Beech Tree News Network

With the presidential election only one month away, we’re seeing media coverage, advertisements, and candidate debates. But, Tuesday, November 6, will end all that for four more years. 

Never Give Up Hope
by Jason A.

When Jason was 13, he won first place in a writing contest. The essay question was, "What advice would you give to the person you were five years ago and why?" Below is his award winning response.

Five years ago, I was just a confused and scared little boy of eight years old. I had lost all that I had ever known, yet believed that my mom would somehow change and that she would do the right things to get me back.

If propriety is still, at least, considered somewhat of a virtue, there are certain domains in which we should tread in good taste. The marriage bedroom is such a domain. And procreation plus its withalls and therewiths is another.

I have a book that one of my kids got at a book fair in elementary school called Baseball Saved Us, by Ken Mochizuki.  It is the story of Japanese families in an internment camp during WWII.  The camp was in the United States.  After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, the US government viewed Japanese Americans as a threat to our national security.  Tens of thousands were forced to live in internment camps for the duration of the war.

Within the history of photography, grayscale has been the only option for the majority of the time. Even after the advent of color film, grayscale tended to yield a sharper and better contrasted image and was also much more affordable to develop than color was.

Have you ever wondered about the origins of wedding traditions? Having been to a few in the last several months, I started wondering where some of the traditions originated.  So, I did a little digging.

Evening TV programming has been changing. As I’ve previously confessed, this is the time of year that I watch more TV than normal, trying to choose favorites for the season. Until I decide, I may record one while watching another. Have you chosen the fall television shows that you plan to watch?

NBC provides good sports coverage, and the Friday night Dateline NBC will be a good program. FOX’s Bones is returning. It’s generally a good mystery. The new FOX shows, The Mob Doctor and The Mindy Project, look entertaining – and maybe a bit predictable.

SOUTHERNERS: In the south the hospital is more of a social gathering than anything else, the patient sometimes is given second place.  The occasion is more like a family outing.
Four aging women sat beside the hospital bed of another woman.  The woman in the bed was the patient waiting to go into surgery.  The sick woman was a sister to two of the other women and a double-first- cousin to the other two.
One of the “concerned” said, “Do y’all know that girl that married the Richardson boy?” Wasn’t that Emmie Lou Smith?”

Sometimes, I forget that my dad was ever a little boy.  Sometimes, when I’m angry about the past, and wanting to blame somebody for the present, I don’t want to remember that my dad was a little boy.

One of the most challenging, yet rewarding techniques in photography is working in very low light. Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to obtain aesthetically pleasing low light photos without utilizing a flash. In many cases, a flash will destroy the artistic mood of the shot as well as blow out the contrast. Of course there are some situations when flash is acceptable and unavoidable.