I wouldn’t have it any other way but this is still a small town in spite of there being some 62,000 of us spread around the 430 square miles. One has only to look at the News-Herald &uot;Town Topics&uot; and see what takes place on a Saturday morning in this mostly rural area. It’s a little like browsing through the magazine &uot;Reminisce,&uot; or putting your-self into one of Norman Rockwell’s paintings on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. Perhaps it is because we are so spread out, so many villages, so many churches and civic organizations. Each of these is capable of enticing a goodly crowd to attend whatever event they sponsor. And when one attends they can expect to see friends old and new because that is what binds them together. Nothing can be more satisfying.

In just one Friday edition of the News-Herald we found so many choices there was no way we could take advantage of all the offerings, or home cooked meals. We had a choice of early morning breakfasts at the Elks Lodge on Constance or Elks Lodge on Constance. (It was listed twice but I have never had a herring for breakfast) We could pick up a Brunswick stew lunch from the Driver Ruritan Club at the fire station, or chicken and pork yock (haven’t the faintest idea what that is) at St. Paul Baptist Church, or a fish fry at the Suffolk Shrine Club, or barbecue with the Eastover-Wilroy Ruritan Club behind the Wilroy Baptist Church, or a turkey dinner at the Bethlehem Christian Church on Holland Road, or pick up plain old yock at the home of Laverne Doughty on Blythewood Lane. We flipped a coin and had the turkey dinner, feeling guilty for passing up the others. But what’s a yock?

We always arrive at yard sales too late to find those valuable items we really don’t need but thought we wanted at the time, which were at Suffolk Fire Hall on Market, St Paul Baptist Church, and Suffolk Elks Lodge on Constance, listed twice. They must have some real pull with the newspaper. There was a Craft show at the Suffolk Department of Recreation at the Kings Fork Middle School, a Fall Festival at Southwestern Elementary School, and a Fashion and Gospel Extravaganza at Booker T. Washington Elementary auditorium. Suffolk Parks and Recreation did its best to keep Halloween safe for the kids by sponsoring events on Oct. 31. A dance for teens 13 to 18 from 6 to 9 p.m., children up to 12 could go to Mack Benn Jr. Elementary School for face painting, games, a cupcake walk, entertainment and refreshments. Admission was a can of food.

Listed also was a Prostate Cancer Seminar in St. Marks’s Episcopal Church and several phone numbers you could call if you were interested in attending. I had to assume that those listed had some experience with the disease and could assist anyone, mentally, in dealing with what can be a terrible ordeal if the victim delays getting medical advice. I got to march around the track at the Relay For Cancer event for having survived that cancer by having it removed. Not an easy decision for men, or their wives for that matter, but I love life too much to risk carrying it around and continually thinking about it.

Don’t think you can’t get one, Mister; all men are susceptible, at any adult age. I know men in their 40s who got the bad news. Some of them had delayed visiting Uncle Doctor and are paying for it. I learned that a simple annual blood test, PSA, may spare you the biopsy ceremony, which is not all that much fun. And Doctor Longfinger can keep an eye, fingertively speaking, on that little devil which can cause you a lot of problems. If I were writing a health column I’d pound on that subject often and I don’t even know you. Then I might see more of you at the Cancer Relay instead of your names in that little column beginning with an &uot;O.&uot; Don’t be bashful dad, moon a doctor and he’ll check your oil.

Robert Pocklington is a resident of Suffolk and a regular News-Herald columnist.