By John Clise
Weston and Jane Lew put on some great Christmas parades recently. It was great to be able to share them via Locally Lewis along with Ray Smith. It’s always a great time announcing parades and other events with Ray.
The parades were wonderful this year. There was a lot of participation from people entering floats and other units in the parade, as well as all the people who came to watch in person, and through the Locally Lewis internet presentation. There was plenty of good cheer, Christmas magic, and throwing going on at both parades.
If you watched the Locally Lewis podcast the past Wednesday then you heard the story of Ray and I getting an onion wrapped up like a Christmas present from the Grinch. That was pretty funny.
Congrats to the winners in the Weston parade float winners that include St. Patrick School, LCHS Band Boosters, and First Baptist Church of Weston.
Congratulations to Weston Christmas Parade Marshall Rod Wyman, and to the Stewart family, the Jane Lew Parade Marshalls. They served the theme of the parades “Hometown Christmas: Past, Present and Future” very well. Both the Stewart Family and Rod Wyman are great assets to our community. We should all work so hard to benefit our county.
Hey, how about those talented at students at Robert L. Bland Middle School. Art students at the school have been chosen to design Christmas ornaments for the National Tree, in Washington, D.C., for the third year in a row.
This year’s artists include Zane Richards, Sloanne Alkire, Shelby Hamrick, Brooke Barnes, Reghan Carson, Ava Kennedy, Isabella Lasure, Hope Lamb, Kendra Benedum, Rachelle Johnson, Erin Flanigan, Rylee Whitaker, Ian Riffle, and Brianna Cermak.
I think we have something to brag about with what the kids are accomplishing at the middle school, and their teachers, as well.
Have you watched the ISPN Network? Aside from the endless Medicare commercials, it’s not too bad. I watch it a lot with my father-in-law Don Pickens.
They do love the Medicare commercials, and the rain gutter commercials. Don mumbles a lot of words when those commercials come on. I’m generally mumbling, too, so it works out well.
That network has the show Cheyenne with Clint Walker. He was the perfect actor for that part at the time. Mysterious, tall, lanky, quiet, the typical drifting cowboy seeking to do the right thing because he had been so wrong in earlier life. Just like Marshall Matt Dillion from Gunsmoke and every character Clint Eastwood has ever played in his nearly 70 year career.
ISPN has Gunsmoke, The Waltons, Adam 12, all the old good ones.
I still like watching Adam12, though the Waltons seems to get on my nerves for some reason.
The banter between Officers Malloy and Reed, played by Marin Milner and Kent McCord, respectively, always cracks me up. The young guy vs. the veteran cop, in this show, is just well written and well-acted.
Getting back to The Waltons. I don’t think, when I was a kid, I paid much attention to Grandpa and Grandma Walton bickering so much. Zebulon and Esther seemed to argue a lot.
I also noticed that even though it was The Great Depression, the Waltons had both a work truck and car. And money to go to Richmond and stay in a hotel. Perhaps I’m being too literal.
Earl Hamner’s voice narrating the show is still as calming now, as it was when I was a kid. And the family saying good night brings me back to center and calms me as it did when I was a kid.
I can still relate to John Boy struggling as a starting out writer. His frustration in wanting to get published, and his angst over whether the publication will like his work. It’s a vicious, beautiful circle of writing, love and life.
My wish is that we all get to touch and feel life on Walton’s Mountain one more time. To feel that peace, contentment, love… and taste one of Olivia’s piping hot homemade biscuits once more.
Clise's Cornucopia 