The spirit of Christmas

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” 

- Luke 2:14

Over the years, members of our family have gathered out on Fellowship Road in Smith County, Miss., just up the hill from Okahay Creek. We came together in all seasons of the year, but none that meant so much as at Christmas.

There was never anything fancy in Granny’s house, but there was a love that crossed generations. Whatever Granny had, she shared — even to the extent if someone needed something and she had it, she would give it away and do without.

Try as I might, I simply can’t pull up a recollection of Granny sitting, other than when on the back porch shelling peas or beans. There was never candy or soft drinks at Granny’s as we grew up … there was never room for it, as she made cakes and tea and always (it seems) had baked sweet potatoes out on the table for the kids to grab as a snack.

Perhaps because we’re human, we always seem to find time to bemoan our misfortunes, whether real or perceived, but at this time of the year, when we celebrate the birth of Christ, let’s deal with reality.

Our family has been blessed. Over the years, we’ve lost many members. Yes, we lost every single one of them before we wanted … but we had so many good times together on which to reflect that it would be hard to imagine ever having gotten along without them. How empty our lives would have been.

God has blessed us … each and every one, as Tiny Tim would say.

We have our health, we have our homes, we have clothes on our backs and food on our tables and before we dare think about what might be, let’s think about the child who, through the harsh reality of life, knows there’s no Santa Claus or the parent worrying over how to keep a roof over their family’s head during these tough economic times.

This Christmas, give thanks for all that is yours and, if you can, do like Granny Walker did and share some of your bounty with someone less fortunate than you and yours. What better gift than that of a smile, a bit of hope and a little love?

Orange slices and Christmas

For as long as I can remember, candy orange slices have been as much a part of Christmas as the Christmas tree. In fact, when there were times that I had no tree, I always had orange slices.

That's because my Dad always loved them. I don't know when that sweet tooth developed, but Daddy introduced them to me early.

After we were both well grown, my sister Sarah and I acknowledged that we never realized we didn't have much growing up — but that through sacrifice, we never missed a thing. Along the way, when Mom would load kids in the car to go to a baseball game, she'd manage to find extra money to make sure a kid who "didn't have much" didn't have to sit and watch others eat.

But back to orange slices.

While they were within reach much of the year, it was never Christmas without orange slices. Writing this, I realize how strange that may sound to some but it was one of those things you could count on.

Daddy died in June 1989 and six months later, on Christmas morning at my sister's house in Arlington, Texas, I realized something was missing besides Daddy ... his orange slices.

I couldn't bring him back, but I made a quick trip to Walgreen's and grabbed a bag of orange slices. When I got back to my sister's, she asked where I had gone and why — and I just pulled out the bag of orange slices.

She didn't say anything, but I could tell she wished I hadn't done that ... after all, while it was our first Christmas without Daddy, it was for Mom, too.

There wasn't much conversation for a while but, after a while, things got back to as much normalcy as possible under the circumstances.

In the years since, orange slices have remained a part of Christmas, as have the memories of those years when we had little, but a Mom and Dad who were intent on our never knowing it.

The "news" in newspapers

Except for a couple of years early on and several in the late 80s and early 90s, I have spent my entire career at community newspapers — those places small enough that you are recognized more times than not when out in the community.

I find the discussion about what newspapers must do to survive to be both puzzling and, at the same time, comical. The answer almost seems too easy: Get back to the basics of providing news to your audience.

To me, the difficult part comes when a group of people begin the discussion of exactly what is the news and which news they want to give to their audience. That, I think, is the root of the problem. While newspaper people read newspapers, they do it in a different manner ... they must put themselves in the respective shoes of their audience.

That, obviously is harder for some — and it is where community newspapers hold the upper hand.

While all newspapers can make a difference in their market, it is the staffer at the Small Town Daily News that gets feedback first. In fact, a big city staffer may never get the word that someone thought what they wrote made a difference but you can bet the reporter at STDN heard about it — at the grocery store and cafe and probably just about every place they went.

Even though the economy has battered the community newspapers just as it has their bigger brothers and sisters, there is a complicating factor for the big guys. They are, you see, expected to be all things to all people.

These days — and economic times — that's more and more difficult.

The community's have the upper hand because they've already made the tough decisions during previous economic downtowns in the 1980s, early 90s and early in this decade. Many have eliminated the wire services and have been all local for years ... and it has served them well.

At three newspapers where we reduced or eliminated wire presence, the circulation increased (Big Spring, Texas; Thomasville, NC and Bogalusa, La.). Additionally, the perception that the newspaper was an active participant in the community grew as did the perception that the newspaper was a community leader.

And remember: Whatever the case may be, to the holder of the belief, perception is reality.

So what's local news? It's the stuff that made up the cliches' we spouted for years ... refrigerator art, the things being talked about in the coffee shop, barber shop, beauty shop and grocery store. In small town America, if people are talking about it, it's news.

One of the things I stress to participants in my community newspaper seminar is what I call, "The six most important words in community newspapering."

Local names. Local faces. Local activities.

Take that recipe, stir it gently at first then blend vigorously on the pages of your newspaper and I think you'll find your audience loves the taste.

The Great Armadillo Wars

It began as a slow incursion.

            A single, brown clump of dirt standing starkly against the lush green of the lawn was the first signal that something was amiss. Closer investigation revealed a small hole, about four inches across by four inches deep with the dirt and sod piled alongside.

            As the days lingered, more and more of the brown clumps appeared.

            It was a sign that war had been declared. That the invasion had occurred and time for armed confrontation had arrived.

            It was reminiscent of a battle fought some 30 years and 100 miles to the north and seemed simple enough … a walking, talking, thinking Homo sapien matching wits and skills with a little mammal that looks as prehistoric as its lineage corroborates.

            Armadillos are small placental mammals, known for having a leathery armor shell. In Spanish, armadillo means "little armored one".

            I thought back to those first wars. Those fought in the backwoods of Sullivan’s Hollow in Smith County, Miss. If there were any doubts that armadillos are prolific diggers, one only had to remember those wars.

            Although it was back in the 70s, I recall them as if they were just yesterday … armadillos making their way into the lush, green yard in Smith County. In retrospect, they probably came up from around Cohay, a creek that runs through the region before emptying into the Leaf River. Then again, they could have come up from the branch that ran behind the old crib and garden. There had to be a number of burrows they could have claimed for their own without ever having to dig one bit of dirt.

            The old man hated them. He didn’t care that they were looking for food, only that his yard looked as if a Case Eagle-hitch tractor pulling a 12-row plow had torn everything to pieces.

            He knew all the four-letter words — and used them. He must have used every single one of them when it came to the armadillos. He tried all the old home remedies, such as mothballs and cayenne pepper. Nothing worked.

            Things had reached the stage where the old man was ready to declare war. The first volley was after midnight one Saturday.

            Sitting in a rocker, dressed only in his underwear, he sat with a .45 caliber pistol. He sat and waited; knowing the illumination from a yard light would let him know when the enemy arrived.

            Soon, a shadowy figured appeared. It scurried for a few steps, then stopped and uprooted ground. It repeated this routine several times before the old man slowly pushed the screen door open. He did it ever so slowly so as to keep the rusty spring from squeaking and sounding an alarm.

            Ever so slowly he raised his arm and pointed the pistol at the armadillo.

“BAM, BAM, BAM!!!, followed by a “Damned armadillo!!”

The noise echoed as it cleared the swamps of Cohay, waking up neighbors as the quiet of the night was shattered and the armadillo scurried away to safety.

There were more battles and at least two more times when the old man rolled out the artillery. He never got his enemy, but he finally got rid of it. Perhaps it was the noise … and perhaps it was just time for the armadillo to move on. But the time came that the old man was able to claim victory and his yard began to heal.

These days, no signs of the battles remain, but if you go out behind that old house on Fellowship Road late at night, yard illuminated by the full moon, you can almost hear the sounds  … BAM, BAM, BAM!!! Damned armadillo!

All of that came back to me earlier this year.

The old man, you see, was my Dad and just as I had laughed at him when he fought his war, I know he had to be looking down at me, laughing his head off, as my own armadillo war got under way.

Every morning, it seemed, there were new spots in the front yard where my new enemy had rooted around, looking for grubs. A friend even said our front yard must be “special” because those belonging to neighbors left and right remained unscarred.

Out came the laptop as I looked for ways to get rid of our “little armored one.” There were many suggestions and I settled on trying to capture ours … and reminiscent of college days when alcohol flowed more freely, I settled on waiting one night and then sneaking up on it and quickly covering it with a No. 4 wash tub.

Go ahead, laugh. It didn’t sound that great then, but I was ready to try anything. I’m just glad that when the confrontation finally happened, there was no one around to see it.

My wife and I waited in her vehicle one Saturday night, relying on the light of the moon and a distant yard light to offer illumination. She gave up about midnight and I folded my hand about 2 and went to bed. It was about 4 when I heard the sound … the rubbing of its shell against the house as it began to root. I quickly pulled on a pair of shorts and looked out the window. There the little bastard was … rooting away. Rooting away in MY yard!

I eased outside as it moved to a side yard. Picking up the washtub, one of the handles made a noise and its head snapped up. As I started running toward it, it scurried away. I had forgotten my Texas Jaycees days and armadillo races and just how fast the little critters are!

There was no sign of it, although I could smell its musty smell. Following that, I found what looked to be a burrow under a neighbor’s tool shed. Could it be?

The next afternoon, I collected several eight-foot long boards that I had pulled up as I redid a back deck. Having read that armadillos couldn’t climb over anything, I constructed a barrier — my version of the Maginot Line from the French military — that stretched about 50 feet and bolstered by cinder blocks … an eight-inch tall wall that worked!

My wife laughed as I constructed my “armadillo wall,” even taking photos to post on Facebook, but I had the last laugh. Months later there have been no more signs of rooting in the yard … although the neighbor behind us hasn’t been so lucky!

Can you tell me ... ?

"What's the biggest story you ever covered?" I was asked when being interviewed for a small town editor's job.

After thinking about it, I knew there really wasn't one set answer, and I told them that.

"But, what about Hurricane Katrina? It has to be the biggest story you ever covered. It has to be the story of a lifetime."

No, not if you're located more than 100 miles from where Katrina made landfall ... not if you're more than 50 miles away from the nearest flooded neighborhood or storm-destroyed building in Slidell.

But that's the geography tied to living anywhere in the region where Hurricane Katrina hit back on Aug. 29, 2005. To those who watched from the safety of their homes elsewhere, every community down here was flooded and there were buildings destroyed around every corner ... and the dead bodies ... oh, the humanity of it all.

Yes, the greater New Orleans area was hit devastatingly hard. Slidell was slammed and the Mississippi Gulf Coast was horrible ... but here in Bogalusa, where Katrina's eye passed 15 miles to the east, it was the aftermath that was the story.

Trees downed everywhere, no power for weeks, no phones and what seemed to be the hottest weather of the year.

At The Daily News, the days following Katrina were spent trying to get to the point where we could once again publish a newspaper. We learned in an otherwise dark newsroom that a 7kw generator would power three Macs, a single-headed shop light and a fan. Because there was no power, there were no businesses to call on to sell advertising, so sales reps looked for photo opportunities and took notes. The news staff, which was down to myself and lifestyle editor Barbara "Bob Ann" Breland, took photos and notes in anticipation of the day we would once again print.

While the major media descended on New Orleans and their corporate owners got broadcast outlets on the air from other locations and the Times-Picayune put out a newspaper on-line from Baton Rouge until it could again print a newspaper three days later. It would be another 11 days before we in Bogalusa would put out a newspaper ... and that, in itself, takes most of the "breaking" out of the news.

Our effort was one of logistics: the who, what, when, why, where and how we would get our job done. The reporting part was easy ... you cover the food and water lines, the complaints about FEMA, try to find gasoline when you hit half-a-tank, wipe the sweat away, watch the power crews assemble and work ... and you repeat it day after day after day.

I told the corporate hack that and must have emphasized the logistical part a bit too much in his mind, for it's the thing he remembers today about that interview. I didn't get that job and, when I became a finalist for another editor's job within his organization, couldn't even get the courtesy of a phone call to tell me why he wouldn't allow the publisher to interview me!

Bogalusa was a shambles after Katrina, but we were whole. There was no gymnasium filled with body bags and there was no water lapping at the eaves of houses ... ours was a community filled with tales of woe as well as being filled with wonderful volunteers from around the country.

For that, I'm thankful. I'm thankful our coverage of the storm turned into much less than our counterparts to the south and east ... even if that's the way it was imagined elsewhere.

My biggest stories, in no particular order:
• Mother places baby in hot clothes dryer after hearing voices
• Would-be Klan member killed after she decides she doesn't want to join and seeks to leave
• Series of tornadoes rakes the Mississippi Delta, killing more than 20 ... warning sirens go off as we walk throughout a destroyed downtown with flashlights and spotlights amid an eerie silence
• Santa Fe Railroad seeks to abandon line through West Texas and connecting into Mexico (our coverage led to the saving of the line)
• Texas educational reform
• Water rights issues in West Texas
• Death of furniture industry in Thomasville, NC and its impact
• NAFTA
• Educational issues in Bogalusa City Schools
• Nolan Ryan's 300th win and 5,000th strikeout
• Massive hail storm with softball-sized hail that hit Big Spring, Texas on May 10, 1996, destroying eight homes
• Crop-killing hail storm in Nebraska in 1995
• Manhunt for a multiple killer in the Texas Hill Country with DPS troopers standing watch over the dozen or so print and broadcast reporters

Yes, Hurricane Katrina was the biggest natural disaster to ever hit the United States, but it wasn't even the biggest news story in Bogalusa that year ... that belonged to a maverick politician who issued contracts to friends and cronies, spent money and then went back and convinced the city council to post-date the paperwork!

One family's love affair with trains

I've loved the sight and sound of a train for as long as I can remember. I got it honestly. My daddy loved trains, too. Every time we went someplace, daddy seemed to know where the trains were and we went to see them. In those days, the big, black steam engines were in their final days and daddy loved driving alongside them as the drivers went round and round and the smoke billowed from the stack.

My grandfather Walker was a logging engineer in South Central Mississippi. While there have been folks who told me there were no Heisler locomotives on the logging lines that spiderwebbed across the countryside, I've got two pictures of Grandaddy Walker, one in the cab and another alongside with his crew, to prove they did.

As I grew up and moved away, any trip home to Sullivan's Hollow, Miss. was reason for Mom and Dad and me to get in the car and go over to Laurel, where we could watch Southern's fast freights and the beautiful green and gold Southern Crescent ply the rails. There were times when Mom and I would catch the Crescent and ride up to Meridian, sitting back and watching the countryside fly by at 79 miles per hour ... and there were times when all you needed was to hear the sound of the horns and the roar of the diesels.

Dad died in June 1989, but he had planted the seed and nurtured it. Just like the cotton he grew as a farmer, my love of trains blossomed and bloomed under his love and care.

My great-nephew, Adam, was born in June 1989 ... so close in time to Daddy's death that I can't help but think their souls had to have passed in the night — much like two trains meeting on tracks in a vast darkness.

For his second Christmas, I gave Adam a big, plastic, battery-powered train. Little did I know that I had ignited the same fire in Adam that my dad had in me. And as he grew, so did his love for trains ... and his desire to one day become an engineer.

Along the way, his Papaw and Granny Gorrell took him to chase trains, just like Mom and Dad did with me. And all along, Adam wanted to be an engineer. He didn't talk about it all the time, but there was never a very long break in the process.

We all know that little boys wanting to be engineers and firemen are just one of those dreams ... dreams of a child ... and of young men. Adam, who became 21 in June, turned a dream into reality when he went to work for a small, regional railroad in his native Pennsylvania and then, in September, he graduated from CSX's conductor school in Atlanta.

Now, the little boy who could barely hold those plastic train cars those many Christmases ago, helps runs trains with 12,000 horsepower, 100 cars and weighs in the neighborhood of 16 thousand tons.

Like my Daddy did with me, Adam's grandparents helped nurture his love for trains.

I really don't know what role Granddaddy Walker played in my Dad's love for trains, but I can't help but think that every time Adam climbs into the cab of a locomotive, both his great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather are smiling as this family's love affair with trains just keeps rolling along.

Non-smoker rights going up in smoke

A non-smoking cancer survivor in Bogalusa, La. made a verbal request to the HR director at a local telephone call center to provide a non-smoking table in the outside (covered) break area.

There are currently three tables in the area, all dominated by smokers with the only options left to the nons being either suck in the second-hand smoke or stay inside. There are, you see, no other places to sit outside.

While the HR director commented he thought the request was good and valid, the site supervisor greeted it with a "good news, bad news" response. The good news, he said, was that a non-smokers area would be added but, because warm weather will soon be ending, it won't be done until next spring since people won't be going outside.

By the way, for those of you who don't know where Bogalusa is located, it's about an hour north of New Orleans and 25 minutes west of I-59 in the far southeast corner of Louisiana ... not exactly the land of blizzards and white outs.

So, in a community where the average low ranges between 38-43 degrees for the Nov.-Feb. period and the average high is between 60-64 degrees, are we to presume those three smokers tables will be removed because of weather concerns?

Don't hold your breath, unless you're a non-smoker trying to survive the cloud in the break area.

Is another change coming?

On Tuesday (Nov. 2), millions of unhappy Americans will go to the polls to elect members of Congress and it looks as if the change that hit in 2008 will continue.

This time, however, the change may be a movement back toward where America was before bank bailouts, auto bailouts, healthcare reform and everything else associated with the current administration.

To say the Obama-Reid-Pelosi regime has held themselves as "holier than thou" might just be an understatement. To say they realize their party is in trouble would also be an understatement. That is clearly evident by the polls — and the money being spent on troubled incumbents, such as Nevada's Harry Reid.

Our system works because people can change it through the election process ... and it's time for change.