High Points| from El Camino Real

Folks along El Camino Real were ready to say good bye to a blistering August in hopes for a cooler September.
We got our wish with a small cool front and a few very welcome showers. It is strange how we dread the thought of tropical storms and hurricanes all during the spring and when we get into a drought like we are in now people start praying for them to come our way. Every drop of rain we get at this point is a blessing, so I’m not complaining about anything. Things did pick up along El Camino Real over the Labor Day weekend, but watching cars go by doesn’t do much to enhance you six bits worth of news.
The Alto Yellowjackets headed to Palestine to play Westwood on Friday night for their season opener. It took the Yellowjackets a little while to get some of their kinks and first game jitters worked out, and then they went on to beat the Westwood Panthers 48 to 28. The Yellowjackets will be at home this week taking on the Timpson Tigers. It ought to be a good game, so I hope you can come out and support our Yellowjackets. I hope the folks working in the concession stand have all their kinks and first game jitters worked out too, so we don’t have to wait in line a long time.
I don’t always think about Labor Day being a really huge holiday, but if you were at the red light in Alto on Friday afternoon you would have seen it was a big deal to somebody. It looked like folks were heading in ever which away to enjoy this holiday. Men were heading west to enjoy the opening day of dove season where there were actually some doves and the women were heading to the shopping malls. I think everyone else was either going fishing or working at their deer leases. The guys at the feed store said that bags of corn were selling like hot cakes at nearly seven dollars a bag. My daddy and I were figuring up what it cost to go dove hunting and decided we would stay at home and eat chicken. It cost $150 a day to go on a hunt, then you have to buy shells, stay in a motel, and eat out. If you kill your limit of fifteen birds a day that’s ten dollars a bird before you buy, gas, shells, motel, food, or adult beverages. You’d come out ahead going shopping with the women. I don’t even think they have trees for them to light in out there so you would have to shoot them out of the air. Sound like a good way to waste a lot of shells to me.
The plywood is off the windows at the old Dairy Queen in town, so hopefully we will have a new business opening soon. I’ll let you know as soon as I get all the details. Just seeing the plywood come off the windows is big news for Alto.
My skunk problem got a whole lot worse on Saturday. I have been trying to catch an armadillo that has been digging up my flower beds for several nights with a live trap. On Saturday I happened to walk by my trap that I had set by my air conditioning unit and there was a skunk in it. I backed up slowly and pondered my situation. After doing some research on Google, I snuck up on the trapped skunk and threw an old patio umbrella top over it, and decided to wait until Sunday morning to decide my next move. When I came home Saturday night the armadillo was digging under the skunk cage and I was afraid it was going to get the skunk riled up and make it spray. My wife was more or less going berserk and I was in a real fix. I grabbed my gun and my light, even though I had absolutely no experience at using those two things together and tried to figure out what to do. Shooting a hole in the air conditioning unit or upsetting the skunk added more confusion to my dilemma. I got rid of the armadillo without making the skunk spray. On Sunday morning I put on old clothes, pulled my tractor with the front end loader up to the trap, grabbed the trap with the skunk, threw it in the bucket, and drove away from the house. I didn’t make it to church.
I can’t think of anything else right off the top of my head. If you want me to put something in the paper for you, jot it down on a piece of paper and give it to me. After writing this column for twenty plus years, my mind gets kind of foggy sometimes about what I’ve written about and haven’t. Sometimes I make notes on little pieces of paper for myself then can’t find them when I sit down to write. I’ll see ya next week!
And remember, Never miss an opportunity to make someone happy-even if you have to leave them alone to do it!