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HOLLENBECK: Old telephone numbers tell priceless stories of another time, another place

August 22, 2011

Numbers have never been my friend. I embrace words with passion, but numbers are another thing altogether.
Words, their meaning and their usage come to me with little effort, but the same can’t be said for figures, and that would be just about in any form, including old telephone numbers.
Those I use regularly at work are fixed in my brain, but numbers of the past? Not even a dim memory where most are concerned.
The shining exception is the phone number I had when I lived in an apartment in Fayetteville as a young married woman. That number was Hillcrest 2-2287.

HOLLENBECK: Bulletin bloopers bring out the best in church humor

August 15, 2011

Humor is great at any level and even better when it’s involving church folks who, I contend, are the best of the best. Those of us who have had the “joy” (that’s a euphemism for which you may substitute an appropriate word choice) of setting the church bulletin know how easy it is for a typo to get by that changes the meaning of an announcement.
The change sometimes can be embarrassing, but more often than not, is really, really funny.

HOLLENBECK: Demise of favorite soap leaves void in daily TV life

August 8, 2011

Since “As the World Turns” concluded its daily rotations last fall, I’ve been off the soap opera circuit.
Can’t say I like it that way. I didn’t usually see the show live, but taped it for later viewing — after I had finally collapsed from that day’s fun and frivolity.
I miss that part of “life” as the soap moguls portrayed it. Although the plots had gotten really far out at times, it still had some elements of the ordinary life-death-and-everything-in-between struggles of the Hughes-Stewart clans that started the world turning a long time ago.

HOLLENBECK: Life without a dishwasher: It isn’t the best way to go

July 30, 2011

Loading the dishwasher is high on my “don’t like to do it” list.
That sounds so petty even as I write it because I remember many periods when we washed the dishes by hand and didn’t die from it.
Before getting an automatic dishwasher, washing/drying the dishes was a routine activity. It had to be done, so we did it.
You’d think putting the dirty stuff in the automatic contraption wouldn’t be something to irritate me, but it is.

HOLLENBECK: No more redheads? Study says the hair color will fade into obscurity

July 26, 2011

Courier Editor Brent Davis recently made a startling statement in my presence. He said he had seen a TV piece that claimed in a hundred years or so, redheads would fade out of existence.
Wow! That was scary news to me. You can be an endangered species and not even know it.

HOLLENBECK: Newspaper life brings many sobriquets, but Brenda Starr is favorite

July 19, 2011

Nicknames are as much a part of Southern life as biscuits and gravy.
I ought to know. I've lived in the South my entire life and I've been the recipient of several of these after-birth monikers. The most frequent, of course, being "Red." That's a given for any redhead.
Jokes about the flaming tresses started early in life and still go on, even though it takes a little loving care (pun intended) to keep them that way today.
Later on, being compared to the most famous of redheads, and coupled by the fact that my middle name is Lou, I wore the "Lucy" tag for a time.

HAHN: Looking for treasure

July 18, 2011

A couple of weeks back, CNN news carried a story about a man who found an estimated $45,000 hidden in the attic of a house he had recently purchased. The bills were wrapped in bundles of $100.
There was another story at the same time about the finding of a treasure trove of gold coins at a building site in Albany, Australia. The coins were dated 1800 and one of them was appraised at $16,000 Australian dollars.

DAVIS: We are entering ‘The Twilight Zone’

July 18, 2011

Every year on certain holidays, one of the networks, I believe the SciFi network, runs a marathon of “The Twilight Zone” episodes. Back-to-back, hour after hour the shows continue with limited commercial breaks. By the time the fifth or sixth hour rolls around, any enthusiasm the viewer may have had tends to fall by the wayside. The novelty of the programming has faded. The anticipation that was once strong dwindles to a basic irritation. The buzz turns into a pesky gnat we swipe our hands at when we hear it humming around our ears.

HOLLENBECK: Newspaper life brings many sobriquets, but Starr is favorite

July 18, 2011

Nicknames are as much a part of Southern life as biscuits and gravy.
I ought to know. I’ve lived in the South my entire life and I’ve been the recipient of several of these after-birth monikers. The most frequent, of course, being “Red.” That’s a given for any redhead.
Jokes about the flaming tresses started early in life and still go on, even though it takes a little loving care (pun intended) to keep them that way today.
Later on, being compared to the most famous of redheads, and coupled by the fact that my middle name is Lou, I wore the “Lucy” tag for a time.

HOLLENBECK: Blueberries: When did they enter my life?

July 12, 2011

The other night I was enjoying a dish of peach cobbler that was sprinkled with some fresh blueberries. In the midst of this delightful summer dessert, it suddenly hit me that blueberries are relatively new in my life.
Blueberries now are a favorite fruit at our house, yet there’s irony there. As a kid, I don’t ever remember eating them.
Fruits — fresh and canned — were always part of our diet. Regardless of the season.
My mother saw to it that we ate healthy foods, which, of course, meant the inclusion of fruit.

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