Out On The Mudline
Weather Much More Interesting Than Politics
By W. P. Sissell
The Topic
About the hottest topic one can find these days is politics. I would rather talk about the weather. This past week I’ve heard several comments about the weather. The most frequent weather topic has about the instability. Here it has rained almost every day or maybe I should say drizzled, with little lightning and thunder. My daughter, Susan, and her husband, Taylor, have equipped me with a fancy rain gauge that lets me check the rainfall without getting wet. We have garnered 1.75 inches of rainfall—our beans are smiling. If you are not aware of the enormity of 1.75 inches of rainfall—it amounts to 3,801,599 gallons of water on the 80 acres of beans down in front of our home. The slowness with which it has fallen means that almost all of it soaked in. Yes, I did teach irrigation principles in “Soils” classes. Yes, I started out as a farmer. Maybe some of you can understand why, after a good rain, an old farmer will say, “Looks like a wet spell settin’ in.” Our lawn, cut on Saturday, is already three inches high again.
It’s another day. My fancy rain gauge hasn’t collected any additional rain, but we had to use the windshield wipers a couple of times coming from town this morning, in just a very fine mist. Nannette says the sky is weeping.
Bicycles and Comments
Friend Lee Rowsey’s comment about my coasting all the way home from the top of Fly mountain was a comparison with Peter Brown Hill. Nobody could coast all the way down Peter Brown Hill without braking some for the loose gravel in the turns would have given them much trouble. Lee also commented that every times he travels that road, he recognizes where his father let the mules rest when pulling a load of corn up the hill and the location of Wildcat School.
I had a call from James Hubble in South Carolina relative to the article and our high school days. James was a year ahead of the class of 1943 so we had many classes together. In the Physics class one day we were experimenting with a telephone generator along with a Model T coil. Although I was holding the coil my new bubble soled shoes were keeping me from being grounded. As I remember, it was James who walked up and put his hand on my shoulder becoming the ground path —and got a terrific shock. James is involved in the banking business in South Carolina.
I had a call from a lady in Water Valley who asked that I not use her name. In the conversation we found that we had a number of mutual friends. When I asked her whether she knew Lex Robinson she immediately asked if I meant when he lived in Yalobusha or Panola County. That puzzled me for a minute for I knew him in both counties. Lex, about twice a month, rode his horse to Water Valley dressed in his riding gear. Lee Rowsey tells me that one of Lex’s sons does most of the hay raking for him—even told him that he retired from the factory in Oxford so he would always be available to rake his hay.
I often get e-mails from subscribers in other parts of the USA. I doubt if we in Water Valley realize the scope of the circulation of the Herald. James remarked that his is usually several weeks old. In one phone conversation a lady who lives in California told me that they already owned property near Pascagoula and their intent is to move back in a few years.
Do have a good week. We’ve been having rain, spin-offs from the hurricane, most of the week. I put on my slicker to fetch the mail and the garbage can but found that, at the minute, there was no rain falling. You can reach me most of the time at 23541 Highway 6, Batesville, MS 38606, 662-563-9879 or wsissell@bellsouth.net.
