Mincey’s Musings Year One, Week Nine

On Sunday afternoon, February 18, 2018, my Sunday School class from Loveland Baptist Church went to the East Tennessee Historical Society’s Museum of East Tennessee History, located at 601 Gay Street in Downtown Knoxville. For any reader who has never been there, I highly recommend the trip. If you love local history, you will not be disappointed.

You may not have realized it, but if you look up on a clear day you will likely see a man-made cloud somewhere in the sky, trailing behind jet aircraft high up in the atmosphere. Contrails, short for condensation trails, are formed from the water vapor found in aircraft exhaust as a byproduct of fuel combustion. Natural clouds form from the same process of water vapor condensing in cool air as it rises, so technically contrails are clouds, just from an unnatural source.

I found a poem in an old book written about something else. The poem supported the woman's right to vote, I think. Although the word wasn't mentioned, suffragette came to mind. I wasn't sure how to spell it so I looked it up. My dictionary said the word “suffrage” came partly from a word meaning “intercessory prayer” and partly from one meaning “to vote.” Does that mean that when a woman votes she is exercising intercessory prayer? That's funny. Let me tell you why.

Well, it did not take long for someone to ask for more details about the can of worms we opened up last week, regarding antichrist! First, let me get one piece of literary etiquette out of the way, by noting that, The Rest of the Story is a registered trademark of Paulynne, Inc. I always loved listening to Paul Harvey tell the story behind the story, usually about some well-known person in history. I listened from my early childhood in the 60’s all the way until the program ended in 2009, shortly after Mr. Harvey’s passing.

There's an old country song that has a line that asks “Can you bake a cherry pie?” Well, can you? I can make an acceptable cherry pie but my Dad's Aunt Maggie made the ultimate cherry pie. At least that's what the old folks said.

A Union County startup business got a big boost Feb. 15, as Sweet Southern Tumbling received a $10,000 check through the Clinch Powell Small Business Loan program funded by USDA Rural Development. Business owner Breann Welch has used the loan to upgrade to a larger space and purchase additional equipment, including a 42x42 cheer spring floor.

On February 14, 2018 another tragedy took place at the hand of a psychopath with a gun. 14 students, on the cusp of life, and 3 teachers were brutally gunned down at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Landmark, FL, during school hours. Before the funerals could even take place, insensitive idiots on both sides of the gun control debate began running their mouths. Gun control is obviously a touchy and complicated issue; hence the reason that it has not been solved yet.

I’m by no means an expert genealogist/researcher, but I’m surely an experienced one! Frequently persons come to me for help in compiling a family history. I am glad to help as much as I can.

So often when I ask for a grandparent’s name I’m told, “I don’t know–I just always called him grandpa–or I just always called her grandma.” Now, where does one start? There are many ways. Here are just a few suggestions. It is my hope that these suggestions will be useful to students in their history projects:

“Yours till Niagara Falls” or is it “Yours till the Statue of Liberty sits down?” Maybe it's “Yours till the United States drinks Canada Dry.” Could it be “Yours till they feed the corn on your toes to the calves of your legs?” No, that doesn't sound very nice. I know. It's “Yours till the barn dances and the fire escapes.”

Some people have pictures in their wallets or on their phones of the wives, children, grandchildren, etc. I have one picture of my wife in my wallet and maybe one of my stepson and me. I have several pictures on my phone of a special female who came into my life in May, 2009. It happened like this.

My wife was visiting the place where she lived before she married me, then as now occupied by her son and his girlfriend. One of the many cats that had been there had recently had kittens. The momma cat was run over by a car and died. No one knew where her kittens were.