#ik her top is blue but the top that came with the costume didn’t fit me right

[worm-in-a-trenchcoat]

AHHHHH!!!

My Ariel wig came in the mail today!!

I still have to tweak some things and add accessories but I’m so exciteddddd!!

[the-record-columns]

November 7, 2018: Columns

Thank you, Sammy Lovette, from all of us

By KEN WELBORN

Record Publisher

At the Veterans’ Brick Walk Dedication Ceremony this past Saturday at the Wilkes Heritage Museum, the keynote speaker, Command Sgt. Maj. Jim Parker of Wilkesboro, took me aside and asked if I planned to run my column about my friend, Sammy Lovette this week.

I assured him that I was, and that column is what follows.

 I was in the seventh grade at North Wilkesboro Elementary   School before I had a young and pretty teacher.

Perhaps it was the seventh grade before I cared either, but I will never forget her. She was our Health and Physical Education teacher, Freida Matthews. Freida was, and is, beautiful, and every boy in the seventh grade was in love with her. It had to be love, because it was Mrs. Matthews who took us to the gym - for dancing lessons. Not a word of complaint from the Great Unwashed, just the ever-present request, “Mrs. Matthews, can you show me again exactly how I’m supposed to hold the girl?”

And, speaking of the “Unwashed,” my mind immediately returns to Miss Finley, the second grade, and the tight-knit group of boys who would never “tell” on one another, no matter what the consequences. Yes, “I’ll Never Tell,” The Code of the Great Unwashed, may sound cute or funny now, but when you were in Miss Finley’s class, you needed all the help you could get. After all, this is the same Miss Finley who never batted an eye about walking straight into the boy’s bathroom to quell a disturbance.

The boys in this class      stood up for one another, and there are names I will never forget: Bobby Lewis, Richard Watson, Gary Anderson, Arthur Lowe, Jr., Randy Absher, Jimmy Blankenship, Q. V. Porter, Kurt Johnson, and to a lesser extent, Tim Moore and Gray Crouse. But there’s one more, and he is the one I remember best, a kid I never met until the second grade, but who became friend for life - Sammy Lovette.

I knew nothing of Sammy Lovette until 1956. Sammy was from Second Street Hill in North Wilkesboro. In those days, houses lined both sides of Second Street and the kids all came to North Wilkesboro Elementary.

From the first day, Sammy and I hit it off. He was the older brother in his family and I was the younger brother in mine, so we always seemed right at home in each other’s company. Sammy Lovette was a good kid, a dead-shot in a game of marbles, a whiz at kick-ball, a decent student, and best of all, a friend you could trust.

That year - 1956 - was an election year. Why mention the election of ‘56? That’s an excellent question, but for reasons unknown to me, the election seemed to be on the mind of Miss Elizabeth Finley on the day that Sammy Lovette became a friend I could never forget.

It was during a daily rest period that out of the clear blue came a noise like a clap of thunder. Miss Finley had taken her yardstick and slammed it down on the top of her desk as hard as she could. The sound was tremendous and every kid in the room jumped straight up in his or her seat. It is probably a good thing that those desks were bolted to the floor.

Mary Kolodny started crying.

Miss Finley then yelled, “I like Ike!” She continued, “Yes, I like Ike, and I don’t care who knows it!”

She had just about scared the whole class to death.

“Now, lay your heads back down.” She calmly intoned after her brief statement, but no one dozed off that day.

Sammy Lovette sat in the row next to me, just ahead. After the “I like Ike” episode, Sammy and I started whispering about something or another. After a bit, I took my pencil over to the window to sharpen it. The window looked out to Mrs. Gentry, the cafeteria lady’s house. I would always get hungry when I would think of her and those wonderful lunches she and Laura Belle Whittington prepared. The pencil was one of those big fat ones that just barely fit into the biggest opening of the Boston Sharpener bolted to the windowsill. I can still smell those pencil shavings.

After I returned to my seat, I tried to get Sammy’s attention to tell him something else. When Sammy didn’t notice, I leaned out to tap him to get him to turn around.

Just as I reached out, Sammy slid around to whisper something to me, and, before I could stop, my hand, which was still holding the freshly sharpened pencil, hit him in the thigh. Sammy yelled out in pain as the sharp end of that big pencil dug through his pants and into his leg. I immediately pulled my hand away, and Sammy slid back into his seat.

 "What was that, Sammy?“ Miss Finley questioned.

”Nothing,” Sammy replied.

 "But, what was that noise all about?” she persisted.

"What noise?“ Sammy asked, his voice kind of trailing off, knowing he was in trouble. The conversation went back and forth between Miss Finley and Sammy until she gave him the ultimatum. "Tell me why you made that racket, or who made you, or I’m going to paddle your bottom.”

Sammy just lowered his head and said nothing. In just a minute Miss Finley came to Sammy’s desk, took him by the hand and led him out into the hall.

 Paddlings are a lot like executions; there is a sort of morbid curiosity that finds you wanting to watch, whether you are for or against the prisoner. In first grade, Mrs. Minnie Horton always took you to the front of the class to paddle you (an excellent deterrent to more bad behavior).

Miss Finley, on the other hand (or bottom), would take you out to the hall. All you ever heard was a muffled “whap” and a kid crying, analogous I suppose to the lights flickering in Raleigh when they threw the switch on Old Sparky in the Deathhouse.

Sammy took his licks without a sound. He didn’t cry, holler, run or try to sneak a spelling book into his pants. He just took his punishment.

And he didn’t “tell.”

As Sammy returned to his seat, I mouthed “I’m sorry” to him and he nodded his head and mouthed “Okay.”

After school that day Sammy rolled up his trousers and showed me the place on his leg. There, just above his knee was about three-eighths-inch piece of lead from that pencil still imbedded in his thigh. I couldn’t believe it, but Sammy was proud. Proud he didn’t, as he put it, “…cry when you or Miss Finley got me today.”

Sammy and I were in school together for years and we never had a cross word. I never forgot how he took a paddling for me, and we laughed many times about the lead that stayed in his leg forever. As teenagers, I would see Sammy somewhere and, before we would even speak, he would smile and point down to his thigh.

Sammy Lovette was killed in Vietnam in 1969, the only personal friend I lost in that war. I used to see Sammy’s late mother, Hildred, from time to time and wonder what I could possibly say to comfort her. I think she knew that Sammy was and is always in the hearts of many who will never forget him.

Sammy Lovette was a good man, even as a little boy.

All Saints Day

By LAURA WELBORN

Record Columnist

All Saints Day or All Soul’s Day is right behind Halloween and there is a reason.  

Halloween or All Hallows Eve is a traditional holy day celebrating the day before All Saints Day. Traditionally, Christians would come together on All Hallows Eve to ask for God's blessing and protection from the evil in the world.  (It seems that in the past few weeks we have experienced a lot of evil with intentional purpose.)  

Today we celebrate All Hallows Eve by donning on saintly and evil spirit costumes to act out the battle between good and evil. If only we could battle evil so simply. But I believe we can make an impact on battling evil by how we live our lives everyday.

When we think of All Souls Day and those we have lost it makes us reflect on those who have died before us. The loss of that person leaves us with an emptiness that is hard to fill.  It’s the memories and love from that person that sustains us and it is how we honor that person by living our lives with love and kindness to others so they can live on through us.

I think about some of the amazing people who died this past year and I think of the example of kindness that Jane Lowe, Nancy Church, Dr. Duane Smith and Blum Johnson showed in how they lived their lives and the holes they left in our community and families. I think about how I live my life and what do I do that honors the people that have loved me.

I know that everyone, eventually, looses somebody they love, something they need, or something they thought was meant to be. But it is these very losses that make us stronger and eventually move us toward future opportunities.  It is our challenge to be ready to learn, be ready for a life’s tests, and be ready to experience something that just might change us forever.

How often do we wait all day for 5 p.m., all week for Friday, all year for the holidays, for happiness and peace.   The secret to happiness and peace is letting this moment be what it is, instead of what you think it should be, and then making the very best of it.

One of the most important abilities you can develop in life is the willingness to accept and grow through life’s challenges and discomforts.  The best things are often hard to come by.   Mastering a new skill is hard. Building a business is hard. Writing a book is hard. A marriage is hard. Friendships are hard. Parenting is hard. Staying healthy is hard. But all are amazing and worth every bit of effort you can muster.

Daily kindness is a beautiful legacy to leave behind. Through kindness you have the ability to make a profound difference in every life you touch, including your own. When you guide somebody who is lost and confused, when you hold somebody who is sad and grieving, when you hug somebody who has lost all their hope, you too will feel yourself healing and growing stronger.” (inserts from Marc and Angel Hack life blog)

Honor the people who have gone before you by not letting anything negative be said in your presence about someone. Lift people up with kindness and you will remember how the person you lost loved you, and how through that love they will live on within us. The people who died senselessly at the Tree of Life Synagogue were honored by how they lived their life. They rest in peace and we know they did not die in vain, but as an example of living their life in celebration of love.

Laura Welborn, Mediator and Counselor at Donlin Counseling Services.  Visit www.donlincounseling.com

Show them love or show them hate

By EARL COX

Special to The Record

“All Jews must die!” - was the scream coming from the gunman who murdered 11 Jews at a synagogue in Pittsburgh as they gathered for Shabbat prayer.

This horrific act has shaken the core of all Americans. Christians everywhere should be mourning with our Jewish brothers and sisters as we are all part of the same faith family through the Hebrew Scriptures.

The murder of these 11 Jews was the worst act of anti-Semitism in American history. But equally unprecedented is how so many non-Jews, Christians and others, are choosing to rightfully stand shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish people during this time of sorrow and mourning.

Daily in the news we read and hear about violence, hate, civil discord and human beings at odds with each other and in very hateful ways.  Sadly, politicians have been exploiting the recent frightening series of events from the bombs being mailed through the U.S. Postal Service to the tragic synagogue massacre but anger, frustration and deep divisions are nothing new and have been percolating for quite a while. 

Nevertheless, the fact remains that no one deserves to die or be harassed due to their faith, beliefs, politics, nationality, sexual orientation, race or creed so long as they do not hamper, infringe upon, or trample the rights of others. The rule of law in part means equal protection under the law for all.  And simple basic humanity requires compassion for those who are suffering and grieving. 

Our Jewish brothers and sisters mourn a bit differently than Christians and it would be helpful for us to understand their customs, so we may demonstrate kindness and compassion and not be inadvertently offensive. 

My Orthodox Rabbi friend Tuly Weisz explained that, “For the next 30 days for a spouse, sibling or child – and 11 months for a parent – the Jewish mourner who follows tradition goes to the synagogue to say a special mourner’s prayer called Kaddish. The name of prayer means ‘holy’ in Hebrew. The prayer goes back more than 1,000 years, and while not addressing death or grief directly, praises God and His great and holy name, even at this difficult time.”

Christians are taught to give “thanks in all things,” but do we practice this teaching? We are also taught to “rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.”  

Just like the Jews, we are a three-cord community - God, family, and community.  

I believe the core of humanity is inherently good and civil. A baby is born an innocent blank slate. The influences of parents, caregivers and others around us mold and shape our thoughts, actions and attitudes. Violence and hatred are moving in closer to home at a quickening pace.  But we have a choice.

The next generation is watching and we can either show them hatred or love. 

In learning about how Judaism honors the dead, may we all – Jews and non-Jews – come to a greater appreciation of the value of life by embracing our families, strengthening our communities and honoring God.