The Real Sentinel News 200405

The Sentinel All the news that's fit to print and some that's not.
Stay at Home Missouri's governor has finally declared a stay at home order as of midnight Sunday April 5. It will remain in effect until Friday April 24. Here's hoping this will flatten the parabolic growth curve that has happened in other states. This state had, as of yesterday, morning 2000 cases of which this county had 63. The stay order is still not well defined to this reporter's thinking.There are essential and non-essential reasons for going out which seem to leave the decision up to the individual. Things that are exempt include liquor stores, grocery stores and pharmacies. The pharmacies being open seems strange to me, isn't that where sick people congregate while waiting for a prescription? Grocery stores are definitely necessary, as are liquor stores and convenience stores. Convenience stores leads me to the next story.	Uncle Billy Called Yesterday my phone rang and it was none other than my old uncle whom I have written about before. He said he needed a ride back to his aging pickup truck. I knew that meant he was in trouble again, so I asked where he was and he replied, "a... I'm at the police station." "What did you do this time?" "Well it's a long story." "It always is uncle Billy." I hung up and drove over to get him. This time he wasn't in a cell, so I figured it couldn't be too bad. We were driving over to his truck, still parked at the convenience store. He then relayed his story and it went like this, "I knew people were supposed to have masks when they went out and should have hand sanitizer with them. I had the hand sanitizer, but did not have any surgical masks, so I grabbed my farm bandanna and left. I walked into the convenience store with my bandanna on and my hand in my pocket holding the santitizer. When the woman behind the counter saw the bandanna covering my face and the pocket bulging from the sanitizer, she thought it was a holdup! She threw her hands up and then passed out. I went around the counter and called 911 to get the fire department and police there to help her. The police arrived first and when they saw me behind the counter leaning over the woman's body, they shouted, "hands up and move away from the body sir." Well I tried to explain, but they were having none of it. They read me my rights and put me in the squad car and then brought me to the station. The fire department had revived the woman and she was okay and when the police searched me and found no weapon, they said I was free to go and that's where you came into the story.	The Old Clubhouse The family acquired the clubhouse in 1959. It was not something fancy like an exclusive club, just a place for us kids to get out of the city on weekends. Dad and grandpa acquired the place and it was a wonderful space for kids. We could fish, ride in a boat, swim and run around. It was a wonder for us. We went there every weekend during the summer. Far less in the winter, usually it was just dad, grandpa and the boys, but the girls got to go when they chose to face the cold. Often the water was frozen over and we could break the ice and drop in drinks to cool. The house had a big old circulator stove that would heat the cabin nicely on fuel oil. We could walk across the slough to a nearby island. The place was great for fishing, boating and swimming, which was what I loved doing. Barbecue was the order of the day in summer. In winter, mom always had a huge pot of chili on the stove for whenever we came home. I got to make friends there and met some girls who also frequented the area. In fact my first crush on a girl was there. She was a beauty, above my level. She lived at the marina nearby with her mother and a second step father who was strange. The girl was living in a bad situation and was desperate to get out of there. Our infatuation lasted through the summer, but come autumn I was not there often and she met some local yokel that had a new car and would take her out frequently. I was 2 years from being old enough to get a driver's licence, so I was out of the picture. She married him and that was the end for us. She and the next three over the years would never have been good wives, but then along came Joyce and she was the one! Things always work out well in the end and if they are not right now, then it is not yet the end.