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TOP JOBS

By EVERETT TAYLOR

Just about everybody at times participates in a "whatever happened to?" exercise relating to an individual or project that once was given attention but then dropped out of sight.

That question could be applied to a few subjects of this column through the years and a couple of unsolicited but welcome answers recently were furnished.

A November 2004 column told about Bob Center, of Tyler, who "has used up a lot of hours of his lifetime writing (and singing) songs, poems and the like."

Some international attention had come Center's way earlier that year in the form of an article in an Australia-based magazine, "Big Beat of the Fifties," written by columnist Shane Hughes.

Center said at the time he had been spending a lot of time in recent years working a book that "I thought I had finished a half dozen times" only to keep adding to it. His goal was to get it published "next year."

Next year has come and gone, along with another year plus a few additional months now, so it was good to hear from Center recently with an update.

"I decided to call the book 'Silver Alley' after the street in Gilmer where my father ran a meat market and short order cafe in the 1930s," Center revealed. "However, today's market is so hectic that I really haven't tried to get it published."

He did provide sample items from the book that offer a hint of its contents.

This one carries the title, "Runt Run The Road."

"There was them with their titles

An' private rail cars,

Paradin' around

Like big movie stars;

But let's give some credit

Whur credit is owed,

'Cause ever' one knowed

That 'Runt Run The' Road'."

A footnote says: "J.R. "Runt" Debenport was chief clerk for the Texas Division of St. Louis Southwestern Railway Lines (The Cotton Belt Route) from around 1932 until the General Offices were moved to Pine Bluff in 1960.

Other, longer samples were titled "Sarco's Crew" and "Kelly Countree," plus a short poem he calls "just one of those devilish things that workers sometimes do to relieve the monotony," when he was working at Brown Aero in Addison around 1965.

The subject of the work, which somehow got posted where it was widely read, was the owner of the establishment who apparently was not too flattered. Bob did manage to keep his job.

Bob suggested that poem might explain why he was referred to as a rebel.

He still hasn't totally abandoned the idea that perhaps by next year he also will be referred to as a published author.

A more recent column of Dec. 16, 2007, told about a service called DVDs4Vets working to collect and deliver donated DVDs to veterans' hospitals and centers.

Laurance Baschkin, executive director of DVDs4Vets, has written to give an update. In the past year, the group has arranged for the donation of more than 25,000 DVDs to various vet hospitals, centers and clinics.

He also noted that the effort is continuing, and stressed "It is important for your readers to know that we do not ask for financial assistance, only for the donation of DVDs to directly benefit the recipients."

Information on the process is available at www.dvds4vets.org.

Community service groups and high schools have participated, Baschkin said, and for donations of 10 or more DVDs, donors are acknowledged on the group's Honor Roll.