Sheila's Potpourri - By Sheila Scoggins, Huntington correspondent

David Crain used up almost all of a week's vacation watching it rain instead of doing anything productive. He was giving me the stats for their rainfall and they had gotten much more than we have. Not that I'm complaining because we do not need anymore for awhile. David, as most folks with cattle are doing, is worrying about hay or the lack of it. Most ranchers had only gotten one cutting when the sky opened up. There is always something to worry about.

Mary Russell and I visited with Frank and Elena Clark and his mom Reba Clark on a day when we were not supposed to have rain but it fooled the weatherman and came down. Frank was trying to "ditch" mud and water off his driveway. That has been a popular chore of late. Ruth Denman was trying to keep the water from coming into her garage and breezeway. Beamon spent one morning ditching his tomatoes but got stuck in his rubber boots and had to dig himself out!

Members and friends gathered on July 4th at Chestnut Drive Baptist Church to enjoy a day of celebration. The little ones never stopped playing on water slides' and other activities to deter the heat. The adults played dominoes and "42" and talked. Beamon had a time of reminiscing with folks from Nacogdoches County where he grew up. They had barbecue cooked on site, scads of other foods with lots of fresh tomatoes and even a load of watermelons someone brought from his field in 'Doches. It is wonderful to celebrate holidays with a good crowd.

Checkers and women customers were very unhappy when they discovered Bruno Barry was on vacation last week. We have voted that he will not. be allowed any more time off. He definitely gets our designation of the best grocery sacker to hit Huntington in many years. We certainly got badly spoiled.

The wet weather played havoc with the produce sellers last week. The vacant lot on the corner at our traffic light has been the place for just about anything including the recycle trailer which comes to us on the second Wednesday of the month. If there is a benefit for somebody with the sale of barbecue or hamburgers, folks cook on that corner most of the time. If it is a good growing year, then the corner becomes a mini farmer's market but this year the produce sales have been hit and miss.

The Loper Pharmacy crew found a few minutes without customers after the first few days of the, month so they told me they were cleaning. I could see outside Michael Ross was snipping limbs that were growing too low plus being full of water and were touching tops of cars. I could not entice the first one of them home with me to clean at this house. It is impossible for me to figure out how as wet as it is outside, dust can still be so thick inside.

Randy was on the way home Tuesday evening listening to Jeff Diamond who is a talk show host on a sports program. Jeff was general manager for the Minnesota Vikings before becoming president of the Titans football team. Jeff said he planned to grill steaks for the 4th and asked anyone to call in who could give him tips for cooking the steaks. Not bashful at all, my son told him about Allegro and how to use it and that he could buy it at Kroger's and Houston's Meat Market. Both Allegro and Houston's sponsor Randy and Eileen's cooking team. The talk show host assured him that he would try the Allegro products. It would be interesting to know if he took the advice and how he liked the product.