My goodness! Here it is the last day of February and it seems like only yesterday I was watching the crystal ball descend at Times Square signifying the beginning of a new year. Time does fly, indeed. The next issue will mark the one year anniversary that I have been contributing these words of wisdom (?) in this publication. Not too bad for what was intended to be a one time shot. I don’t know when the end will come, but not yet. Looking back at the first issue, I welcomed Tom* & Fredericka back to Calico Rock after spending the last 35 years in Germany where Tom was in the opera business. I have given Tom* credit (maybe I should say the blame) for being my mentor in the writing of this bi-weekly brainwash. He, in turn, writes a column on alternate weeks entitled Tom*s Tantruming –oops, I misspelled that, it should be Tenoring. It just occurred to me that you, my loyal readers, may not have the slightest idea of what I am referring to. I am aware that a large number of you are reading this stuff off a blog on the internet or perhaps on Facebook. That is OK, except you are missing all the other good stuff that is in the weekly edition of this newspaper. Besides Tom* and myself, who each contribute a column on a regular basis, Megan has returned after a sabbatical of several months with her entertaining “Musings” column. Megan is a local girl who is a grad student at the University of Arkansas. Also appearing regularly is Susan’s “Not So Long Ago” column which gives the readers a touch of area history. Gone at the present time was a column by River, the canine belonging to a photographer, Darrell, who assisted in the development of those articles. Hopefully, the column entitled “The View from Off” that was penned by Fred and Kathie, will soon return. Another feature that is sorely missed is the outdoors column that was written by another husband-wife team, Jim and Jill, who each wrote on alternate weeks. Add the sports reporting of Dr. Tom and the photos and recipes of Cindy –well, you can see you are only getting part of the story. But, WAIT! You can have it all. Get the digital edition by contacting this newspaper at wrcnews@centurytel.net. As a bonus, you can archive past issues. Since the digital edition is available on Wednesday night, when your hard copy reader friend makes a remark about some scandalous report that she read on Thursday morning, you can say “Oh, I already knew that.” Before I forget, I want to apologize for going a little over my allotted space in the last offering a couple of weeks ago. It was, you remember, Valentine’s Day, and all those love songs were spinning around in my head and, OK, I got carried away. I usually stay away from things political or religical or otherwise even with a hint of being controversical, but I intended to call attention that the previous day was the first day of Lent, a forty week- day period preceding Easter Sunday. In the Christian tradition, this is a time that believers are encouraged to direct their attention to the sacrifice of their Savior in a more meaningful and thoughtful manner. Our area churches emphasize that in their Sunday morning services. During the last week of Lent (Holy Week), all our congregations gather during the noon hour for a daily devotional time at the United Methodist church. When we were living in Missouri, several congregations also met every Wednesday noon, alternating between churches. As I said in an earlier column “Behold and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” Some denominations (not ours) encourage their people to “give up” something for Lent, sort of an expression of sacrifice. Now I don’t intend for this to be funny in any way, but when Anita and I were in the army, we had very close friends who gave up beer and movies one year and the next year it was cigarettes and something else. I’ve thought about this a lot and decided that for them it probably was a sacrifice because, after 40 days, you know. I hope I don’t seem judgmental because this couple was very good to us and we loved them. Just a different culture, I suppose. Skating on spiritually thin ice here in the Queen City, thinking about giving up lobster---oops, that was pretty tacky. See you in two weeks, I hope. This is Reed saying, bye, bye for now.
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