Ethyl remembers: The Vidette

The good thing about growing up in a small southern community is that everybody knows everybody. The bad thing about growing up in a small southern community is that everybody knows everybody. When I was growing up in Tishomingo county we had a small weekly newspaper called The Vidette. It came every Thursday in our mail boxes and we always eagerly awaited it. We didn't pay the three dollars a month for the newspaper to find out what happened. We already knew that. We also didn't pay to find out who did it. We knew that too. We just read The Vidette to find out who got caught.
One of the main features of our small weekly paper was the social column. Some one from each of the communities around and about Tishomingo County would report on the goings on each week. The report might read as follows: 'Last Sunday after church the Reverend Billy Bob and his lovely wife Sadie had dinner at the home of Miss Fanny Wigalow. They were joined by the Reverend and Miss Sadie's six children who played in the yard while the adults tended to putting the dinner on the table. They all enjoyed fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans and Miss Fanny's homemade biscuits. They washed it all down with gallons of sweet tea. It was very good. Afterwards the adults sat on the front porch where it was cool and let the children play outside. It was also a time for the adults to catch up on all the local happenings. It seems that Miss Sadie's sister's husband's cousin's son had to be rushed to the hospital with a ruptured appendix. Many of the relatives came by to visit the young man. Miss Sadie's sister's husband is related to the Winslows. They are Aunt Mattie Henchell's husband's father's brothers's people. We all wish the young man a speedy recovery'.
Such was the news from our small world of Tishomingo County. How nice it would be if newspapers today had nothing more to report than what someone ate for dinner on any given Sunday.