Cloverdale Weekend Televison. Songs of Praise! Stand Up Stand Up for Jesus

Cloverdale Weekend Weather.

Clear skies and cool temperatures will subdue the turbulent past few days. The Shire will dry today from days of moisture and gusty winds from the storm system now moving deeper into the Confederacy. Expect jacket weather for most of the day. The wise would carry an umbrella on the off chance a stray rain cloud will find its way overhead. Enjoy your Sunday in the Shire.

On Today's Songs of Praise, we enjoy Cloverdale's Salvation Army Songsters as they sing Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus.
Cloverdale's Council of Churches encourages you to visit one of Cloverdale's fine houses of worship. Remember, if you feel separated from God, guess who moved.

Marge Chamber's Hobbit Home. A Cloverdale Favorite.

Marge Chambers lives at 224 Clover River Drive in Cloverdale. During the day she works as a window clerk for ShireBank and has done so for the past eight years. She is married to Lonn Chambers, a local contractor. Marge and Lonn are the proud parents of two children.

Marge is considered Cloverdale’s resident expert on all thing Tolkien. She owns all his books. She owns all the various television and motion picture productions of those books. She speaks fluent Elven, as do her children. Lonn struggles with the pronunciation but always gives it his best. There are times his dinner depends on how he responds to her questions when he sits down to eat.

Her regular bank customers are starting to learn a few Elven phrases as well. Through observation they’ve learned that those that speak a bit of the strange fictional language at her window are given a sweet before leaving.

Marge devotes several hours every month volunteering her time in the schools to teach creative writing and the importance of play and imagination in the school’s curriculum. She has several costumes from The Lord of the Rings movie and wears a different one to each school presentation.

Last year she refused to speak English at home until Lonn honored his promise to build a model of a Hobbit home for her school presentations. It took several weeks of work in his garage shop, but when he finished, Marge was so pleased she gave him a special treat and only spoke English for the next two weeks. Lonn was in heaven.

Next month Marge will offer a new service to the community. She will cater special Hobbit dishes to your next family, social or business event. She calls it Dine with the Hobbits. The food promises to be delicious and the beer will be plentiful, as one would expect from a Hobbit banquet. Serving your meal will be Marge and Lonn’s two children, dressed as Hobbits - complete with hairy feet. As a special treat, Marge will change into her Elven costume and do a reading. At the end of the reading Lonn, through no choice of his own, will appear as Gandolf the Wizard to bless the gathering. And, weather permitting, take the children outside to lite sparklers.

Marge is available to speak at gatherings with advance notice. She prefers two weeks but if you need an emergency speaker with a specialist’s knowledge of all things Tolkien, Marge is your lady. You can reach Marge to schedule your Night of Tolkien by calling Cloverdale 3245.

Temor. Lost and Found.

A missing child alert was issued today by Cloverdale’s Constabulary. Two year old Temor Thompson disappeared from his home at 324 Allsop Drive at 1:00 P.M. His parents searched the neighborhood then called the police for assistance. A bulletin was displayed on Cloverdale Weekend Television and announced on Cloverdale Radio 1, 2 and 3. Villagers by the score left their homes to search their own neighborhoods. The Neighborhood Watch Committees set up road blocks on all roads leading out of the village. The Boy and Girl Scouts volunteered to search the parks. The Anglican Woman’s Guild began baking cookies for the searches and the Salvation Army set up their mobile Canteen on the High Street to distribute coffee, tea and sandwiches. The village churches opened their doors so worshippers could offer prayers for the quick recovery of little Temor. A few extra collection boxes were placed near the front door of St. Bartholomew's. A second round of donations might put the church over its goal to raise enough money to replace one of the organ's pipes that mysteriously produces a high pitch tone when played. The tone isn't noticeable to the older parishioners but younger ones with better hearing definitely hear it (as gaged by their reactions whenever that pipe is played).

The Kicking Donkey and the Hairy Lemon Pubs closed to encourage their patrons to join in the search. Both establishments offered free beer to the person or persons who found the boy. It was just what the doctor ordered to get those "couldn't be bothered" lay about pub crawlers out and looking.

Three hours later the search was officially called off. Little Temor was found. Apparently he had fallen asleep on his mother’s bed, rolled over and disappeared between the crack separating his parent’s twin beds. It wasn’t until he managed to get his head between the opening and screamed did Mrs. Thompson hear him.

Everyone is relieved. The village is returning to normal (or as normal as Cloverdale can get). Mr. and Mrs. Thompson found a babysitter for tonight so they can enjoy the free drinks the pubs offered to the person or persons that found the boy. They booked at table at the Kicking Donkey for 7:00 P.M. and another table at The Hairy Lemon for 9:00 P.M. Their best friends, The Pallers from next door, will accompany them. Mr. Paller isn't a drinker so he will be the designated driver.

A side note on the search. The police reported that two stolen bikes and Mrs. Waterfords lost cat Tiffany were found during the search so the village's efforts were not in vain.

Cloverdale Weekend Television. Songs of Praise. The Crystal Cathedral

Weather. Cloverdale and Surrounding Villages

Warm describes today's temperatures starting in the A.M. and continuing throughout the daylight hours. Abundant sunshine will deliver a cloudless day. Open windows should provide adequate cooling in the afternoon and early evening. Most in the Weather Bureau agree this will be the first of many Sunday afternoon outings for the people of the Shire.

Cloverdale's Josh of Few Words

Josh of Few Words

Fourteen year old Josh Arnold lives in the two story Tudor cottage on the banks of the Clover River. He is an honor’s student at Cloverdale Middle School. He has a keen mind but struggles with his self concept and identity awareness.

One day, while enjoying a sack lunch outside the school’s commons, Josh watched and listened to a conversation between other students his age.
“That show was so tight,” one of them said referring to a movie they’d seen the night before at the Grand Theater.
“Oh, man it was sick. Dude what about when that dude’s head split open!”
“No, that wasn’t the best part. It’s when that slayer dude broke through the bedroom door and went all medieval on that babysitter. It was blood, guts and hair everywhere. It was so sick.....”

Josh was struck by the meaningless nature of the conversation. They were each expressing thoughts but, in Josh’s opinion, their conversation was a waste of the calories burned to express the words. It was just a menagerie of words passed between two people. Josh changed his focus to a gaggle of girls standing near the exit door. They were discussing something one of the cool boys said that upset one of their members. They illustrated their words with contorted facial expressions and the abundant tossing of hair.

Josh spent the rest of the day focused on everything everyone said around him. He listened to every word spoken within ear shot. By the end of the day Josh calculated that 70% of everything he heard was meaningless. It was all various collections of vocabulary strung together to occupy dead air between people. He reasoned that silence was the vacuum people used words to fill. This urge to babble seemed natural to everyone. Almost driven by genetic coding.

That day Josh decided to reduce his vocal emissions. His days of darkening the sky with his lung’s excrement were over. If he spoke it would be to express true feelings and thoughts that were pertinent to the situation. There would be no filler talk or the useless overuse of language. He would try living simply with few words. He wanted to declutter his vocabulary.

Since then Josh hasn’t spoken much. His parents worry. He talks to them but the conversations are curt and pointed. His sentences are fuel efficient. Instead of saying
“Mom I’m going to the park to hang out.” Josh will say “Park” Then he will tap his watch and say “When?” A cue to his mother to state the time he is expected home for supper. Many translate his lack of vocabulary substance as rudeness, but those of us who know him understand it isn’t rudeness. Josh is just a young man who thinks too much. We are all sure he will grow up to be the nation’s top efficiency expert.

Perhaps one day Josh will grow out of this phases and find something else to occupy his overwhelming drive for simplicity in thought, deed and possessions - but until then people must adapt and appreciate Josh's talent of expression on a budget.