Last week, Dear Reader, I promised to tell you about part two of the Mincey/Martin time-share vacation (ad)venture.
I related last week that it was in 1996 that my friend Mark Martin and I each got the same enticing letter in the mail. The only difference was the name on the header. Mine proclaimed in bold letters, “RONNIE MINCEY! PACK YOUR BAGS!”

It was the summer of 1996. My friend Mark Martin and I each got the same enticing letter in the mail. The only difference was the name on the header. Mine proclaimed in bold letters, “RONNIE MINCEY! PACK YOUR BAGS!”
Mr. Martin and I must have taken this as a sign from God or something similar that we both received these letters at approximately the same time. We decided to take advantage of the golden opportunity. As a result of this offer, in exchange for our agreement to view a time-share opportunity, we were invited to take part in a two-part, low price vacation package.

When I was a child, my dad worked for a while for the school system in maintenance. I remember he bought a cabinet model stereo and a wringer washing machine from Shoffner’s Furniture and Appliance. He had Irby Monroe make a stand for the small stereo to sit on so that I couldn’t reach inside and mess with the mechanics while those 33 1/3 RPM records were played. The joke was on Dad—I stood in a chair and watched the records spin on the turntable. I loved to listen to that stereo.

Sandra Kay (White) Nunley attended the University of Tennessee from 1966 to 1972. She graduated in June 1972 with a B. S. She received her professional certification in September 1972. She returned to UT in the summer of 1974 through 1975 for additional coursework, receiving credit for 45 hours.
From 1974 through 1981 Sandra worked for the Douglas-Cherokee and Mountain Valley EOA Headstart programs in Sevier, Claiborne, Campbell and Union counties.

I came today in my archives across a pamphlet of great historical interest to me. Mr. Clifford Stiner, prominent Union County resident, was the author. The pamphlet reveals Mr. Stiner’s occupations/hobbies/interests as historian, pilot, politician, newspaper editor, and author.

I planned to spend fall break with my relatives in Cincinnati. I decided to leave Sunday afternoon after church and return home on Wednesday evening so I could be back in town to teach my Thursday evening community college class.

My Aunt Fleetie Thomas introduced me to Mark Twain.
This is one of the flukes in my reading experience, as my aunt was neither highly educated or literary. I was staying with her for a few days during a summer when I was in the upper elementary grades. Either she bought me the volume that contained two of Twain’s most popular books (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), or I bought it myself. I do remember it came from a rummage sale. I loved that book.

Over the past several months I have had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of a fine gentleman, Mr. Ted Green. He came to the Union County Board of Education offices to find information on Plainview School. He and I have examined the registers from teachers who taught at that school from 1932 until the school’s closing in 1970.
I am including below the body of an email Mr. Green sent to me regarding a planned gathering for anyone connected with Plainview School. This email is intact (with minor editing) as sent to me.

On most Saturdays I am not obligated to do anything other than mow my yard or “piddle” around the house. One such Saturday I was hauling my trash to throw away. There was a lot of stuff that could only be placed in a “big” dumpster.
It just so happened on that particular day there were two men, each with a truck, also depositing into the “big” dumpsters. It seemed both had already thrown their trash away, but they were in the lot, talking at great length to each other, just exactly in position to block my access to get rid of my own junk.

I remember when I was a kid in the 1970s and 1980s there was a Mazola Corn Oil commercial. I searched Google to see if I could find that old commercial.
I was, of course, successful, and I learned some things that I had forgotten, and other things that I did not know.