I was walking from "Old Greenie" (that's the name of the vehicle) on my way to the post office door when I paused to look up at Old Glory, which is always flying at that location. And just as I turned back, a lady who was getting into her car contacted me with these words: "Doesn't the sky look beautiful this morning?" I looked past the flag and there it was: lots of blue sky, which I"m sure everyone calls "heavenly blue." And before I could reply, she was gone. And so was the 'cuff I had finished for last week. It was about that big balloon (others hadn't been spotted). So I went in, opened the box and got the bills, and a new thought hit the churning stuff in my head. What happened? I went home, gave the bills to Louise and headed to that old Smith-so-and-so typewriter. Doesn't that sound much better than that daggum? I tossed aside the old 'cuff and put a new sheet of paper in and began pounding the keys. And you have it now. That's how the 'cuffs often are made. How's that for an opening paragraph?
Please join me as I finish this 'cuff before I'm finished. It's probably being one of those conglomeration things that go off in different directions, so here goes ... What about that huge balloon surrounded by blue sky as seen in the pictures that filled the TV screens and which stirred up so much interest, and what, and what, and etc.?
Haven't there been several gray dark, damp days in February which fit Pennsylvania Phil's prediction? (I still can't spell the name of that town and groundhog.) Haven't we all enjoyed the warm, sunny days with bright blue skies? In fact, that long, cold winter, just maybe, is going to prove Phil wrong this time. Time will tell. In fact, this old 'cuffer raked up several more ... and hopefully all ... of those sweet gum balls which should have been down last year before Christmas. How many wheelbarrows full? I ran out of fingers counting. Just hope that twenty-three will be better than twenty-two in many, many ways. Time will tell.
Let's get back to that big white balloon. They, whoever they are, say it was spotted a few miles south of Kansas City, which is just a hop and a skip from Westside Eagle country. If it had ventured this far south at its 60,000-foot height in the blue sky, the white speck probably wouldn't have been visible, even if there were no clouds. But if it had been spotted here, above us, don't you just wonder how we would have been affected? Would we be saying, "What in the dickens is it doing here? etc.? etc.? etc.? and ... We might have gone down in today's (memory) history book just like the area went down in history 118 years ago.
That's right. It was on February 13, 1905, the day before Valentine's Day, that the coldest temperature ever registered in Arkansas was recorded just a little southeast of Gravette. What makes that most unusual is that locations in the four-state area, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, all had their coldest day in 1905. I wonder if the sky was as blue as it was cold on that date.
In Missouri, the town of Warsaw registered 40 below zero.
In Kansas, it also settled at 40 below in Lebanon.
In Arkansas, A.F. Stevens, weather bureau observer on Rt. 1, Gravette, reported 29 below zero.
In Oklahoma, the town of Watts, south of Siloam Springs, also hit the bottom of 29 below in Indian Territory. Years later, on January 4, 1947, the Oklahoma town of Guthrie reported the state's coldest temp, 27 below. To top (or bottom) it off, on February 10, 2011, was Nowata's 31 degrees below zero. (The temp in Gravette that day was minus 15 degrees.)
Enough weather? How about this finale: There never is enough weather, but weather seems to most be enjoyed when the sky is a heavenly blue like the days February 14 and 15 were pleasant in our part of the world when ... out of the black, before midnight last Wednesday, one of the displays of constant lightning hit. The power went off for a couple of hours or so, but those working quickly, and our thanks to them, as always got things in order. Hopefully, this was a small area that was affected, and it was back to bed for a rest-of-the-night sleep for them after saving our candles for another night. Black was turned to a special blue delivered by wire.
'Till next time.
Dodie Evans is the former owner and longtime editor of the Gravette News Herald. Opinions expressed are those of the author.