HIGH POINTS| from El Camino Real

O ctober is flying by for folks enjoying the good life along

El Camino Real. Our streets will be filling up with all kinds of little ghosts and goblins in search of something to satisfy a sweet tooth before you know it. I always loved Halloween when I was little, but it’s a lot easier to raid the boys’ buckets when they get home and aren’t looking. Enough about trick or treat and on with your four bits’ worth of news.

Leo Hicks is recovering from major surgery a few weeks ago. Maybe he can take some time off from the post plant and watch the deer grow while he is getting better. We need to keep him in our prayers for a speedy recovery.

Amy Johnson Guidry and Judd Guidry are the proud new parents of a big baby boy. Clayton Judd Guidry was born on Oct. 12 in Longview. He weighed a little over nine pounds and was 21 inches long. This little boy has created several new grandparents and great-grandparents around town, so I am expecting to see lots of baby pictures. Congratulations to Amy and Judd on their new arrival.

I guess there are worse things that happen in a person’s life than turning 50, but this week I’m having trouble figuring out what those things might be. I guess its kind of like watching the odometer on your car turning over 100,000 miles. You know it’s a good car, but you just don’t trust it as much. Turning 50 is something like that to me, only this body has been driven by some really strange folks. It was driven by an accident-prone kid through childhood that marked it with several dents, scars and a lack of oxygen at times. Traveling the country as a baby while my dad worked construction blessed me with the ability to swim at an early age because every motel we lived in had a pool. The evening entertainment was to watch the little fat kid in diapers swim to the bottom of the pool and get rocks and coins. My oxygen supply ran pretty short in those early days. I was in junior high before I learned to swim on top of the water. To this day when I walk by a fountain or a wishing well full of coins, I have an intense craving to jump in. My brother dropped a 2 x 12 board out of a tree where he and my cousin were attempting to build a tree house without nails. The corner of the board caught me in the head and it took several stitches to stop the bleeding. I had my head sewed up a couple of more times after that and had a broken arm. I moved from Alto to Greenville, South Carolina when I

was five, but never spent a summer or Christmas in that town for the nine years that I lived there. Alto was home, and we always traveled back here anytime school was out. Alto was the most fantastic vacation spot in the world as far as I was concerned. When I became a teenager we moved back to Alto and I started high school. It was about this time that I went totally insane, and

an even stranger force took the helm. I was living in my vacation paradise, and the hormones changed my beat-up child body into a brand new indestructible one. Moving from the city into the country, where I could walk out the back door to go fishing or hunting anytime was wonderful. My cousin and I went to Jacksonville, and Grady Nutt made cowboy hats for us that instantly transformed us into real cowboys. I even got a horse, almost got killed on it, sold it, but kept the hat. In fact I still have that old hat on my shelf. We were going to family reunions looking for good looking girls before Jeff Foxworthy ever even thought of the idea. That teenage body needed very little sleep and it had lots of hard miles put on it. In fact the only thing that saved me during those years was the fact that my brain was being stored somewhere else for safekeeping and it wasn’t placed back into my head until I was grown. This is the only explanation that I could ever come up with. Then all of a sudden I found myself married to my childhood sweetheart and something called responsibilities took over my body. Before I knew it I was surrounded by three sons. The child rearing years took a bigger toll on my old body than anything else, because now I had to feel every bit of pain or disappointment my boys felt growing up. Fortunately the fun outweighed everything else, but everyday was a new experience. Before I knew what happened I had turned 40 and was staring middle age in the face. It didn’t hurt as bad as I thought it would, but I began to notice that everything that I had made fun of my daddy about as he grew older was beginning to happen to me. The aches and pains and in my knees and joints began to appear about this time. It was at this point I think I realized that I needed to protect my bones, so I added several pounds of extra padding around everything and an extra measure in front in case I fell forward. I use to think someone who was 50 was really old, but now I just look at them as a lot wiser. My

My trips to the bottom of the pool taught me a lot about life.

You dive into it and sometimes you come up with coins and sometimes you come up with rocks, but the main thing is that you keep diving in.

I’ve got lots of miles on my odometer and lots of them have been upside down, but getting older sure beats the alternative.

My son Creager turned 12 on Oct. 20, while I was turning 50. The 38 years between us ought to keep me young for a little while longer.

Alto Junior Varsity Yellowjacket Danny Castle had a birthday on Oct. 20 also. I think Danny ought to be getting close to sweet 16.

I don’t know how sweet he is, but I know Ms. Verdie can keep him whipped into shape and act sweet while she is around. Happy birthday, Danny!

I had to write this one a little bit ahead of time to work it in with a hunting trip.

If I missed your news this week, I’ll catch it up in the next one.

I’ll see ya next week! And remember, What’s right isn’t always popular and what’s popular isn’t always right.