Peeping through my Venetian blind, I saw a group of children, a mixture of boys and girls, walking to school across from my cottage. Growing along the roadside they walked were buttercups, also known as primroses. I smiled as I saw one child, a mischievous boy, pick a buttercup and ask a little girl to smell it. She “fell” for his mischief, and he with a broad smile rubbed the pollen of the buttercup all over her nose and laughed. The pollen is the “butter” in the cup.

We used to do the same thing when we walked to school along “the primrose path.”

Thinking back, I recall that some of those children ended up in marriage. We called them the “buttercup marriages.”

Speaking of marriages, Herb and Sue Carlisle celebrated 19 years of marriage April 9.

I saw Herb and Sue last Tuesday at the monthly luncheon of Fifty Forward, the fellowship group for the senior adults who attend First Baptist Church on East Three-Notch.

The Fellowship Hall was decorated in red and white – white cloths, central red mat, red napkins, red-and-white mints around velvet red amaryllis from the gardens of Dr. Morgan and Wilma Moore. The flowers were placed in vases that had belonged to the late Trudy Vickers.

The hall was decorated by Gordon Vickers, director of the senior adults, and the husband of Trudy Vickers. He was assisted by Kittye Wyatt, Betty Bass, and Wilma Moore.

“Happy Birthday” was sung to Wilma for her April birthday, the only senior present with an April birthday.

The invocation was worded by Judson Blackstock, assistant pastor; the benediction by Dr. Fred Karthaus, pastor.

Wages of River Falls catered the buffet with mashed potatoes and roast in gravy, green beans, cornbread and rolls, garden salad, and lemon cake.

The program was presented by George “Chuck” Patterson, revenue commissioner of Covington County for the past seven months.

A graduate of Opp High School in 1976, Chuck went on to earn a B.S. in business management from the University of North Alabama in 1980.

His wife is Carrie Savage, formerly of Florala. They have been married 33 years and have two children.

Chuck spoke on collecting taxes, experience, storage of records, tax exemptions, and costs of running the office. He shared that he has 33 years in management, corporate accounting, and tax accounting.

He attends First United Methodist Church of Opp.

A particularly interesting fact he shared is that Covington is the seventh largest county in Alabama.

Fifty Forward also gathered April 12 for supper at David’s Catfish Restaurant.

Attending were Herb and Sue Carlisle, Vivian Hickey, Margaret Eiland, Bea Miller, Morgan and Wilma Moore, Joe Wingard, Billy Beech, Hazel Griffin, Bill Law, Gillis “the Combman” and Laura Ann Jones, and Gordon Vickers.

Each ordered from the menu. The onion rings and fried green tomatoes are hard to beat.

Seen out and about this week in the “Dimple of Dixie” were Mickie Riley, Lenora Johnson, Maria Thigpen, Bob “Songman” Bush, Bill and Donna Ellis, Wade and Jearlon Rogers, Billy Bryant, David Bryant, A. G. Palmore, Jack Perry, Don Cotton, Ed Short, Hunter Grimes, Herb and Sue Carlisle, Bill Rabren, Harry Hinson, Buddy Wilkes, Robert Anderson, and “94.”

Mrs. Gotrocks of Greenville informs me that tomorrow, Sunday, April 24, the Butler County Historical Society will sponsor at 2:00 p.m. in the Greenville City Hall a program by Steve Flowers, who has planned to speak on six decades of Alabama politics.

Flowers has been called “the premier, political journalist and commentator” of Alabama. He has written a book on Alabama politics called Of Goats and Governors. The public is invited.

The Portly Gentleman was asking about the new style of pants called “skinny jeans.” When he was told, he said, “I’d better look for some fatty jeans.”

The Portly Gentleman once told me that he was waiting for togas to come back in fashion because they were so roomy and comfortable.

At the Andalusia Lyceum Colonel Covington said there was a time when the last words of Gone with the Wind shocked the public. “Nowadays one hardly notices the use of the word. One can tell if a people is moral or immoral by what shocks them,” he continued. “A red face is a good indicator of a conscience.”

We had an evening of singing around the piano over at Covington Hall recently. Miss Dora Covington played while the rest of us sang. Such evenings are precious.

Once again I ask the citizens of Andalusia to join the Covington Historical Society and pay its annual dues of $25 to help preserve the history of our county, whether you attend meetings or not. Mail to P.O. Box 1582, Andalusia, Alabama 36420.

Congratulations to Kyle Powell, a student in the Andalusia High School, for naming the mysterian. The three-legged dog was known as Tripod. He was a black-and-brown mongrel who seemed to belong to no one. He would wander in and out of classrooms, sometimes lie down on the cool floor, and “take up” with anybody. He was nobody’s and he was everybody’s. I was told that some boys took him to the old Prestwood Bridge and threw him into the river. I presume he drowned.

The new mysterian is an Andalusian buried in Mentone, North Alabama.

Recent birthdays are those of William Gilmore Simms, the most prominent American writer of the Old South; Charlotte Bronte, the English novelist of Jane Eyre; and William Shakespeare, an English writer of plays and sonnets, perhaps the greatest poet who has ever lived.

Simms can be called the Sir Walter Scott of America.

Longfellow reminds us that it was “on the eighteenth of April” that Paul Revere made his famous ride. Lexington and Concord were among the villages alerted.

Every schoolchild should be able to quote from “Paul Revere.”

Now, Gentle Reader, allow me to join Buffalo Bob Smith in encouraging each of us to be in his place of worship this weekend, Lord willing.

Fare thee well.