NEWS FROM NORTONVILLE Martha Bowman, Nortonville Correspondent

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Summertime greetings from Nortonville to all. It is now summertime. Imagine it is the year 1958. June 27 of that year Jim and Faye Lynn Johnston Walker were married at Nortonville Baptist Church by the Rev. David Brown. The year 2008 probably seems a long time away.

But now here we are in the year 2008 and we want to say congratulations to this Nortonville couple as they celebrate their golden anniversary. Best wishes from Nortonville to Faye and Jim for happiness together always.

So now is the “livin’ easy” as the poem “Summertime,” written by DuBose Heyward, says. Gershwin put music to the poem in the musical “Porgy and Bess.” And, yeah, I’ve been singing and humming that song, trying to resist my “sing-writing.” I don’t do song-writing but I often find myself singing to myself (in my mind) some song that relates to whatever I am thinking about; or sometimes my mind begins to relate whatever I am writing about to certain words in a song — and thus I “sing-write.”

That part about “livin’ is easy” in the song “Summertime” just keeps humming around in my mind. I suppose Gershwin’s “musicalating” (my word for writing songs about what one is thinking about, as compared to my own practice of relating what I am thinking about to songs) was relating to the fun days of summer with the swimming and fishing and vacationing and all those sorts of things. DuBose surely could not have been thinking about the grass mowing, garden hoeing, bug swatting, heat sweating sorts of summer things.

And those lines about “Fish are jumpin’/And the cotton is high” even sort of contradict that “livin’ is easy” part. Although fields of cotton might be a pretty sight to imagine, that also conjures up thoughts of pickin’ that cotton, which can’t be part of the “livin’ is easy” thing. And I have to say I’m not a fisher so I’m not sure I’d know if the fish are jumpin’ if I looked. Then you see, I am a “Martha,” so I would make fishing serious if I did fish, and I doubt it would fit into my “livin’ is easy” sort of thing. How are the fish doing up at Nortonville Lake?

My granddaughter, Laura Dillingham, got her stepdad, James, some sort of a fish for Father’s Day. I guess my son-in-law has been enjoying that fish jumpin’ although he didn’t have an aquarium or fish pond to put it in, so by now it may not be jumping.

Continuing with my sing-writing: “Your daddy’s rich” — I guess would go a long way toward making livin’ easy, especially nowadays, with the gas prices and food prices going up. “And your ma is good lookin’ ” — you know, I just feel that every baby thinks its ma is good looking. Which reminds me. A baby is part of what brought this song to my mind.

Mechelle Hight Earl of Nortonville and Danny Earl of St. Charles have a new grandbaby, Kial Taylor Boggs, born June 15, 2008. Kial’s parents are Taylor and Heather Boggs. Little Kial has had to stay at the hospital in the newborn intensive care and may even still be there. Let us keep this little baby in our thoughts and prayers and hope for her to be strong and well and able to come home soon. “Hush little baby/Don’t you cry.”

We have had some encouragement in our hoping with some of our Nortonville folks. Library volunteer Lynn Travis is back from his cancer surgery and now volunteering again at our Nortonville Library. Also, Edith Hamby is back at home after convalescing at her daughter Melissa’s for several months. And as I am writing this, Dot Barnes is doing some better at the hospital. Anita and Mitchell have been here with their dad as Dot has been battling her serious illness.

Nortonville’s thoughts and prayers are certainly with these and others who are ill are troubled in any way.

No, Delbert and other Nortonville fellows, I did not hit Larry in the eye. He fell. And, no, I did not trip him or push him down, or pull a rug out from under him or any of that. However, if he tells you I did, I hope you’ll let me know so I can try to put music to that thought. Then I might just have to think up some way to make sure his livin’ is not all that easy this summertime, and I really don’t mean to relate that to a DuBose’s sort of thing.

With your information about Nortonville, contact Martha Bowman at 824-8297, P.O. Box 394 Nortonville or marbowoates@hotmail.com.