Reflections

Hello everyone, hope you’re having a good week.  
As  I anticipated, someone took issue with my remarks  about some things in Water Valley that could be changed or  improved.   Let me reiterate, if we hadn’t wanted to live here, we wouldn’t have moved back.  Having said that, the only perfect place was the Garden of Eden, so the rest always needs improvement.  
As usual I’m going to attempt to show both sides of the issue.  I believe firmly that we should buy at home—whenever possible.  When I grew up here there were four new car dealerships and one truck dealership. Today, if you want anything other than a used vehicle, you are  obliged to go to Oxford, Batesville or Grenada.  
In our capitalist  system the market place determines and obviously we are not large enough for someone to open a dealership here. So, we have to go out of town.  
When I was young if we needed clothes for the entire family, Peoples Wholesale, Simmons, McLarty, Wagner, or Bob Halliwell could fill that need.  Today it’s Oxford, Batesville, or Grenada.              There is one area where I agree with my good friend, Joe Lowe; why does gasoline   cost an average of 15 cents a gallon more here than in those other towns?  So my position is this: anything I need that is available,  other than gasoline, I buy here and the rest I spend out of town.  
Concentrate on all the good things, reasonable utilities and real estate, good schools, churches of nearly every denomination and some of the friendliest people in the world.  As Forrest Gump was fond of saying, “that’s all I have to say about that.”  
As this is the 14th year of “Reflections” my thanks to Betty, Mel, Jack and David for being such a great group to work with and I hope we’ll be working together for a long time to come.  Also my congratulations to Jack Sr. for his excellent columns of railroad lore.
To my loyal readers, again I thank you for your support as every few days someone comes up to me and tells me how much they enjoy the column. Your input is always appreciated so keep it up. You can write me in care of the Herald or email me at cncooper1@hotmail.com and have a great week.