Beech Tree News Network

There is a giant pine tree in Agnes’ (Garey’s mom) front yard.  It has lived there for over sixty years.  The tree was just a baby when Agnes and J.D. started building the small house in the small yard in Corner Alabama, where they moved with their young son, Garey, when the basement was completed.  The tree saw the completion of the house.

The tree saw Garey play in the sand beneath as he talked to imaginary friends who kept him company.  And a few years later, it saw Agnes and J.D. arrive home with a second child, a baby girl, Garey’s sister, Charlotte.  

Yesterday I resigned as Executive Director of the Boys & Girls Club of Butler County,Inc. I served fifteen years as a volunteer board member and was board president several years. I began serving as Executive Director in October of 2013 when Stan England stepped down because of health reasons. It was our plan for me to serve about four years. I have been truly blessed to be able to serve in this capacity.

“For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing” (II Tim. 4:6-8). The words written by the apostle Paul show that he was ready to meet God. His execution was in the near future for him. He was ready to die because he had made preparations for eternity, as we all must do.

Well, it’s not even close to the official “spring” season, but this weather has everything shook up. I had over 20 robins in my front yard one day last week. The buttercups are blooming (I’ve seen some beautiful ones) and the trees and other flowers are budding out. This has sure been one crazy winter. My sister, that lives in Newfoundland, has 60cm of snow right now. That is  a little over 23”!! Makes me very glad to be in Kentucky. I’m a full blooded Newfie girl, but I couldn’t handle that kind of snow I don’t believe.

COME AND FIND ME

Owen County, Kentucky was founded in 1819 and named for Abraham Owen.  He served in the wars with the Indians under generals James Wilkinson and Arthur St. Clair in 1791 and served under Colonel John Hardin.  Owen was surveyor of Shelby County, Kentucky in 1796. He was in the Kentucky Legislature in 1798, and a member of the state constitutional convention the next year. Owen served as a colonel and as aide-de-camp to William Henry Harrison at the Battle of Tippecanoe, where he was killed in 1811. After his death, counties were named for him in Indiana and Kentucky.

Although February has been called the love month, I don’t always think of it in those terms. I often associate February more with winter (cold and wet with gray tones) than with Valentine’s Day. I believe my association of February and winter has affected my attitude in other areas as well.

Scraps of words and thoughts from the forum of life-so good, so-far: my life….

Why? The Bible says: “Train up a child in the way he should go”: (A grandmother) - “Alan out three year old son says easily I love you, but it doesn’t mean a thing. The next day when I refuse to give him something he wants, he may just as easily say: “I don’t like you at all”. 

Sometimes we feel it is beyond our ability to comprehend the sense of the world. For instance: if the world were a sensible place, men would ride sidesaddle…. No charge for that. 

I’ve always said we keep young people onboard at New Image Car Care because they’re so good with technology and Garey, Greg and I are so bad at it.  On countless occasions, I’ve handed one of the young guys my phone with directives like: Make it stop going to screen saver every fifteen seconds or make the print bigger so I can read my texts or make that annoying voice shut up—I don’t want her to help me.  It’s like having my own personal Geek Squad. 

The hallways were packed with Kentuckians from across the state making their voices heard as we began the second part of the 2017 Legislative Session in Frankfort. I was especially heartened at the passionate crowd for the Rally for Life on Wednesday, February 8, and later in the evening that energy and excitement continued during Governor Bevin’s State of the Commonwealth Address.