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Reading newspapersby
Bob Bowman | |
I
don’t drink. I don’t smoke. But I am addicted.
Give me a stack of East
Texas newspapers, and I’ll be hooked for hours.
Each weekend, armed
with a pile of newspapers graciously sent to me by some of the newspapers who
print this column, I read all about people, places and events all over East
Texas.
And I discover the oddest things, especially in the small-town
weeklies.
In the Corrigan Times, I read an obituary about a minister’s
wife. It called her “a true yoke fellow in the ministry.” That was a new phrase
to me.
Wanda Bobinger, who writes a column, “From the Archives,” in the
Polk County Enterprise, recently wrote a piece about old obituaries. One funeral
notice said: “The Angel of Death came for Mrs. Jones at 3 o’clock in the morning.”
Also in the Enterprise, I read about a fire that burned downtown Livingston
to the ground 105 years ago. Only two businesses survived.
The fire began
in a warehouse owned by a leading prohibitionist after the town passed an election
to ban alcohol.
In the Buffalo Press, I read about an old-fashioned wagon
train pulled by horses and mules that passed through the town last year. The train,
the brainchild of Mike Smith of Texarkana,
was on its way from Arkansas to Arizona. I hope they made it.
Also in
the Buffalo Press, I read that the tiny community of Donie
once again has its own post office.
Donie
is south of Teague in
southwest Freestone County. The site was probably settled in the 1880s. In 1898
the residents applied for a post office under the name of Douie, which was misread
in Washington as Donie. Washington was making mistakes even then.
The
columns I like most in small newspapers are the “Looking Back” features.
A
recent issue of the Pittsburg Gazette reported that 70 years ago lightning struck
a tablecloth at the home of T.H. Peterson. Some 85 years ago, a phony photographer
was doing a good business in town, but the story, unfortunately, didn’t say what
he was doing. And 60 years ago, the local temperature was 107 degrees.
In the Van Zandt News, I learned that the Howell family once had a stagecoach
stop at their farm on the way from Marshall
to Dallas. When the stage topped the
hill near the farm, the driver would start ringing a bell, signaling the Howells
to have a fresh team of horses ready.
My favorite newspaper name is The
Jefferson Jimplecute, and I like editor Vic Parker’s column, ‘”Heard Around Town.”
He recently talked about a attorney who asked a doctor, “Now, doctor isn’t
it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn’t know it until the next
morning?” The doctor asked the lawyer: “Did you actually pass a bar exam?” |
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