Andy was once approached by two of his church members, military men, who asked him to become an Army chaplain. As such, his military rank would have required them to salute him. In amusement, he mentioned that fact. Their laughing response? “Remember, Pastor, we are required to salute the uniform, not the man who wears it!”

I saw my good friend Jim Keefer this past week. He is one of my favorite people and a blessing to so many folks. He also knows a lot about local history and I really enjoy listening to his memories about the “good old days.”

This past weekend was reunion time and some great articles were given to me to publish…. FUNNY, BUT TRUE *I used to be able to do cartwheels.

Apparently, I stepped on the toes of one of our county elected officials recently. On Sheriff Maxwell’s Facebook page, she referred to our newspaper as an “a**-wipe” newspaper. I know she was raised in the country, but she should know that now they have an item called toilet paper that replaces, corn cobs, newspaper and Sears catalog pages. However, she can use our newspaper any way she wants to, we just appreciate her reading it first. We are using a very high-quality newsprint so hopefully it won’t cause too much irritation.

We didn’t have any swimming pools in Stonewall, at least not like a lot of towns such as Allen have. In 1944 I was still sort of new to living there but thought I was in hog heaven anyway, having lived in Centrahoma until 1944. So, it was one day when 4 of us boys who had been down on Buck Creek in the July heat spotted this little pool of water. It was near the old water tower and its overflow had created this little pond of cool clear water and it was shielded from view by brush and cane. What better place to take a quick swim?

I am, and shall forever be, in baseball season until the last out of the last game of the World Series. Although it’s doubtful my favorite team will win the Series this year I will, nevertheless, watch nearly every game. I suspect my children will watch or listen to many of the games too. You see, there is a genetic defect in my family. Devotion to baseball was bred into me by my father and I am a carrier of the gene.

I attended the First United Bank open hours Thursday and saw a lot of friends I had not seen in a long time. That included my life long friends Tony and Carolyn Abney from Non. They have been banking there for over half a century. I have never known a harder working couple and the same goes for their son Tim. When anyone needs help you can count on their family to be there . . .

Jim Priest is CEO of Goodwill Industries of Central Oklahoma and can be reached at jpriest@okgoodwill.org. Shaving Face Husbands can express love to their wives through the simple act of shaving In July 1999 I wrote a Family Talk column entitled “Shaving is a Way to Show Love.” The column chronicled my life of shaving my face, from boyhood to manhood.

My friend Debbie told me a story about her father that warmed my heart and stopped me cold. Here’s the basic story as she related it: My father grew up in a home where his father was an alcoholic and he had to quit school to provide for his family because his dad drank most of what he earned.

Will we just have to “live” with Covid from now on? Seems that’s the way it was with the famous Spanish Flu. It peaked out back in 1918 after it had killed about 500 million people worldwide. To this day we have to take our annual flu shots since the old “flu” still lurks about. That seems to be the way this current Pandemic is working out. It may always lurk about.