The third annual Festival of Friends will be held September 20 from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m. in Memorial Hall. The multicultural festival is designed to celebrate the growing diversity of southwest Missouri and increase awareness of different cultures by sharing cultural displays, music and food.

Those attending the festival will get a "festival passport" and have the opportunity to meet and talk with local residents representing their countries as they travel from country to country.

The festival will feature hundreds of unique artifacts, native clothing, fine arts, tapestries, jewelry, photos, videos, music instruments, books, woodworking, and numerous other items on display.

This year there will also be stage performances representing Native American Indians, two groups of Mexican Dancers, and the Marimba band Kufara which features music from North Africa as well as others.

Last year’s event in Carthage was attended by over 700 people.

Food samples, freshly brewed Columbian coffee, and candies, will be available courtesy of exhibitors.

Letter to the Editor

Opinions expressed reflect those of the writer and not necessarily those of the Mornin' Mail.

Editor, In your recent Dollars & Sense column regarding identity theft, it repeated the frequent message of Not giving ones social security number or displaying ones social security number on checks or for applications for credit. Have I misunderstood all these messages which tell us not to use our SS number as identification? I recently purchased(or almost did!) a major appliance. When I went to pay for this item they insisted I give them my social security number. Of course, being the attentive citizen I consider myself to be, I offered other forms of identification explaining that according to all I had read not to give that number out for identification, only to be told by the rather testy clerk that they could not take my check without my SS #. Needless to say, the next place is where I purchased my new refrigerator without a social security number. Any idea why we are told not to use our SS#, then be forced into situations(such as credit card apps) to supply it?

Looking for answers,

Marian Willis

It’s always odd to run into folks ya know in a place ya didn’t expect to see ‘em.

I happened upon several at a bluegrass music festival a while back. Some of ‘em didn’t surprise me that they were attendin’ the event, just didn’t expect to see ‘em. Others I had no idea they had an interest in such things. Some were folks I hadn’t seen for several years, others I see ever now and then around these parts.

Then there were those that I was wantin’ to run into that I never found. I know they were there, just didn’t make contact.

There were also the three or four folks I didn’t know, but kept seein’ ‘em at various times. I wasn’t followin’ them around, but I wonder if they don’t think I was. Or maybe they were keepin’ an eye on me.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

by

McCune- Brooks Hospital

TO YOUR GOOD HEALTH

By Paul G. Donohue, M.D.

Varicose Veins Run in Families

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: My mother had varicose veins, and now I do. She had them taken out with surgery. I don’t relish going through what she did. Are there any other ways of getting rid of them? What causes them? — R.R.

ANSWER: Varicose veins are veins that have become stretched out of shape. That results in blood pooling in those veins, stretching the veins even more.

Leg veins in particular have a daunting task. They have to return blood to the heart, a task made formidable since gravity draws the blood downward. Veins get the job done because they have one-way valves that close after blood has passed through them. The closed valve stops the downward flow of blood that the force of gravity encourages.

Incompetent vein valves are the major mechanical factor in the development of varicose veins. Without competent valves, blood falls downward in the leg. The pooled blood stretches the veins, and that renders the valves even more incompetent and the varicose veins even larger.

Family history is definitely at work here. If one parent has varicose veins, the children have a 40 percent chance of developing them. If both parents have them, the children have an 80 percent chance of also having them.