Desperately Seeking Dave

Remember the children’s book “Where’s Waldo”? The last couple of weeks I’ve felt like I’ve been listening to a version of that on the radio, but instead of Waldo, I’ve been desperately seeking Dave.

For me, November means the Food Basket Brigade. The Basket Brigade got its start on KBTN radio years ago. KBTN became the sounding board for the need that many of us either didn't fully know about or didn't particularly want to acknowledge Dave Winegardner was at his best, perfectly in his element, when presenting the need and spurring us on as a community to ‘step up’ and feed the hungry.

Later, Dave Horvath embraced this cause and many others around Neosho as his own. Each newscast leading up to the Food Basket Brigade distribution day he would detail the families and individuals who had made monetary or food donations the previous day

We won't have that this year. We've lost the voice that KBTN news gave to Neosho.

What happened? How did we let this happen? Could anything have been done to stop it?
I had hoped it was just a vacation for Dave, then another week went by and no news…no Dave.

Months ago, KBTN radio was “temporarily” moved to Joplin when problems were found with its long-time building location. Dave’s new office was situated in what once was a storage closet. His equipment changed from two recording studios to two six-foot tables, a computer and a simple table-top phone.
Dave’s hours on the job expanded greatly with the move. The ease of covering various Neosho stories and the ability to flex his work day all changed with the Joplin move. Dave insisted on driving back and forth to and from Joplin, covering the Neosho stories that we all take for granted; logging work hours that would put a man half his age running for the nearest recliner and a chance to kick back.
Each one of us has causes and groups that we support here in Neosho. There‘s not one group in Neosho that has not benefit from Dave’s watchful eye and careful attention to detail. His single-handed effort to keep local Neosho news here at home has earned the respect and admiration of listeners all over the area.
That’s all changed.
I’m afraid we’ve lost our collective voice, and it seems that it may have been slipping away little by little. Just think, we no longer even have local radio election coverage. Without the daily news anchor, I’m not sure if there are any lunch menus for kids or senior citizen menus being broadcast.

Funny that the lunch menus matter to me, I never ate lunch at the senior center, but I did tell time by the routine announcements within each broadcast. When the menus were announced, I had better be pretty close to the office or it meant I was running late.

Having a local radio station that provided local news every morning, noon and evening was unique and made Neosho special. I doubt that I’m alone in missing this beloved part of the daily Neosho routine.

For Sevie....

Sevie Maria - here's your pic of the trampoline.

(no funny story, no interesting side notes - just sometimes an aunt has to do what her niece needs...like posting a picture of a trampoline to her blog)

Upclose to "the jam"

A pic of some of the finished jam product

Jam, Gardening & Keep the twins filled!

Took the MO Extension class on jam and pickle making this week. It was too much fun. I learned more than I can possibly ever remember...took lots of notes, particularly while watching the Pickle PowerPoint.

Made my first batch of blueberry jam this afternoon. Anxious to wait the 12-24 hours to determine how it turned out. Borrowed Donna's kitchen to fix the 12 jars of jam. Hopefully all the neighbors like blueberry!

The community garden at Crowder had less gardeners than expected this year. Gardening is one of those things I dream about and plan big in the fall, yet when the day comes to plant, I'm content to wait until the Farmer's Markets open for my fresh produce. Fortunately Darrel Hedricks has actively tilled, weeded, and watered his portion of the garden. More advantageous for use he shared an amazing bag of corn ears this weekend. They were the best we've had all summer.

Speaking of the Farmer's Market. I love our Market in Neosho. This weekend the Dexter and I fixed Marconi peppers stuffed with sauteed onions, tomatoes and Italian sausage - all vegetables supplied by the Market. Each week we've tried some new recipe or fell in love with a particular farmer's offerings.

Neosho Night at the Springfield Cardinal's Game

We had a blast last night.

Mom Marble did a great job throwing out the first pitch.

The teens in the "fam" were involved in an on-the-field game of musical chairs before the 7th inning.

I'm posting the link to the YouTube video I shot last night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1UtWNO18K4

It shouldn't come as any surprise, but Bethany "Spirit Fingers" Henry was the winner. You'll see at the end of the video that she had a little help from the announcer!

Joplin Globe - Divine Furniture Column, July 4

I failed to give the Globe time enough to get some pictures of Jack and Sallie Divine's funiture.

Below is a link to the column, in case you've missed it. And I've posted some images of a few of the pieces. http://www.joplinglobe.com/local/local_story_184231539.html

They call their furniture Harrison Creek Creations.

You can currently buy pieces at Good Things Boutique 108 N Block Ave. Fayetteville Ark. (jessy@goodthingsboutique.com). They also participate in a couple of art festivals in Fayetteville each fall.

Jack's in the process of developing a website, but for the present time, if you're interested you can call them at 417-451-6108 or email jwdivine@hughes.net

Jack Divine - and Sallie's mosaics

This image is a scan - so a little fuzzy, but I wanted you to see Jack as well as some of Sallie's mosaic work

Spa bench

Side table

Coat Stand

The Marble fridge+

See my earlier post from today for full disclosure and info on upcoming explanation.

Refrigerator - expose

I was completely enthralled by this exhibit of refrigerator pictures. Here's the link

http://www.good.is/post/picture-show-you-are-what-you-eat

This is a project by Mark Menjivar, in which he looks at hunger. Entitled “You Are What You Eat,” he photographed the contents of strangers’ refrigerators and posted them with brief descriptions of the individual what they did as a profession and how many lived in the household.

Don't forget to scroll to the bottom and read through the comments.

We took a pic of the Marble fridge - yikes! I'll be posting that in a few minutes and will be writing about it for my column in the Neosho Daily News www.neoshodailynews.com for Wednesday, May 27.

One of the twins made the mistake early this afternoon of flopping himself dramatically across the couch and declaring himself bored.

You should pity the child.

I've had a To Be Done list just waiting for such an event.

So far, over the past two hours, he and his brother have:

• Weeded the backyard
• Cleaned and refishing the wooden lawn bench
• Cleaned, washed, hung to dry Fez, the wonder beagle's bedding
• Repotted and divided my spider plant
• Planted some additional flowers

They're taken a brief break and will then begin mowing the lawn, weeding the side yard, emptying all the trash cans and moving the trash bin to the front curb for pick up tomorrow.

A couple of weeks ago, Big Al and I met some friends after work. One of the guys I had gone to high school with in Oklahoma.

My mom was our school librarian.

At one point, this long-time acquaintance looked at me and laughed. I asked what was up and he replied, "I never noticed before how much you look like your mother."

Well, after my mother skills display this afternoon...I'm reminding myself of her as well.

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Thank you Pam-Pam

Had plenty on my plate last night, but when I arrived home after work I found my copy of Pam Cope's book "Jantsen's Gift" had arrived from Amazon.

Spent all the rest of the afternoon, evening and late into the night reading.

I started and finshed the book yesterday.

I alternated between crying, then laughing, then crying, then being once again in awe of what Pam's been through, accomplished.

She is completely fearless and unstoppable.

You should read this book. In my opinion Neosho has been forever changed (in a good way) by the legacy of Jantsen. Our family has been enriched by the adoption of our nephew Cobi. He has brought much joy to the Marble clan.

My only concern before reading that book was that by having a co-author the writing might not sound like Pam's very down-to-earth, take-me-or-leave-me style. No worries there. Aimee Molloy did a great job of pulling the experiences and the emotions together into a very concise, yet completely enveloping story.

Thanks Pam for writing. I'm sure the book will do well.

Taxi Mom

I once had a friend who told me that the "easy" part is when your kids are young.

She went on to describe the benefits of being in control of where they went, who they talked to, what they ate, etc. Her experience was that it was easier to work outside the home when your kids are in early elementary school. The tough juggling begins once they reach middle school and they begin to have their own lives.

Oh my...has there ever been anything truer said to me? Big Al and I are now juggling start and stop times are on work days. It looks like I might start going in a couple of days a week at 6:30 a.m., and one day starting late and ending even later - so the twins can attend, achieve and be all their pre-teen selfs scream they need to be.

And really, I wouldn't change it for the world. I was one of the shyest kids in school and it was awful. I'll take crazy, hectic taxi-driver mom days anyday over coaxing a child to attend anything.

What a twit!

Now that's winter is hopefully, finally over I can start writing again on this blog.

I've become engrossed over the past few days with various social medias. I have an account on Facebook. Sister and I have reached a civil understand that we love each other dearly, but we'll not be Facebook friends nor will we delve too deeply into each other's FB activities.

My new favorite site is Twitter. I'm enjoying the challenge of getting my message across in 140 character.

After recently completing some social media training I began adding my Facebook and Twitter accounts to my electronic signatures on my email. I was bragging last week about how many "followers" I had on Twitter. (If you know me, you know competition rules every aspect of my life.)

Anyhoo...sent an email to Wendy the other day who fell out of her chair laughing. Seems I had left one crucial letter out of the Twitter signature - you guessed it the "w". Guess all those followers were just curious as to what in the world was going on!