It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas and a lot of our businesses and residences have really prepared some beautiful decorations. (For some reason our decorations in Veterans Park and on the utility poles just seem to look especially bright this year.)

I earlier announced that Indian Mountain State Park Director Jerome Cummins has said that the park will carry out a project over the next several years to again have the type of Christmas in the Park that we enjoyed so much for three years. But he cautions that this first year will be very, very limited in what can be accomplished due to the lateness of the start as well as the fact that the park has no funds for such a purpose. He said that public donations in the form of lights, extension cords, electrical receptacles, etc will be needed and welcomed since very little of the original equipment used several years ago still remains at the park or is still in serviceable condition. (A good deal of the lights and displays were brought to Veterans Park the first year after it was discontinued at Indian Mountain.) I hope that our businesses and citizens will be as generous to contribute to the project as they were several years ago.

Jerome says that he hopes to especially emphasize activities this first year and to obtain as many church choirs, singing groups, individual singers, etc. to perform on the one night scheduled for activities (Saturday, December 13th). One extremely interesting item will be the establishing of a "bar" on the site of the old W. F. Floyd Tavern that was located there for many years and known far and wide as "W.F.'s place". (The many amusing stories told concerning W.F. and his bar are priceless and still related today.) However this bar will serve beverages of a somewhat different type than those of yesteryear. Hot chocolate and hot cider will be the choice of patrons at this bar.

Still it will probably bring back a lot of memories to more than just a few old timers who are known to have frequented W. F.'s place on occasion in those long ago days. I'm not going to give anybody away because I may have slipped into W. F.'s a time or two myself in my much, much younger days. (W. F. never was known as one who would bother himself too much with insignificant things like checking ID's for a person's age.)

But I'm not admitting to anything mind you! I know for sure that my mother never learned of any visits that I might have made there (strictly out of curiosity of course) or she would have come after me with a big switch. (She didn't check ID's for age either - or size for that matter!.) And take it from me! She knew very well how to use a good limb off a bush or tree and she believed in applying it very liberally when she felt that it was required - after telling me that it hurt her more than it hurt me! (Remember hearing that?) But I knew it came out of pure love!

Our Annual Christmas Parade is now only a little over a week away (Sunday, December 14th at 2:30 PM) and from all indications it is going to be a big one - at least from what folks tell me that I have an opportunity to talk with. As I have written previously, Robin Wilhoit of Channel 10 television will be our grand marshal and from all accounts, she accepted the invitation with a great deal of enthusiasm. And that is good! (I can recall several years ago when we had a grand marshal that did not appear too thrilled to be here and gave the impression to some of us that he could not wait to get the parade over with.)

Everybody is reminded that ALL parade traffic will be one way and enter High School Loop ONLY at the Crouches Creek Baptist Church/Rocky Top Arby's entrance (near the entrance to the football field). That includes units that will be entering the parade and also vehicles that will be dropping off riders of units and then exiting. The short street leading from Sunset Trail down to the high school will be blocked and no vehicles will be allowed to enter High School Loop at the traffic light/Hardees/Buddy's Barbeque. The new arrangement will insure that there will be much more space available for parking and for easily entering an unlimited number of units into the line of march at the appropriate time - since the parking lots in front and back of the school can be utilized as well as the parking areas at the football field.

All churches, schools, officials, businesses, military and veterans units, scouts, organizations, groups, clubs, athletic teams, cheerleaders, emergency vehicles, saddle horses, etc., etc., are both welcome and invited to enter the line of march. The more the merrier and provisions will be made to get everyone into the line. The Tourism Commission's goal is to make the parade larger and more interesting every year and to accomplish that objective they need the participation of every possible individual and/or unit. Our parade is becoming known over a large area and we have an awful lot of folks to come into town that day. In addition to its Christmas theme, it's great family entertainment, helps to build community spirit and it's good for our local economy.

I know that Tourism Committee Chairman Alvin Evans and Tourism Director Jake Bennett have done a lot of work and planning to allow for easier forming up of the parade line but I don't know if either has done anything toward insuring that we have good weather that day. I checked the long-range weather forecast on internet site www.weather.com on the day these notes were prepared but it only extended through Thursday, December 11th and there were showers predicted for that day. But let's all hope for a good clear, crisp day like many of those we have had in the past (but a few snow flurries might be good to help with the Christmas spirit). However we have had some very rainy days for the parade in past years also and we need to be prepared for that possibility as well. We can't expect to have perfect weather every time.

I was very surprised at how many people commented on my article last week pertaining to the passing of hall-of-fame country music singer and song writer Don Gibson who once performed every weekend here in Jellico. I knew that we still have a number of folks that can remember that era but I just didn't realize how many. (In fact one individual said that he had made special effort to attend one of Gibson's concerts only a few years ago and that he had sung and entertained continuously for ninety minutes- including some of his all-time classic hits- in spite of his advancing age that eventually forced him to give up the profession that he loved so much. But "Oh Lonesome Me", "I Can't Stop Loving You", "Sweet Dreams of You" and a lot more of his songs will live on and on!

I had to miss the last meeting of the Downtown Revitalization Task Force due to conflicts with other responsibilities. But I did have an opportunity to talk by phone with developer Mike Ross early this week concerning the Task Force's recommendations for our downtown and progress being made on "Rarity Mountain". And as I have written in these articles before, I informed him that I would like to soon implement some of the recommendations - especially the "gateway to Jellico" and the "railroad style" open air pavilion.

Like all projects of the magnitude of Rarity Mountain development, problems develop that have to be dealt with and apparently there has been some type of hitch with the location of the projected first golf course. But Mr. Ross said that he had an architect coming in to make some adjustments in the layout of the course and I got the impression that he thought everything could be worked out with more study. But the important thing is that work continues and an awful lot of us are anxious to see the development take place - especially following completion of the interchange off Interstate-75.

On an entirely different note: There is more and more concern pertaining to the flu virus that appears to already be spreading in this country. The recent deaths of children in Colorado really got everyone's attention and probably has led to a lot of folks getting the flu immunization that might not otherwise have done so.

But some medical professionals are now telling us that there may be at least one strain out there that is little affected by the vaccine. And every time I hear of the flu I think of the stories that my mother and grandmother told me about the "great influenza outbreak" that occurred in 1919 when there was no vaccine that killed an estimated 20 million people world wide. (Brought to this country by soldiers returning from World War I in Europe.) And it did not spare the Jellico area either. Many locals were sickened including entire households. Some individuals voluntarily "quarantined" themselves and refused to even get out in public for any reason. Schools closed and many local businesses shut down for several days due either to fear or to the illness of their operators and employees. (In the large cities, many dead went unburied for a time due to the fact that there were so many sick that manpower was unavailable for burial purposes.)

The strange thing about that strain of the flu virus was the fact that it most often took the lives of the young and otherwise healthy individuals including a very, very heavy toll on the soldiers in the army camps. The very young and the elderly usually recovered fairly quickly. (We are told now that the healthy immune systems fought that strain of the virus so hard that fluid was produced which built up in the lungs and as a result, virtually "drowned" the victims.)

I can recall my mother telling me that during that terrible period, folks wore handkerchiefs and cloths over their faces on the streets of Jellico - allowing only enough space for vision. Recognition of someone from a family with ill members led other folks to avoid any close contact and sometimes leaving them virtually ostracized..

Let's pray that we never have a return of anything like that - although I saw a television show not too long ago that stated that the future outbreak of such a flu virus strain is not a question of "if" but rather "when"! Effective or not, that show led me to make it a priority to get my vaccination as early as possible this year. And I personally experienced the "Hong Kong" flu!

True to my worst fears, it was so cold in Lexington last Saturday for the football game that all of the clothes that I had on (and I was wearing enough that it was difficult for me to walk) still didn't keep me warm in that icy cold wind that seems to always blow there during the winter.

I was much like Bob Teague who said that he decided to leave the stadium several times but that the sun would pop out just long enough for him to sit back down. Then the sun always immediately went back behind the clouds and it was as bitter cold as ever.

But Michael Ray and I were involved in an effort to correct one potentially tragic situation. As a young lady was climbing the stadium steps, her apparently newly acquired engagement ring somehow slipped off her finger and to the concrete below. She quickly broke into tears and no amount of looking turned up the ring. More and more folks got to searching but none of us had any success. However the seats had been swept and the snow had accumulated beneath them. Luckily a man who obviously had awfully good vision, somehow spotted the shadow of the ring in the snow cluster that had already been searched two or three times and saved the day for that young lady who was dreading to face her fiancé - a wonderful early Christmas present for her!