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CLOUDCROFT ONLINE NEWSLETTER #203
February 27, 2004
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Dear Subscriber:

A series of events in 1958 changed my life forever.

The first event was my first D grade in school. It was on a
reading paper.

I had cruised through the first 3 grades without trying very
hard. The 4th grade was a little tougher. After my
unremarkable reading grade my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Nettles,
called me to her desk for a personal conference. She talked
in whispers so the other kids couldn't hear, but c'mon...they
knew. You didn't get called to the teacher's desk to exchange
recipes.

Mrs. Nettles said some people couldn't help but make Ds on their
papers, but she didn't think I was one of them. She said she
expected more from me...especially when it came to reading. If
I learned one thing well in school it needed to be reading.
Reading would affect my whole life.

I was 10 years old and I wasn't really buying it. Baseball was
obviously much more important than reading.

The next event was a few months later and started with a
bellyache in the middle of the night. The next morning when I
was still hurting my folks took me to the doctor and he said it
was my appendix and he would do surgery that afternoon. Things
happened too fast for me to get real scared, but the next
morning I woke up in a hospital bed with a big bandage on my
middle and in a world of hurt.

A couple of days later I was feeling a little better and Mrs.
Nettles came to visit me in the hospital. She brought me a
gift wrapped package and told me to unwrap it after she left.
You're really going to like it, she said. It was the size and
shape of a plastic model airplane kit. I just knew that's what
it was. After she left I ripped into it.

A book?! Wasn't she carrying this reading thing a little far?
I'm a poor sick little boy! Don't I need an airplane kit? I
thumbed through the book. No pictures. Some book. Besides
that, it was a lot thicker than a Superman comic.

I looked at the front of it. "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer."
I turned to the opening chapter. I thought I would read the
first page. Nothing else to do but drink apple juice and hurt.

One page and then the next and what the heck I'll read another
one and when the nurse came in to turn out the light that night
I had already whitewashed a fence with Tom and his friends and
fallen in love with Becky Thatcher.

By the next evening I had read the whole book. As I turned to
the last page I was amazed with myself. I had never read a
whole real book before and what's more, I enjoyed the heck out
of it.

No, I didn't turn into a book worm after that, but I did read a
couple of other books that school year just because I wanted to
and not because I had to and reading became an important part of
my life.

I think Mrs. Nettles knew I had it in me. All she had to do was
dangle it in front of me. What better time than when I was in
a hospital bed and baseball was out of the question.

Thanks, Mrs. Nettles. Thanks Tom. I still love you, Becky
Thatcher, even though you're well over a hundred years old.

Don Vanlandingham
Cloudcroft.com

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IN THIS ISSUE
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1. LOOKING AT THE WEATHER
2. VILLAGE NEWS
3. INSIDE THE SHOP -- CLOUDCROFT PROPERTIES
4. CLOUDCROFT ONLINE SPOTLIGHT -- SPACE MUSEUM
5. Q AND A -- BECAUSE CLOUDCROFT ONLINE READERS WANT TO KNOW
6. COMING EVENTS
7. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
8. CONTACT INFORMATION
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LOOKING AT THE WEATHER
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Light snows during the week. Accumulations of 1 to 3 inches.
Highs in the low-40s. Lows in the low-20s.
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VILLAGE NEWS
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The Allsup's convenience store chain has installed new Fina
gasoline pumps at many of their stores including the one in
Cloudcroft. The Allsup's store is Cloudcroft's only location
for retail gasoline sales.
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INSIDE THE SHOP -- CLOUDCROFT PROPERTIES
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Just right for your group size and budget. Cloudcroft Properties
has a list of some of the finest vacation properties available
in the Cloudcroft area. They range in price from $75 to $225 per
night (6 people or less). For more information, call
(877) 478-0426 (toll free) or (505) 682-4555, FAX us at (505)
682-4556, or see the link to our web site on the Lodging page of
Cloudcroft.com:

http://www.cloudcroft.com/lodging.htm

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CLOUDCROFT ONLINE SPOTLIGHT -- SPACE MUSEUM
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Just 30 minutes away in Alamogordo.

http://www.spacefame.org/index.html

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Q AND A -- BECAUSE CLOUDCROFT ONLINE READERS WANT TO KNOW
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Q - Is there a dentist that practices in Cloudcroft?

A - No, but I know there has been some interest expressed by
at least one dentist to open a practice in the village. I was
also contacted by a person interested in opening a small
pharmacy in Cloudcroft. After a couple of months there have
been no new developments on these two possibilities.
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COMING EVENTS
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February 29 -- Lake Lucero tour. White Sands. 679-2599

March 3 -- High Noon Book Discussion Club, Cloudcroft Library.
Noon. The book being discussed is Atonement by Ian McEwan.

March 20 -- Project Linus. Old Red Brick Schoolhouse. 10am.

April 10 -- Easter Egg Hunt and Easter Bonnet Parade

April 11 -- Community Sunrise Service. Baptist Church, 7am.
There will be a breakfast following the service.

May 8 -- Old Timer's Reunion

May 29, 30 -- Mayfest

June 18, 19, 20 -- Western Roundup

June 25-27 -- Chimney Spring Bluegrass Festival. For more
information call 505-687-3520.

July 10, 11 -- July Jamboree

September 19 -- Gary Johnson’s Cloudcroft Run. World’s highest
certified 10k run. For more information call 505-687-2133.

October 2, 3 -- Oktoberfest

Cloudcroft Art Society meets the second Sunday of each month,
2-4pm, in the Old Red Brick School House. Call (505) 682-3004
for more information and details on the Cloudcroft Summer Art
Workshops. March program is "The Basics of Art" by Ed Woten.
All artists are welcome - especially beginning artists.

Cox Canyon Volunteer Fire and Rescue is organizing an
auxiliary unit. If you would like to help support this group
of dedicated men and women, call 682-3084, 682-4664, 682-3719
or 682-3234.

Would you like to help deliver meals to the homebound around
Cloudcroft? Monday through Friday deliveries. Call the
Cloudcroft Senior Center at (505)-682-3022. For information on
other Senior Center services, see their web site, listed on the
Cloudcroft.com Links button.

http://www.cloudcroft.com/links.htm

Mountain Garden Club meets every third Monday of each month.
Call (505) 682-2910 for more information.

Senior Van from Timberon to Alamogordo leaves the Timberon
Lodge promptly at 8:30 every Tuesday morning.

Free Vitals Clinic. Cloudcroft Senior Citizens Center, every
Wednesday. High Rolls Senior Citizens Center, first Thursday
of each month.

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For an online calendar of area events, click the Events Calendar
link in the left column of our home page:

http://www.cloudcroft.com/index.html

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
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Dear Newsletter:

Enjoy reading your newsletter each week. Plan on visiting
Cloudcroft this September and possibly doing a little archery
elk hunting. By visiting your newsletter each week I feel like
I know all about the town.

I live in a small rural town where everyone knows each other
and it sounds like you have the same type of atmosphere there
as we do here. So keep the letters coming.

C. P. 
Vacherie, La. 

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Dear Newsletter:

Loved the poem to the guy who complained about the dog
dialogue. Keep the stories up; our 14 year old lively, but
blind and almost deaf little dog can hardly wait to return in
early March, I hope!

Marion Fossler

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Dear Newsletter:

Nice issue. Especially the write-up on the Village Trustees
meeting. Keep up the good work!

Bill Ley

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Dear Newsletter:

Your pool story got me to thinkin' 'bout my days spent throwing
darts here in Austin. Originally on 6th street at Maggie Mays.
My buddy Martin and I would show up on a Friday night w/out a
dime to our name and proceed to play for of the privilege of
having the other guys buy us a beer. There's much to be said
for good eye-hand coordination. Thanks, and keep the stories
coming.

Steven Archer

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Dear Newsletter:

Good advice for readers in your last newsletter. Everything I
read encourages people to maintain our physical and mental
fitness until we just can't work at it any longer. Keep at
your hobbies. Add new ones. Travel to new places and meet
new people. Read. Write. Draw. Everything you said.

In addition -- as a sort of "health insurance" measure -- I
would like to recommend two safe nutritional supplements I use
regularly now that have without a doubt strengthened my memory
and cognition.

Just for reference purposes, I am closing on 50 years old. I
know; I'm young. Alzheimer's (and Parkinson's) runs in my
family and I am taking these substances daily to hopefully
head it off. Alternatively, these supplements could be taken
in the early stages of age-related cognitive decline as possible
treatments.

I wouldn't do this radical thing and talk them up in a public
forum unless I was impressed. Although they are not products
you would necessarily stumble across in grocery stores, you
might be able to find them at the local Cloudcroft health
store, or at a health store in Alamogordo. Failing that, they
can definitely be ordered online from any one of a number of
vitamin or nutrition companies.

Both of these supplements have the support of much solid
scientific research. Type their names into a search engine
like Google and do some online research. Don't just take my
word for it, but I am offering a positive testimony, for what
it's worth.

I think the first supplement, Phosphatidylserine (PS), has had
the most impressive effect on the reliability of my recall and
recognition and the power of my cognitive reasoning. A bottle
of 45 to 60 capsules might cost from $20 to $30, depending on
the source. Soy lecithin, roughly a precursor to PS, is
relatively inexpensive and might be easier to find. A 60-cap
bottle (lasting two months) of the second supplement,
Acetyl-L-Carnitine (ALC), might run $18 to $25 or so.

I might drop the ALC in the future, but the PS is so good I
would like to continue to take it indefinitely. As long as I
can remember to, anyway.

Best regards,
Lyn Canham
Sandia Park, NM

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