It's been twenty-five years, as of last Sunday, for Doris and Vincent (Wee) Maggio, and a surprise reception was arranged at her sister Camille Colucci's house on Greenway Street by way of celebration.
Their four very nice children, John, Margaret Ann, Rosalea and Mary Madeline offered concrete evidence of a happy, successful marriage, and the many guests, gifts and flowers offered witness to a heap of affection and goodwill.
So herewith many happy returns, Doris and Wee Maggio, and please note, Mrs. Colucci, that Old Stuff did not refer to you as "Chubby."
Meanwhile, tomorrow will mark eleven years for Nell and Charles Kerg and, if our memory serves us correctly, their wedding-day came of a Saturday at that.
Have they told their children, Betty and Charles Jr., what a dry August that was in Hernando, with water-rationing in vogue and certain times of the day when you'd turn on the hydrant in vain? And all this but a whoop and a holler from Sardis Lake and Dam.
Well, we're all older now than we were then, but here we go, out of a rainless July into an August looking likewise, so nothing much has changed. And that soaking-rain, like the smart gal in the story-book, is really playIng hard to get.
Arkansas, that self-styled "Wonder-Slate," for many years now has had up-and-coming publicity-agents. Agriculture and industry thrive there, along with lakes and mountains, oil wells, Indian mounds, and even a defunct diamond mine gets a two column lead every year or so.
So, we aren't surprised at this, that or the other claim for recognition, and the latest of these is to be noted in an article from the Arkansas Democrat, clipped and sent us by Mrs. George (Maw) Burks of Dermott, in Chicot County. The headline reads
"Jesse James Gang was Active in Arkansas," and the author, one Clovis Copeland of Arkansas Publicity Department, proceeds forthwith to marshal! a heap of hearsay in support of an asset that's dubious at best.
Jesse and his boys, it will be recalled, operated in Missouri and Kansas, at least as far as anybody knows.
Anyhow, Jesse and his boys reportedly held up a stage-coach between Malvern and Hot Springs on a cold day in January, 1874, to relieve fourteen passengers of their valuables, and rifle the mail pouches as well.
Among those looted was a G. R. Crump of Memphis, who is listed as one of the heavy losers, including a former governor of Dakota Territory who dropped $840.00 into the sack.
And that, to us, is the most interesting, if unbelievable part of the story, how anyone named Crump was worth sticking up in ’74.
Going back those twenty-five years, with Doris and Wee, to 1937 reminds us that their "Cousin Joe" was going great for the New York Yankees, and way down South the "Land of Cotton" was living up to its reputation by turning to same.
Bale-to-the-acre crops were small-skimptions that year, what with nearly everybody picking a bale and a half, and the price of picking skyrocketed accordingly.
Mechanical harvesters were still experimental at the time, and we remember hearing Henry Golding say that he would give half his crop to anyone who could pick it. We also recall Hugh Alexander's quoting John Dickins, in what might have been "the most" in your pessimistic point of view, ie "they'll still be pickin' cotton in Washington County next April when the levee breaks."
Miss Annie and Ernie Wingate moved into their new home on South Washington in '37, and their son Robert finished high school that same year. The latter is a family man now, well established in the accounting profession in Greenwood, and the camellia- bushes are tall as frees in Miss Annie's garden, to show what all can happen in a quarter century, by way of progress that's really worth reporting.
