Editor's Corner

By Mary E. Adair

The above means that with the foresight and technical support plus encouragement from Mike Craner, we are beginning our 14th year of Pencil Stubs Online.

Our columnists and poets have been a changing feature, but a few, for which we shall always be grateful and hold in high esteem, have continued forward with the ezine. This past year saw the 'blog' dot net version added with same content, but different format from the ezine, or dot com version. The blog allows comments which the ezine no longer accepts, and for some viewers it is easier to load and use with its readily available index of current and archived months always on the sidebar. Some of us like the larger, plain background and larger images the ezine can employ. We each have our own "Perspective," which just happens to be the name of a brief poem yours truly shows in this issue.

Bruce Clifford's musical poems are "As Big As The Sky," "Holding on to Life ," and "A Shooting Star."

John I. Blair's poems for us are "A Post Oak On Matlock Road," "Uncle William," "Marrowbone Spring," "Alex," "Sadness at Absence," and "Pear-Shaped." Blair included a picture each, for the first two listed here.

Speaking of pics, Blair's column is image intensive with 42 prepared for the "Always Looking -- When Cemeteries Became Parks" backing up the small ones displayed within the narrative with larger ones you can click to see. Some are very large, others not so much bigger, but all are interesting, so 'click!'

Mattie Lennon included a humorous cartoon by Morris at the bottom of his column "Irish Eyes" depicting his newly found freedom of retirement. Thomas F. O'Neill in his column "Introspective" tells a story in the style of a family reminiscense, beginning in 1828. Gerard Meister ("Thinking Out Loud") discusses with humor a conversation in which the party of the second part never recognized the tongue in cheek of the party of the first part.

Leo C. Helmer, in addition to his 'ere Lent recipe' just right for Super Bowl gameday, adds another article on railroads-this time some Katy facts laced with images that are clickable for larger views.

The continuing story, "Rabbo Tales," adds Chapter 6, part 2, for this adult fantasy.

"Angel Whispers" by Peg Jones, is timely and directly instructional. "Consider This" is a bit of a soapbox for LC Van Savage, and many of us are standing in the crowd of her fans. She also has the article, "Dressing Up To Go Shopping? No More!."

"Italy's 8,000 dead doves come not long after 2 million dead fish washed ashore along Maryland's Chesapeake Bay -- and just days after up to 5,000 blackbirds fell out of the sky in a one-mile area near Beebe, Ark., and thousands of drum fish turned up dead along a stretch of an Arkansas river.

Other animal die-offs in the past two weeks include reports of 40,000 dead crabs washing ashore near Kent, England, hundreds of snapper fish dead in New Zealand, 150 tons of red tilapia dead in Vietnam, 500 jackdaws crashing to their death in Sweden, more than 450 birds falling onto a Louisiana highway and a mass of dead fish in a Florida creek.

Fireworks, pollution, disease and parasites are some of the official theories behind the strange deaths. Federal records indicate mass die-offs happen "on average every other day" in North America, The Associated Press reported."

Does that report disturb you? Does it disturb you more or less than the demonstrations in Egypt?

Though disturbed by both personally, hopefully, since* Punxsutawney Phil didn't see his shadow today, we shall see you in March!

*Click to see Punxsutawney Phil poem from 2001 Feb issue.