SCENE in Passing
MARIE WHITEHEAD mwhitehead@mediactr.com
H ere we go with another countdown. This one is the

number of days left in the year and how many days until we greet Mr. Santa at the annual Yule Parade. As we continue to clean up the candy wrappers from Halloween, the downtown trick or treating t was a festive event for the small, costumed goblins. One observer from the city scene listened to my account with something close to awe. Our downtown party was and is a sensible way to celebrate. Parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, friends and neighbors escorted our precious young ones as the event unfolded. Safety is the key issue here and Fun followed.

Perhaps the second nicest event to be appreciated was the time change. Did you get your clocks set back at bedtime Saturday night? Perhaps most of us did, but it can be believed that a few of us didn't. I didn't. I just wanted to see if I would wake up new time or old time. And you guessed it. My brain went off, old time. But the radio station I receive (there's only one.) was running the program that is scheduled for 7:30 each Sunday morning. That made it one hour early. It took a few seconds for me to really wake up and unravel the problem. Our precious young student intern had come to work an hour early. Somebody at the Dave Derr house failed to change the clock, I reckon. Anyway, it all ended well. Fortunately the repeat program was one that most folks enjoy - the music of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir now broadcasting for more than 80 years from Salt Lake City, Utah.

Meagan Randall holds her new son Hunter David, who was born Oct. 29 in Jacksonville. The young man weighed nine pounds. His dad is Claude and his big brother is Austin. He is the grandson of Debbie and Johnny Jennings and the great-grandson of Betty and Joe B. Lusk and Gloria Jennings.

Cheokeean Herald staff writer Gloria Jennings was blessed with her second great-grandchild last Wednesday. Hunter David Randall was born in Jacksonville and weighed nine pounds. Parents are Meagan and Claude Randall. The young man was transported to Dallas for followup on a bloodsugar issue which needed the attention of specialists. He came home earlier this week.

The changing of the time got me started on the always entertaining subject of "change." Nothing remains the same. Life on Bonner Street is a tiny spec of what I am talking about. Most of the citizens on what was to become our permanent home in 1954, Bonner Street, have remained the same folks for many years. But it's different now. To begin, Bill Lang was the happy owner of the former O. D. Blankinship family home, after his wife died. He continued his duties at Brookshire Bros., making customers happy by taking their food buys to the cars and trucks. But time passed and he happened to meet up with a childhood classmate, who had been widowed. In the ensuing months they brought each other up to date on their lives since school days. At last, a story with a happy ending. They were married Oct. 18 and are at home in Whitehouse. They returned to Rusk a few days ago to visit with Sam and Claudia Florian. The new bride is Mary, a tiny, petite Mrs.Lang. Don't you love stories with happy endings?

His former home has new occupants. She is Melissa Clark and family, moving from across the street. That had been the home of Jake and Pauline (Polly) Conway and their children until the early l990s. That house is no longer vacant either. It has a happy resident, a new staff member at Whitehead Enterprises. Quinten Boyd is multi-talented, journalist and can handle newspaper or radio. He has been nicknamed "Q-Man." The house on the corner that was the home for Snooky Chapman and wife Lee has ben vacant for a number of months. Just this week, new neighbors have staked claim to it.

Moving South on North Bonner (what a hoot.) provides heart breaking news. Our wonderful Mary Madden has sold her home, which had been her parents, Vivian and C. Metz Heald, before it became the permanent home for Mary and her late husband Frank. That house has been her "on and off home" for most of her life. She was only a small child when her family moved to Rusk. And there's her brother, Charles, now retired - but like Mary, so closely tied to this Bonner Street address. She will leave for the Bryan-College Station area where her son lives in mid-November. The buyer of this property is going to move in shortly. She is from Conroe. I hope she is Methodist, but if not, not to worry. It's going to take two or three, maybe four members to take up the slack when our beloved Mary leaves.

Change can be delightful when it turns into a renewal of the ties that bind. A reunion. The class of '63 (the Dennis Dotson crowd) had a hi-ho, great gathering in Rusk Saturday. Some classes stay closer together, don't you think? This one is no exception. I wish I had a list of the grads who attended. I understand that among them were Dale Dotson (he and Dennis are first cousins), Mary Ann Mayes Patterson, Betty Tosh Miller and that's all I can remember. My memory disc goes into overload and that means the box is full. No more in, none out.

Saturday evening provided a wonderful serendipity. Some things just happen. Like this one. I was about to eat when a timid, sweet voice apologetically asked," Are you Mrs. Whitehead?" It was Sondra Kirk Tosh, daughter of Jeanette and the late Arthur Kirk, longtime residents of Rusk. Sondra was in the class of '72. I knew that age group then, better than the same age group today. (I had two children in school then.) Sondra and spouse Terry Tosh now live in Allen, north of Dallas and her mother has moved from Rusk to Athens.

After a long lunch together, it seemed we had experienced some, almost, "holy" memories. Until that visit, I don't believe that I had ever really understood what this newspaper means to all of you, who remember with such love, a place you called "home" for a little while. Please know that it is my great honor and pleasure to have helped keep you in touch with family and friends.

To go with others on your prayer list, please remember Evalee Sartain and Ike Daniel.

And in closing here's food for thought from the archives sent by Levi Smallwood: "Only those who will risk too far, can possibly find out how far one can go."

Keep smiling...at least through Nov. 4.