Lexington News Opinion

MY DAD WAS A PLAYER

The recent article in the Lexington News written by a Mr Ken Blackmore refers to the United States as a “great country” because we have a well thought out Constitution and our “GDP” (Gross Domestic Product) exceeds that of Russia, China and all other countries. While I love my country, I have issues with him calling us “great” based on that financial metric or how we rebuild countries after a war.

When my great-granddaughter, Kennadi was 9 years she had her own cell phone that would do everything. She was showing me some pictures she had taken, but got interrupted and had to text a friend. When I was her age, we had a wooden phone less than a foot wide and two feet in height. It was anchored to the wall and was about six inches thick. It held a magneto with four horseshoe magnets that generated electricity when you turned the crack which let the operator know that you wanted to make a call.

(Someone asked me recently to reprint some of the columns I wrote several years ago. So I thought I’d start with this one).——— The drive-in theater in America has been going the way of the dinosaur for decades.

Slater, Missouri now has a Steve McQueen Day celebration. Mc-Queen was born in Indiana, but when his father abandoned him and his mother, his mother left him with her folks in Slater. During the Depression, they moved in with Steve’s great-uncle Claude Thomson, who operated a 360 acre hog farm southeast of Slater and would be the only father image Steve would ever know. He attended a oneroom country school called Orearville. McQueen went on to become one of the top movie actors of all time.

Jack is busy healing, and doing well at it. He has not yet returned to writing columns. I am reprinting this story, it is one of my many favorites, and I was recently relaying the George the Crow story to a friend. Thanks for reading. Jack’s wife, Beth.