A YES, I AM STILL HERE peeking out my window on Main Street, and I want to tell you abouta crossword puzzle I recently defeated.
The puzzle’s clue and answer recently had a Howard County connection.
Crossword clue: Young lads.
Crossword answer: Shavers.
It’s been awhile since I heard a young boy referred to as a ‘Little Shaver.’
Here’s the connection: When Howard County was formed from bits of surrounding counties in 1873, the first sheriff was not a local guy.
He was “General” R.G. Shaver appointed by his ole buddy the governor. Sheriff Shaver is buried in his itchy wool Confederate uniform in the big cemetery at Center Point. At some point after the Civil War, Gen. Shaver had to flee to South America to escape an indictment for being an organizer of the Ku Klux Klan in Arkansas. That’s rumor, of course. But with the election of the new governor all was forgiven and he came back to Arkansas and a ready-made job in a brand new county (Howard County is the state’s second-youngest).
The general had two talented granddaughters who made and sold clever little boy dolls which were called ‘Little Shavers.’
Get it?
The dolls became fashionable and a whole bunch were sold. The name became a part of our culture and crossword puzzles for awhile.
One of the granddaughters took the dolls to a fancy New York City department store. And she eventually became CEO of Lord & Taylor.
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SEMANTICS. Women for the first time can legally drive automobiles in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Women CAN drive? Women MAY drive? I’ll let you decide. I think it should be MAY.
Saudi Arabia was the last country on the face of the earth that prohibited women from driving.
Let me just say another thing I admire about Saudi Arabia: Committing a J-Turn will get you beheaded by the Good Manners Police.
That’s right, driving rules in Saudi Arabia give new meaning to the phrase, “Off with his head!”
Since the first violator was ‘punished’ in the town square, there have been no J-Turns noticed. Saudi Arabs learn quick.
I’m about to give up ever being sworn as a lawful J-Turn Enforcement Officer, and I’m thinking about becoming an undercover J-Turn Deputy.
Still, that might require the mayor to swear me in. For the life of me I cannot understand why he is dragging his feet so!
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Guess who’s coming to dinner.
Is it just my imagination, or have there been a lot of news stories lately about animals eating humans?
Maybe you’ll remember that mountain lion out west. It killed, then ate, some honor student from some college. Or maybe it was a remedial student?
Then a gator pulled a kid into the pond at Disney World and promptly took him to lunch. Soon after that I saw a news story where a croc somewhere got ahold of a woman with similar results.
The latest story was out of Indonesia where a 23-foot boa constrictor ate a woman. Whole. Slurp. Wait a minute. That wasn’t even the newest story. The newest story is that some guy caught an alligator snapping turtle and found a whole human finger in its tummy. Don’t ask me why he was looking into the beast’s tummy. I said don’t ask. Maybe he was gutting the animal in preparation of making turtle soup.
I have one question about all of these deaths: What was the intelligence level of the person who got within grabbing distance of the dangerous animal?
The same for those guys that handle poisonous snakes.
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TEXAS FLOODING. Lord, spare us.
As of this writing June 2025 was more than an inch-and-a-half above normal rainfall, and July is more than double normal.
Thank goodness the National Weather Service hasn’t been ‘Elon Musked’ yet.
What are these articles I see about Cloud Seeding?
We’ve had our own experience with Cloud Seeding here.
Who remembers when that retired Air Force colonel was hired to end a drought by local peach growers? He drove his pickup truck around the area SEEDING CLOUDS.
My memory says it sorta worked. Didn’t deliver all the rain he promised; then the peachmen didn’t deliver all of the money they promised.
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MORE THINGS I LEARNED from opening email: All those who believe in psychokinesis, raise my hand.
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WORD GAMES. I love oxymorons. Usually they are two opposing words, but sometimes one word can do.
Like: bittersweet.
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HE SAID: “The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.” Patrick Henry, Founding Father
Okay, Mr. Henry, what do you know about Epstein’s list?
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SHE SAID: “We have the oldest written constitution still in force in the world, and it starts out with three words, ‘We, the people.’ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
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SWEET DREAMS, Baby
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
