The Hoo Doo Herald - Happenings in Our Town

By Maye Belle Mitchell

This week was Thanksgiving! I hope you all enjoyed your special holiday meals with kith and kin. I am so thrilled to be writing this new column for our weekly newspaper, The Hoo Doo Herald! It was one of the many things I enumerated during the blessing over our turducken and turnips this year. Praise be to the Lord! The opportunity to put pen to paper and report on the fascinating lives of members of our community is just thrilling and I hope to be a true blessing to our wonderful town!

Speaking of Thanksgiving, did you know a turkey can run 20 miles an hour when spooked? That’s a fast bird! Unfortunately for him, a bullet flies a bit faster and a four-wheeler can do at least twice that. No hope for the turkey when faced with one of our hunters here in Rawlins County, is there! Carter Baker was quoted as saying “Ain’t no bird goin’ to out run my Remington 20 gauge” and he is so right. We have some of the finest hunters in the world here!

The Maye Belle Mitchell School of Etiquette would like to welcome Miss Eugenia Kay Arthur and Miss Bobbi Lee Haskell to our Thursday afternoon class. These two young ladies join the rest of the class of eight students who are learning the fine art of being a Southern Lady. I want to remind everyone of the High Tea on Sunday afternoon sponsored by the Ladies Guild of the First Baptist Church of Hoo Doo. If any ladies out there can contribute sweet meats, tea cakes, or other fine finger food, please bring those dishes to the Fellowship Hall of the church on Saturday afternoon.

Congratulations to the proud new parents Albert and Terri Lynne Rouchet on the early arrival of their bouncing baby girl Antoinette Lucille Rouchet. Little Antoinette, a honeymoon baby, arrived a month early and weighed in at a healthy nine pounds, three ounces. Proud grandparents are Charles and Annette Marie Rouchet and Tom and Shirley Sue Bobo. Shirley Sue Bobo is quoted as saying “I’m not surprised little Antoinette Lucille came eight months after the honeymoon – she was such a big baby she just had to gain some elbow room. All us Bobo’s have big, early babies, you know.”

The insanity of the holidays is upon us and I want to encourage all of you to remember the true reason for the season – the birth of our Lord and Savior. Jesus had a lot in common with little Antoinette Lucille – he was a surprise and his earthly daddy was a little concerned at the beginning. Everything worked out in the end, though! We don’t know how big the baby Jesus was but Mary couldn’t have had a better midwife than the angels of heaven and the Holy Spirit praise God! I do think the Father might have arranged a bit of a better room for them. After all, Mary was a lady and giving birth around those stinky cows and sheep must not have been pleasant. But that was not for me to decide, now, was it!

A community Thanksgiving Service was held at the Hoo Doo Church of Christ last Sunday at 6:00 pm. It was a great time for the community members to get together and fellowship in the name of the Lord. I attended as a member of the press and was pleased at the wonderful array of delicious homemade dishes that were brought by the ladies of the church. Terry Gayle Hampton – I simply MUST get that deviled eggs recipe from you! It was to die for! The punch Bucky Bumpus made up was also exquisite! I could recognize the taste of lemons, Sundrop soda and pineapple juice but there was something else there in the recipe I just couldn’t put my finger on. It was the crowning touch whatever it was!

On Sunday afternoon, after a simply inspiring sermon by Reverend Hezekiah Smoot at the First Baptist Church, my dear husband Porter took me to dinner at the End of the Road restaurant across the river in Caneyville. The food was fabulous and the Christmas décor was simply divine. Porter and I so enjoyed our luncheon. If you haven’t patronized this lovely new, locally-owned eating establishment, I want to truly encourage you. The Divines who run the restaurant are good Christian people of the Lutheran persuasion and have provided a nice eatery for our community. I partook of the lunch special – beans and hamhocks accompanied by turnip greens, fried okra, and Cynthia Divine’s wonderful cornbread muffins.

Speaking of Porter, I want to publicly declare my undying love and devotion to my handsome and virile husband and wish him a fabulous 49th birthday! Happy Birthday Sweetie Pie! One more year before you hit the big 5-0! While I have not quite hit the 4-0 mark myself, I can see it looming on the horizon. I hope you have a supremely happy year and I love you so much Muggle Wumps!

We have our own little actress among us – Miss Carrie Jo Footstone made her acting debut this week at the Dixie Dance Hall and Theater in Viola. She played the role of the light pole in the musical “Singing in the Rain”. She has been taking acting classes for several months at Ted Flower’s Acting School in downtown Hoo Doo. This was her first performance and she did a superb job! She held a straight face the entire performance – something I sure couldn’t do!

The Overcoming Adversity group of Black Creek met last Tuesday for their Thanksgiving meal. Before the meal, the invocation was given by Johnny Mize and then the eating took place. In his prayer, Johnny encouraged us all to be thankful for our blessings. Boner MacIntyre read the minutes of the previous meeting. Door prizes of a gift certificate for a car wash and a cheese board were awarded to ecstatic winners Kathy Jo Martin and Harold Lakey. The next meeting will be in January.

Joe Bob and Jerri Ann Cravens were in town from their home in distant Nashville to visit. They ate at the Hoo Doo Family Restaurant where they dined on fried catfish and chitlins. After their lovely dinner, they attended a movie at the Palace Theater where they enjoyed popcorn, Diet Cokes, Raisinets, and Whoppers as an after-luncheon treat.

I have never seen so many people in our community gathered to see a movie as I saw Wednesday night for the premier of Full Moon. The movie is supposedly a dark flick that revolves around a teenage romance between humans and vampires. As a good Christian, I was horrified to see so many young, impressionable young ladies standing in line to buy tickets. It’s hard to believe parents would allow them to see a movie that promotes demons and evil beings as romantic characters. I am proud to say none of the students of the Maye Belle Mitchell School of Etiquette were in attendance!

The funeral for Glennis Ruth-Ann Webb was held on Friday. The Hoo Doo Funeral Home reported a strong turnout for the service despite the holiday and Mrs. Webb’s history of being a liberal all her life. We extend Christian sympathy to the family.

If you have news you would like to be printed, simply email me or drop by the Maye Belle Mitchell School of Etiquette on Tuesdays or Thursdays! I would dearly love to hear from you! God bless and allow me to leave you with this thought to guard your heart this week “They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world” I John 4:5. Tootle-loo sweet readers!