By Whitt Sparks
Tribune Sports

My Grandfather, Steve Sparks died a month ago.  My dad is still struggling with his death.  So is the rest of the family.  I thought I would do something a little different for this article, and interview my dad and ask him about his dad and just see where the conversation went.

Me:  How old was Pa(Steve), and what were your earliest memories of him?
Dad:  Pa was 65, and my earliest memories of Dad was when my brother, Danny was born.  I was around three and Dad came and picked me up at my uncle’s home and took me to my house to meet Danny for the first time.  I also remember not long after that, that Dad was building a grandfather clock.  And I went with him to the shop to pick it up and bring it home.  

By Kenny Mitchell

Publisher

Senseless tragedy after senseless tragedy. Every day there are crimes against humanity, terrible atrocities happening to our children, and acts of hate from small town middle America to Mideast deserts.

Our world has become full of hatred, violence and unspeakable acts.

Evil is evil, wherever it happens.

I got my first gun when I was 7 years old. By the time I was 10 I knew how to use a handgun. From the age of 11, it was routine to spend days and days each year roaming the woods and  plains of Texas with a gun in my hand shooting deer, dove, quail and ducks with my grandpa.

Grandpa had a huge case in his house that was filled with guns. Shotguns, rifles, pistols and boxes and boxes of ammo. There was nothing odd about it then, a lot of folks had the same and did the same.

Every once in a while we do some scattershooting here and this week it is that time again. With so much going on in our little corner of the world there is just no way to talk about just one. With everything from a straw poll to tornado recovery and acts of random kindness to stupid criminals, let the roller coaster begin.
The New Boston Chamber of Commerce is a beehive of activity with the annual banquet and chili supper/straw poll both on the calendar next week. Sue and Nancy and Darla and all the rest will be hopping around like bunnies with baskets full of eggs getting ready for these two events and I know that they will both be top class. The banquet will play host to display tables from Chamber businesses with prizes to be won and tokens of appreciation to be handed out. It really is a great event and one worth the time. 

Letter to the Editor

By Kenny Mitchell

Monday was a tough day.

It had already been a very long night for so many as people tried to dig out from the aftermath of another tornado in DeKalb. There were a lot of folks who didn’t sleep much Sunday night.

When the sun came up Monday morning it got even more real as you could see the vastness of the damage and it immediately hit you that there were people, people you know, who had lost their homes and their livelihoods. Some lost family pets. Some lost cars. Some lost their peace of mind.

Yessir, the year 2017 is in the books. Its pages are filled with all of the good and bad that happened to us over that 365 day span and now it is time to forget all of the crap that happened, store away the good memories, and move forward.
2018 brings us a fresh slate. A blank journal with pages waiting to be written on, and chapters waiting to be put down for eternity. What will the new year bring?
Do you think we have a chance to see peace and harmony in our country? In our county maybe? Heck, just even in our town? Can we find a way to put away all of the malice and bickering? Can we possibly learn how to get along with all of our neighbors and “love them as we love ourselves?”
Will the new year bring us a time of closing the divides that separate us? Will the healing rain pour down from the skies and mend the hurts, heal the sick and mend the broken?

We all know that life is cyclical, what goes around comes around and all of that and we know that the so-called “circle of life” touches us all as it spins around.
This past weekend gave me an up close view of the spinning wheel, as on the same day, a friend said goodbye to our world and my daughter announced a new life was on its way.
It was a perfect picture of the circle of life as we sat around a happy, ecstatic family dinner table celebrating an early Thanksgiving with the news that my baby was having a baby and she and her husband would be receiving the biggest change to their lives next May. As we sat there, looking at sonogram pictures, I heard the sad news of Cindy Ross. 

A Tribute to a Dear Friend

By Pam Kumpe

I will miss Cindy Ross, endlessly, until we meet again in heaven. And now, thankfully, she is no longer fighting cancer. She is at rest and at peace, for she is with Christ.
Cindy and I met some eight years ago, our hearts connecting like sisters, as our journey of friendship opened like a rainbow in the sky. (My twin sister, Mel, thinks I loved Cindy so much because they were similar. I think she’s right.)
Now, Cindy loved music and writing songs, and could play several instruments. And I often teased her that she was in the “band” at church, but she called it the orchestra. I still call it the band.
Of course, she loved picking on me. And I loved picking on her. She often countered me with her sarcasm and one liners, and she held a reservoir of trivia, too.

Women are beneath men. Men are the boss, women are to be silent, stay in the kitchen, raise the babies, change the diapers and basically, just do what us men tell them to do. Men are stronger, smarter, heck, even chosen by God Himself to be the leaders of the family and the free world.

Right?

I grew up in a culture that taught all of that, believed all of that, and to some extent, was all of that. While it is true that God has a plan where the husband is to be the head of the family, pretty much all of the rest of that is a load a codswallop, or in country terms, horse hockey.

Let’s face it. The ladies have pretty much been running things since Eve grabbed an apple and talked Adam into taking a bite. I would be willing to say that Pharaoh had a woman whispering in his ear, George Washington had Martha, JFK had a strong lady running Camelot, and most likely, Coretta Scott King had just as much influence in her day as her more famous husband.

Death and taxes. Two things that we all have to deal with at some time, that is certain. We know there is a road that leads to death and for some folks in DeKalb it seems there is now a road that leads to taxes.
The new bond proposition has some folks in DeKalb fuming over what they believe are unnecessary and excessive new taxes to pay for renovations and upgrades to the local school district. A look at the numbers will easily show that yes, there would definitely be a new tax burden if the voters pass both propositions. And yes, those who already pay a lot of taxes, like the big agricultural businesses in the area, will be faced with more taxes.
Is it too much to ask?
It only takes a quick tour of the facilities at the middle school and elementary campuses to see that they are in a state of need. Floors are giving out, classrooms for some of our most vulnerable students are disjointed from the rest of the campus, and security has huge gaps to fill.