Today's Feature

Public Works Meeting.

The City Council Public Works Committee will meet this afternoon at 5:00 p.m. in the Public Works Department building, 623 E. 7th. Items on the agenda include the discussion of bid openings for Airport Drive and River Street Intersection improvements.

City Council, during its last meeting, heard bids for another Public Works Project; the Centennial to 13th Street Drainage Improvement Project. A bid in the amount of $140,433 from Polston Construction was accepted, and Public Works Director Chad Wampler advised that 13th Street will likely be closed for a portion of the project

Humane Society Fundraiser Successful.

The first annual Taco Salad Dinner and Silent Auction held in the Southwest Missouri Bank Community Room on Monday night, November 24 for the Carthage Humane Society was a huge success. Approximately 70 people were served at this event to raise funds for the animal shelter. Bids were made an many nice items at the Silent auction held in the same location.

The Carthage Humane Society wishes to thank all the businesses and individuals who helped with this fund raising event.

Mornin'
I don’t know ‘bout most band directors, but the ones that taught when I was in school had a tough job.

In our band, the kid playin’ the bass drum found out that his bass drum beater was hollow, so he made a giant spit-wad shooter. While he was playin’, he’d be chewin on a piece of paper and work it until it was bout the consistency of bread dough. When the band director was workin’ with one group or another, he’d put all his wind into a blow and shoot the clock on the wall. By the time I figured out what he was doin’, there were three or four quarter sized spit wads on the face of the clock.

If all directors have to go through half of what the kids put our music teachers through, they definitely deserve a medal all their own.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: Please explain the proper care of a person who contracts shingles. Is it contagious? My doctor didn’t want me in his office. Other doctors say it’s not contagious.

I received the drug Famvir at the start. Now I take Lyrica and Percocet. I am miserable. How long is recovery? I have a mild case. I pity anyone with a difficult case. -- E.B.

ANSWER: When the shingles rash is brand-new and consists of many small, fluid-filled blisters, virus is present in those blisters. It is theoretically possible for an adult or a child who has never come in contact with chickenpox to catch chickenpox, not shingles, from the blister fluid. The possibility is slight, but it does exist. Most adults -- more than 90 percent -- have been exposed to chickenpox, so adults are not in great danger. Newborn and young infants, before they’ve received the chickenpox vaccine, are at a little greater risk.

You do realize that shingles is the reawakened chickenpox virus that lives in the body from the time of infection to the time of death.

You don’t have shingles now. You have the dreadful shingles complication -- postherpetic neuralgia. It’s pain coming from the nerve that the shingles virus traveled down on its journey to the skin. You are getting the appropriate medicines. The pain is usually gone in months, but it can linger for years.