December 21 has passed and the days are beginning their trek toward more daylight. A month makes quite a difference.

The lucky winner of the Lions Club drawing December 20 was Pat Nye, who won the big one of $500. What a nice Christmas present for Pat.

A continuation of the John Liberty story from Bruce Patrick follows:

“John Liberty raised vegetables for a living, growing mostly strawberries. He would pick a bunch of veggies and strawberries, take them down to his boat at the shoreline, and then peddle them, mostly at the Les Cheneaux Club. On one of these occasions, he was charging too much and never sold a thing. He was so upset that he went back to his landing and threw it all into the bullrushes.

“My father, Bruce W. Patrick, happened to come along and saw all of those vegetables and strawberries in the water, so he thought something might have happened. Maybe John Liberty had fallen into the bay, thus losing it all, so we immediately went up to his farm to see if he was okay. We found him, and he was okay, but what happened to the produce? He told us how no one would give him his price, so he just threw it all into the water. ‘That will fix them!’ he said.”

John Liberty was one of the many “characters” in the Les Cheneaux area about which so many stories have been circulated. Next week we’ll find out the probable cause of John’s eccentric behavior. (The above reminds me of the old time “Uncle Wiggley” stories that I used to read in the newspaper as a child. They always ended with “and next week, we’ll learn about how Uncle Wiggley got out of” some kind of mischief.)

On that note, we wish everyone a safe and happy New Year and all good things for the year 2006.