Chester Chatter: Bird calls and backward shorts

By Ruthie Douglas
©2020 Telegraph Publishing LLC

When school was out for the summer, the girls were ready for our annual two-week vacation. We usually planned those family trips for the immediate weeks following the end of school and we always went to some historic place.

One time we visited Colonial Williamsburg. It was mighty warm on the Virginia coast. At a snack shop, the girls and I waited for Don to get us ice cream and sodas. We waited under the shade of a magnolia tree.

Two cardinals hopped about in its branches, causing me to do my bird calls. They answered me. And back and forth we chatted, those birds and I. Soon a crowd gathered. The girls were embarrassed and so was Don when he returned from the snack shop.

To heck with it. I had had fun. When we returned to the motel, Donna said, “Did you know your shorts were on backwards?” I did not. The shorts had a seam in the front so that one could tell front from back.  So when the slides of our vacation came back, family and friends had a great laugh.

Forever is a photograph of my backwards shorts.

Scene and heard

My daughters and I are saddened to learn of the death of Norman Rolfe. Norm was Don’s friend and boss. We are thinking of you Marlene and family.

Family gathered to wish Finley Putnam a happy birthday. She will soon be 3 years old. She is the daughter of Kirby Putnam, foreman of the Chester Highway Department.

Chester’s 4th of July fireworks will take place on Friday July 3 at the American Legion Post 67.

As usual, the fellows of American Legion Post 67 held a successful pork barbecue takeout on Saturday. The legion will be open for the first time in quite a while on Monday, June 17 with restrictions.

Father’s Day is coming. Be sure to remember your dad.

Scott Page is cleaning Don’s gravestone. How quickly they get overgrown.