2020.01.31 THROW BACK THURSDAY - MORE NEWSBOYS plus Class News

Got lots of responses from last week's TBT about the demise of the printed Arkansas Democrat Gazette.  Thought you'd enjoy a couple of them:

One of my great memories are my time as a "Paper Boy" delivering the Arkansas Democrat to about 100 customers in our neighborhood.  Walking the route with the big pouches full of papers hanging in the front and back.  In those days, not only did we deliver but we also had to collect for payment.  Most customers paid by the month while some paid weekly.  It was upsetting when some would not pay when you came to collect and asked you to come back another day.  It was good learning experience to find that some folks just didn't pay their bills at all.

Unfortunately, print newspapers seemed to be doomed to become digital.  How are we going to house train the puppy and what are we to use in the bottom of the bird cage?

Jim Diffee

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I have to relate my experience as a Gazette "paper" boy.

I was probably around 12-13 years old, my Dad was on me to get a summer job rather than lay around the pool at Fair Park all day and I would tell him I tried but no one would hire me etc. but one day I came home from swimming and he said, "You've got a job !!" with a paper route,  which was news to me because I hadn't talked to anyone at the Gazette.  It turns out a guy from the Gazette had been driving around our neighbor hood , saw my best buddy, Benny Wise, and asked him if he would like to have a paper route.  He said no, but knew someone who would, and gave him my name and phone # who in turn talked to my Dad etc.  So I ended up with a route of 175 households, ( no apartments) that covered Denison, Park, and Schiller streets from about 5th st ( near the railroad tracks) to 12th st.  They delivered the bundles of papers to a  laundry around 10th and Denison around 3:00AM and I walked it ( no bicycle) til around 6:00AM.  Dad had to "spot" papers for me on Sundays at different locations on the route because of the size and weight of the bundles. Thank God, it only lasted one summer.  Next time you see Benny, ask him and he will verify it.  ( I never forgave him etc.)

Jimmy Martin

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CLASS NEWS

And here's some information we all can use from Dr. Hal Gentry concerning an aid with eyesight problems:

If you can communicate with Nancy Rector, tell her if she has or can get an iPhone, its AI voice Siri will read her unread mail for her. She just says, “Hey Siri read my last inbox email”. 

She can also ask Siri to call a contact that’s in the Contact list - “Hey Siri, call Marylou Cabiness”. Someone will have to load her contacts into the phone. 

She can ask Siri to make a grocery list in her “Reminders”. She can then say”Hey Siri, read my grocery list”. She can then have Siri delete or edit the list. 

There is an ap in progress, called “AI”, thats’s A Eye. It is designed for you to point the iphone camera at a document and it will read it out loud to you. It’s primitive and not yet really practical, but when they get the bugs out it will be a huge help for the visually impaired. 

Nancy Conrad Rankin suffered a slight stroke last week.  Her face went numb.  They kept her in the hospital for a couple of nights, but she's home now and feeling fine.

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OK, I've been saving this one.  Since we don't have any obits to list this week, thank you Lord, this is an actual obituary that was published in our very own Arkansas Democrat Gazette several months back.  Don't know how it caught my eye, but it was a keeper.  I'm copying it just as it was written.  Sorry I didn't know Lynda.  Bet it would have been a trip!

IVAN - Well if you are reading this, Lynda Jean Gill Garrett Lightfoot has passed, croaked, kicked the bucket or left the building.  I croaked from complications of surgery on December 5, 2019.  I was a hoot!  If I thought it, I said it.  Good things only,  If I liked you, you knew it and if I didn't - you knew that too!  My greatest accomplishment was my grandchildren and my great-grandsons, . . ..  I loved those kids and worshiped them.

I was a "redneck" woman.  I great up in small town Carthage, AR.  I always said I graduated 9th in my class.  It was only 9 in my class!  Sounded good.  I loved people, talking, yard sales, Goodwill stores, also my Sunday School class, my church in Cooterneck, AR, also my pastor, he is so cute, Elvis and George Strait.  I loved oldies, music, country and southern gospel.  I drove the "crap" out of my car.  I know it knows I have fizzled.  I loved the Southwest, especially New Mexico, Wyoming, the plains and cornbread.  I knew where every bathroom was in 25 states.

I am survived by my husband, all of his wives died on him; my favorite son, my favorite daughter, my sister, a favorite too, lots of family and a few friends, I hope.  My parents and my baby daddy preceded me.  As I visit with Jesus, I will say "hi".

"What a ride!  See ya'll."

I forgot.  I was born!  I slept in a dresser drawer.  See, no wonder I acted like I did!   She was buried in Tulip Cemetery.

Enjoy the big game Sunday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Sorry, I'm one day late.  This darn J.O.B. gets in my way sometimes! lol

ML