Mae Helen Flowers, who served generations of students, dies at 79

    Mae Helen Flowers, who several generations of Ole Miss students remember from Kiami Bowling Lanes, died recently. Her obituary, from the Coleman Funeral Home website, is reprinted below.
    Mae Helen remembered everyone, and if she didn't remember you she would pretend she did. She offered up hamburgers and advice to students who would return long after they had graduated. When I stopped by Sen. Trent Lott's office a couple of times to visit students who were interning for him, one of the first questions he would ask is "How is Mae Helen these days?"
    She will be fondly remembered by thousands. (Thanks to Ed Flemmons for the photo, wherever he got it from!)

Lula Mae Helen Flowers, 79, died Thursday, March 17, 2011 at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Oxford, MS.

Born in Sardis, MS, Ms. Flowers had lived most of her life in the Oxford area. Affectionately known as “Mae Helen”, she was employed at Kiamie’s Bowling Lanes for 45 years. She was a favorite of Ole Miss students and local young people for her laughter and the care she gave them. Ms. Flowers enjoyed painting, writing, and considered people her project. She was a member of Harrisonville MB Church.

Visitation will be held Thursday, March 24, 2011, 12:00 noon-2:00 p.m. at Coleman Funeral Home with funeral services following at 2:00 p.m. in the Coleman Funeral Home Chapel. Rev. F. C. Kelson will officiate. Interment will be in the Harrisonville MB Church Cemetery, Hwy. 6 West, Oxford, MS. Coleman Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

Survivors include one son, Dale Flowers of Oxford, MS; one sister, Marie Flowers of Milwaukee, WI; two brothers, Leroy Flowers, Jr. of Atlanta, GA and Bobby J. Flowers of Phoenix, AZ; one grandchild and two great-grandchildren.

Her parents, Leroy and Ella Flowers, and two brothers, Roosevelt Flowers and J.R. Flowers preceded Ms. Flowers in death.

Memorials may be sent to Dale Flowers, 109 Red Rose Lane, Oxford, MS 38655 for distribution.

Online condolences may be left at www.colemanfuneralhome.com

Marriott Free Night Offer

    It's not too late to register for the Marriott Megabonus, offering one free night for every two paid stays at any Marriott-family property. The free nights can be used at any Category 4 or lower hotel.
    Registration ends March 31 and applies to stays until April 30. Make sure your Marriott earning style is for hotel points and not airline miles to get the free nights offer. Each member gets his own Megabonus offer, but most get the free nights offer.
Here's the link: http://www.marriott.com/rewards/promotion.mi?promotion=MS11

My daughter wins science fair, but misses lockdown

    The Regional elementary school Science fair was held Wednesday, March 23 at the Tad Smith Coliseum. My daughter won first place in the medicine and health category for her project on color blindness. There were quite a number of schools represented, including a number from Memphis, so winning was a real honor.
    Della Davidson Elementary won 19 total awards at the science fair. I attended the Della fair about six weeks ago and was very impressed with some of the projects these students did, and it was rewarded at the regional fair, as Della tied with Hayes-Cooper for the total number of awards won; however, Hayes-Cooper included students from grades 1-6 while Della only had students in grades 4-6 (middle school students were counted as Della students). If you only look at grades 4-6, Della received about twice as many prizes as any other school. Very impressive! (I think Hayes-Cooper, by the way, is a charter school in Merigold. So charter schools can do some pretty impressive things!)
    Meanwhile, while my daughter was at the science fair, all the schools in the district were placed on lock down because a car thief with a gun had jumped out of his car and eluded police in the area of the Oxford High School. My daughter expressed great disappointment to us that she missed all the excitement!

Time to stock up on discount groceries

    Long time, no post!
    Can't help but thing about the importance of having some extra food around the house in case of emergencies. Mormons, for example, are taught as part of their faith to try and keep a year's supply of food on hand.
    From my reading, many Mormons end up wasting quite a bit of food by storing things like wheat. But it is possible, and easy, to store enough food to have a couple of month's supply, and in the process save money on groceries. The current events in Japan should illustrate the wisdom of at least having a little extra food around the house.
    When pasta is on sale for 50 cents a box, why not buy 50 boxes? It really doesn't go bad, and it makes for an economical meal. A couple of years ago I was able to buy about 40 or 50 jars of Ragu sauce for 88 cents a jar. You can buy 25 pounds of rice for $10 at Sam's Club, put it in baggies and have enough rice to last several years. Cooking oil, cream of mushroom soup, evaporated milk, condensed milk, canned tuna and chili often go on deep discount and have a long shelf life.
    Flour doesn't keep as well, but there's no reason not to have a extra bag or two of flour that you rotate. Same for a lot of other items. Every home should have at least a case of bottled water for emergencies and some plain bleach for water purification.
    Literally hundreds of thousands of people are lined up in Japan for a drink of water or something to eat. The country's distribution network is in a shambles. There is going to be real hardship for every citizen of that country. It probably won't happen here, but it could. If disaster strikes, you can be prepared.
    And if disaster doesn't strike, you will save on your grocery bill by stocking up on items when they are on sale.

Holli's gets a new sign from faithful customer

    Holli's Sweet Tooth candy store and ice cream parlor in Oxford had it's sign stolen about six weeks ago. It was an unusual sign, and just the kind of thing that a few college students are wont to steal.
    Earlier today I walked by the store and saw an older man putting up the Holli's sign. "Did you recover the sign or is that a new one?" I asked.
    That's when I learned that the store hadn't purchased a new sign, nor had they recovered the old one. Instead, one of their young customers had asked her grandfather to make the store a new sign because she missed the old one. Based on the wording of the sign, I assume this young girl's name is Piper Clark, and her grandfather's name is "Pappy."
    But what a wonderful story about a little girl caring about others, a grandfather caring for his granddaughter, and Holli's now having their sign back. There is good news in this world if you look for it!

Voting in Pencil?

I went to vote in the Oxford school bond election this morning. I voted "yes," and am fairly certain the bond will pass. The vote was taken on paper ballots. I couldn't help but notice that most of the ballot booths were only equipped with No. 2 pencils. Mississippi law requires that ballots be marked only with pen or indelible pencil. Numerous court cases have thrown out ballots cast with pencil.

Oh well, perhaps I'm the only one who noticed!

I just installed Google Picasa

I just installed Google Picasa 3 on my computer. I couldn't decide between Flickr and Picasa and decided to go with Picasa.

For starters I had to download a web album program to my computer. I've tried to use these before and have not been impressed. The Picasa program located every photo on my computer in just a few minutes, and displayed large thumbnails that I could actually see. When I clicked on them, they opened in a flash, and I could do a quick-and-dirty photo edit if I wanted. I was able to throw away a lot of out-of-focus and junk photos with ease with this program.

I paid $5 to get 20 GB of storage on Google. If I need to I'll pay $15 more to get 80 GB. My goal is to make sure all the photos and videos we've taken over the years get onto the ether, so that if my computer crases we'll have a backup. I already have everything on a removable disk, but you never know.

When I get everything uploaded I'll post a link and the world can snoop through my snapshots.