By Sherry Hopkins

Community Columnist

Today is Tuesday and it is a gloriously beautiful day out today. As I write the temperature is hovering in the upper 20s.

We are going to head out to Oxford in a bit to go to the movies. Tuesday is discount day and we can both get in for $11. What a treat!

Going to see movies is our favorite type of entertainment this time of year. The sounds and the smells and the feasts for the eyes are incomparable to us both.  I got an email at the end of last week from Jeremy the Editor of this paper telling me that I had had a visitor at the office.

Lots of folks have assumed over the years that they can find me squirreled away there in a small, nondescript cubby hole surrounded by wadded up pieces of paper and mountains of reference books, my glasses far down my nose and my hair in disarray as I chew a pencil to extinction from anxiety.

I am here to tell you that I write from my memory and my computer early most Tuesday mornings, and then I let it roll around in my mind for the better part of the day to make sure I am happy, and then I email the story to Jeremy and to Myra.

This has worked well for us all for the past 14 years. Most days as I am sure you know by now I have NOTHING to say or write about. The past two years have been especially slim pick-ins’ around here as we struggled to deal with this hairpin curve life put in our relatively straight road.

Funny thing about roads, and I have written this observation before, is that you may be miffed at first about an unplanned detour, but it can turn out to be the most beautiful road you have ever seen.

That is kind of where we are at present. We have ranted and raved and denied and shed tears. We have screamed and fumed and shook our fists at invisible masses whom we felt must be responsible for the state we have found ourselves in. And, then we began to calm down and clarity and focus started to creep back into our once serene lives. Laughter crept back in as well.

But, back to the visitor. Jeremy got the information from the sweet lady who was inquiring about me and sent me the email to let me know she had been there. He also had her phone number. So I called later on that morning and talked to a delightful woman, Blanche Clarkson.

She said she reads my stories first on Fridays and I was taken with our conversation right away. She lives in town and still drives herself around and is very self sufficient. Why is this surprising? Ms. Blanche turned 100 years old this past November. A century of living, 100 years.

That is a very, very long time in anybody’s book. I was struck by how present she was and never faltered in her memory of things recent or past. I was tickled that she reached out to me. And hopefully this will lead to a  friendship in the near future. I would love to go and sit with her and hear her stories from her life. A life that has lived a century would surely have many interesting stories to tell.

So Ms. Blanche, if you are reading this, give me a call and I will bring pastries and coffee and we can spend some time together. You can reach me at 563-2525.

As I said earlier, you never know where life and its winding roads will take you. All you have to do is be up for the ride.

Buckle up and stay tuned.