By Ricky Swindle

Muffler Shop Musings

Howdy, friends!

It’s Wednesday, Sept. 28, and my brother Mike is taking his final radiation treatment. Doctor says he should start feeling a little better in a week or two after the last treatment.

Daddy always told us there was a difference between being sick and feeling bad. If you worked for someone else, you could be sick and possibly take a day off, but when you work for yourself, you don’t get sick, you just feel bad.

Mike feels bad and is sick too so that qualifies for him to sit back at home. Everyone knows Mike is a workaholic and fellow like him takes sitting back harder than most folks. 

He’s like an old truck with a good motor but with a bad transmission, he wants to go, he just can’t.

The Shriners 100 Gun Raffle went very well. We had 24 winning tickets sold out of our stack this year. A big thank you to my daughter Jennifer for selling almost all of them because I was with Mike and also thank you to all you good folks for buying them.

My competitors down there in Jackson actually sold one more book of tickets this year than me, so they said, but sales cut off on Friday for me and they were still selling after we got there. 

I take great pleasure watching folks trying to out work us. This is Panola County, you might out luck us but you ain’t gonna out work us.

We ended up making the most money for The Shrine and that’s what it’s all about anyway.

But 24 times we had the satisfaction of hearing the groans of the crowd when it was announced “Winning ticket sold by Ricky Swindle, Batesville”  because I have a stamp made up that states that and we stamp it on the bottom of every ticket sold.

When you sell as many tickets on so many things during the year as I try to do, you feel obligated to purchase tickets from other neighbors supporting their causes too. So that’s why I had my own rubber stamp made up at The UPS store.

It’s fun teasing and aggravating my Shriner brothers with this raffle. I may not have the time to support all their causes but they pretty much know that Batesville owns that big gun raffle and I give all the credit to the giving nature of our little community.

Panola Lodge #66 F&AM will be selling 5 dollar chances on a Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol October 8-9 at The Gun Show at The Batesville Civic Center. 

David Chancellor always sets us up a table just inside the front door so we are easy to find and we will give that gun away when the last ticket is sold or at 4 p.m. that Sunday whichever comes first.

Now that the Shriner raffle is over and done with, I’ll be helping The Civitans prepare for Radio Day that will be held on Nov. 5 this year downtown at our Civitan building.

We will be broadcasting live on Q105 FM, Undefined Radio and video streamed on FaceBook Live.

The Civitans will be to see all our sponsors in the coming weeks for your business ads and collecting auction items for our all day live radio auction.

Take care of yourself folks and do your best to help out fundraising folks donating their time and energy helping others.