Spelling Bee

The Dubois County Spelling Bee, sponsored by the Dubois County Herald was held in Dubois at the Dubois Middle School in Dubois County. About 75 parents, grand parents, friends and supporters showed up to watch the competition on a mild Thursday evening in January. Parking was at a premium though as the middle school boys' basketball team competed in another part of the complex.

It took about an hour and 12 minutes to flush out the winner from a field of fifteen middle school girls and boys. The contest was concluded when one of the two remaining contestants fell victim to his own quick-spelling bravado msipelling 'pyromania', which he immediately realized. The young man showed himself to be a class act when he quickly offered congratulations to the winner.

The winner was gracious as well and thanked his mother for her assistance. He prevailed despite having a midspell pause in round seven with 'deserter' and again in round eight with 'winnable', the latter edging toward the time limit before he spit out the second 'n'and finishing ith a-b-l-e to complete the word and ease the crowd's tension. He seemed to settle down from then on spelling with considerably more ease.

The third and fourth place winners went down in round thirteen after the final four had remained standing for six consecutive rounds. The fourth place girl seemed genuinely dismayed at missing her word but the third place girl looked like she might be relieved to sit and therefor cease to be a 'very tall girl' on stage. Her discomfort showed throughout the event as her slumping gave away her all-too-common body image criticism among adolescent girls. She was a good speller though who had pronounced the word 'exhume' in the tenth round notably better than the offical. She also displayed her mental toughness by correctly spelling 'curfew' despite being interrupted by the official in round thirteen.

Among the other runners up there were the two that went down when spelling a word with a letter that jumped out of their mouth before its turn. Perhaps some had just underestimated their competition. And some seemed to have gone into the experience with an ambivalent attitude about being a participant.


All in all the 2006 County-wide spelling bee went off smoothly as the winner enjoyed a $75 prize and an invitation to the next level and the second place received $25. The other runners up were validated with a certificate.

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It was worth remembering that when someone misses a word they are supposed sit on a chair on the stage. I think all Bee's do this. The first person to miss this particular evening did not follow the etiquette and immediately went to the comfort of her mother's arms in the front row. Fortunately or unfortunately, the second one to miss remembered the chairs on the stage and the rest followed.

I think the Bee officials believe they are being nice to the runners-up.

But, in reality, some who missed words had to wait almost an hour to cry the tears of frustration and disappointment. And others couldn't wait.

Especially when they knew all the words for the rest of the Bee.


(fact-checker's note: All of the numbers are approximations in good faith.)

Jake's Garage

This is Jake's garage. One day last summer I came to see when I could get an oil change. Jake wasn't there but the garage was open. There was no sign to indicate where he was or when he'd be back.

So I sat down and waited. and waited. expecting Jake to appear at any moment. thinking he was just out for a second. or something. But after 45 minutes, I realized Jake was just gone. for who knows how long.

Where I come from, this is known as 'free tool day'.

RR

The RR that goes through Birdseye travels between Louisville and St. Louis. It used to stop in Birdseye when it was an up and coming little town with a train depot and two hotels.

Back in those days, it was the custom of the town to greet the 6 pm train when it stopped at the depot. My grandmother said she can remember when she was first old enough to participate (about 82 years ago). People didn't need a personal reason for greeting the train, it was just something everybody did. My grandmother doesn't know why.

She also doesn't know why the train stopped stopping and the hotels are gone.

Sign at the Birdseye General Store

5 and dimestore

I found out two weeks ago that the 5 and dime in French Lick, Indiana is closing.

It is/was an honest to goodness five and dime. My uncle got the last chocolate drops they had for my grandmother. She has told me several times that the only candy you could get when she was a kid was stick candy or chocolate drops. Her father would bring them back from his weekly visit to town.

According to my grandmother, Nanny, he often "sold his homemade sorghum out of a 55 gallon barrel from his wagon. People would bring all sorts of containers to buy some from him because everyone knew he was very particular about the quality. The kids, (Nanny included) , would have to go over the stripped sorghum stalks to get the last of the imperfections because you had to do that to get really good sorghum, you have to get every little leaf and imperfection.....

Nowadays, they just put anything in."


Anyway, seems the owners of this little store in French Lick were given an offer by speculators that sounded pretty good. And, since the husband is 71 and the wife is willing to work somewhere else, this seemed to be a good time to sell.

My uncle says that used to be you couldn't give these sorts of buildings away. But now there's some speculating going on, they have bought other properties in the older business section of French Lick. They are counting on the casino, due in a year, to bring property values up.



my grandmother often says, about many situations:


"we have to accept these things"




those chocolate drops were real good though.

picnic

Summer of 2005, August:

so I overheard that they need help for the Annual Birdseye Picnic benefitting the Birdseye Volunteer Fire Dept. I found the coordinator and explained who my grandmother is and that I'm staying here for a little bit and am willing to volunteer. MaryAnne pulled out the volunteer list and asked my preferences. I had no preferences and so she put me in the raffle ticket booth from 6-8 pm. I almost asked what the procedure would be because I know that when you take money and tickets at Unity in the Community festival back in Detroit, there is a system that involves serious checks and balances regardless of the who you are or know.

I decided to wait until I got to the festival.

I arrived early to buy a chicken dinner and check out the picnic a bit. There, I re-met MaryAnne and let her know I remembered that I was supposed to be there in an hour. After I walk away, I see that she is talking to Pam, who has known me as an acquaintance for 35 years though we have probably never exchanged more than 55 words in that time. I figure MaryAnne is getting a reference which is fine with me.

At 6 pm I arrive to find out what my task is, two other volunteers that I will take over for explain the job to me: Take the money that people give you and put it in this sack or the other. Everyonce in awhile, a guy who is roaming the crowd selling tickets will drop off his money. People can win money or a porch swing built by someone local.

I take over and find out that the raffle drawing is at 8 and I am the last person to man the table. I am the last person that will have thousands of dollars in front of me in a sack with nothing to account for the total except the other half of a ticket stub in a wire barrel. The roaming guy comes over, eyes me and says, "I hear we have someone from Chicago helping us out. Thanks." And then he dumped a couple hundred of dollars on the table.

The reference check had consisted of my word that I was who I said I was and someone's opinion that knew almost nothing about me.

I wanted to tell them: "This is crazy, this is naive. I could just take money and no one would know. Why don't you have a system. For your benefit and mine, should someone decide that I had taken something. You don't know what you're doing...."

I then realized this is how and why pointless bureaucracies are created.

Someone, someday, will come along and 'grow them up' by stealing a bunch of money and they will develop a system and.......

pre-union rural teacher story

I re-asked my 90 year old grandmother one evening, "Pop-pop worked 45 years as a teacher in Dubois County, right?"

Her reply, "......43........It would have been 45 but he lost 2 years to politics.......the republicans were in office for two years...."

"it was entirely different than it is now.......it was a trustee system......"

"he could have bought himself a school but he knew that was wrong.......so we went without....
those were hard years...."

Prologue

January 9, 2006- My name is Bruce Liles and I am writing from a little town in southern Indiana called Birdseye. It's in the SE corner of Dubois County about 20 miles from Jasper.

I have begun writing about my experiences and things I hear about while I am here so that more people will know about and care about a little town that is a little part of America that is going away. for better or worse. for whatever reason.

I have yet to settle on a focus or format. my criteria for a post is that I think that it's interesting in some way. to me. or someone. for some reason.

The entries are usually short because I'm not yet a writer who is willing to suffer for his craft.