As far back as he can remember, Alva Cunningham always wanted to be a train engineer.
He was fascinated by trains, particularly steam-powered locomotives, and has collected steam whistles since the age of 15. He says it’s been “in his blood” his whole life.
One of Plainview Chief of Police Eddie Muncey’s favorite activities as a young boy was playing baseball and, like many young boys, he dreamed of being a professional baseball player.
Muncey also had a great admiration for police officers and was enthralled with the lights, the sirens, and the dignity of the uniform. Growing up in Union County Muncey played baseball until high school when his priorities changed and his new passion was to get a set of wheels. He got his first job at Hensley’s IGA and with his earnings bought his first pickup truck.
Several years ago, when painted furniture rose in popularity, Jeannie Cox just had to try it. Her first project was a small side table that she found a delight to do and it turned out great. She laughs and says, “Of course there were many disasters along the way!”
The best-kept secret of success is that failure is part of the formula.
A drug increasingly being prescribed for treating sciatica has been revealed to be no better than placebo, in research recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The researchers also found that people taking the drug pregabalin reported nearly twice as many adverse effects as those receiving the placebo reported.
Country Connections by James and Ellen Perry
Circa 1954: Rose Hill School, five miles north of Maynardville, Tennessee, on Highway 33
Jerald, Johnny Milton, Howard, Dan, Jerry, and Larry, let me tell you what I heard the teachers talking about. I just heard the big room teacher tell the little room teacher that Frank Carter will be here Monday in the big room ’til he gets all the big boys straightened out. I heard that he has three or four boys beginning with Ken to get a lesson in humility by his paddle Monday morning.
That may seem like a strange question, but when you are in your nineties and have been retired as long as I have, you would understand. Retirement is not all it’s cracked up to be. Oh yes, I have Social Security and a small pension from my husband’s work. Money is not the problem. Mine is a “people” problem.
The land that is now Big Ridge State Park was once an area filled with small family farms. It is hard to picture what the landscape might have looked like a hundred years ago. The wooded forest hides most of the evidence. No structures were left standing after the TVA first acquired the land.
With maple syrup, the common assumption is that it’s a New England thing, produced in places like Vermont. But during European settlement times sugar made from maple sap was the only available sweeter besides honey.
Chicken Cordon Bleu conjures up a picture of a complicated dish. This one is not. Make it with rice. I am always looking for easy recipes that mimic complicated ones. There is more than one way to get a flavorful dish out of a chicken breast. Try this one and see what you think.
“Jesus Loves Me” is called a child’s song, but I sometimes still sing it for myself, even as a grownup. The lyrics are by Ana Bartlett Warner but they were first published in 1860 by her sister Susan Warner as a poem in a novel entitled Say and Seal. The music was later added by William Bradbury in 1862. In the novel, the words are spoken to comfort a dying child.
I especially love the beginning lines from the first stanza:
Jesus loves me this i know,
for the Bible tells me so