One Pharmacist's View

Last week was a busy week for many Allenites. It was the alumni week here in Allen and many former Allen grads were all about town for the big celebrations. Then last Saturday night I drove over to my old hometown of Stonewall for the alumni meeting over there.

Seems like we spend a lot of time dealing with trash. It’s everywhere and there is lots of it. I remember living over at Stonewall. “Take the trash out” meant taking it out to the burn barrel and sticking a match to it.

I didn’t know that in order to leave one Baptist church and get into another (and keep your good standing) you had to walk down the would-be new church’s aisle, declare your intentions and instruct their church clerk to write your old church clerk a letter (on her own church’s stationery) and...

My article’s title refers to the eight people missing from Allen. I suppose they are anyway. The Census count in 2010 was 934 but in dropped to 926. I guess we will just have to make do. If you know who they are or were, let me know.

June long ago meant school was out. It was time to visit. To travel. It usually meant that my brother Gerald and I would be shipped off to our grandparents down in Leflore County to visit our grandparents and help out on the farm doing what my brother called “slave labor.” But this was different.

I know looks aren’t everything. At least that’s what mama tried to tell us when we were living hand to mouth over in Centrahoma. Things went pretty well when there was just immediate family around, but someone always came back.

Maybe it is the weather that is doing it, but I can’t seem to get all warmed up this spring. The news last week says we are a full and complete whole degree Fahrenheit warmer compared to just last year but I have to go by what is happening now. All respect to Al Gore, I am cold.

Courage at Home It was 1955 when I first saw this Marine Sargent. He served on my ship’s security detail, the USS Lexington, a carrier that fought in WWII. But it was on a Greyhound bus out of San Diego, California that I noticed he was going my way— east to Oklahoma.

Allen’s history never fails to amaze. There is this. The Green Corn Revolution in 1915. But first a little background. As usual, back in 1915 area farmers were having a tough time. Most were tenant farmers on small patches of farmland, and they could not seem to make money on them.

I get all my health care up at the VA in Oklahoma City but it’s when I am standing in a line or sitting in a waiting room that I find out a lot of stuff. Last week, in a slow line, I noticed this red-haired guy in front of me, turning around and eyeing the crowd preparing to make a speech.