Date: Fri 19-Dec-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

Mountain-Bratz-Masarjian

Full Text:

STD HEAD: TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN

I'm sure there will be many memorable holiday parties this year, but I doubt

any will be more memorable than the party given by Will Bratz and Edna

Masarjian out on Great Ring Road last Sunday night.

Guests were invited to an afternoon/evening open house and asked to bring "his

and her" grab bags for distribution among themselves during the party. Will

and Edna were on hand dressed festively for the occasion. Edna wore a red

sweater and dark slacks and Will had on a very smart cowboy shirt.

Then, at about 5:45 pm, the guests noticed their two hosts were missing. A

short while later they appeared once again, this time wearing more formal

clothes: he, an elegant dark suit, and she, a beautiful red silk suit. Before

too many of the guests could question them about their sudden change of

attire, they fell in side by side before a justice of the peace and were

married on the spot, before their very surprised and obviously delighted

guests.

After their vows, who else but Santa Claus himself shows up and distributes

the grab-bag gifts. Then the couple cut the cake, and the

open-house-turned-wedding-reception took on a new level of excitement and

merriment. As I said, it was a holiday party to remember.

Folks down at the post office on Commerce Road were scrambling Monday. For

some reason, the Monday before the Monday before Christmas is the busiest day

of the year.

The pattern has held true for more than 50 years, according to postmaster Dick

Maguire. He said people spend that weekend writing out their Christmas cards

then bring them in on Monday. The following weekend is too late, he said.

Somewhere in the avalanche of Christmas cards this past week were a few

birthday cards. Sarah Mannix turned 89 on December 10, and Marge Stanford

turned 95 on December 11. Marge celebrated with some pasta and a meatball down

at the Pizza Palace. No word on whether the meatball had a candle in it.

A bright smile returned to the town clerk's office this week when Jean

Salvatore came back to work Monday. She had missed a few weeks for health

reasons, but she is back and extremely happy about it.

On the coldest day of the season so far, Bob Tendler was seen scurrying around

town in his shirtsleeves. It turns out he had a cold on top of it all. Bob's

rationale was that he was fighting a cold with cold. What ever happened to

Mom's chicken soup?

Perhaps Bob Tendler would have had better luck quelling his catarrh by going

up to Edmond Town Hall and breathing deeply. Workmen there are putting a new

tar roof on the building, and they've been cooking up batches of tar on the

parking lot behind the building and then shooting them up about 60 feet to the

rooftop through a portable pipeline. A smelly sulfurous odor fills the parking

lot and the center of town while the work is going on. It's not your typical

holiday potpourri, but it does tend to clear the nasal passages.

Some people have all the luck. At last weekend's Holiday Toy Train & Model

Railroad Exhibition put on at the Middle School by the Band Parents

Association, parent Carol Strong asked her friend, Wendy Beres, to bake a

gingerbread house for the raffle. Not only did Mrs Strong solicit the house

for their fundraiser, she picked it up, delivered it, and then promptly won it

herself in the raffle.

Mrs Beres got quite a chuckle out of the whole thing when she called The Bee

about it this week. Then she contributed a bit of Gingerbread House-Eating

Expertise that she felt compelled to pass along. "It's all edible but the

frosting and cake get really hard. You could break a tooth. My son takes the

house apart bit by bit and soaks the pieces in milk, which makes sort of a

gingerbread pudding."

I have to admit some of the more crusty aspects of my personality tend to

soften up when you give me some milk. Will it be the crusty me or the soft me

next week? To find out, you will have to...

Read me again.