Just received a death notice this morning on an old friend who has known me since I was born, Bernice Elliot Estes Neely Root. Her name was pronounced Burnace, not Berneece. She had a habit of outliving her husbands. Oh, the stories she could and did tell about her parents, Brother Ed and Sister Neva Elliott, and everything else. We’ll all miss seeing her out occasionally. Last time we saw her was at the Chinese place, El Dorado Inn.

She wrote a book that they have at Shirley Vickers’ beauty shop, Classy Looks.

-From Nancy Dissler: It’s sad but true… most politicians are like small babies: they should be changed often and usually for the same reasons.

– Adrian sent this note: Hi! I’ve been thinking a lot about stories lately and what makes a good one. I know real life stories I enjoy often have a good character that usually is quirky or stories of relatives that I never got to meet.

I remember Grandpa telling stories of getting into fights when he was younger. I can’t remember the actual stories but remember thinking that people got into a lot of brawls back in “the good old days.” (I think some of those dust ups were at school like the time a kid hit Dad with a hedge apple during recess. Of course, you know what happened next. When the kid went bawling to the teacher, Hazel Koger, about the hedge apple that hit him, she asked, “What did you do to Clifford?” because she knew Dad didn’t pick on the other kids. KL)

Adrian continued, What are some of your favorite stories or characters? Have we ever asked readers of the newspaper to submit favorite stories from their lives or people from El Dorado?

-I don’t think I’ve asked you lately: What articles would you like to see in your newspaper? The series we did of interviews with WWII prisoners of war was popular. Joe Hendricks suggested that. If you have stories like Adrian is asking about, we’d like to have them.

I wondered about interviews with Korean War veterans and maybe Vietnam. If I can talk a Bronze Star recipient and a Silver Star recipient into letting me tell their stories, that would be interesting. But I don’t want to lose friends over telling their secrets.

You can e-mail your suggestions to me at kwlong@centurylink.net or write to P.O. Box 71. Of course, the phone lines are open but if you put it down in black and white, I’m less likely to forget.

– I guess you may have heard that Governor-Elect Greitens’ wife was robbed at gunpoint Monday night almost in front of her St. Louis home. Police caught the three guys in a stolen car. Wonder if they’ll ask the new governor for a pardon? KL