High Points| from El Camino Real

Folks along El Camino Real are beginning to slow down a little as the temperatures continue to climb.
Most folks are trying to get all of their outside work done early in order to avoid the afternoon temperatures.

This time of year always makes me wonder how people ever survived without the miracle of air conditioning. I guess people adapted to the heat just like they do to everything else.
Sometimes I get tired of adapting and just want to leave things the way they are, but the world keeps changing around us and if we don’t adapt we’ll fall behind.

Maybe I just wish life would slow down just a hair or two.
It’s probably, not so the only thing I can do is keep giving you your six bits worth, so you can try to keep up with the rest of us.
I went out to visit my friend Elvin Peacock at his shop on Friday morning and he told me that my neighbor James Royce Pyle had passed away. He was 86 years old.
Royce and his wife Edna are two of the sweetest people you could ever know and I was heart broke to hear that he was gone. Royce and Edna moved back to Alto after they retired in Houston. Royce was one of my Houston County cousins on my mother’s side. Please keep his wife Edna and the rest of the family in your prayers during this time of loss.

Dan and Vivian Cates will celebrate their 53rd wedding anniversary on July 17. Happy anniversary, Dan and Vivian!

Dwight Lyons called me on Sunday night and told me that his sister, Diane Lyons Timon, passed away on Saturday morning. I’m pretty sure she was a member of the Alto High School class of 1962. Diane had a heart transplant about 18 years ago. A memorial service is being planned for her but I don’t have any information on that yet. Please keep her family and friends in your prayers during this difficult time.
The Holcomb Family gathered for the 122nd year in the Cold Springs community to celebrate the Holcomb Family Reunion.
The crowd was a little smaller than usual, but the weather couldn’t have been much nicer and we even got a good rain while we were there. That is something few people could remember happening at the reunion. There was lots of food and everyone seemed to have a good time, especially our grandson Sawyer. There is nothing he likes better than a good mud hole. We are already making plans for next years reunion, but I have to get over this one first.

When I started dating Jay Anna in 1976, her father J.C. Holcomb, put me to work helping him get things set up and cleaned up for the reunion.
Forty three years later, I’m still doing what he told me to do, but I find it hurting more at 59 than it did at 16. Good folks and good memories, it’s what life is all about.
Two of my favorite ladies are celebrating birthdays this month.
Kathleen Cornelison celebrated her birthday on July 15. Kathleen has been working at the bank in Alto for as long as I can remember.
She has been their longer than the vault. I just can’t imagine the bank without Kathleen in it, so I hope she stays there a long time.

Most of the bank robbers that have robbed the bank while she has worked there have already done their time and been turned loose. Happy Birthday Kathleen, we love you! Judy Griffith is having a birthday on July 19.
I use to run into her nearly everyday somewhere because she worked all around town.

She worked for the light company, the bank, and had a dress shop in the mini mall. Now I only see her at church. I guess that’s what getting old does to folks. Happy Birthday, Judy, we love you too!

I very seldom ask for any help but after Saturday, I’m going to need some and probably some prayers too.
I bought me a new used lawn mower and it wouldn’t run. I worked on it until I was wringing wet with sweat and it still wouldn’t run. I gave up and decided I’d air the tires up on my old junk lawn mower and mow with it.
When I went to air the tire up the valve stem broke off. I picked the lawn mower up and set it on a big rock to take the wheel off and it fell off, so I had to drag the floor jack through the dirt to jack it back up.
You can’t get a flat fixed in Alto, so I had to drive all the way to Rusk. By the time I got the tire back on the lawn mower and started it with a pair of vise grips holding the wires together, because the key switch broke, I had used up every cuss word I know and the yard still isn’t mowed.
If you know any new cuss words, I need to know them because the neighbors are getting tired of hearing the same old ones.
It’s funny how even something as simple as a cuss word can bring back memories. When I was a kid in South Carolina, there was an older couple that lived across the street from us that had little boys late in life.

Nearly every afternoon the daddy would get on the front porch and holler for his kids, “Duke, Dede, Damnit get in the house. For a long time I thought they had three kids. It wasn’t until the old man ran over his water hose with the lawn mower that I learned that Damnit wasn’t their third child.
The old man got smart after a while and he would get in his car and holler for the kids and tell them he was going to K-mart. When they came running to get in the car he would grab them and take ’em in the house.

Anyway, I’ve decided that I like tall grass and I’m not going to mess with my lawn mower again until I think of something new to call it.

I guess that just about does it for this session and I need a rest. If you’ve got anything that needs telling let me know about it.

I’ll see ya next week!
And remember, The greatest source of happiness is the ability to be grateful at all times.