Hello Pell City, and Happy Halloween!  

A few fun facts and interesting trivia about Halloween…

Did you know that Halloween is traditionally thought to have originated in Ireland, where a stingy man named Jack tricked the Devil a few times and was refused entrance into Heaven and Hell?  So Jack had to walk the earth carrying a lantern made from a pumpkin (originally a turnip) and light the path for other souls.  

Black and orange are the two main colors of Halloween – orange, because along with gold and brown, it stands for Autumn and harvest, and black because it is the color of darkness and death, and is a reminder that Halloween was once a festival that marked the boundaries between life and death.  

In 2010, 72.2% of Americans said they would be handing out candy, 46.3% said they would carve a pumpkin, 20.8% will visit a haunted house, and 11.5% said they would dress up their pets.  

Most children, 50%, want chocolate candy when they go trick-or-treating on Halloween.  

Owls are popular Halloween items, and in Medieval Europe owls were thought to be witches…to hear an owl’s call meant that someone was about to die.

In the early 1970’s, two young boys were killed after eating candy that had been poisoned.  It was later determined that, sadly, the boys were poisoned by their own family members trying to get insurance money.

So all those stories you heard growing up about evil, Satan worshipping strangers trying to murder little kids on Halloween, were just that…stories.

What parents should pay attention to (instead of saying “I have to take a bite of all your candy, I have to make sure it’s ok” Yeah, right) is that children are more than twice as likely to be killed by a pedestrian/car accident on Halloween than any other night.

Have fun tonight everyone, and stay safe! (and if anyone needs an official taste tester for all their chocolate candy, just give me a call).  

Speaking of calls, I got a wonderful one last week from a lady out in Portland, Oregon. Her name is Barbara Brown Vaughn and turns out she is my first cousin-once removed (my grandmother Willie Brown Bowman, and her father Alden Brown, were brother and sister).  

I was so excited to hear from her and learned so much about my family history just in the hour we spoke on the phone.  

On the local radio station here in Pell City, WFHK am1430/94.9 the River, where I sometimes work, I would get calls all the time from people saying they were kin to me.  It became a joke at the station that it would be easier to figure out who I wasn’t kin to instead of who I was kin to, and I think that is just about darn near true!  

Anyway, Mrs. Vaughn told me all about my Grandmamma Brown’s family…my grandmother was one of 10 kids!   I knew the Bowman’s were a huge family (14 children), but I never knew the Browns were too.  

And then I found out how I’m kin to all the Stewarts in Pell City, and the Vaughns (yes, even Ms. Margaret and I are kin by marriage), and the Fergusons, and that’s just by blood.  If you add in all the marriages, then I’m kin to Kendricks, Williamsons, Bains, Bryants, Hanners, and so many more I start losing count!  

When I was in Duran Jr. High School, I knew that at least 3 or 4 of the teachers that taught there were kin to me….Nell Lewis, Sarah Bain, Johnny Truitt, Barbara Vaughn…but I was never exactly sure how they were kin.  

Well, thanks to Mrs. Barbara Brown Vaughn, I was finally able to figure so much out, and for that I am extremely grateful.  Now realize this is just one side of my family….if I go to my mother’s side, then I’m kin to Barbers, Liggans, Popes, Arnolds, and so many more it just boggles my mind.

For those of you who may remember Barbara, she taught for many years in the Pell City School System.  She moved to Oregon about 9 years ago with her husband who is suffering from Parkinsons disease to be with their wonderful children and grand-children.  She keeps up with Pell City through the News-Aegis and Facebook (that really impressed me, because I am a couple of decades younger than her, yet she gets around on Facebook much better than I do!) and says that although she misses her friends, she would only get on a plane now for two things: some good, fried catfish from The Ark Restaurant (which I was saddened to learn recently that it had been sold and was no longer in the Bob Cornett family, but I hope that the new owners are able to match the quality and atmosphere that made the Ark so great), and a watermelon that has seeds in it! (Guess seedless watermelons are all the rage in Portland).  

Before I wrap this up, I have to share one more thing: As we were talking I wondered aloud if she was an Alabama Crimson Tide fan; I quickly found out when she told me a story about being in a dentist ‘s office and two guys up there talking about the Oregon Ducks. She listened to them go on and on about how great Oregon was until she could take it now longer.  That’s when this sweet, 72 year young, loving, great-grandmother turned to those guys and graciously yelled out “Roll Tide!”  

Happy Birthday this week to Joannie Gann, Jimmy Howard, Clara Mae Hendrix, Kylie Realmuto, Wendy Gail Adams, Brandy Hood, Joan Cambell, Judy Warren, Peggy Lee Overton, David Bunn, Jennifer Brown, Mike Bagwell, Dan Smith, Tommy Tutu, Rodney Rich, Caleb Olson, and Samantha Lee.

There are a lot of great events coming up in November…get ready for Veteran’s Day Celebrations, the Pell City Business and Profssional Womens’s Fashion Show, the Dudley Dash and several more 5K runs, and much more!  

If you have any news or announcements or just want to tell me that you too are also kin to me, please give me a call 405-4135.  

Hmmm, maybe I really should run for public office….even if I just get my family to vote, that should be the majority! Have a great week!