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Declare among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard;
publish, and conceal not. - Jeremiah 50:2
2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 winner: Editorial Page excellen
2019, 2018 winner: Best Headline Writing
2019 winner: Best Community Service
2019 winner: Best Layout and Design
2019 winner: Best Serious Column - Don Daniel
ON THE PORCH by Will Davis
DRAWING ON THE NEWS by AF Branco
Husbands do it
all at Christmas,
just ask them
A college friend from Raleigh, N.C. texted a group
of us KA frat brothers the other day to ask
where he can find UGA jerseys for his small
kids for Christmas. Ha!
This friend didn’t get married and start having kids until
way after the rest of us. He was looking for advice from
experienced dads. What my friend hasn’t figured out yet,
it seems, is that when it comes to Christmas, dads don’t do
crap.
As my exhausted wife of 23 years told me the other day,
“You don’t do for Christmas.”
And she’s right.
Well, not entirely.
I did take the Christmas tree off
the truck after Thanksgiving. And
I fastened it to the tree stand in the
correct, upright position. I have been
thinking a lot about that Christmas
feat. What a contribution. What a
hero. It’s the biggest, straightest live
Fraser fir in all of southern Monroe
County. I am certainly the hero of our
home. And. That’s. About. All. I’ve. .
Done.
My sweet wife, meanwhile, has ^
decorated the house, put the lights
and ornaments on the tree, bought gifts for 3 kids and 6
parents, oh and yes, she has a full-time job. I’m just happy
that I could help.
I was talking to another friend’s wife at a Christmas par
ty on Monday night and did a little survey for this column.
“What does your husband do to prepare for Christmas?”
I inquired.
“Nothing!” she laughed.
See, it’s not just me.
Wives enjoy complaining about their husbands’ lack of
holiday help. But the truth is some of us have tried to help.
And been found wanting.
For instance, I USED to be the Christmas Lights Spe
cialist. I would plug in a long power strip next to the tree.
I would find the box of white lights. I would pull the tree
away from the wall. And I would walk around and around
and around the tree, adding light strand to light strand
until the breaker blew. Meanwhile I would stick lights in
various gaps and holes in the tree trying to be neat. When
I had reached the top of the tree, I would stand back and
admire my handiwork.
“What do you think honey?” I would ask rhetorically,
puffing out my chest.
“Well,” she would say charitably, “it kind of looks like
one of those V-8 commercials where everything is lopsid
ed.”
And then she would begin rapidly moving my strands of
lights in different directions all over the tree. This annual
tradition led to a little inside joke my son Park and I like to
tell on Mrs. Davis. I hope she won’t read this column and
see it. Remember in “A Charlie Brown Christmas” when
the Peanuts gang surrounds Snoopy’s Christmas tree and
begins moving their arms wildly all around the tree? Then
suddenly they stop and reveal a beautifully decorated tree?
That’s what Mrs. Davis did every year to my Snoopy deco
rating job. So to this day, Park and I can look at each other,
start moving our arms wildly, and we bust out laughing.
Again, wives like to complain about the lack of help at
Christmas, but the last thing they really want is “help.”
Consider the gifts we sometimes pick out. I am the
master of the spontaneous and whimsical Christmas gift,
See ON THE PORCH Page 5A
i Americans for Limited
I Government
©2022Creators, com
REECE’S PIECES by Sieve Reece
True love can be a crazy thing
M arriage is supposed to
be a permanent ever
lasting devotion from
one person to another.
It is a sacred vow of commitment.
Unless you are positively sure that
you have found your soul mate this
can be a terrifying promise to make
to someone before God and the rest
of the world. For most of us, the per
fect mate is a fellow human being.
But for others, their ideal spouse is
an inanimate object.
A Swedish woman became a widow
on November 9,1989, the day the
Berlin Wall fell and Germany was
reunified. Her name was Eija-Riitta
Eklof-Berliner-Mauer, born in 1954. If
you type her last name (Berliner-Mau-
er) into your translator app, you’ll find
that it translates to “Berlin Wall.”
Eija “married” the Berlin Wall on
June 17,1979, during a public cere
mony held in East Berlin. An anima
tor was hired to say the vows for the
groom. She had written in a
poem before the wedding that
her love for the wall was as
strong as the concrete blocks
that held Mr. Wall together.
Well, the concrete blocks
weren’t as strong as she
thought and after her
husband was demol
ished and lay in a pile of
rubble at her feet, Berlin-
er-Mauer went through
some extremely difficult times. “For
me, Berlin Wall exists as he was in his
prime!” she said. “I will always love
him. Those are my final words.”
She continued to grieve, and her
final, final words were spoken on
Halloween, 2015 when a fire tragically
took her life.
Erika Eiffel (I’m sure you recognize
the last name) is a 50-year-old Amer
ican woman who became hitched to
the Eiffel Tower in a commitment cer
emony in 2007. She is also the spokes
woman for “objectum sexuality’
which is described as having a sexual
or romantic attraction for inanimate
objects. Myself, I love Ford Mustangs
and pinto beans but it’s nothing weird
like these folks.
Eiffel’s attraction for objects began
when she was a cadet in the U.S. Air
Force Academy in 1993 and was sex
ually assaulted. She defended herself
against the attack using a training
sword and afterward couldn’t sleep
unless she was holding the sword. “It
was the one thing that protected me.”
she said, “And it just got worse.”
It got so bad that when she first
met the Eiffel Tower in 2004, she felt
an immediate attraction. She
says, “Some people feel an
innate connection to objects. It
comes perfectly normal to us
to connect on various levels,
emotional, spiritual, and also
physical for some.” I’m not sure
if Berliner-Mauer was
aware of it, but Eiffel said
she also had a 20-year re
lationship with the Berlin
Wall. That bond inspired
the musical theater production “Erikas
Wall.” She also has appeared on
“Good Morning America” and “The
Tyra Banks Show” discussing her
“marriage” to the tower.
These two aren’t the only nuts on
the planet, though. Linda Ducharme,
of Florida, fell in love and “married” a
Ferris wheel. The happy groom’s name
is Bruce. Their long-term engagement
lasted 30 years before she promised to
love, honor, and obey “in sickness and
health” the 70-foot-tall circular con
traption in 2012. Unfortunately, Bruce
was heavily damaged during a storm,
and she has spent nearly $ 100,000
bringing him back to health. Ducha
rme says their relationship is like any
other married couple’s and they spend
a lot of time together over candlelit
dinners. Before meeting her current
husband, she also dated a plane and a
train.
A Chinese artificial intelligence
engineer, Zheng Jiajia, was under a lot
of pressure from his family to find a
wife and settle down. But there aren’t
enough women to go around in China
after the sex-selective abortions that
occurred during the country’s one-
child policy. His simple solution was
to create a beautiful female robot he
named Yingying. They dated for two
months before he placed a red scarf
over her head, and with friends and
family bearing witness, carried her
down the aisle in a simple yet tradi
tional ceremony. She can speak a few
simple words and at the appropriate
time uttered, “I do.” Zheng is planning
to upgrade his wife to be able to walk
on her own and do simple house
hold chores like folding laundry and
washing the dishes. He maybe on to
something there, now.
It isn’t only inanimate objects that
people “marry ’ Amanda Teague met
pirate Jack Sparrow, a 300-year-old
ghost in 2014 when he came to her
while she was lying in bed. They spent
a lot of time together and soon she
had romantic feelings for him. The
two married because Teague wanted
something more than just a sexual
relationship. Sadly, all is not bliss in
the spirit world, and the two split up.
Teague told the Irish Mirror, “So, I feel
it’s time to let everyone know that my
marriage is over. I will explain all in
due course but for now, all I want to
say is to be VERY careful when dab
bling in spirituality, it’s not something
to mess with.” Nope. Not me.
Steve Reece is a writer for the Reporter
and a known crime fighter. Email him
at stevereece@gmail.com.
is published every week by The Monroe County Reporter Inc.
Will Davis, President • Robert M. Williams Jr., Vice President
Cheryl S. Williams, Secretary-T reasurer
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Publication No. USPS 997-840
CAROLYN S CORNER by Carolyn Martel
Receiving the greatest Christmas gift
|oday I was thinking about and the other doll was a gift from my
my childhood memories of favorite
F
Tammy Rafferzeder
Business Manager
business@mymcr.net
Christmas.
A When I was
a kid, we didn’t celebrate
Christmas Day at home. We
-
r >
Diane Glidewell
always celebrated it at my
Community Editor
grandmother’s home along
i
i:
3r
xJ
news@mymcr.net
with all my mother’s broth-
ers, sisters, their spouses and
. 'V A 's
children. Thank goodness for
my grandmother’s big
farm house, because £^2^
When the time came to
open our Christmas gifts,
I noticed that my five year
old cousin, Elmira had
received a couple pair of
warm, fuzzy socks.
It was probably all her
parents could afford, since
they were poor south
Georgia farmers.
that was a lot of folks!
When I was a little
girl, children didn’t
receive numerous gifts at Christmas.
One Christmas gift was the norm. I
remember when I was five years old, I
received two dolls as Christmas gifts!
I was so excited and felt so blessed!
One doll was a gift from my parents,
MOM LEANED
over and whispered in
my ear,“ Why don’t you give Elmira
one of your dolls.” I immediately
got up and walked over to where
my cousin was sitting on the floor,
and handed her one of my dolls. My
cousin repeatedly hugged and kissed
the doll. The look on her face was one
of pure joy, awe and gratitude for the
gift I had given her.
When it comes to Christmas gifts,
Billy Graham said, “Too often we lose
sight of the true meaning of Christ
mas, and we fail to reflect on the
greatest Christmas gift of all: God’s
gift of His Son, Jesus Christ for our
salvation.
He came into this world for one
reason: to make it possible for our
sins to be forgiven, so we could be
come part of God’s family forever.”
This Christmas, may we all express
joy, awe and gratitude to God for the
greatest gift of all-Jesus Christ!
Carolyn Martel of Forsyth is the re
tired long-time advertising manager for
the Reporter. Email her at carolynmar-
tell @bellsouth. net.