September 2, 1964 Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill. Sadly. Disgruntedly. (That word was in my Learn Ten New Words a Day book. Doesn’t it sound the best? Like a mad pig or something.) I guess I shouldn’t say sadly. The first day of school isn’t really a sad day. Dad says I should try to come up with exact …
A Writer's Dream
August 26, 1964 Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. Do you see what’s in the picture? A typewriter! My very own typewriter. Mr. Atkinson, the lawyer in the office across the street from us, bought his secretary a new typewriter and let me buy her old one for twenty dollars. I had to break my piggy bank, but who …
Sleuthing like the Hardy Boys
August 19, 1964 Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill Main Street. Well, actually I’m not on Main. I’m out on Barton Road where we live. Cleaning my room. Not by choice! But Aunt Love says it has to be done. She says I’m a pack rat. That’s not true. Not exactly true anyway. I simply like to save my books …
Making Cotton Candy
August 12, 1964 Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill. I am never going to eat cotton candy again. Ever! You know I’m in 4-H. Well, for a fundraiser, somebody thought it would be great to rent a concession stand and sell soft drinks and popcorn and candy and cotton candy at a ballgame. If they’d stopped at popcorn and candy, …
Yawning through Meetings
August 6, 1964 Jocie Brooke here reporting from Main Street, Hollyhill. Boring! Boring! Bo-o-oring! I guess you can guess where I am. No, not school. That’s not for a few more weeks and usually not so awful boring until at least the middle of September. That is, if you don’t have Mr. Smith for history. Then it’s boring from the …
Is August too Early to Dream of Christmas Bicycles?
July 29, 1964 Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. Can you believe it’s almost August? We go back to school in August. Groan. We used to wait until after Labor Day, but then it snowed quite a bit one winter and we were still going to school in June. The powers that be decided it would be better to …
Chiggers, Briars, Stink Bugs – the Price of Jam
Hollyhill, Kentucky July 22, 1964 Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. Well, from Holly County anyway. We, Dad and Aunt Love and I, actually live outside the city limits. We don’t live on a farm exactly, but there are farms all around us. Some of those farms have plenty of blackberry bushes on them and it’s blackberry season. …
The Hokey Pokey
July 15, 1964 Jocie Brooke here reporting from Main Street, Hollyhill, Kentucky. I’m back from 4-H Camp. What a blast! I hardly missed Hollyhill at all. Well, Dad and Wes some. Zella not at all. But she was looking pretty happy when I went to the newspaper office this morning. Guess she had a good week with me out of …
Off to Camp
July 8, 1964 Jocie Brooke here, but not reporting from Main Street, Hollyhill. It’s 4-H Camp week. No time for reporting anything. Been learning to canoe today. Only flipped into the water once and that boy, Jarrod, who was paddling with me, he did that on purpose. He thought it was hilarious. I laughed too. It wasn’t so bad. I …
A Night at the Hollyhill County Fair
July 1, 1964 Jocie Brooke here reporting from the Hollyhill County Fairgrounds. Once a year, the carnival comes to town and everybody goes to the fair. Dad says the fair is one of those good and bad happenings. Good because all the beauty contests and baby show pictures sell lots of papers. Bad because he has to be at the …