The Times Dispatch Blogs

I watched coverage of the 875th homecoming on television Saturday. Every image brought tears to my eyes, as did each of the banners as I drove along Highway 49 from Jonesboro to Brookland the previous evening.

The tears were, of course, tears of joy for the soldiers and their families who were at long last reunited. But, they were also tears of distress for those who remain deployed and those who are preparing to go.

While the soldiers are proud and willing to serve, a yearlong trip to Iraq is undoubtedly not high on their list of desires. As the war has continued, and support for the effort has waned, it is always a concern that support for our soldiers might fade as well.

Perhaps we might get bored with the same old, same old — another group leaving, another group coming home. Apathy can take hold easily, especially when the conflict seems to have drug on so long already.

One gentleman in my church, who served in Vietnam, said his heart was filled with joy to see the welcome the 875th received. He said it was a much different welcome than troops received when returning from Vietnam.

We should remember every night as we settle into our beds that they are suffering hardships and risking their lives in service to our country. I hope and pray that though individuals may not support the war, the support of our soldiers remains strong.

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A few days after we came home from the hospital with Colter, my husband and our older son, Conley, went to our neighbor's barn to feed the cows and horses. Conley generally leaves his four-wheeler, a little 50 we bought at Cox Implement, at the barn so he can ride when he goes to the barn with his dad. On this particular night when they got there, they could not find the four-wheeler.

As we had not looked for the four-wheeler since before we went into the hospital, we assumed someone had just moved it. We soon learned, though, that this was not the case. Our neighbor remembered seeing it there on Tuesday, and a friend who had come to the barn on Thursday said he noticed it was not there then. We had to face the truth, someone had stolen it.

I don't know that my four-year-old really realizes what happened. He just knows his four-wheeler is gone. As he sat across the table from me a few days later he looked up at me with sad eyes and said, "Mom, I really want my vroom vroom back." I have never really understood how someone could steal somebody else's possessions, but I really cannot understand stealing from a child.

We reported it stolen, but know the chances of recovering it are slim to none. As adults, we know the realities of life and that people break laws and do bad things, but it is a shame that children have to learn this life lesson, as well.

I know that Conley’s wound is nothing compared to what many other children go through, but the experience did give me insight into how deeply children can be affected by the actions of adults.

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My baby is growing up. Of course, if he knew I was calling him my baby, he would quickly correct me and tell me he is a big boy now. Conley already didn't like being called my baby before we had our second son, Colter, but now he gets downright offended. I think in his mind he thinks if I call him my baby that means Colter can't be my baby. He always tells me "Colter is your baby, I'm your kid."

Monday, he started school at Greene County Tech. He is in the Pre-K program and though he is not technically in school, it is on the school campus and they have class time and eat in the cafeteria and he will even be able to ride the school bus (which he is quite excited about). He had a great first
day and I was so happy for him, but I was also a little sad. I guess it made me realize that he is in fact right — he's not a baby anymore.
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I was sad to see that Bella’z, a restaurant in Walnut Ridge, has closed its doors. I know starting a new business is a challenge and is never easy. I enjoyed the additional option while it lasted and had many great meals there (not to mention desserts). I wish owner Brandy Zupa luck in her future endeavors.

I also hope that others who are still struggling to run a home-owned business can succeed. One of my favorite things about Walnut Ridge and Hoxie is being able to do business with people I know and have the knowledge that the money I am spending with them is not only helping them but also this area.

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Being pregnant at 31 is no fun. Jason and I were married seven years before we had our first son, Conley. I was 27 for the latter part of my pregnancy, and I can attest that four years can make a big difference.

The crazy thing is that 31 is not that old for having babies anymore. My mother had her youngest at 40, though it was not planned. I now wonder how she ever survived.

Now, with improved fertility drugs and what I would call some women’s crazy notions, the childbirth age is being extended up into the 40s and sometimes the 50s. It is especially crazy to me since the drugs that allow them to conceive often also cause multiple births. Being 55 years old and pregnant with twins does not sound anything like fun to me.

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Conley and I were driving home the other day when a police officer did a U-turn in front of us to go after a car that was speeding.

The blue lights caught Conley’s attention in the back seat and he asked me what the policeman was doing. I told him he was probably going to catch the car that had just passed us and give them a ticket.

To this, he offered the ever-popular four-year-old question, “Why?”

I told him they were driving too fast and that is why they were getting a ticket.

Now, it didn’t occur to me that to my four-year-old son tickets are a good thing. He acquaints tickets with riding rides, winning a prize or going somewhere. It didn’t take me long to realize he did not understand that in this case getting a ticket was not a happy occasion.

“You better hurry up, Mom,” he told me. “Why?” I asked him. “You have to go fast so we can get some tickets, too,” he said grinning.

I explained to him that when you get a ticket from a police officer it is because you were doing something bad and you have to pay money as punishment for getting in trouble. I also told him that driving too fast can cause an accident, which he took very seriously.

The next day he told his grandma that you can’t drive too fast because you might get a ticket, and even worse, you might crash.

So often, we want to make the police be the bad guys for writing the tickets, but my four-year-old son really got it. It’s not about driving slow so you don’t get a ticket. It’s about driving safe so you don’t get in an accident.

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Weather is an amazing thing and though you can hear story after story about how strange the weather can sometimes be, there is nothing quite like experiencing it.

Last Saturday night, June 28, my husband and I, along with our son, Conley, and Jason’s cousin, Leah, her husband, Billy, and his daughter, Hayle, were pulling into Portia to attend the carnival when the skies opened up.

We decided to head back to Walnut Ridge and get a bite to eat and see if the rain would let up when Jason’s phone rang. It was his brother, Anthony, calling to say that the roof had blown off our neighbor’s barn, where Jason, Anthony and our neighbors’ horses are kept.

This is where the strangeness of weather comes in. We pulled up to the barn and the entire south side of the roof was demolished. Whole sections of the roof had been lifted and dropped, one on top of a pickup truck.

Meanwhile, the empty blue barrels, lined up in the riding arena located directly behind the barn, were untouched. There was no damage to any of our homes or other property. Other than a few limbs down in the roads, which is a common occurrence in the mildest of storms, you wouldn’t even know a storm had been through except for the scattered debris that surrounded the barn.

My husband’s aunt recalled her mother telling a story about a storm that came through and took the roof off their house but left a teacup sitting on a fence in the yard. There is no doubt about it — weather is an amazing thing.

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People tend to be kind when someone messes something up (as long as they are remorseful), and the phrase “Everyone makes mistakes” is a common tool to comfort those who are being hard on themselves for an error.

In the newspaper business, unfortunately, when we make a mistake it gets reproduced thousands of times and distributed to the masses. We, of course, strive to make our newspaper as accurate as possible and go through a tedious process to make sure that everything that runs in The TD is checked as carefully as possible.

Even so, there are times mistakes get past us — sometimes small ones and sometimes big ones. This week, in a miscommunication, we believed there to be only two sons in the Bailey family and therefore thought that Eugene Jr. and Leslie must be the same boy. When we ran the story on the tragic loss of Eugene, we used a photo from a Hoxie annual of Leslie and only later discovered that Eugene and Leslie were actually two different people.

We, obviously, were mortified at our error; however, with the paper already printed, there was very little we could do. Wednesday morning as the paper was being distributed, a couple of us took a paper and went to visit Mr. and Mrs. Bailey to explain to them how we had made this mistake and to offer our apologies and condolences.

When we arrived, we were greeted kindly, and they quickly told us that they understood how the error had been made. They were gracious in making us feel better about a mistake, when they didn’t have to be.

We tend to beat ourselves up even over the little mistakes, but when we make a mistake that could be hurtful to a member of our community, we really take it hard. I am grateful to the Bailey family for their understanding and continue to offer my condolences for their loss.
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It has occurred to me having heard discussion and reading comments on the LawCo. Talk Message Board that it would be helpful to have a volunteer coordinator for the county. This individual would be the contact for groups or individuals who need assistance and for those who are willing to give their time. Part of the problem is there are people who are willing to work, but if they don’t know what needs to be done or how to go about doing it, nothing will be accomplished. If anyone has any ideas about how this might work, please share them on the message board or by e-mailing me at ghunt@thetd.com.

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As a newly elected member of the Chamber Board of Directors I am quickly learning that there are a lot of things that can be done to help promote and improve Walnut Ridge and Hoxie, as well as the county as a whole. I have also realized how much help is needed. We all have skills and gifts that we have been blessed with, and I challenge everyone to figure out at least one thing they can do this year (big or small) that might make our community more appealing and eventually more prosperous.

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