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East Texas is a great place to call home

By BRENDA BEDGOOD BROWN

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“Everything I have is wore out, broke down, falling over, or rotting off. I wouldn’t have anything new. Even if I did, I wouldn’t show it to you.”

Wyatt Moore of Caddo Lake,

from the book “Every Sun that Rises”

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I mentioned Wyatt Moore in my column last week and the book a friend recently gave me is still in my office so I thumb through it every now and then just to lift my spirits. Moore, who was 91-plus when he died in 1993, was an East Texas treasure and a Caddo Lake character not soon to be forgotten!

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Cora Morris dropped by earlier this week to say she found a copy of “Every Sun That Rises” online and couldn’t wait to get it and read it. You will love it, Cora! I told Randy Cox about it a few weeks ago during a Lions Club meeting and he has also purchased a copy online. If they are like me, they won’t be able to loan it out!

I have a severe mental disorder when it comes to owning certain books. My other all-time favorite is “Love Is A Wild Assault,” by Elithe Hamilton Kirkland. It’s a historical novel based on fact and set at…Caddo Lake! This book changed my entire life when I read it during the summer after I graduated from high school. Seriously. I didn’t know much at all about Caddo Lake’s colorful history until I read this book.

A few years later, I took a job as editor of The Wimberley View, primarily because I found out Elithe Hamilton Kirkland lived there! I always found it hard to believe this little lady with a beehive hairdo wrote that book! She was so sweet to me when I gushed about how her novel changed my life. She probably thought I was crazy but I truly believe we shortchange our children when we don’t teach them local history at a young age.

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Have I ever mentioned I love and adore Caddo Lake? Oh yeah, I guess I have – and I’m pretty sure I will do so again. (That’s a promise and a warning!) I was just thinking I am so blessed to have someplace so wonderful and so beautiful so close to my home and my heart. Several of my Gregg County friends’ children are convinced it’s called “Brenda’s Lake” and I have never attempted to correct them.

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I’m grateful to live in East Texas for many reasons. Whenever I visit Dallas, I look around when I’m on the freeways and think: There are more people on this road right now than there are people who live in Atlanta! When I was younger, all I could think about was getting outta here but I never did go to a big city. I just couldn’t do the traffic and I couldn’t even pretend!

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Speaking of, the Wall Street Journal published a story on Tuesday about a 60-mile traffic jam outside of Beijing that could be snarled for…get this…weeks! Seems they are building a new roadway from the capital city to Tibet/Inner Mongolia and it appears their highway department planners didn’t really think things through before beginning the work.

WSJ reporter Shai Oster says vehicles are inching along at the rapid pace of approximately one-third of a mile per day! Highway department officials don’t expect the problem to “ease up” until Sept. 17. “Ease up” doesn’t sound too promising to me.

Anyway, hundreds of police officers have been dispatched to keep law and order and nearby villagers are selling instant noodles to those poor people who are stuck in line. Oster writes, “Truck drivers, when they weren't complaining about the vendors overcharging for the food, kept busy playing card games. Their trucks, for the most part, are basic, blue-colored vehicles with no features added to help pamper drivers through long hauls.”

Life is pretty good in East Texas, don’t you think?

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Talking about highway departments makes me think of a road trip my cousin Rosemary and I took a few years ago to New Orleans (my beloved yet beleaguered city, filled with history and ties to Caddo Lake!). I was an insurance adjuster/investigator then and I worked Texas and Louisiana claims. Car wrecks were my bread and butter and I worked a whole lot of them throughout the northern half of our sister state. All I can say is, “God bless the Texas Highway Department!”

I told Rosemary before we departed the beautiful Lone Star State to keep track of the intersections we encountered. I’m convinced Louisiana has some of the craziest intersections in America because no two are ever the same. I always say, “Every day is a new day at the Louisiana Highway Department” and by the time we returned home, Rosemary couldn’t help but agree!

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I got so tickled Thursday morning when I checked www.facebook.com. Lee Ellen Benjamin wrote: “I don’t want to brag, but I can still fit into the earrings I wore in high school.” Too funny, Lee Ellen!

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Speaking of Thursday, I do believe I could see the beginnings of fall that morning. I don’t know the exact temperature but it was much cooler than it has been for what seems like years. Goodbye, August – Hello, September!

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Jeff McCombs in Shreveport – if you called the Journal to tell me you made Big Pines Lodge Cole Slaw, call me back. I didn’t have a written message but I keep thinking someone said you called so call me when you get a chance.

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Bennie Moore, of O’Farrell Country Vineyards fame, was the guest speaker at Thursday’s Rotary meeting. Bennie and his wife Judy have a “U Pick-M” muscadine ranch out at O’Farrell and he reports the pickin’ is good. In fact, folks are already coming from near and far to pick muscadines, of which Bennie reports several hundred pounds have already been sold for $1 per pound. Last year they sold 3,300 pounds of the native American grapes, if that’s any gauge.

The Moores’ place includes the site of the long-ago O’Farrell Post Office, which Bennie says was in operation between 1886 and 1905. The post office building also included a general store and a doctor’s office. (It’s gone now.) He actually remembers Mr. Tom Tate, who was the last postmaster for the community. The barn you see when you go pick ‘em was built from lumber salvaged from the old two-room O'Farrell School house. (How cool is that? I wish someone would build me a house like that!)

Anyway, the Moores have 14 varieties of muscadines – Sweet Jenny, Rosa, Darlene, Ison, Black Fry, Cowart, Black Beauty, Carlos, Bronze Fry, Supreme, Noble, Hunt, Nesbit and Sugargate. You can pick to your heart’s content Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays through Oct. 15, between the hours of 8 a.m. and 7 p.m.

Bennie brought samples and I can report they are absolutely delicious and much sweeter than the muscadines we find growing wild around these parts.

For more information, visit www.ofarrellvineyard.com; email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; or call 903-846-2054. The vineyard is located at 7152 FM 995, Atlanta.

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Belated happy birthday wishes to Bennie Moore, who turned 68 on Thursday, Aug. 26. He “postponed” his birthday to be Dr. Terry Foster’s guest speaker at Rotary. When Terry said that in his introduction, the female Rotarians perked up because we are certainly wondering how we can “postpone” birthdays!

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One more little aside on Bennie Moore. He took his father, Benjamin Franklin “B.F.” Moore, to renew his driver’s license last week. Mr. Moore will turn 94 on his birthday next month and he will be 100 when he gets his driver’s license renewed the next time! Bennie reports that when they began planting their grapevines four years ago, his father dug every hole for every single plant – all 210 of them!

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Debbie Wilcox Bergt emailed some birthday and anniversary information to me and said some nice things about the Journal. Thanks, Debbie – I was having a really bad press day on Tuesday and your note made me feel so much better!

Happy birthday and many happy returns to Debbie’s husband Peter, who celebrated another year on Saturday, Aug. 28. Peter, I hope you made a big wish that will come true when you blew out your candles!

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Blowing out birthday candles this week are:

Sunday, Aug. 29 – Angela Young and Danny Young

Tuesday, Aug. 31 – Beth Price

Thursday, Sept. 2 – Ronnie Moore, Kadarion Robinson and Gus Schuhmann

Friday, Sept. 3 – Todd Lawrence

Saturday, Sept. 4 – Eric Conner, J.R. Riley and Cheryl Savage

Call me crazy, but I bet we have some folks who celebrated birthdays on Monday and Wednesday too, but they haven’t told me yet so they can’t be listed today. If you have September birthdays, send them to me ASAP! That goes for all of the other months too!

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Ditto for anniversaries. I only have one listing so far for September and their anniversary isn’t until Sept. 23! It’s not difficult. Just write the names and dates down on a piece of paper and drop them by the Journal office or mail them to the Citizens Journal, P.O. Box 1188, Atlanta, Texas 75551. Even easier, email your list to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Naughahyde chairs now works of art

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Ransom joins artists in ‘Chair-ity Bizarre’

By BRENDA BROWN

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It’s amazing what some folks can do with an old orange Naugahyde chair.

As a member of the Texarkana Regional Arts & Humanities Council board of directors, Atlanta’s Travis Ransom re-created a Naugahyde chair into a work of art as part of TRAHC’s upcoming "Chair-ity Bizarre" – a fundraiser that will benefit the "Arts on Main" program.

Ransom’s chair is one of more than 20 that were re-created into art and will be sold at auction on Thursday, Nov. 4.

The chairs are now on display at the Texarkana Regional Arts Center, located downtown at the corner of Fourth and Texas.

Ransom showed off his chair at a recent Atlanta Lions Club meeting. He explained the chairs were donated to TRAHC along with the Stewart Title building which has been remodeled to house the council’s "Arts on Main" classrooms.

Mary Starrett, administrative director for TRAHC, explained "Arts on Main" offers a wide variety of arts classes for both children and adults. Classes include everything from digital photography, calligraphy and drawing to "Congolese African Dance for Adults" and "The Art of Etiquette for Young Men."

Ransom, who works as the district office coordinator for State Sen. Kevin Eltife in Texarkana, said he used some of the old Army battle dress uniforms he wore when he served in Bosnia in 1999.

He explained had a professional embroider "Chairborne Ranger" onto the part of the uniform he used to cover the back of the chair, but otherwise he did all of the upholstery work himself.

Ransom joked with Lions that "Naugas are really hard to catch" but redoing the 1970s-era chairs will bring in needed money for the arts program.

All jokes aside, a listing on www.wikipedia.com states, "A marketing campaign of the 1960s and 1970s asserted humorously that Naugahyde was obtained from the skin of an animal called a ‘Nauga.’ The claim became an urban myth. The campaign emphasized that, unlike other animals, which must typically be slaughtered to obtain their hides, Naugas can shed their skin without harm to themselves."

Starrett said the chairs now on display in the lower level gallery at the Regional Arts Center are "amazing."

"One made a horse of it," she added.

TRAHC is the managing institute for the Perot Theater, the Texarkana Regional Arts Center, as well as for "Arts on Main."

Starrett said more information will be available in the future about the "Chair-ity Bizarre" auction.

For more about TRAHC and its programs, visit www.trahc.org.

Before you pull the trigger...

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Safety comes first in hunter education class

CHRISTY GREEN

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A Cass County game warden’s experiences with hunting accidents brought home the need for hunter education for students who attended the recent Texas Hunter Education class in Atlanta.

Game Warden Dan Hill expressed the importance of the course to all and thanked the parents who brought their youngsters to the class.

"The course has cut the accident rate more than two-thirds," said Hill.

The game warden explained he has worked many hunting accidents, and spoke of one particular fatal accident that could have been prevented with the knowledge of gun safety.

"An inexperienced hunter who was around 30 years old was riding around with his soon-to-be father-in-law checking feeders for quail," said Hill. "The father-in-law, who was driving, spotted some quail and told him to ease out of the back seat of the truck with his gun and shoot some for the grill that evening. The son-in-law went to exit the side door, not realizing his finger was on the trigger, and accidently fired the gun into the back of his father-in-law, killing him."

According to Hill, hunter education was not required at the time of this accident.

PEOPLE OF ALL AGES and genders from near and far, including from Arkansas, joined together at Horne Enterprises on Aug. 14-15 with one thing in common -- a love for hunting.

Instructor of Hunter Education Chuck Wise, who is retired Air Force and law enforcement officer, gave extensive lessons in gun safety, history and an introduction to hunter education, basic shooting and hunting skills, primitive hunting equipment in use today (black powder and archery); safety in the home, field, woods and water; ethics and responsible hunters; preparation, first aid and survival skills, which are all keys to being a responsible and safe hunter.

The Texas Hunter Education began as a voluntary program in 1972. "Mandatory" hunter education became law in 1988, requiring hunters born on or after Sept. 2, 1971, to pass the course.

Since that time, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has certified over 750,000 students.

Another special guest was Penny Wilkerson, regulatory wildlife biologist for TPW in Bowie, Cass and Morris counties, spoke to students about conservation, preservation and the proper management of wildlife.

During deer season, Wilkerson can be found at processing plants gathering data such as the weight of the animal and wear of its teeth to determine the age of a deer and the density of its habitat. She also gets antler measurements to make sure hunters are taking legal bucks.

Wilkerson stated the importance of hunting to maintain carrying capacity – the number of animals the habitat can support all year long.

"If people stopped hunting, the populations of a species would explode," said Wilkerson. "Losing our hunters would be losing our ability to manage wildlife populations."

Wise got everyone involved during the many hands-on activities. He had a table lined with common household items that can be used as tools for survival if the worst-case scenario ever happened, a hunter became lost in the field.

"I take these things with me every time I go hunting – because you just don’t ever know," Wise said.

NO ONE PLANS to be injured during a hunt, but James Murphy, a volunteer firefighters from New Boston who attended the class, gave a demonstration of how to make a splint using sticks and pieces of ripped material in case of a bone fracture.

The younger members of the class enjoyed the demonstration on hypothermia, which may occur in a boating accident in cold conditions. Wise had a bucket of ice water and students had to submerge an arm for 90 seconds to show just how quick the cold temperatures take effect on the body. Many of the volunteers said they couldn’t feel their arm afterward.

Some of the other hands-on activities included the different ways to safely carry a firearm with or without a hunting partner, and Wise used a "dummy deer" for the demonstration on how to approach an animal after a successful shot has been made.

Several videos shown taught how to be a respectful hunter, which shot "to take or not to take" in order to make a clean kill without leaving the animal wounded and making sure the shot taken doesn’t put other hunters, oneself, or other wildlife in danger.

After some 10 hours of required hunter education training, the class of 22 people successfully passed the test, which is comprised of 50 questions.

Anyone interested in taking the hunter education course should call Chuck Wise at 903-826-8576 or 903-799-7668.

Cost of the course is $25 and will be given at Horne Enterprises on Saturdays and Sundays, Sept. 11-12, Oct. 2-3, Nov. 13-14 and Dec. 11-12. Online courses are also available by visiting www.pro-tac.us. The hunter education certification is good for a lifetime and in any other state.

Wise also teaches courses in boater education, concealed handgun certification, security guard training, marksmanship (pistol, rifle and shotgun), home defense, self-defense, law enforcement and military.

to be injured during a hunt, but James Murphy, a volunteer firefighter from New Boston who was attending the class, gave a demonstration of how to make a splint using sticks and pieces of ripped material in case of a bone fracture. and genders from near and far, including from Arkansas, joined together at Horne Enterprises on Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 14 and 15, with one thing in common, the love for hunting.

All colors and genders available

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Kitties await adoption at shelter

Several cats and kittens of all colors and genders are available for adoption at the Atlanta Animal Shelter, located at the Cass County Veterinary Clinic in Atlanta.

One of these cats, a loving Siamese, has two 6- to 8-week-old playful kittens with her.

Cass County Veterinary Clinic is located at the intersection of Texas highways 43 and 77.

These animals have a limited period of time to stay at the shelter.

Around & About

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August is hot for all the wrong reasons

By BRENDA BEDGOOD BROWN

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We got an interesting email the other day stating August 2010 has five Sundays, five Mondays and five Tuesdays – an event that won’t occur again for 823 years!

Sounds intriguing – but it’s not true.

This "fives" phenomenon actually occurs, on average, every seven years, but because of leap years, www.snopes.com states the pattern is more like 6-5-6-11. So whenever "August begins on a Sunday, that event occurs again six years later, then five years later, then six years later, and finally eleven years later, whereupon the cycle repeats."

The next time August will have five Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays will be 2021 – not 2833!

Snopes is a great Web site for fact-checking, especially when it comes to urban legends.

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What is true is that August’s heat has been brutal and the moon and stars have been messing with me and my mother!

In the past two weeks, the central air-conditioning unit in my garage apartment crashed and burned me up, so to speak. Of course, it is an unusual-sized unit so it took 13 days to get the right part and make repairs! Meanwhile, our dryer went out. Then our dishwasher went out. Those two appliances, along with my brand new refrigerator that was delivered with a dent and a scratch, had to be replaced. Last but not least, we had to call an electrician out to the house because the breaker box went awry!

On top of all that, I was talking to a friend in the Journal parking lot Thursday evening when a yellow jacket stung me on the neck! Man, that hurt! Luckily, I’m not overly allergic and my head did not swell to watermelon proportions. Obviously, I’ve got enough problems without that too!

Astrologically speaking, The Universe has been crazy these past couple of weeks and I think it is focused on me – and no, I’m not paranoid.

The coming week has just got to be better…

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Speaking of insanity, my beautiful baby boy, Bubba Wayne, is still fox hunting – as if this little Chihuahua can catch a fox before it catches him! I wrote last week that I sure could use some help outfoxing the fox before it eats my precious Bubba and reader Bill Page of Domino kindly emailed me to say I really should be concerned as an adult red fox likely thinks Chihuahuas are sweet and juicy snacks.

Bill says a fox in the woods will eat small rodents and insects, and in town they will eat whatever they can find. He recalls that his grandfather would urinate around the edge of his yard and house to keep the foxes, wolves and panthers away.

He also remembers when he was a kid that a certain fox wreaked havoc in their family chicken pen, so they used grandpa’s technique and it worked! I’ve heard of doing this to keep deer out of the garden. I don’t know exactly how Mama and I will handle this as there are no men around our house to mark the territory!

I’ll have to think on that one.

Meanwhile, thanks for the advice, Bill.

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Atlanta Lions actually had a good time picking up trash along Texas Highway 77 last Saturday. Nine came out for our first "Adopt-A-Highway" program. Lions President Dr. Don Harper reports we gathered 14 bags of trash (this is far less than I expected!); three tires; and one dead squirrel.

Besides Don and me, the Lions who gathered at 6 a.m. to pick up trash for two hours and two miles were Judy Conner, Eric Conner, Aaron Cooper, Randy Cox, Keith Crow, John Martinez and Steve Pratt.

The highway cleanup program belongs to TxDOT and our contact is Irene Webster, in case other groups or individuals are interested in adopting their own roadways.

Litter is my pet peeve and I wish people wouldn’t do it. It costs the state hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to pick up after people who should know better than to litter the highways and byways of our beautiful Lone Star State. Please do you part and throw away your litter and house trash in a responsible manner, which isn’t along our roadways.

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Atlanta Rabbit Athletic Director Ronnie Melton was the guest speaker for Lions on Wednesday and he says the Rabbs will come to play ball this season. He laughingly told us this is the easiest schedule we’ve had in years – yeah, there’s only one team that didn’t make the playoffs last year and that was Mt. Vernon.

We begin our football season with Gilmer, followed by Daingerfield, Tatum, Pittsburg, Linden-Kildare, North Lamar, Mt. Vernon, Liberty-Eylau and Pleasant Grove. Tatum came in second to Gilmer last year, but the Rabbs beat Tatum so who knows what will happen! Coach Melton says the guys have been working weights all summer and he’s pleased with the way this young team is showing its commitment, pride, character, self-discipline and leadership.

I haven’t been to an Atlanta Rabbit football game in 30 years but my mother rarely misses one. My dad loved the Rabbits all of his life and if he couldn’t go he would listen to the games on the radio. I’m really looking forward to seeing the Rabbs and the Big Bad Band from Rabbitland!

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Atlanta’s first game against Gilmer will be in Tyler as part of the Trinity Mother Frances Football Classic at Rose Stadium. The game is Thursday night, Aug. 26, beginning at 7:30.

If you plan to go, buy your tickets here and save some money. Adult tickets are $8 and student tickets are $6 if you drop by the AISD administration office Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to noon. Student tickets (not adult tickets) will also be for sale at AHS and AMS on Wednesday and Thursday before school and during lunch.

Tickets at the gate are $12 for everyone. That seems hefty but a couple of places online state the tickets are good for all three days of the classic, which includes games on Friday and Saturday nights too.

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The Journal’s football preview will come out in next Wednesday’s edition, so be sure to pick one up if you aren’t a subscriber (which everyone should be!).

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Happy birthday and many happy returns this week to:

Sunday, Aug. 22: Cindy Early and Roger Moulton

Monday, Aug. 23: Lexie Dyer, Patrick Grissom, Beverly Hughes and Charles Roquemore

Tuesday, Aug. 24: John Davidson

Wednesday, Aug. 25: Terri Freda and Freda Vaughan

Thursday, Aug. 26: Bobbie Cates and Haley Clark

Friday, Aug. 27: Izzy Sertuche

Saturday, Aug. 28: Paul Ayers

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Happy anniversary to Dr. James and Cora Morris, who celebrated their 17^th anniversary on Saturday, Aug. 21. Cora read in my column about my trip a few weeks ago to the historic and beautiful Scottsville Cemetery and she brought photos from her wedding to Dr. Morris, which was held in the little church on the grounds. I have never been to the cemetery when the chapel was open so I was thrilled to see the interior. Scottsville Cemetery is a treasure and if you ever get the chance, stop by and walk around. I love it because there are lots of folks buried there who had Caddo connections.

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Please don’t wait until the last minute to send me your birthdays and anniversaries. I’m making a master list for the entire year, so send that information in as soon as you can to: Citizens Journal, P.O. Box 1188, Atlanta, Texas 75551; This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; or drop them by the office at 306 W. Main St.

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I want to leave you with a quote from one of my favorite books. If you have never read "Every Sun That Rises: Wyatt Moore of Caddo Lake," I highly recommend it. I have a hardback edition, signed by the author and purchased for a song on eBay a couple of years ago, as well as a softback edition I bought many years ago. Last week, a friend gave me another copy. Don’t ask to borrow them – it’s the one book I never, ever loan out because it’s out of print and it’s hard to find.

That said, I hope the Atlanta Public Library has a copy, or perhaps you will find one of your own on eBay or Amazon.

I happened to run across my first copy quite by accident in a Dallas book store back in 1989 and I read it beside the pool at my cousin Rosemary’s apartment complex when she lived in Austin. I fell in love with Wyatt Moore – a man who was about 88 years old at that time (he died when he was 91). It’s an oral history-type book, compiled by two college professors using Moore’s own words. He was quite a character.

Perhaps nobody else alive (or dead) can lay claim to the things this man did on Caddo Lake: boat operator, commercial fisherman, guide, commercial hunter, trapper, moonshiner, oil field worker, water well driller and mechanical jack-of-all-trades. He also hunted for freshwater pearls, built wooden boats from trees he cut along the shoreline, and "still found time for his lifelong study of the natural and human history of Caddo Lake…" (Caddo can boast to be the site of the first offshore drilling in the world!)

Wyatt Moore was a hoot and a true East Texas treasure!

As I sign off this week, I want to share my favorite passage, which happens to be the last paragraph of Moore’s oral history, before the beginning of the next part of the book called "The Last Bateau," which is a whole other story about Caddo’s wonderful history and heritage. Here’s my favorite quote, which gave the book its title:

"Well, it’s night on Taylor Island, and I’m looking at the moon and waiting for the alligators to alligate, and the hoot owls to hoot. It’s a wonderful world, ain’t it? It’s a wonderful world for them people that is alive. I know a whole lots of people staggering around that is dead as hell, don’t see nothing, been dead most of their lives. Some people never see a sunrise, or if they see it, never thought nothing about it. I think every sun that rises done it just for me."

Live the life you love and live every day as if it is the last! Look for each sunrise and each sunset and know that God created it all for us to enjoy!

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