Jamie Patterson Managing EditorMy husband Jason stood in silence as he looked over the new living room arrangement.
I have the luxury of having a best friend who also has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to interior design. She and I had spent the morning moving furniture around, shifting accent pieces and rearranging the whole design of the living room.
That was over a year ago, and Jason is still complaining.
“I sure would like to have a place I can sit my cup down again,” he said, huffing in his recliner.
Now mind you, there is a side table sitting between the two recliners in the room. I can sit my cups down next to me with no problem. But apparently, he has a problem with extending his arm to the left to utilize the table.
“I liked it just the way it was until ya’ll came in here and moved everything around,” he said. “I need to have some input next time.”
I would love to see what Jason would come up if I allowed him to decorate our home. I let him have one exception in our sitting room, and now there is a giant deer head staring at you from above the fireplace.
This is the same man who would like to have two matching camouflage recliners in the living room. You know, in case we ever need to blend in with our surroundings while we are watching television.
He has photographs and blueprints drawn out of an antler chandelier he would like to construct one day. He even wants to wrap our front door with antlers to give it an “outdoorsy” feel.
Decoration elements like this would work perfect in a log cabin or at a deer camp. But I am just not seeing his vision in our 1950s cottage.
My Paw Paw also had a “vision” when it came to decorating.
Growing up, he always had a series of reminders in our house, letting visitors know that he was a hunter.
It was a different era then. Paw Paw brought home the bacon so Maw Maw kind of had to let him decorate some. She had her antiques, but there were clear traces of him scattered throughout the house.
There was the classic living room lamp with three stuffed squirrels on it. The squirrels were mounted up a wooden stand that led up to the lampshade.
Then there was the gigantic ox horns above the television set. These things were so massive that they were not safe to hang up on any wall. Trust me, I know. That thing came crashing down on my doll house one night with me barely escaping. The horns went back up, but Maw Maw told me never to play there again.
Deer heads were everywhere in our home. And there was a gigantic bass mounted as well.
But the most orignal “man piece” I have ever seen was found in an old photograph I discovered.
Paw Paw had taken the hooves of a deer and made a gun rack out of them. I am not making this up.
Placed upon a wood board, two hooves were placed across it. When entering the Jackson home, you could hang your weapon or even a jacket on Bambi’s feet.
That must not have lasted very long because I never saw it. But the photograph proves it existed.
So, I guess I should let Jason dream a little. I might even be able to live with camouflage recliners or even an antler chandelier.
But I’m drawing the line at furniture made from feet.
“Hey, that’s pretty neat,” Jason said, looking at the photograph of Paw Paw.
I just hope he doesn’t get any ideas.

Walter Patterson Herald ColumnistThose of you who read this column knew that the United States was not going over the “fiscal cliff.”
Every politician in Washington was playing a game for the people back home, and this includes our two distinguished senators.  They can now claim that they did all that they could, but they had to vote for more “pork” in order to save this country from a financial meltdown.
The House played the game to perfection.  The congressmen argued, put themselves in front of any TV camera they could find, pretended to negotiate, rung their hands in mock desperation, then voted to increase taxes by $41 dollars for every $1 in cuts.  
I wish that all of us common folk could make deals like this.  But, alas, all we can do is work a little harder and dig a little deeper.  Taxes are going up, and you will see that reality in your next paycheck.
The country went over the “fiscal cliff” months ago.  The vote in the House on New Year’s night just added one more exclamation point at the end of the sentence.  The Speaker of the House, John Boehner, had already fulfilled his role by morphing into the worst negotiator in the history of Speakers.
He played his role as far as he needed to, and then turned the whole process over to Harry Reid, the Senate Majority leader.  When all was said and done, this country had picked up another $3.6 trillion in debt.  That will bring the U. S. indebtedness to $20 trillion in the very near future, and Obama wants more.
When this country goes “belly up,” and it will just as sure as the sun rises in the east, what do these politicians think will happen to them?   Back when a government “shutdown” was threatened, Obama gave that famous speech where he warned the Republicans that “all that stands between you and the pitch forks is me.”  My question now is,” Will Obama be enough?”
A study of history reflects what happens when a country can no longer pay its bills.  Things become ugly fast.  
With the dollar worthless, what will the people do? How will they get food?  How will they pay for the things that all of us must have to survive?  
The government will no longer be able to pay for any type of social program which includes food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, farm support, medical services, the military, government workers, and a police force.  
Whom will the people blame?
If I were a senator or congressman, I think I would be contemplating making advance preparations to get out of the country. People who have labored and saved their entire lives are not going to sit by idly and see their life’s work go down the drain.  
The Democrats have instigated a “scorched earth” class warfare attack. They, and they alone, have turned the poor against the successful, and they have successfully divided the classes so that Americans have now formed a circular firing squad.  
Instead of moving forward as we should by insuring opportunities for all, the Democrats have worked the populace into such frenzy that everyone is suspicious of everyone else.  The so-called “rich” are not the problem.  The government could take every dime they have and it would pay for running this wasteful government for 11 days.  Is running the government an additional 11 days enough to hate successful people?  Shouldn’t every American aspire to be successful – and yes, rich?
Perhaps John F. Kennedy said it best when he said, “Ask not what your country do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Sadly we live in a day and time where half of the population has it hands out, and our government happily fills them.
We are at a turning point in our history.  Not since the War Between the States has our country been so divided.  What is worse, the “real fiscal crisis” that is about to occur  is going to change this country into Greece or worse, a third world country where all of us subsist on our own ability to scrounge food, medicate ourselves, and live a life of drudgery and despair.  
We need heroic leaders who will put the welfare of the American people above their lust for power and personal ambition.  We need leaders who will step up to the plate and declare that enough is enough.
We cannot continue this reckless course of spending money we do not have.  This insanity must stop.
There will be pain, but let me assure you now that the pain will be much less than the pain of an economic collapse.

Jamie Patterson Managing EditorAfter a night of pizza and fireworks, the Patterson family welcomed in the new year with the arrival of 2013.
The next morning, I was ready to take on the world with a new perspective, a few new resolutions and a new attitude.
For some unknown reason, I began to knock down every item I had on my to-do list around the house.
I cleaned all the bathroom cabinets out first. I now know what happens to Pepto- Bismol after a few years buried inside a medicine cabinet, and it’s not very pretty.
Then I began to throw away all the junk tucked underneath our bed. It was no man’s land under there with dust bunnies that had transformed into dust dogs and about four years worth of recycled Christmas bags.
At the end of the day and with a belly full of peas and cabbage, I surveyed our hard work around the house. There were still a few junk drawers to tackle, but overall our mission was accomplished.
We began the new year with a new slate around our home. Clutter was attacked, junk was thrown away and order was restored.
Let’s just see how long it lasts.
But as I was cleaning up around the house on the first day of the new year, sadness also popped up every now and then.
Cleaning up our Christmas decorations, I found a wrapped box underneath the tree. Coated with a deep purple and blue canvas, the gift tag shined through like a candle.
It was a gift I had purchased about two months ago for my Aunt Sonya. Sadly, she died only a few days before Christmas. I was never able to give her the present.
My eyes began to tear up. Not only because her death is still close to home, but because it was the first time I had really put a lot of thought into her Christmas gift.
It was easy to buy a collectible or knick knack for her. But it was the first time that I went out of my way to get something that would comfort her, especially during her time of illness.
Moving onto other areas of the house to clean, I opened a drawer that I had shoved several photographs to make room for mantle decorations.
The first one I grabbed was an older photograph of my Maw Maw and Paw Paw. They were in their 20s. Paw Paw was in his Army uniform, and Maw Maw had a head of freshly set curls.
I put the picture back to original spot. It was also in 2012 that we buried my Maw Maw. She died last January.
Paw Paw died almost 20 years ago, but I still have never got over it too.
Grabbing a feather duster, I began to hit a few areas around the house. It didn’t take too long for me to make my way to a cabinet that holds all of Jason’s “man stuff.”
Amidst the arrowheads, bullets and hunting calls, there sat a simple photograph of his Granny, Sue Richardson.
Granny was in the middle of a conversation in the photograph, but you could tell she was standing in her kitchen. It was the place where Granny made you feel most at home. With the smell of homecooked meals and an open table, she made anybody feel like family.
She also passed away in 2012, only a few weeks after my own Maw Maw.
That evening as I went to bed, I began to think about all the loved ones we lost in 2012 within our family. And they were all people that had a presence...a presence that you can just tell is no longer there.
There were empty seats at the table this holiday season. You almost felt like they were in the other room.
But the one thing that offered me hope during that tough time of cleaning up was gazing upon the photographs of our children.
Our son James was beginning to look like a little man. And our daughter Elsie was beginning to grow her hair into a small ponytail.
Those images of their smiling faces put a smile on mine.
You never know what life is going to throw your way. You never know when your ride is over.
But its those young faces that carry on the memories, traditions and life.
It’s in their faces that you see the future.
And you can’t help but smile.

William E. “Billy” ByrdThe Yazoo Herald

Lifelong Yazoo County resident, William Earl “Billy” Byrd died Dec. 28, 2012 at his home on Grand Avenue.
Byrd was born in his parents’ house at the corner of Webster and Canal streets in Yazoo City on Aug. 12, 1928.  As a youth he attended Yazoo City and County Schools.  In 1938 Byrd designed and built an entry in the local Soap Box Derby race conducted on Broadway Street. Billy won his division and advanced to the Mid-South Championship.  He took the blue ribbon in Memphis, Tenn. and was awarded a wrist watch and a bicycle, which he claimed to wash after every ride.  
During WWII, Byrd’s father bought a farm on the banks of the Walashabouge Creek off Myrleville Road.  The family house was on a private dirt road, so the county school bus would not pick up the children.  Byrd’s father negotiated a contract so that Billy’s older sister, Katherine could drive the bus route and park the bus at their house.  However, Katherine was apprehensive about driving that size automobile and unofficially deferred to Billy.  He drove the route (with his father’s blessing) beginning at age 14 until he graduated from Benton High School in  1945.  
Later that summer Billy met and fell in love with Martha Jean Lee of Indianola.  She had accepted a summer job working in the Yazoo City Office of the State Highway Department for Mr. Lacey Hodges.  Billy and Herman Asher arranged a double date with Martha Jean and one of her girlfriends.  The two men flipped a coin to see who would be paired with which girl.  Martha Jean often joked that Billy “lost” the coin toss.  
Byrd enrolled at Mississippi State College the following fall.  He was active in the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity and was named Chapter President his senior year.  While at college, Byrd played flugelhorn in the Maroon Band, worked part time in the Extension Office Mail Room and was inducted into Kappa Mu Epsilon, The American Society of Agricultural Engineers, Alpha Zeta, Blue Key and Omicron Delta Kappa. He completed the two mandatory years of military science, and then signed a contract with ROTC.  He held the school record for disassembling and reassembling an M-1 rifle blindfolded. Byrd graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Engineering and a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve.  
After college he returned home and partnered with his father to open Farmer’s Equipment Co., Inc. on Mound Street.  He also transferred to the Mississippi Army National Guard and was assigned as Mortar Platoon Leader, Co. D, 155th Inf. Regt., 31st Inf. Div.
In 1951 Byrd’s unit was ordered to active duty as part of the Army’s mobilization for the Korean Conflict.  He was promoted to First Lieutenant and assigned as Company Commander.  During the summer of 1952, he requested leave to marry Martha Jean in Indianola (Asher served as a groomsman).  Byrd completed his tour that same year and returned to Yazoo City.
In 1961 Billy closed Farmer’s Equipment and began second career.  He was hired as a night warehouse supervisor for Mississippi Chemical Corporation (MCC).  His first duty was to prepare and build portable latrines for the company’s ten-year anniversary celebration.   He was promoted that same year to Sales Trainee and began a thirty-year career in the Sales Department.  He retired from MCC as Director of Sales and Marketing in 1991.
During his tenure at MCC Byrd was an active member of the Fertilizer Industry Roundtable, Mississippi Council of Farmer Cooperatives and the Mississippi Agricultural Chemical Council (President 1977).  He was also a member of The Association of Mississippi Agricultural Organizations and the Central Mississippi Agri-Business Council.  
Byrd participated  in several community and civic organizations including the Lion’s Club (Past President), Keep Mississippi Beautiful Committee, and the Yazoo County Chamber of Commerce (Board of Directors).  
Byrd was enrolled at birth as a Sunday School member at First Baptist Church, Yazoo City.  He publicly acknowledged Jesus as his Savior as a child and was baptized in the same congregation in 1938.  He was a continuous member until his death and served in many capacities including deacon (past Chairman), SS Director, Personnel Committee, Choir and Orchestra (trumpet).  Martha Jean served many years as the church organist, and Billy became a self-taught organ repair and maintenance man.
Billy and Martha Jean reared a daughter, Beth and two sons, David and Neil.  The loving parents were staunch supporters of all of their children’s endeavors even into their adult lives.
During his retirement, Byrd remained active in professional organizations and filled much of his time manicuring his lawn.  His chief aggravation was a prolific stand of sweet-gum trees in his back yard.  Byrd often quipped that, “the road to hell is lined with sweet-gum balls”.  
Billy and Martha Jean enjoyed visiting their children and grandchildren and made several interstate and international tours with their friends.  When her health began to fail, Billy affectionately attended to Martha Jean until her death in 2007.  
In recent years Byrd was a mainstay at all weekly worship services of FBC and Thursday Lion’s Club meetings at Stub’s Restaurant.  As recently as the fall of 2011, even though he battled a bothersome limp, Byrd aggressively peddled Lion’s Club pecans in support of the organization’s sight saving efforts.  He had every intention of setting new sales records each year.
Because of the gift of his Savior, Byrd was assured of an eternal life with his Heavenly Father.  Now he no longer limps for any reason, but especially not because of sweet-gum balls.
He was preceded in death by his wife Martha Jean Byrd of Indianola; parents Eugene Leonard Byrd, Sr. and Glennie  Sigrest  Byrd of Yazoo City; brother Eugene Leonard Jr. of Santa Barbara, CA; sisters Dorothy Byrd Hutchison (Clyde) and Frances Byrd Crocker (Clayton) of Yazoo City and Kathryn Byrd Hanks (Ward) of Smithville, MO.  
He is survived by his daughter Beth Byrd Stansberry (Jerry) of Hixson, TN; sons David Alan Byrd (Carol) of Stuart VA; Edward Neil Byrd (Freda) of Hoover, AL; grandchildren Bren Stansberry (Sharon) of Knoxville, TN; Gina Stansberry George (Eric) of Franklin, TN; Katherine Dale Byrd of Pensacola, FL; Benjamin Lee Byrd of Stuart, VA; Landon Neil Byrd and Edward Earl Byrd of Hoover, AL; great-grandchildren Gentry George and Kristin Lyle George of Franklin, TN, sister-in-law Barbara Byrd of San Diego, CA; brother-in-law Clyde Edward Lee (Mary) of Austin, TX; and numerous cousins, nieces and nephews.