Virgil’s Grooming Tips for Boys

October 28, 2013.Reading time 5 minutes.

As a boy, the last thing you need in the morning is a mirror. That’s wasted wall space, I say! I don’t know about you, but I’ve got about three minutes from the time I finally wake up until the first school bells ring. So checking my hair just ain’t gonna happen. Teachers don’t really care what you look like, as long as you’re in your seat when class starts. Once in a while my teacher will get a little angry if my hair is standing so high that little Myra Holsted behind me can’t see, or if it’s so ratty that a kid like Myra can’t quit looking at it. Ms. Singer calls it a distraction, but I think she’s just jealous that I’m getting attention.

It all starts when mom gets you out of bed. After she makes whatever threat finally gets you to sit up, you should run your hands over your head to see what’s going on up there. Most of the time, you’ll find one of three things:

1. The Rooster Tail Those are my favorite. They won’t sit down for nothing. It doesn’t matter if you pour a whole cup of water on your head, it’ll pop right back up like a spring. A rooster tail tells the world, “I’m messy and proud of it!”

2. The Crazy Cowlick It’s like a tornado on your head. The more you mess with it, the more it swirls out of control. Good luck trying to figure out a way to cover it up – whatever style your ma makes you try, it’ll storm right back out madder than before. Might as well shave it. But a warning, moms get mad when you cut your own hair. I’m not sure why, but once I cut my cowlick and it looked ugly like a big old capital Q on my head AND I got paddled – Not a banner day.

3. The Pork Chop This is a big lump in your hair that can show up anywhere, but mostly comes in the back where your head rested on the pillow. Even if you do look in the mirror, you likely can’t see the pork chop anyway. I’ve had them big enough to hide a book or my lunch pail inside. Water can tame this one, but I like them because people have to stand further away from you than normal. When you have a pork chop, it’s like having a little bubble between you and the other kids in your class.

The whole key to this is getting out the door without mom grabbing you for an inspection. If you get caught, she is bound to try and fix what you worked all night to make. Worse yet, she’ll likely use her finger as a spit comb, which even I think is gross. History would show that if I spit on someone’s hair, I get in big trouble! But she can hold me down and rub her spit all over my head to make me look better? Where’s the right in that? Anyway, she’s usually in the kitchen when I get going and I’m so fast that most days I can zoom out the front door before she ever sees me. If I hear her milling around by the stairs, I throw a flat cap on and make a dash for open air. I don’t like wearing caps much because most boys have them nowadays and I like to be different.

You got any hair tips for me?

The County Fair

October 21, 2013.Reading time 3 minutes.

Anyone who ever lived in a small town knows the joy that the annual county fair brings. People look forward to its coming for months, if only to break up the mundane. Bright lights, whirring rides, colorful people, smells (both good and bad), objects of little value but great desire – all of these things and more invade a common town and for just a little while, make it extraordinary. So it has always been in Portsong when the Buxley County Fair is held on a hallowed patch of ground called Hargit’s Field. No one quite knows how the fair was wrestled away from the larger cities nearby. But with the exception of the war years, it has always been held in our little town.

Much of the history of the fair has been chronicled for posterity. Stories of the wild rides, blue ribbon contests, and the human oddities that have been witnessed in Hargit’s Field have become legendary. But to capture the folksy flavor of the true county fair, I take you back to the fair of 1922 as archived in the September 8^th edition of the Portsong Guardian. I hope you enjoy the ride.

Controversy Reigns as Miss Corrine’s Cobbler Does Not

In what many have referred to as the biggest surprise since the hailstorm of 1897, Miss Corrine Deaton failed to win her eleventh straight blue ribbon in the Pie Contest. She took home the red as runner up with her famous Peach Dream Cobbler. Coming in first was newcomer Hazel Gruber with her delicious Blackberry Delight. Congratulations to Mrs. Gruber, who just moved to our fair city all the way from Warblers Ridge.

The white ribbon was awarded to Mrs. Myrna Culpepper, who ended the day nearly as bitter as a slice of her rhubarb pie. After finishing second to Miss Corrine for a decade, she was quoted as saying, “serves her right – everyone knows a cobbler isn’t a pie anyway!”

On to the livestock events where in less dramatic fashion, Sherman Peas won the Hog Calling Contest by a unanimous decision. After hearing his grunts and chortles, every judge was inclined to go his way.

For the little ones, the goat-roping competition was head-butting good time until Wilmur Clegg’s billie got loose on the midway shutting down the rides for twenty minutes. Unfortunately, Smitty Robbins girl, little Esther, was at the apex of the Ferris wheel when it stopped and her weak stomach became a serious problem for those below.

All in all, this year’s fair was a wonderful event and we here at The Guardian hope the next three hundred and fifty-nine days fly by.