Today's Feature

Council Meets Tonight.

The Carthage City Council will meet this evening at 7:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers of City Hall. There is no old business on the agenda and only three items of new business

Those items include the first reading of an ordinance that would annex 3071 South Grand Avenue into the City. Property owner Siam Manzer requested this annexation.

The Council will also hear the first reading of an ordinance adding a fee for vacation of property. This item is forwarded with a recommendation for approval from the Public Works committee. Currently if a property owner requests the vacation of an alley, street or easement the item is passed through the Public Works department and the committee and, if approved, the vacation is free of charge. If this item is approved by Council a $50 fee will be applied.

The other item of new business on the agenda is an ordinance accepting the final plat of the Blackberry Briar Subdivision. This item is brought to Council by the Planning, Zoning and Historic Preservation Society.

One time I stayed with my uncle for a couple a weeks. We were gettin’ ready to wash up the dishes and he filled up the washin’ side of the sink. When he got done, I turned the faucet and started fillin’ up the other side with hot water, the way I’d always been shown. He shut off the water and put a kettle on the stove. After washin’ off the dishes, he put ‘em in the dryin’ rack and grabbed the boilin’ kettle.

He poured the boilin’ water over the dishes and I started ta grab one and start dryin’. Wrong again. He said the boilin’ water not only sterilized, but also headed the dishes enough ta dry ‘em in a few minutes.

I never figured out if that really makes sense or not, but it works and I never liked dryin’ much anyway.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

To Your Good Health
By Paul G. Donohue, M.D.

Baby Can’t Catch Shingles From Grandpa

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: My dad had a very bad case of shingles. He’s getting over them. We plan to visit my parents this spring. We have an 8-month-old baby whom they haven’t seen. Is the baby in any danger of catching shingles from my dad? -- C.B.

ANSWER: The baby isn’t going to catch shingles from your dad. No one is. Shingles is the chickenpox virus that lives on in a person from the first day it infected that person.

If a person with shingles is at the stage where the rash has fluid in it, there is a possibility that others who never had chickenpox could catch the chickenpox virus and become ill with chickenpox. That’s a remote but theoretically conceivable scenario. Once the shingles rash dries, there is no chance of transmitting the virus to anyone.

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: After having triplets, I have a fold of skin that hangs down from my stomach. It looks awful, and I know my husband doesn’t like it. I gained weight during my pregnancy, in addition to the weight of the triplets. Would losing weight help shrink the drape of skin that hangs from me? -- A.W.

ANSWER: No, it wouldn’t. It could make it more pronounced. The triplets stretched your skin beyond its elastic limits, and it cannot spring back to its normal size.

The only way I know that the dangling fold of skin can be gotten rid of is by surgery. Why not discuss this with the doctor who delivered your children? If he or she doesn’t do that kind of surgery, he or she will know a doctor who does.