Carthage Maple Leaf Festival 

Searching for Vendors 

 The Carthage Chamber of Commerce is currently accepting applications for Maple Leaf Festival vendors. Vendors will be able to sell handcrafted items on the historic Carthage square following the Maple Leaf Parade on Saturday, October 16, 2010. Craft & food vendor spaces are now renting & filling quickly. Several food categories are already filled to capacity. Forms are available by email, fax, or mail upon request to 417-358-2373 or lredshaw@carthagechamber.com.

New to Maple Leaf in 2010, the committee introduces outdoor commercial booths. No indoor commercial booths will be offered this year. Outdoor commercial booth spaces rent for $100 each. No electricity will be available and gas generators are not allowed. Commercial spaces are for those offering a product or service for sale that is not handcrafted. Limited number of booth spaces. Registration forms & guidelines available June 1st by email, fax or mail upon request to 417-358-2373 or lredshaw@carthagechamber.com. Spaces assigned in order of registration forms and payment.

Bluestem Band Featured at 2010 Carthage Acoustic Festival.

The Carthage Acoustic Festival pre-festival concert will feature the band Bluestem this Friday at the old High School Auditorium beginning at 7 p.m. Opening the show will be Alan Young and Joe Smith blending their Dobro/guitar talents and showcasing Young’s vocal and songwriting abilities.

The Bluestem group was formed in 1982 and has performed frequently on stage at the Winfield Music Festival and is a seasoned and professional performance.

Advanced tickets for the Friday show are on sale at Oldies & Oddities Mall on the Square, or at the door for $7. Children under 12 are free.

The Festival will continue on the Historic Carthage Square from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. on Saturday.

The Fesitval is sponsored by the Powers Museum with funding assistance from the Helan S. Boylan Foundation. Other considerations provided by the City of Carthage, the Jasper County Commission and the Mornin’ Mail and is produced in cooperation with the Carthage Convention and Visitors Bureau. info@visit-carthage.com

Bluestem Band members:

Keith Alberding, sings the girl parts and has all the charm of a banjo player. He always waits until you mouth is full of coffee to tell the punch line. Plays banjo, guitar, and sings tenor

Jim Rood, runs with scissors and usually talks too much. He is not usually influenced by quality.Plays fiddle, guitar, and sings baritone and tenor

Rick Marshall, can recite every line from Monty Python’s Holy Grail and likes pie.He has a large collection of our capos. He even has Elvis’s capo. thank you very much.Plays guitar, and sing baritone and tenor

Marvin Pine, is the geezer and is the owner of the largest boot collection. He is Cowboy #54 in the state.Plays bass, spurs, and recites cowboy poetry.

Woody the wonder bass

The real star of the show, holds Marvin up.

"We hope to see you down the trail for some tunes and some laughs."

With all the enthusiasm for the stock car racin’ and "iron man" (which includes women competitors also), I’d like to see a competition based on the two. Row boat racin’.

It would use the traditional circle track configuration, only water, like a moat. Wouldn’t have ta be a high bank type track, flat water is difficult enough to navigate. It’s such a simple idea, I’m surprised no one has been promotin’ the idea.

Kellogg Lake would be an ideal spot to experiment with the possibility. The annual event would be a natural for some summer month. I can hear the radio ads now - The Row Boat Nationals. . .Satur-r-r-r-rday night. (splash, splash, splash in the back ground.)

I suppose the appeal is somewhat low-tech. Just a bunch a folks havin’ a good time in Carthage.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

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Stomach Flu Isn’t the Flu

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: I have read your column for many years, but I haven’t seen anything about stomach flu. Will you write about it? Someone in my family of seven gets it every year, even in the summer. Does the flu shot protect you from it? -- H.H.

ANSWER: At one time, I conducted a crusade to erase the term "stomach (or intestinal) flu" from the English language. I didn’t get very far, so I gave up on it. Real flu -- influenza -- is a respiratory illness, not an intestinal illness. The flu shot provides protection only against true flu, not "stomach" flu.

Four viruses are the usual culprits of stomach flu, and, for adults, the one that leads the pack is norovirus. Vomiting, diarrhea, fever and often headache are the main symptoms. It comes on suddenly, about one or two days after the virus enters the body. The sickness lasts only one to three days. A slight increase in number of cases occurs in the winter, but it comes in all seasons.

Norovirus infections usually spare infants. Older people have the worst symptoms, and they are the ones who can die from an infection, but death is rare. This is the illness that sweeps through cruise ships and can infect an entire nursing home. It’s also common in military settings and sports teams. The virus is passed in contaminated food and water, and it can live for long times on inanimate objects -- another possible source of transmission.

No medicines kill the norovirus. Replacing fluid lost through diarrhea is the most important aspect of treatment. A homemade replacement solution is a mixture of half a teaspoon of salt, half a teaspoon of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and four tablespoons of sugar in a quart (about one liter) of water. Commercial fluid replacements also are available, and drinks like Gatorade are suitable for infections that are not prostrating. Bismuth subsalicylate (Pepto-Bismol) controls diarrhea.

Immunity to norovirus is not long-lasting, so second infections occur.

Many bacterial illnesses, like Salmonella, also lead to diarrhea, but that’s a subject for another day.