The deer hunters are pouring into town. The season begins in the morning and the forecast is perfect for hunting. The sound of deer rifles bring a need for extreme caution if you are walking around the local pastures. While not common, it is also not unheard of for humans to be mistaken for deer by a distant hunter.
The Teague police have released a composite drawing of the man who robbed the Teague bank this week. Click for article. I remember in the mid 1970's the Thornton and Kosse banks were held up at gunpoint and the robber was not caught for a few weeks. We owned a grocery store in Thornton at the time and it was definitely a big story there. They eventually arrested the perpetrator and he was given a lengthy sentence. I find it strange that people continue to rob banks as they almost always get caught.
High-speed DSL internet service has finally arrived to Kosse. Embarq is offering speeds up to 5.0 mps, which is extremely fast. Quality of life continues to improve in our wonderland community.
The annual Kosse Community Center Thanksgiving dinner will be held Thursday, November 16, 2006 at 7:00 p.m. Everyone is invited to share in the food and fellowship. Please bring a vegetable, salad, or dessert. Turkey and dressing, ham, and drinks will be provided. You are also asked to bring a non-perishable item for the Food for Families collection drive.
A tragic event has occurred in Kosse. The baby daughter of Todd and Stacia McCreery was a victim of crib death Tuesday morning. I've known Todd since he was a kid and really hate to hear this. Click for article.
I somehow lost a day of my life yesterday. I had been awake so long the previous day that I slept for sixteen hours. I do have to say I feel well-rested.
Politics is a dirty business. I hear pundits say the partisanship is worse today than ever. I disagree as there has been political mudslinging for centuries. The only difference is that the internet has made it faster and more prevalent. When I graduated from high school and college there was no such thing as personal computers or the internet. Cell phones were a Dick Tracy cartoon exclusive and eight-track tapes were the music medium of choice. Anyway, back to politics. From what I have seen, the political races for our Kosse city officials are civil and tame. With a population of about 500 everyone knows most everyone else. The aspirants sign up, everyone knows the candidates, and there is really no need for a media campaign or negative advertising. If there is something negative about the candidate it is already well-known. That is one of 328 reasons I will never run for local political office.
A number of events and activities are upcoming in Kosse. The Helping Hands food drive is week after next. You can drop off donations at Wright's Hardware or the Kosse Community Center. The Kosse First United Methodist Church is having a big garage sale at their pavilion next Friday and Saturday. They're sure an active bunch at the Methodist Church. Within a month's time they would have sponsored their Fall Festival, Halloween Treats night, and now the garage sale. I'm not sure who the ramrod behind these activities is but it is good for the community.
Yet another month has come to a close. Today is Halloween and the Kosse Cafe is prepared for trick-or-treating. There are a number of employees at the cafe who keep the place decorated for the various holidays. If you have been there in the past couple of weeks you would have noticed the various Halloween adornments. We have a nice collection of artificial spider webs hanging over the cash register and other strange things located throughout the dining area. Over the years employees have also dressed for the occasion. I've seen witches, fairies, and Donald Porch in a dress with makeup on.
The Falls County Tax Assessor/Collector resigned after her indictment and her replacement has been named. Click for article. The Teague bank was held up by an armed robber in a stolen car. Click for article. Twenty-six-hundred dead New Yorkers have cast election ballots. Click for article.
I came upon two deer last night while coming back from Rosebud on the Reagan road. One was a big buck. Deer season will soon be upon us. I have never been into hunting so I will not be sitting in a freezing deer stand at 6:00 a.m. waiting for Bambi to walk by, but I always like deer season because it brings a lot of business to the cafe. A few years ago I was at the grocery store one Saturday morning when a game warden walked in. He had received a report that I had some deer carcasses hanging in my walk-in cooler. Not knowing me, he did not realize the last thing in the world I wanted to deal with was processing a bunch of unskinned deer. I don't know who the guy was but you would have thought he was on the trail of solving the Jack the Ripper murder mystery. I had no problem letting him look in the cooler, as I knew all he would find was domestic meats, sodas, and a lot of beer. What was a problem was that he was accusatory and rude before even verifying the validity of the anonymous report. After he took a tour of the walk-in he had the nerve to ask me if I had been tipped off about his inspection and moved all the deer. It was at that point my patience with his rudeness ended. I asked him if he was finished and told him to take his own carcass out the door. His parting shot was to tell me he would be keeping an eye out to see if any more deer were brought into the store. I understood he was simply doing his job, but I felt he could have left the attitude in the forest.
The weekend has arrived with crisp, cool weather and the first district victory for the Groesbeck Goats football team. I noticed Kosseite Kenneth Sims was among the honorees at the Goat homecoming last week. I graduated with his brother Randy from Goat High in 1975. I saw him a few years ago and we were running a close race on which of us had more gray hair. I don't know what he is doing now.
I concluded my series "Roots of the Kosse Cafe" last week. Today will see the beginning of a new periodically posted series, "Adventures at the Kosse Cafe". It will be a retelling of events that have happened over the years that I found amusing or strange.
Adventures at the Kosse Cafe #1
Over the years we have employed hundreds of people in various business locations. I turned over the responsibility of hiring at the cafe to Stacy when she became manager and, as the people who eat there know, she has put together an excellent crew. The most unusual applicant to ever seek employment showed up one day at the cafe. The jobseeker was willing to do whatever was available and did in fact have restaurant experience. The only drawback was that the applicant was a transvestite, in other words a man who dresses in women's clothing. I did not see him but was told he was nicely attired in a fashionable skirt and blouse. He had evidently applied the Maybelline and had red lipstick on. I did not inquire as to the style of his purse. One of my younger, less-worldly employees was not sure what to make of the situation and was still talking about it days later. While a number of things (race, religion, ethnicity, etc.) cannot be used to influence hiring decisions, a person's dress and demeanor are allowed for consideration and therefore he was not hired. Stacy did not think our clientile is ready for a male waiter wearing a dress. I agree.
Halloween is soon upon us. The Kosse First United Methodist Church is serving snacks and refreshments at their new pavilion from 5:00-8:00 that evening. Stacy will make sure we have candy at the Kosse Cafe to give to our young goblins, so bring your kids by. When I was a kid in the 1960's, Halloween was one of my favorite events. This of course was due to the sackful of candy which would be accumulated on the trick-or-treat trek. We would go from one house to the next for two or three blocks. Most every neighbor had their lights on and candy bowl ready. We would then gorge on sweets for the next few days.
I noticed in the Groesbeck Journal the Kosse Chamber of Commerce was discussing an idea about the burned-out Kosse School House. I'm interested to hear what it is. It would be great if something could be resurrected on the site.
Our drought is definitely over. It was hot and humid yesterday (one of our more unpleasant weather conditions) but we're supposed to have a cold front move through today. The wind gusts are predicted to be up to 35 m.p.h., which is gale force category. Hold on to your hats.
Two months until Christmas. Daylight savings time ends this weekend. The cafe usually is busier once the time changes so I like the earlier darkness.
My father died twenty-one years ago this week. He succumbed to prostate cancer which had spread to his bones. He could often be found the last few years of his life in Kosse, helping my brother John at his grocery store. He took pride in his clean lifestyle, never smoking or drinking. The irony is he died when he was sixty-nine, while his brother (my Uncle Virgil) who smoked Winston cigarettes and enjoyed an occasional drink lived to be ninety-three. Daddy always had some project he was working on. His various brainstorms involved politics, business, education, agriculture, landscaping, and many other activities. In the mid-1960's he decided to build a house on the acreage we owned in the Davis Prairie area. He became architect, carpenter, and floor installer. We lived in Lake Jackson at the time so were making a 220-mile drive on weekends to get here. After arriving late Friday night, we would be roused early Saturday morning to be enlisted as unpaid pre-pubescent construction workers. To this day I don't like sawing boards and hammering nails. Daddy was posthumously honored in 1995 with the naming of a school after him in Lake Jackson. Click for school website.
