Features

At age 77, William Reid doesn’t get around that well and prefers to ride his mower to the small garden beside his Culp Ferguson Road home.

Behind the mower is a small trailer loaded with hoes, clippers, rakes and a Garden Weasel cultivator.

However, those tools aren’t getting much use this summer. The same goes for the almost-new garden tiller parked in Reid’s shed.

It hasn’t been cranked all year, which is expected, since Reid decided against using it.

Some lessons are never forgotten

Barely out of his teens, Mickey Perry was proud as a peacock.

He had just sold a set of new tires to a customer at his dad’s, the late Herman Perry’s North Main Gulf Station.

But a second look at the tire guide showed something else. Mickey had a problem and needed Herman Perry’s sage advice.

There’s some good news and some bad news.

The good news? Fresh blackberries are in abundance right now in thickets growing along fences, roadways and in pastures.

The bad news comes with the territory. As good as they taste, picking plump, sweet blackberries has always been, and will always be, a rather thorny subject.

You have to fight through layers of thorns that hold on for dear life as you try to pull the dark blue, purple fruit from its hiding place.    

Ouch!

There’s a piece of fluorescent orange poster paper taped on the office wall inside the Lancaster County Parks and Recreation Department swimming pool on Wylie Street.

Listed below the contact information for a welder and two swimming pool supply companies is David Taylor’s name and phone number.

That’s pretty amazing, since Taylor isn’t on the county payroll. You would think that pool manager Midenna Anderson’s name would be listed first.

Legend has it that enlisted soldiers came up with a phrase after noticing how their mess hall portions of pork always contained shoulder and leg cuts, while officers got top loin, pork chops and ham.

They called it “livin’ high off the hog.”

Given that, you wouldn’t think bacon – meat taken from the sides, belly or back of a pig that’s been cured, smoked or both – would be so sought-after by foodies, chefs in five-star eateries and TV cooking shows.

GREAT FALLS – When Cherry Doster was growing up in Great Falls, a visit to Eagle’s Five and Ten Cents Store on Dearborn Street was quite a treat.

She walked past a line of thriving businesses to get there.

Now, most of those businesses are boarded up by sheets of painted plywood. Sidewalk awnings are faded and torn. Portions of the broken intricate tile work in front of the old dime store have been patched and filled with concrete.

It’s about 275 miles from Latrobe, Pa., and Wilmington, Ohio.

However, the great banana split debate splits the two towns apart much further.

Both lay claims as the home of the banana split, but there can be only one.

Who would have ever thought that a one scoop each of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream, a whole banana, pineapple, chocolate syrup, strawberry topping, whipped cream, and nuts and cherries in a “boat” could stir up such controversy?

Both towns have legitimate claims.

Looking for some all-American Independence Day fun? You won’t have to look far. From neighborhood gatherings to professional fireworks shows, there’s plenty to do. Here are some area events:

– Rock Hill will host Red, White and Boom at 6 p.m. today at the Old Town Amphitheater on Black Street. The Oneppo Brothers and ZoSo will perform until the fireworks begin at 10 p.m. There will be children’s activities and food. For details, e-mail crandall@cityofrockhill.com.

Grilling corn on the cob isn’t complicated after all. I can say that now after years of scorching and drying out my share of corn ears to something that deer won’t even eat.

Like many, I had made it much harder than it had to be.

Think about it; burning a perfectly good ear of corn to the point that it’s inedible isn’t very hard to do.

Little did I know that all it took was a little water.

Yes, water. That’s it; nothing more.