High points from El Camino Real

Folks along El Camino Real are counting down the days until school is out at the end of this week. The teachers need a break from the students, the students need a break from the teachers, and the parents need a chance to share some quality time with their little darlings. Hopefully I can still keep up with everything that is going on in your six bits worth of news until we get them all back to school in the fall.

Our hearts were saddened this past week with the passing of Officer Keith Radcliff of the Alto Police Department. Keith was 50 years old. He started working as a reserve police officer in Rusk in 1993, which was the same year I started as Justice of the Peace.

He worked in various positions in law enforcement and retired as Chief Deputy at the Cherokee County Sheriff Department.
We worked together for 26 years and I always trusted him and enjoyed his great sense of humor. He was given as fine a send off as I have seen in Rusk on Sunday with law enforcement officers and lots of friends in attendance.
Please keep his wife Misty and the rest of his family in your prayers during this time of sorrow. He spent the majority of his life in the service of others and he will be missed in Cherokee County.
Brother Jim Goforth hasn’t had the energy he normally has for the past few weeks, so his wife Virginia wanted him to go to the doctor. He wouldn’t do it until after the Alto graduation on Friday night because he wasn’t going to miss something for the kids.
When he got home from graduation it was almost too late and he had to take a helicopter ride to Tyler to get his pace maker jump started or something like that. Brother Goforth is my buddy and I hate to hear that he is under the weather.

The last report I got about him was good so hopefully he will be back in the pulpit at Campground Baptist Church really soon, so his congregation can get some sleep.

Get well soon, Brother Goforth!

I’ve even got the Methodists praying for you.

Graduation moved to Friday night instead of Saturday due to storms. That was a good call.
I’ve heard of big rains being called frog stranglers, but Saturday night I witnessed it first hand.

It rained so hard at my house that the tree frogs got up on the porch and were croaking so loud you couldn’t hear the television.

I haven’t heard it rain that hard in a long time.

We ended up with five inches, but our friends up in Rusk got it even worse. I heard they got over seven inches.

Highway 69 was closed in several places and several businesses were flooded.
The basement in the courthouse had a good bit of water in it but a bunch of dedicated county employees, along with their husbands and wives, showed up to get it all cleaned up and on the way to drying out before lunch.
Our prayers go out to the Tosh family at Harry’s Building Materials.

They took a hard lick when the water ran through their store and lumber yard on Highway 84.
The water ran through Gray’s Automotive and washed up the parking lots at Abuela’s Mexican Restaurant.

Somebody said that the water was going in Fat Dogs Liquor.

A group of courageous individuals headed that way in a 16-foot flat bottom boat to save what they could, but they hit dry ground under the red light and had to give up.
The weather this spring has everybody so jumpy they don’t know what to do.

We have to get in my wife’s closet every time we get a tornado warning and it’s so full of shoes I get so mad I almost have a heart attack.

Jay Anna was screaming at me to get in the closet on Saturday night and I think I would rather take my chances on the porch with the frogs.
I spent every afternoon last week tying my tomato plants up and I have blisters on a nearly every one of my fingers.

I can’t figure out why I can’t hold my breath long enough to tie my shoes but I can bend over and tie up a good 150 yards of tomato plants.

On Saturday afternoon I was give completely out, but my garden was a close to perfect as I could get it.

The storms came a few hours later, laid my corn over and packed the ground so hard around the rest of the stuff that it will take dynamite to loosen it up again.
Sunday evening I stood up what corn I could and hoed around my squash.
I never could figure out why people would waste their time playing golf and now I know why. It’s to keep from farming.
That’s about all the news I can remember for one week, if I left anything out I’ll have to catch it up next week. Don’t forget Memorial Day is coming up and we owe a lot to those men and women who gave their lives to keep us free.
Remember them and their families in some way this week.
I’ll see ya next week!

And remember, The freedoms that so many Americans enjoy did not come cheaply. They were paid for with the flesh and blood of American servicemen and women, and with the tears of those whose lives were changed forever by the loss of a loved one.