restoring Classic Cars, and one of the fun things we got to do was take rides in some of them. Below you can see our cooking editor with one of them: a 1931 Model A pickup.

See you next month!