Kalico 2: Hypnotized & Naked in Hope Springs

Sandy Seever: Update

Sandy: Mid-morning Wednesday, HSEG News Center

Not to disclose confidential sources or anything, but something just came up. Perhaps even a kindred spirit in the news gathering business.

My usually reliable but undisclosed source has forwarded to me a daily journal entry by one of the new kids in town, Madison Johnson, who has beaten me to one of my proposed feature stories, the profile on Dauntless Decker.

Madison discovered the source of our English teacher's nickname simply by asking Mrs. Decker about it. Thus Madison has uncovered an interesting part of history that the current generation of Hope Springlets have not suspected.

One point Madison missed, which has been hidden in open view right in our front hallway all these decades: Why the Dauntless One never married. Our article must tread lightly on her feelings, but the answer is in the photograph of our 1942 State Championship Baseball Team.

Two cheerleaders are in the picture with the Eternal Glory ball players. One is the teenage version of the lady we all now call Granny Johnson, hugging her best beau, the player William Johnson, whom she secretly married not long after that picture was taken. The other cheerleader is the teen version of Emma Decker herself, hugging her high school sweetheart.

The tragedy of the moment of joy captured in that photo is that World War II was in progress and every member of that team was in military uniform within the next month after the championship tournament was concluded. Unfortunately, every member of the team was killed in the war. None of them returned. Their names are inscribed on one of the war memorial monuments beside the flagpole in front of Good Ole Hope Springs Eternal High School.

The love of Granny Johnson's life was killed in action in Italy. I don't know what happened with Mrs. Decker's sweetheart. They didn't marry before he left, and she never saw him again.

Tread lightly with this, Sandy, but it's something our generation needs to know.

Probably the best course of action is to go to Miss Dauntless herself and ask her how best to handle it.

Dauntless, the educator becomes Dauntless the news source becomes Dauntless the news.

Next, find Madison. See if she wants to write for the paper besides just this one time.