Jeremy Herndon

One of the things that I like about living in a small town is how the entire town makes such a big deal about community events. For example right now there are several Vinyl Banners that have been strung between lampposts crossing Main Street advertising the county’s annual autumn Farm Days celebration.

Apparently Farm Days consists of several local farms opening their doors to the community for guided tours around their farms. I think that taking a tour of the local akpaca farm is something that most children would enjoy quite a bit. Naturally at the same time the town closes off a section of the town’s second most traveled commercial street and allows vendors to set up their tents and Trade Show Displays of their freshly grown local produce from the farms along with the assorted crafters and local politicians setting up camp trying to win voters for the upcoming local elections.

Seems to me that the same two candidates are always running for the position of Sheriff. They seem to take turns winning! I don’t know what the town would do if a third person ever threw his or her hat into that competition! I like going to the street fairs and just walking around and people watch. From time to time I might find something unique to buy from a crafter that has come up with something new. 

My wife likes to look at the hand made jewelry, she is always on the prowl looking for new additions to her assortment of statement jewelry.  I have to admit though, she does not often spend much money at the fair.

I was going through some old drafts that never got published and came across this one – I don’t know why I never published it! So I’ll publish it now, three years after the writing!

On April 24, 2008 a news story was released that an Adolf Hitler was going to be sold in the Ukraine, aimed at children. The news story said that the dolls were Barbie-like in nature, that kids could dress and undress him and pin on medals. There was supposedly even an interchangeable head, where the facial expression was, I think the term was either “kinder” or “gentler” – something like that. Then the story went on to say that if the sales of the doll went well that the manufacturer would expand the line and start selling dolls of his German Shepard dog “Blondie” and model crematoriums.

I think it is interesting that this “Hitler doll” story first came out right around the anniversary of Hitler’s birthday! So it has been discovered that the entire story was a hoax, although I don’t know HOW it was discovered to be a hoax, and several news agencies have had to retract their stories on the doll. I find that very interesting!

I can remember back when I was a really young child, being part of a school celebration of spring on May 1st.  I remember parents were invited to come watch us kids dance with ribbons around the May Pole, which every other day of the year was the tether ball pole.  And as kids we used to pick flowers from the garden and put them in a basket and leave them on the front porch of our neighbor’s house, ring the bell and run away.

Then suddenly the school celebrations of May Day stopped.  I was told it had something to do with Russia celebrating May Day and having big parades to celebrate their military might and our government did not want to be seen as supporting that celebration.  I can remember that was a bunch of nonsense!  Our celebration of spring should have nothing to do with Russia!

This morning I was thinking about how when people are in boats or planes and are in danger, they shout “Mayday Mayday” into their microphones for help.  I started to wonder how that got started….  sounds like a little bit of wiki searching is about to happen!

It is always a guessing game when to comes to purchasing gasoline for our vehicles. There are 3 gas stations in town that have had a price war going on for several years, so they are always offering their gas at very competitive prices which is a plus to us all. We had heard that gas would be at $4 a gallon at this point when in reality the prices are dropping, not by much mind you, but just a bit. I just paid $2.83 and if I had not bought it there and waiting for a few more miles I would have paid $3.02. That is a big difference!

It’s interesting to listen to the numbers that are being spewed out at us from various sources that are busy calculating all the holiday crunching of numbers for the retailers to live and die by. Fact is that the majority of us are cutting back. With so many of us taking advantage of some type of Debt Settlement offer or possibly a Debt Negotiation due to our credit card overload from our spending craze days that are well behind us now.

There are numerous options for Debt Relief out there and having Internet access just makes the whole easy process even easier. When Christmas is all over and done with we will all have to sit back and see what adjustments are needed in order to pay for it all. That’s when it really hurts. I did hear on one news story that more people are using cash this holiday shopping season instead of using their credit cards. I know I haven’t used a single charge card this year and I don’t plan on starting either.