Published: November 21, 2007 09:41 am         

Three-day work week could get to be habit-forming

We had two holidays last week, Veterans Day on Monday and our Centennial Statehood Day on Friday, both of them well worth celebrating. This week is Thanksgiving, and a good many people will take off Thursday and Friday again. This business of a three-day workweek could get to be habit-forming. I learned when I was teaching that one had to do anything only twice to establish a tradition. I can still hear my students saying, “But, Mrs. Milligan, we’ve always done it this way.” Next thing we know people will be vowing, “But we’ve always worked a three-day week.”

Since I’m retired, I’m not crazy about all these holidays. When every day is a holiday for me, I would prefer that the rest of the world stay with its regular routine. I go out and check the mailbox before I remember they’re taking the day off, and I mutter to myself about it. I don’t know why I get perturbed about not getting mail. I was gone three days last week, and I had a boxful of mail when I got back. I get quantities of mail, but I can’t much for the quality.

I had one bill ( the large economy size, from my dentist), and a sweet note from a young couple who enclosed a picture of their 6-month old daughter. All the rest were flyers offering me a chance to buy vitamins or health food that would make me look and feel 20 years younger, brochures from car dealers offering me the deal of a lifetime and an opportunity to buy more life insurance (so my family won’t be burdened with expenses of my passing on. No medical exam is required, and my rates would never go up, they tell me) Somehow I’ve managed without all these products until now, so it doesn’t take any mental gymnastics to dispose of their advertisements where they belong. I sigh as I view my trash can, because I hate to think of how many trees were sacrificed in this mountain of paper. At least, I tell myself, I re-cycle.

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New Bethel Church celebrated Statehood Day Sunday with a slight difference in our routine. Since we had our Thanksgiving dinner the previous Sunday, we feared our women might rebel at cooking for church two Sundays in a row, so we let the southern Colonel do most of our cooking for us. Robert and Bobbie Vick were the envy of us all, for they brought a tray full of ripe tomatoes. They had picked their green ones at the first frost warning, placed them in a grocery sack and stored them in their garage. The tomatoes tasted as if they came off the vine recently, and their color was a nice red.

We ate our old-fashioned dinner at noon; then when we got the kitchen cleaned up we went back to the sanctuary for an old-time singing and bit of reviewing of Oklahoma history with a game. We were through by 2:30 and we took the rest of the day off for a nap and to recuperate from all our holiday activity.

We were encouraged to wear clothes reminiscent of 100 years ago. Some of us declared that all we had to do was look in the back of our closets. Ruth Ann Taylor, who likes hats, brought hats for all of us women folk who were willing to wear them but didn’t have any of our own. Several of us took advantage of her generosity: Sandra Dixon had a red hat to match her red dress, Debra Nolen wore a black one to match her outfit. They looked great, but the rest of us chided them for letting their ankles show. Most of us wore floor length skirts and were wrapped in shawls (several shawls were also provided by Ruth Ann. )

Aren Howell had a picture hat to set off her pink and white outfit, and Bobbie Vick’s red hat complemented her red blouse and denim skirt. Linda Cooper had a wine-colored creation to add color to her beige outfit. Ruth Ann provided these hats and borrowed a pretty black one with a fresh-looking flower on it from Am Klepper for me. Ruth Ann really looked authentic in the ‘school marm’ outfit she wears when she has programs at the Little Red School House. Trish Harris had a pretty long dress in a colorful print and wore a hat that had belonged to Jerald’s grandmother. Jodi Jackson was all gussied up in a dark red derby, and her black skirt had a fashionable bustle. She confided that she had bought her hat at a garage sale but she had to pay $4 for the feathers that gave a jaunty air to her otherwise sedate head covering. (The feathers were appropriate for the season--turkey, I think)

Many of the men wore overalls. The rest chose blue jeans as their attire. Charley Jones explained why he had not worn overalls. He said all the little boys wore overalls at the school he attended until he moved when he was in the fifth grade. He got new overalls for his first day in the new school. To his amazed chagrin, he was the only one wearing them/. He went home crying and told his mother he absolutely would not wear overalls again, and his mother, after much persuasion, bought him some blue jeans, and Charley says he hasn’t worn a pair of overalls since.

Dave Jackson interrupted that story to say, “We didn’t call ‘em jeans. We called them ‘waist pants.’ I wanted some waist pants so bad, but I had to keep wearing my overalls.” Dave was still wearing overalls, but he had a white shirt and a black string tie to dress them up for Sunday.

The Sunday afternoon singing was from old Broadman hymnals and the old hymns sparked many memories. I heard lots of people comment, “I used to hear my mother sing that song,” or “I haven’t heard that song since I was a kid.”

Many of the hymns caused reminiscences from the group. . One reminded Ed Christian of his aunt who was song leader at a little church in rural Tennessee. The preacher was indignant about all the moonshine being produced and consumed in the community and his sermon emphasized that fact. He declared “If I had my way, I’d dump all that liquor in the river.” When the sermon was over, Ed’s aunt asked the congregation to stand for the closing song, “Shall We Gather at the River.” Ed daughter, Lynda Thompson, and her daughter, Megan, were visiting from Houston, so we’re fairly sure this was a true story, as Ed maintains.

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For years it has been our practice to go to Branson, Missouri at least once a year, but we had skipped last year. When Mattie House announced her regular tour, Winnie Poague, one of my swimming buddies, and I decided it was time to visit Branson again.. We left from Seminole early Thursday morning and returned home Saturday evening.

We had a good time, saw three excellent country western musical shows and ate far more delicious food than we needed. Winnie and I were the only ones from Byng, but there were Adans and Konawans there, several we had met on previous trips. Mattie’s Tours has a group of regulars, so the trips are always reunions for friends.

One thing I particularly enjoyed was a visit to the old town of Branson. We visited Dick’s old-time Five and Ten Cent Store. Of course, things were no longer a nickel or a dime, but many items were no more than a dollar. The aisles were narrow and the shelves were full of things I hadn’t thought about in years. A few doors down the street was a shop at which nothing was priced higher than $5. That, too, provided incentive for shopping, particularly for tote bags in which to put all the other stuff we bought at other places in the area.

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By the time this column is published we will have had our annual community Thanksgiving service. We will see people from Byng that we haven’t seen since last year. We’ll reminisce about some who were here last year but are gone this year, reminding us of the brevity of life and the need to appreciate friends, family, our freedoms and our nation right now while we have them. Abundant Life Tabernacle will be the location for this year’s service and we always enjoy being there. George and Omega Carson and their congregation are always gracious hosts. Jasper Ligon, our pastor, will bring the message and Linda Cooper, our song leader, will be in charge of the music. Each of the four or five churches in the community usually have a part in the program. There will be a time of fellowship afterward to catch up on all the happenings for the past year.

We wish a great Thanksgiving for each of you.

     

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