Halloween Learned Mississippi Christiansen's Comments...Hinds County Gazette

Jacqueline preparing for the trick or treaters

Margret Sue on her front porch....learned Mississippi

Good morning, I wasn’t here last week, because my computer got sick, very sick, a virus….it had to have a new hard drive to bring it back into the world of cyberspace, of face book, Google, map quest, email and online banking.

I missed being online, to the point of having symptoms of withdrawal….nervous and anxious wondering what was happening on face book, having to go to a real cookbooks to find recipes, and the worst was having to look up phone numbers in that big heavy book…what a pain that was…..

But I must say, it was not all bad…In fact, it was an eye opener, to see how much time I actually spent on this computer….. And even more amazing, to see how much I could accomplish…. When I wasn’t being tempted by the all the distractions out there in cyberspace. My shop is de-cluttered and straight, and the shed, it is a sight to behold!….I got rid of the junk that lived under it….most of the junk….some of the junk….well, I tidied up the junk….and now there is much more room for the lawn mower.

I saw somewhere that Halloween is becoming one of the year’s more popular celebrations…more folks are decorating and taking part every year…. I have always like Halloween….I have grand childhood memories of running from house to house to get treats.

But why now? The children are far more sophisticated now then when I was a kid….their toys have lots of bells and whistles…much too complicated for old Brain. A pile of rocks and bucket of sand would not hold their interest long…..Back in the day, we would spend hours in a pile of dirt and sand building forts, and towns …we even had dams and running streams.

Many of the children around this area go to Learned to do their trick or treating….for sometime, I have wanted to go to Learned to see the kids all dressed up…So this year, Jacqueline and I packed up treats and headed over…Margret Sue graciously allowed us to set up on her front porch. (What a treat Margret Sue’s house is to see, she lives an old store…it still has the long counter and tin ceilings, she has it decorated so nice, I wish I had taken a picture…Why didn‘t I? I had my camera) Margret Sue lives next door to Gibbs Grocery/ restaurant…so we were slam in the middle of all the activity.

Passing out candy from Margret Sue’s front porch…it came to me why, the 31 day of October is becoming popular even now….in these complex, modern times.
First of all, it has little to nothing to do with Halloween…in fact if the preacher had not reminded me last week, of the pit falls of celebrating Halloween in the wrong way…I am not sure the dark side of Halloween would crossed my mind….

I have come to believe, Trick Or Treat Day has become so popular because it is truly a family day, with out the stresses of some of the other widely celebrated days. It is not a day that you are commanded to or feel obligated to spend time with the all grandmas, cousins and old aunties.
Halloween requires no long distance traveling, nobody asks, …“Where are you going for Halloween?” There is no mandatory shopping for gifts.
Halloween is not expensive…the homemade costumes are as cute or cuter then the purchased ones….

Halloween!… is not busy! Not like Christmas has become…Back when I was a kid, we had a Christmas program and a draw name gift exchange at school …then Santa Claus lead a parade to town….Santa Claus came in a cattle truck ….he stopped at the lumber yard and passed out bags of goodies; candy, peanuts and there was always an orange in the bag…..That was it. Everything else for Christmas took place at home, making fudge, baking cookies stringing cranberries and popcorn to decorate the tree, etc, or church related, practicing carols for the church celebration and my favorite, walking through the streets caroling, stopping at the homes of the elderly and the shut ins….ending with hot chocolate and cookies. Christmas is crazy now…

Halloween is simple…uncomplicated…October 31 is a day that even the dads can enthusiastically take part in…showing off their knife skills by carving the pumpkins, children are impressed with dad… watching him turn a pumpkin into in to a jack o lantern. Dad doesn’t have to get dressed up for Halloween… he can go straight from deer hunting, still wearing his camouflage garb and work boots right to the Halloween festivities…..

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"The week that was..."

One of the bullet holes...


Cookies



Edwards Ministerial Alliance and C.U.T.E. combined meeting

Front Porch at Gibbs Grocery Learned. Mississippi

Steak Night at Gibbs

King Edward Hotel

Downtown Jackson Mississippi

Christiansen's Comments

Hinds County Gazette

September 17 2009

The tempo of life in Mississippi is picking up speed now….What with football season beginning, and so many of our community events are planned to take place in the cooler months…So from now until New years, we will have lots of events to chose from…we for sure can’t get to them all.

Then after New Years it dies back a bit until Spring. The coming of Springs brings another eruption of activity …and our calendars are once again get so full, we have to go to writing in the margins, with arrows looping around and pointing to dates, just to keep up with where we are suppose to be and what we are suppose to have in our hands when we get there.

I said that to say…I have had a full week last week, my first full week since last Spring…I’ll get the calendar and we will just take it day by day…want to?

Monday was Labor Day: I drove to Madison and had lunch with daughter and did a smidgen of shopping…bought some new towels…Lost my camera in the mall, when I discovered it an hour or so later we returned to the mall and it was right where I left it…

Tuesday: Remember back about a year ago, Dave Montgomery’s house, over on Montgomery drive, was broke into? Dave was home at the time, after an exchange of words, the intruder ran out, but he shot back in to the house? Well the intruder’s trial was Tuesday. ..I went to the trial.
The court house in Raymond is closed for renovation…so for the time being court is being held out at the penal farm….quite depressing what with the fences and the razor wire. Tuesday morning they picked the jury…I didn’t go for that part. The trial was to begin at 1’oclock..it was delayed for a short time…Something about the jurors lunch.

When the proceeding began to proceed, Dave could not go in the court room, because he was a witness, but I could and did. The judge was familiar face, Judge Breland Hilburn.

I sat down on the back row…sort of the back row…the court room is quite makeshift….but serviceable for sure. Anyway two young people came in and sat down on my bench…they were law students…an assignment from one of their professors was to observe 10 hours of trials, the month of September…trials with evidence.

This I found most astounding…They told me, they were are having a very difficult time finding trials to monitor. Now you would think with all the criminal activity reported on the local news shows…those young law students would have countless court cases from which to pick. .

What I learned was this, it is not that cases are not being dealt with…fewer cases are going to jury trials…, more and more defendants are choosing to plea bargain and plead guilty. Which in the end, was what happened in the case involving Dave …The young man plead guilty to 2 counts…which could net him 45 years in jail…..he is not but 20 years old. Very sad…..

Wednesday : I was in the MEA clinic…they were handing out face masks to those with coughs and sniffles…flu season is here.

Thursday; Morning I spent baking cookies for the families of Knox McGee Thomason, of Atlanta, and Elizabeth Camille Hale of Raymond. Knox McGee was born September 1, Elizabeth Camille was born September 9, I have to tell you ..I think Knox McGee is the coolest name ever! Lynn and Davis named him Knox after one of my favorite people, Knox “Knocky” Askew, the McGee is a family name on his great grandmother Cannada‘s side.

The time between cookies going in the oven and coming out …I spent on face book ….up loading pictures of my cookie baking….and seeing what my friends were up to…..I must say…the people I hang out with on Facebook post lots of stuff about their dogs….I guess it’s that birds of a feather thing.

Thursday evening: Tuesday, while in Raymond, I stopped in city hall to say hello to Isla and Brenda…Well! You all! Isla had an extra ticket to a Mississippi Heritage Trust event to be held Thursday, at the old train station, the event was to call attention to the 10 most endangered historic places in Mississippi …one of them being the Ebenezer A.M.E. Church, Raymond. http://www.mississippiheritage.com/

(Oh my word this is getting long…you can stop reading any time you like…it will not hurt my feelings…really it won‘t. But I am no quitter!!!… so I shall push on…..)

One component of that Heritage event was a tour of the King Edward Hotel, presently, being restored . Isla asked me did I want to go…I was so excited………the person she first invited was unable to go…I could not believe my good fortune! And I don’t mind being second choice, not at all…

I have long be fascinated by the King Edward…the stories I have heard of the events that took place there back in the day…Weddings, coming out parties and all such as that.

From the time we came to Mississippi in 1979, every few years a new scheme to save the King Edward was trotted out, we would get our hopes up and nothing would happen, until now. It is beautiful! It is going to a 136 room hotel, there will be apartments, and for those of us who are always looking for dinning opportunities there will be a coffee shop and a dinning room…December is the target date to open…I can’t wait!

Friday: I went to the grocery store. Friday evening, I met Isla and Suzanne Harpole in Learned for dinner at Gibbs Grocery, Friday night is steak night. You all it was packed, we had to wait for a place to sit… We didn’t mind waiting…I for sure didn’t have anything better to do then soak in the atmosphere. It is in an old store…the paint fell off years ago….the inside does not appear to have evolved a great deal over the years …same old counters and tables…

You don’t necessary eat at your own table. There may be two individual tables…Most squeeze around two long tables …I am thinking the tables where sit down to eat, are where back in the day, they placed bolts of fabric to be cut, they are quite long. And there is no air-conditioning aside from the front door standing open. But it is not hot…there are fans. Dinning at Gibbs is a grand experience!

Saturday: There are two newly formed groups in Edwards, C.U.T.E (Community United to Transform Edwards..or something close to that) And a Black /White Ministerial Alliance. Rev. Dean Rydbeck, pastor at the Edwards Presbyterian Church, asked if I would help serve lunch for the joint meeting…I recruited Suzanne Harpole to assist and off we went.

It was a pleasant meeting of about 20 sincere folks, whose purpose seems to be the opening up communication in Edwards…Between Black, White, our city government…all groups. The emphasis is on pray…if your plate is full, but you would still like to take part….place these groups on your prayer list.
Love to all
　
　
GloriaChristiansen@gmail.com