News from the Mountain

By CAROL GUNTER

New Short Mountain United Methodist Church will be celebrating their 60th anniversary and homecoming on Sunday, October 6th. They will be having a fellowship lunch and a singing afterwards with the featured group Holy Crossin’. Also, as part of their 60th anniversary, their church will be burying a time capsule and releasing 60 balloons.

Please be sure to mark this important event on your calendar or put a note on the fridge, or somewhere in the house where it can be easily spotted!

It will truly be a day of celebration and praise for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The church is located at 7312 Short Mountain Road, Woodbury, TN 37190. Pastor is Mike Womack.

Saturday we got some much needed rain around here and also on Wednesday. You know you need rain when the grass you are walking on is crunching under your feet with each step you take.

Deer season is rapidly approaching. We have a lot of hunters around her so maybe the deer population can be thinned out some. I think deer are such beautiful animals and we do seem to have them in abundance around here. I can just look out the patio door and usually spot them up in the fields toward the mountain. Also, turkeys seem to be everywhere too. Quite a hunter’s paradise, if you love hunting as so many people do in our community.

I want to get back to the spiders and their webs being higher off the ground as a sign of what kind of winter we might be in store for. Well, I came across what I call a caterpillar or woolly worm the other day and supposedly they can let you know about how the winter could be. According to this little fellow – being black on both ends and orange in the middle – this as I have always heard growing up – the winter will start out harsh, be mild in the middle and then end harsh. Now this is not a predication like the lady in Crab Orchard used to predict for our weather, but it does give us something to talk about doesn’t it?

Lynn and Brenda Underwood, my next-door neighbors, and also good friends of mine, had a fabulous cookout Saturday evening that I attended. Lynn is really such a great cook. I keep telling him he needs to open a restaurant. The cookout was really part of an early birthday present for Katie, their daughter who turned 15 on Wednesday, September 25. Happy Birthday Katie!

A neighbor of mine just down the road, Rick Anderson, lost his aunt in West Tennessee from a massive stroke. She was 77 years old. So sorry for your loss Rick. You and your family are in my prayers.

Also, please keep my good friend Diane Evans in prayers as she is having some health issues right now. She had been better, but the problem has flared up again.

Had a chance to talk with Clyde Nokes this week and he was telling me a very good friend of his, Randall Smith, had come by to visit with him for a while. They got to reminisce about good times over the years and music, which is so near and dear to both of them. Having good friends means so much to all of us. What would we do without them in our lives?

Ralph and Debby, owners of Short Mountain Market, and special friends of mine are doing pretty good these days. They have helped me the past two years get through the hardest time of my life. Sure glad to have their store in our community.

Can any of you remember back when you were growing up waking up to Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs playing the Martha White jingle on the radio? I sure can, and smelling the coffee on the stove brewing and the smell of my Mom’s wonderful cooking filled the house and made your day start off right. Her love and encouragement was always there for us. We sure had a great Mom and Dad – we were blessed.

Also, I can remember getting out from under all those heavy quilts was quite a chore, and putting my feet on the cold floor, and if I hadn’t gotten completely awake, I sure did then, big time! Oh, but what beautiful memories abound, when I think about just how good those good old days were!

The snows back then were more abundant too. Getting to build a snowman was quite a treat, and so was the snow cream that Mom fixed up in a bowl with some snow, sugar, and a little vanilla flavoring stirring it quickly and making sure the taste was just right.

Way back then too, I can think about our Dad on most mornings taking out the ashes from the wood burning stove and how we could hardly wait for him to put in more wood and coal oil as we were getting somewhat chilled on really cold mornings.

Call me at 615-563-4429 if you have some news you would like to have put in this column.

The more you honor God in your daily living – the more he will honor you.