HIGH POINTS| from El Camino Real

Y oung folks along El Camino Real are getting pretty excited

about a visit from Santa Claus in a few days. I remember when I was little, the hours moved at a snail’s pace as we waited for Santa to come. I’m glad you don’t have to wait on your four bits’ worth of news – except for the part that was left off last week. That sure had folks flipping through the pages and burning up my telephone line. The conclusion to the tale is at the end of this column.

The Chancel Choir and Children’s Choir of First Baptist Church of Alto performed a Christmas Cantata Sunday. A big crowd showed up for the performance, and they weren’t disappointed. The choirs did a fantastic job, and everyone was filled with the Christmas spirit. Choirs in our area churches work hard each year to make these productions great. They had a big picture and write up in last week’s paper if you want to see how they looked. I figure that big picture was what pushed me off the page and cut my colonoscopy story short last week.

Courtney Johnson Landrum graduated from Stephen F. Austin State University on Saturday with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. She will start her teaching career after the Christmas break at Alto Elementary School. Congratulations to Courtney on her graduation, and best wishes on her new teaching career.

The Central High Home Demonstration Club ladies met at the nursing home this week and handed out lap blankets that they had made for some of the residents. A lap blanket is probably something like a Snuggie without the sleeves. These are a busy bunch of ladies and talented to boot. We certainly appreciate all they do.

I ran into Jim Bice the other day at the December gathering and fish fry of some Alto alumni in the old high school typing room, aka Hilltop Baptist Church. Jim was looking great after some surgery and said that he was feeling pretty good. That sounds like a nice Christmas present to me, but we need to keep Jim in our prayers until he is well.

Jerry Rix celebrated a birthday this week. He and I share the same demon in our lives. He calls her aunt and I call her mother-in-law. His Aunt Juanita and several cousins took him and his wife Louise to dinner Tuesday night to celebrate. I don’t’ know how old Jerry is now, but it’s pretty old. Happy birthday, Jerry!

To pick up my story from last week about my colonoscopy, turning 50 years old earlier this year wasn’t easy – but I was beginning to adapt to it pretty well until I went to the doctor a few weeks ago. He told me that since I had turned 50 that I need to start thinking about a colonoscopy. Ever since I was old enough to know what one was I have tried not to think about them. Over the past few years I have made fun, joked about and even told about other folk’s colonoscopies in the newspaper with careful wording to get my message across to the poor victims in private that I knew, and I thought it was funny. They knew what I was talking about in the paper but no one else did. I had even gone as far as to encourage people to go and visit some poor soul the evening before their test. I did all of these terrible things, but I never thought it would be me turning 50 and leaving the drugstore with a huge jug of stuff to drink and a list of instructions a mile long. I put the jug in a sack with the instructions and darted out of the store with my head down like a Baptist Deacon sneaking out of a liquor store. I knew if word ever got out that this was happening to me that the paybacks would be unbearable. The first thing that caught my eye was the fact that I could have nothing to eat on the day before the test and could only drink clear liquids. Do I look like the kind of guy that could make it all day on clear liquids? No aspirin or Aleve for a week, I thought, was no big deal. And then I got a crick in my neck that same week. On Thursday the Alto alumni met for a Christmas catfish dinner and all I could do was say that I had already eaten and drink some more clear liquids. That night the wife went to a Christmas party and I stayed home and pulled out my big plastic jug from the drugstore. I read the instructions again and poured my first glass. It wasn’t so bad, but it wasn’t so good either. On the next glass I began to gag. I was supposed to drink a gallon of this stuff and I was already gagging on the second glass. I read the instructions again and they recommended a slice of lime to suck on between drinks. Taking a bite of lime and then swigging down as much of the stuff as I could stand brought back memories, but it didn’t help the taste. After three-quarters of the jug was gone, the gagging became a dangerous activity as did coughing, sneezing or even blinking. I was beginning to hate being 50. By 10 p.m. I was just a mere shadow of my former self and I could actually feel an indention in the top of my head where my body had attempted to turn itself inside out. The next morning I had to get up at 5 a.m. with no coffee and head to Jacksonville. It was old home week at the hospital and I knew all the nurses and folks that came in for my procedure. We were talking about vacations and all sorts of stuff, and I’m wondering if this can get any worse or any more embarrassing.

There was a machine next to the bed with a roll of black hose on it that looked like a small wire line tool used in the oil field, but with more hose on it. They tell me all the things that I can’t do after being sedated, and that I would feel really tired and sleepy and I thought, “Great, there goes my afternoon of hunting I had planned.” The next thing I remember was waking up and somebody was telling me to put my clothes on. When I ran my fingers through my hair I noticed that the indention in the top of my head from the previous night was gone. I think they knocked it back out with the end of that long hose. The doctor said that I was fine, and he’d see me in five years or so. I got home from the hospital about 10:30 a.m. feeling great. I road down to the hunting club with my dad around lunch, shot a deer and had it loaded in the back of the truck by 1 p.m., so I guess the whole day wasn’t wasted. We sure do some strange things to try and keep ourselves above ground a little longer. I wouldn’t advise doing a colonoscopy for fun, but I would recommend one for your health. It’s like the doctor looking down your throat from the other end. Just practice bending over and saying ahhhhh.

I am getting old for sure and last week I proved it. I have had a hog trap set out for a couple of weeks trying to catch a wild hog to make sausage. On Friday I checked my trap, and there was a nice eight-point buck. He had a 14-15-inch spread and tall horns. In my younger days that deer would have gone in the freezer without a thought, but instead I got my brother to help me get it out of the cage. It’s no small chore to get a jumping, extremely scared buck with long horns out of a hog trap without getting hurt. I got the gate open, and he charged with his horns, jammed the gate open with his antlers and bruised my arm. I was trying to hold the gate and my brother finally pushed the deer’s horns with his boot until they popped free. When the buck saw the opening he shot out like a bullet. His sore nose will likely remind him not to eat corn for some time. I went hunting the next morning and nearly froze to death and didn’t see anything. I should have remembered the old saying – one in the trap beats two in the bush. It reminds me of high school when I was going to get rich catching coons and selling furs. I caught a skunk, two possums and a woodpecker before I gave up the venture.

Building Christmas memories with our children is one of the most important things we can do as parents. Hopefully, those memories will keep your kids coming home each Christmas even though they have new families of their own. When we were little kids wishing we were big kids, we didn’t know how lucky we were. The biggest things we had to worry about at Christmas was when we were going to open presents and how to handle firecrackers safely. No bills, no jobs and no worries made for a pretty great life, but it only lasted for a few short years. I hope we can all teach our children to make the best of those years. When I used to complain in front of my grandmother about not being old enough to do something, she would tell me that I was wishing my life away. I guess as a kid, we don’t realize how fast life races by. We only have a short time to build some wonderful Christmas memories with our children. I hope each of us will make the best of that time this year. Let’s not let the stress of our world dampen a child’s Christmas. We’ll have plenty of time for stress after Christmas.

I’m going to wind this week’s column up and get busy shaking presents. I hope each of you has a blessed Christmas. I pray that you can get through the confusion of the pretty paper, bows and lights in order to take a little time to remember the reason for the season, the birth of our savior. I’ll see ya next week! Merry Christmas from our house to yours!