activity for holiday season

If the weather has you fooled again this year, the decorations, special services and open houses assure us all that the holidays are coming. It’s time to start planning our Thanksgiving meals, start Christmas shopping and buy canned goods and save water for Y2K.

There is no doubt that this is one of my most favorite times of the year. It’s nice to be able to walk outside without breaking a sweat. And when you do walk outside there is something in the air that just makes you happy to be alive. Jaine Treadwell and I refer to it as that "good feeling." Jaine told me her daughter calls it that and so the name just stuck.

The "good feeling" reminds me most of my first year in Troy as a TSU student. Saturday games were always better when you had the "good feeling."

If you get a bad case of the "good feeling" it can last throughout the holiday season and into the new year. Just about the only thing that can rid you of the "good feeling" is heat and humidit

y, and that’ll hit around May.

While you have the "good feeling," it’s a fine time to get in touch with family and friends you’ve been out of contact with for a while. Share a little "good feeling" with them in case they haven’t caught it yet.

Rumor has it an outbreak of the "good feeling" is expected to occur in Pike County Sunday. The entire community has been invited to the a special thanksgiving service "A Service of Thanksgiving" at the Trojan Arena at TSU. The interdenominational service is sure to attract many people in the county and is the perfect time for everyone to catch the "good feeling."

The service is part of the city of Troy’s Year 2000 Millennium Celebration, and is a good chance for you to gather family and friends and give thanks for the good things you have been blessed with in your life. It is a time to kick off the holiday season and get in the celebrating frame of mind that will help get you through the new year.

But the fellowship of the community doesn’t stop there. Open houses are being held in Brundidge right now, and others will be held in Troy during the weekends. Decorations are going up in downtown Troy leading the way to the to the annual city of Troy Christmas Parade and tree lighting ceremony. In Goshen plans are being made for the towns Christmas parade and in Brundidge, the oldest Christmas decorations in Pike County will adorn Main Street. I do not mean old in a derogatory way, but old as in historic Christmas decorations.

Now is a good time to get out and enjoy the companies of others. Thanksgiving and Christmas are important holidays, but this year they lead up to something many of us have bee waiting for – the year 2000.

To go along with the Year 2000 Millennium Celebration the city of Troy is hosting a New Year’s Eve party in downtown Troy to celebrate the turn of the century. I’m looking forward to the celebration and hope to see many of the residents of Pike County participating in the event.

It’s funny. When I was young, I always thought I would be dead at the turn of the century. It seemed so far away, and I couldn’t possibly live that long. Well, I did, and I hope all the fears that everyone has about the millennium are nothing to worry about.

With everything that is going on in Pike County, no one has an excuse not to get involved. The Pike County community has a lot to offer and the only thing that is missing is your involvement.

Nov. 18, 1999, 10 PM