The Canadian Record (Canadian, Tex.), Vol. 112, No. 20, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 16, 2002 Page: 24 of 32
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Hemphill County Area Newspapers and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Hemphill County Library.
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24
THURSDAY 16 MAY 2002
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WAR DANCE (CIRCA 1931)
RODEO EXHIBIT AT THE RIVER VALLEY PIONEER MUSEUM
8TH Annual Museum Gala
It's that time of year again! Time to mark your
calendars for the River Valley Pioneer Museum
Gala & Silent Auction. Board members, Tracy
and I are working diligently to acquire as many
great silent auction items as we can. If you would
like to make a donation to the Silent Auction,
please call the museum office, 323-6548. We have
collected great items from Amarillo, Pampa,
Shamrock, Miami, and Canadian.
Our 8th Annual Gala & Si-
lent Auction will be held Sat-
urday, June 1st. Admission is
$12.50 for museum members
and $15 for non-members.
The event will kick off at 6 p.m.
Entertainment will be pro-
vided by two local talents,
Lonnie Cox and Galen Lynch.
A Prime Rib dinner and all the
fixin's will be prepared by Al-
exander's. This Contest is for
Real Hands: Rodeo Photo-
graphs of the 1930's, a won-
derful black and white rodeo
photography exhibit by Ex-
hibits USA, will adorn the
walls. These photographs
were taken by rodeo photographer Otho Hartley.
This exhibit will appear in the Museum Gallery
Room beginning May 17th thru June 20th.
The Gala and Silent Auction Fundraiser is our
largest fundraiser of the year. We rely on it
heavily to help cover operating, educational, ad-
vertising, and exhibit expenses for the year. We
have been very fortunate over the past several
years to net a nice profit from this event. We
greatly appreciate everyone who graciously do-
nates to this function and to all who faithfully at-
tend our Gala every year. Please make Gala
the museum office at 323-6548. CALL TODAY!!;
Veterans Exhibit
We have completed our Veterans Exhibit
which will remain for a few months. We were for-
tunate to find several artifacts in the museum col-
lection to use in this exhibit. I want to thank Bill
Hodges for his help and for loaning us a few pho-
tographs of his own. I want to also thank Amy
Winton for the use of two of her easels. Please
come by to view this temporary exhibit honoring
our Veterans. See below for
museum hours during Memo-
rial Weekend.
Notes from the
River Valley
Pioneer Museum
by Sharon Wright
Bill Shop
Reservations by Wednesday, May 29th by calling
New in our Gift Shop are
two wonderful cook books.
These would make excellent
Mother's Day gifts (hint, hint),
American West Cookin' fea-
tures over 350 delicious west-
ern recipes, full color western
artwork and various illustra-
tions by Robert E. Kerby, a
special Wild Game section and
helpful cooking tips. The sec-
ond new cook book we have is
Range Riders Cookin'is similar which features
330 delicious western recipes, colored western
artwork, wild game section and helpful tips. Stop
by our Gift Shop to purchase these wonderful
cook books for $13.
Regular Museum Hours:
Tuesday - Friday, 9 a.m. -12 p.m. & 1 p.m. - 4
p.m.;Sundays, 2 p.m.—4p.m.
Memorial Weekend Hours:
Saturday & Sunday, 2 p.m.—4 p.m.; Mon-
day,10 a.m.-12 noon & 1 p.m.—3 p.m.
cl0ffS
Sell them in
a garage
sale and go
v shopping
for a whole
new wardrobe!
RECORD
211 Main • (806)323-6461
Attention Veterans
Your Veterans Service Officer,
Nick Thomas
can help you with any
'eteran-related problems,
a per work or medical records
Call 323-9111
LEARNING
THE
BIRDS
By Ruth Rogers Erickson
Out on a Limb
Every morning lately, I play a little game called Find the Nighthawks.
My game-board is three dimensional, a tracery of gnarled branches
topped with green. It's Where's Elmo with birds, in the locust grove,
and it's a challenging game.
The reason I'm playing is that I've discovered one nighthawk who's
enormously fond of one particular branch in a locust tree. I first saw
her from the front porch when I was sitting in the rocking chair, and
she was perched in the morning sun just plain as day, so I took a good
long look.
She didn't seem to mind as I got closer and closer, until I was right
under her and she looked calmly down at me with one huge, sleepy eye.
I've been keeping tabs on her since then, and she occupies the very
same branch day after day, and stays there from morning till night. My
goal is to spot her pals, who must be hiding in plain sight right in front
of me, like Elmo, but finding them is turning out to be quite a trick.
More often we see nighthawks in the air—high in the sky at twilight,
flying haphazardly about in groups of 3 or 4, showing off their long an-
gled wings with that white stripe across the middle. Their cry is an in-
sect's buzzy beeping, coming from a bird's throat. In flight they're
slender and streamlined, but at rest they look rather lumpy and
squat... In fact the difference between how they look in the air and how
they look on a branch is remarkable, as are many things about them.
For one thing, a nighthawk perches lengthwise along a tree-limb,
not across it. I've seen my bird facing out from the tree one day, and
facing in the next, but she is reliably longitudinal. This trait they share
with their cousins the whip-poor-will and the chuck-will's-widow. These
birds together form the specie's Goatsucker, a name out of folk lore that
reflects an old superstition that these birds survived by milking goats
at twilight. People watched them in the fading light feeding on insects
that swarm above the goats, and adopted the bizarre notion that led to
the family name.
They have other nicknames too, bull-bat being the common one
here, plus mosquito hawk, will-o'-the-wisp, and "Goatsucker of
Carolina," to name a few. The nighthawk's reputation is enmeshed in
mystery and paradox, perhaps because they seem composed of
contradictions.
One contradiction is the camouflage. A nighthawk's camouflage is
almost perfect — composed of mottled patterns so intricate they add
up to little more than shadow. On a branch, the bird looks almost head-
less, or as though the head was tucked under the opposite wing. The il-
lusion exists because their big heads lack a discernible neck, seeming to
blend into their body, and their bills are so tiny you can miss them alto-
gether. These small, pointy bills pose another paradox, for they dis-
guise enormous, gaping mouths with which the birds can scoop up
insects on the wing, much like a whale scoops plankton.
Only about 9 inches in length, their wingspan is close to two feet. I
kept looking at my bird on her branch and wondering how she could
fold herself up into such a compact package. Were her wings spread out
along the branch in such a way that I couldn't see them? No, in fact I
could see them folded on her back and crossed behind her, the wingtips
longer than the tail. But the distance from her shoulder to the tail-tip
can't account for those two-foot wings in flight... I wanted to know how
she could unfold into her airborne self—it seemed a mystery.
Now this may be one of those things that's entirely obvious to other
people, a thing that baffles only me—it wouldn't be the first time. But
I'll go out on a limb and say that, after some study, I think I've figured it
out: what seems to be the nighthawk's "shoulder" is really an "elbow,"
which accounts for how they can collapse themselves into a short lump
on a limb.
If you put your left hand on your left shoulder, and your right hand
on your right shoulder, then lift your elbows up and imagine them slid-
ing backwards toward your ears. Stretch your fingers out and think
them long enough to cross across your back. You are now a nighthawk
at rest.
To take flight, extend your hands out and your bent arms become
the nighthawk's angled wings.
Now that we've solved that puzzle, I'll go back to my Elmo game.
I've been playing for a few minutes every morning for a week, and I'd
almost begun to lose heart. But today I made a breakthrough: a second
bird, perched lengthwise and looking like a bump, but not quite a
bump... Yes, it is a second nighthawk! Perhaps I'm learning to see.
Now that I'm making progress I'll keep looking, until they've all been
found.
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Ezzell, Nancy & Brown, Laurie Ezzell. The Canadian Record (Canadian, Tex.), Vol. 112, No. 20, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 16, 2002, newspaper, May 16, 2002; Canadian, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth220529/m1/24/: accessed May 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Hemphill County Library.