Saturday, November 9, is the date for POC Service Club’s Annual Fall Garage Sale! The Club is still accepting all types of clothing, toys, kitchen equipment, decorative items, craft items, music, books, etc. in good condition. They gladly accept fishing and sports equipment, also, plus a limited amount of furniture. Please call Debbie Busby, 512 914-9521, Chairman of the Event or her assistant, Peggy Elliott, 361 983-2165 to arrange for storage prior to the Sale. And come on out to the Community Center early on November 9 to find some great deals for yourself.

DO NOT FORGET that during the Garage Sale on Saturday, November 9, the Service Club women are also holding a Bake Sale.  And we in this community all know what talented bakers these women are.  So, plan to come early at 8:00 a.m. for the opening of the Sale on Saturday, the 9th of November to get the first available choice of pastries, cookies, and those wonderful cakes!

-Sue Kubecka

McCullen Stafford Benefit

November 2, 11:00 to 2:00 at the Seadrift School

Brisket, Rice, & Beans, plates $8

Silent Auction – Raffle Tickets Available

McCullen Stafford, a young man from Seadrift, TX, developed an auto-immune illness in October of 2012. The disease consist of his immune system depleting his body of platelets, such that his bood requires a longer time to clot. Because of this element of the disease, McCullen is constantly at risk for bleeding to death in case an accident were to occur. To combat this symptom, McCullen has received several treatments that have created a substantial medical bill. As a result, a committee has come together to coordinate and supervise a benefit in his honor.

Contact Melissa Canales for more information 361-319-4473, or email canalesm@calcoisd.org or Ethelene Key at 361-785-7111.

Family and friends of Calvin and Sally Ragusin invite you to join them in this effort to assist with the medical expenses of Cindy DeBusk, who is recovering at home from a brain aneurysm:

Where do all the holidays come from? Well the most of them come from way back in time. That doesn’t count for ones like Presidents day exactly because that is for our Presidents. However you can bet that the ruler from very ancient times had some kind of a day for themselves. They were politicians after all.

Just for kicks lets check the story on the old holiday Samhain. That or precursors can be traced back to the stone age. So that makes it fit into our little exploration.

Let me explain that even though the ancients didn’t have our kind of clocks they did know that through the year the time between sunrise and sunset wasn’t the same every day. Early on they figured out that there were four major days in a year. They were the two equinoxes and winter and summer solstice. These were equal sun and night time and the shortest day and the longest day. Also we will look at the Celtic people and the Roman folks.

Those two folks, more or less, existed simultaneously in Europe. We don’t know a lot about what was happening in North America at the time. The Celts took those four days mentioned above one step further. They counted halfway between the spring equinox and summer solstice and called it Beltane. It was also the beginning of summer to them. We now call that May Day.
Another halfway point was between fall equinox and winter solstice. That’s the one they called Samhain. It was the end of summer to the Celts. That was at the beginning of winter or the dark time. There is your first clue.

About 700BCE the Romans made a calendar of ten months that ended with December. Their eighth month was October. For some unknown reason they just didn’t have any month names to cover the 62 days of winter. That year started in March. With the 62 days it made a solar year. About 300 years later they added January and February. That made October the tenth month instead of the eighth. Julius Caesar made the Julian calendar which got the number month twelve and days almost right. It messed up the dates of the equinoxes. But it stayed pretty much the same until 1582 when the Gregorian calendar went into effect to get the equinoxes corrected. It is the one we mostly use now.

So now we can directly assess Samhain holiday. It is relatively obvious that with our current calendar the midpoint or Samhain is the end of October. We call that day Halloween.

In the Celtic Version Samhain was when the veil between the real world and the spirit world was the thinnest and the ghosts and goblins could come to this side and visit, or haunt, those of us here. So the Halloween tradition continues in the tenth month that was the eighth that once was the beginning of the Dark days. Even though there have been changes, we continues to celebrate the old holidays.

The 5th Annual Gumbo and Chili Cookoff, hosted by Jim Hooper of Hurricane Junction, is set for Saturday, October 26, 2013 at the Hurricane, located on 15th and Maple Streets. If family and friends say your gumbo is “the best”, you are urged to contact Hoop for more information concerning this exciting happening. And those Texas cooks who excel in the preparation of chili should also get in line quickly. If you haven’t contacted Hoop by now, you may miss out, and that’s something you don’t want to do!

That Saturday will become a lively affair in the area outside the Hurricane. And those totally delicious aromas of the many pots of chili and gumbo will be drifting down Maple Street in both directions.

Requirements for each entry consist of preparing and cooking your special dish on a propane-butane stove that you bring with you. There will be electrical capacities set for the usage of fans etc., but ALL COOKING MUST BE DONE IN YOUR AREA AT THE HURRICANE. Other requirements are that there will be NO beans in the chili and NO rice in the gumbo. Entry fee is a mere $20 with a maximum of 4 persons per team BUT only 1 chili or 1 gumbo per entry is allowed per team. Or, if any team wishes to prepare and enter both items, the cost will be only $40.

A panel of judges will be there to do a blind taste test, (aren’t all judges supposed to be blind?), and we will be honored to have an incredible group of mostly sighted and talented tasters to perform that illustrious task. As Hoop will be the Person In Charge, there will not be allowed any favoritism or special gifts sent to the judges by any entrant prior to the judging.

The public is invited to come by and see their favorite team of cooks in action and give moral support to them. Additionally, bowls to sample the many entries will be available from our man Hoop. Setting up the individual cooking areas will start at 9:00 a.m.; and the judging should commence about 4:30 p.m. inside the Hurricane. Following the judging the final bidding on the silent auction will commence.

And once again, Hoop will donate the funds from this event to our Library’s Building Fund. So, we invite anyone with a yearning to compete in a cook off, to contact Hoop for entry forms, and we also invite all interested persons that Saturday to come and see what a cook off entails. Besides, the aromas from the various entries will certainly be more than enough to inspire you to stop and attend this event. And when you check out some of the prizes available on the Silent Auction, you will definitely be tempted to stay and put in your bids. If anyone is unable to be present on that Saturday, please remember that all donations can be delivered to Hoop personally at the Hurricane or to Shirley Gordon, our Librarian, at our Library on 6th & Adams Street.