Dear Friends and Schoolmates,

   Today is the first day of Autumn, so I thought I'd throw in some bonus items for you.

All About the Autumnal Equinox

   I don't especially care for this design myself, but then I'm picky, and it's FREE:

Cross-Stitchers Bonus: Free Autumn Leaves Chart:

http://www.nspruance.com/pagefreeautumnleaves.htm

Recipe Bonus: Autumn Apple Punch:

http://www.recipesource.com/side-dishes/beverages/punch/00/rec0006.html

From Kathy Pilgrim Clark ('63) of VA - 09/20/04:

   Thanks, Kathy - I loved your small world story!

   I had some friends in Cape Girardeau, MO back in the early 70's.  He was an art professor at Southeast Missouri State University. 
I was excited to be invited to their home, as I assumed it would be elegantly or interestingly decorated.  Well, it was interesting,
because it was so incredibly Spartan.  In their large living room there were no knick-knacks, but that wasn't overly surprising as they
had four young children. What was more startling was there was no television, no table, no chairs, not even a sofa.  The near empty
room was dominated by one of his large oil paintings - unframed.  There were many books, but they were on shelves made of boards
supported by fancy cinder blocks (which he had designed and poured himself).  I must have failed in my attempts to suppress the
surprise and curiosity in my eyes, as she began to giggle, and proceeded to tell me of a fire which destroyed their home out west
some years before .  They too had lost everything but each other.  She concluded by saying, "You know, things just don't really matter."

   I appreciate your insights - thanks again, Kathy!

James L. "Sheriff" Davis

NEWPORT NEWS - James L. Davis, better known to his cohorts on the C&O and later CSX Railroad as 'Sheriff,' passed away
at his home on Sept. 17, 2004. Born in Halifax County, Va., on May 31, 1922, he was the first of ten children of dirt poor, tobacco
farmers who thought things couldn't get any worse-then came the Great Depression. Family circumstances and economics dictated
that he leave home in his mid-teens so he soon found himself in Franklin Roosevelt's CCC helping to construct the Skyline Drive.
One fateful day, on a whim, he hopped in the back of a truck headed to Newport News. Shortly after his arrival he met the love
of his life, a beautiful 18-year-old switchboard operator from South Carolina, Alyne Tate. The two were soon wed and with God
as the centerpiece of their relationship they enjoyed 59 years of living life as one. Like so many others of his generation who had
known truly tough times, James loved laughter. He had a wonderful self-deprecating sense of humor always careful to make himself
the butt of his jokes and foil in his stories. He will be greatly missed by all who enjoyed his unique wit and engaging personality,
especially his children, Malcolm Davis and wife, Polly, Rex Davis and wife, Gail, and Vickie Davis and his grandchildren, Michelle
and Wayne Davis and Kandi Sampson. James was preceded in death by his cherished wife, Alyne, and by two brothers, Thomas
and George. He is survived by brothers, Raymond Davis of Richmond, Va., and Wayland Davis of Rustburg, Va., and sisters, Dorothy
Gomes of Fayetteville, N.C., Almina Alexander of Kirbyville, Texas, Margie English of Hendersonville, N.C., Coretta Matherly
of Collegedale, Tenn., and Louise Yankelevitz of Brookeville, Md. James was a member of Parkview Baptist Church where he and
Alyne served their Lord and worshiped together every Sunday. Today they are reunited as a couple, face to face with their heavenly
Father. It would be their wish that expressions of sympathy take the form of donations to their beloved Parkview Baptist Church. The
family will receive friends from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 22, at Peninsula Funeral Home. Services will be conducted at 11 a.m.
on Thursday, Sept. 23, at Parkview Baptist Church, Hilton Blvd., Newport News, by the Rev. Lawrence J. Biermann and Dr. R. Furman Kenney.

Published in the Daily Press from 9/18/2004 - 9/21/2004.

   This is now posted, along with the Guest Book (to which I added your comments, Tom):

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/otherdeaths.html

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/obit-james-davis.html

   Again, our thoughts and prayers are with the entire Davis family at this time.

   I hope the first day of autumn has brought you, wherever you are, a day as lovely as it is here in Fayetteville.

   Y'all take care of each other.

                                   Love to all, Carol
 

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NNHS CLASS OF '65 WEB SITE: http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com
PERSONAL WEB SITE: http://www.angelfire.com/weird2/cluckmeat

"I only have two kinds of days: happy and hysterically happy."

==============================================

47. To Autumn

John Keats 
 (29 Oct 1795 – 23 Feb 1821)  
The Poetical Works of John Keats, 1884
 

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
    To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
 For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
 Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
 And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

See Notes.

 Autumn Leaves

French lyrics by Jacques Prévert,
English lyrics by Johnny Mercer,
Music by Joseph Kosma


The falling leaves drift by the window,
The autumn leaves of red and gold.
I see your lips, the summer kisses,
The sun-burned hands I used to hold.

Since you went away the days grow long,
And soon I’ll hear old winter’s song,
But I miss you most of all, my darling,
When autumn leaves start to fall.

C’est une chanson, qui nous ressemble
Toi tu m’aimais et je t’aimais
Nous vivions tous, les deux ensemble
Toi que m’aimais moi qui t’aimais
Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s’aiment
Tout doucement sans faire de bruit
Et la mer efface sur le sable les pas des amants désunis

 "Autumn Leaves" midi courtesy of http://luvdove.www4.50megs.com/tksfrontpage.html and with the assistance of my son, Nathaniel Harty of IL - 09/20/04

 "Autumn Leaves" lyrics courtesy of http://www.lyricsfreak.com/n/nat-king-cole/98011.html - 09/20/04

Autumn Leaves divider line clip art courtesy of http://webclipart.miningco.com/library/Thanks/blclip56f.htm - 09/09/04

Autumn Leaves Candles clip art courtesy of http://webclipart.miningco.com/library/cos/blfall8.htm - 09/20/04

Keats' "To Autumn" courtesy of http://www.bartleby.com/126/47.html - 09/22/04

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