Joy and dismay! Another day of work today. I almost threw several fits yesterday and then raced home to the tunes of AC/DC and wouldn't you know it... Oh gotta go, late for work! I be bck.

Granny Posey

My Granny Posey and Grandpa Clifford at the beginning.


Elva Lee Posey Packer was lovingly known to her many friends as “Posey” and to her grandchildren as Granny Posey. The name she took great pride in was being known as mother and as the wife of the late Cliff Packer. She loved life as strongly as she loved her husband and children, Trena, Drew and Glynda.

A Benton area resident for six decades, Posey Packer died Tuesday, June 3, 2008, at the age of 86 with a lifetime of memories filled with church, family, politics, travel, dogs, horses and Arkansas’ legendary Cliff Packer Auto Ranch.

A true steel magnolia with a clever wit, until her recent serious illness, she often voiced a quick laugh and a twinkle in her brown eyes. A breast cancer survivor, she was diagnosed with bone marrow carcinoma in February 2008.

Born in Carroll, La., in the Red River Parrish near Coushatta La., she met and married Cliff Packer while working in the ticket office of a theater in Longview, Texas, around 1942. While he served in the Army for five years, she worked alongside her parents, the late Clarence and Daisy Posey, in the East Texas Ammunitions Plant doing their part for World War II.

In the early 1950s, the young couple moved to Arkansas, which proved to be their land of opportunity. They set up several entrepreneurial businesses near Little Rock and Benton, including Cliff Packer Auto Ranch, Trailer Sales, Service Station and Restaurant. Visionaries about the importance of the land at the Pulaski-Saline County lines, the Packers were among the first to purchase property there and build a business in the area. With a love of history and tradition coming from her Louisiana roots, they bought and renovated an 1890s-era home they lovingly called the “Stagecoach House” on old Highway 5. Much of the land they owned is now the Interstate connecting Little Rock and Benton. They established and managed KKDI-FM radio station in Sheridan for several years.

While she admitted to riding a horse “only a couple of times,” she was a renowned “ground level” expert who helped her husband and children with horsemanship and training tips. The Packer family traveled throughout the United States and were known for their excellent riding ability. They enjoyed an extended family of friends acquired through involvement with the Civitan Club, Saline County Fair, saddle clubs, cutting horse associations and the Arkansas State Fair. Mrs. Posey, as she was known at the Arkansas State Fair, was a founding member of the Arkansas State Cutting Horse and Quarter Horse Associations. She was a founding member and chaired the Arkansas State Fair Rodeo Queen Pageant for 25 years. Until her illness, she was active with the State Fair Board of Directors and the Arkansas Republican Party.

She was an integral part of the Arkansas State Republican Party and Saline County Republicans for more than 25 years. Together, the Packers chaired numerous committees and were avid fundraisers for the Grand Old Party. Additionally, they were National Convention delegates and attended inaugurations for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush. It was not uncommon to pass by the Packers’ home en route to Hot Springs and view a huge banner endorsing Arkansas Republican candidates from congressmen to governor.

The many contacts she made through business, horseback riding and politics often were drop-in guests. She was a fine Southern lady who enjoyed playing impromptu hostess to these well-known guests and learned fast how to stretch a meal. “It was not unusual for Daddy to call and say he was bringing someone for dinner and 10 minutes later Ken ‘Festus’ Curtis, Roy Rogers and Dale or Glen Campbell or even Jerry Lee Lewis or Tanya Tucker would walk in,” she recalled recently. Other times it might be the governor, a senator or Win Paul Rockefeller.

A master of landscape architecture, she had no formal training but learned by “digging, planting and watching.” She enjoyed vegetable gardening, growing muscadines and flowers and shrubs. Her thumb was equally green in cultivating African violets, Easter lilies, orchids and her favorite pinkish-peach-tipped roses. She could root anything into a beautiful flower or shrub.

A favorite pastime, when she wasn’t watching her “story” — “General Hospital” — or game shows, where she could answer most any question, was listening to music CDs. She loved the close harmony quartets like the Gaither vocal band and the Gatlin Brothers as well as patriotic melodies and hits by Patsy Cline and Michael Buble.

All my love to Grandmother Posey Packer. Lost her second battle with cancer 6-3-08 on her and my grandfather's 66th wedding anniversary. He was waiting on her. Today they celebrate their third anniversary in Heaven.

For the love of...

The rat bastard that we all know killed the girl in Aruba has been arrested for another murder of a Peruvian girl. He's en route from Chile to Peru. Surprise, surprise. Blanche, from Golden Girls has died at 76. "Saturday night? Kid stuff. Get lucky on a Tuesday morning then call me." Loved Blanche. 
Work is going to make me lose my mind.  There is a sweet woman.  I wish she knew everything I know about dispatch. I wish I could place it in her head. She is so sweet.  She is like my grandmother.  My grandmother does not dispatch.
I can't watch the news. Or don't, rather. Though I'm glued to Nancy Grace.  The daily breakdown of local and national news as a whole is just more than I want to hear, without more than the recommended dose of my meds. 
BP is in big deep shit. Enough said. Our beaches are becoming an oil slick and it looks like the west coast is going to be the popular water attraction this summer.  Where's my travel agent's phone number? I need a plane ticket to Cali and a room at aunt Joyce's house.
I've got rotten dogs.  A 12 year old that is in my life  and he is a total trip.  I was a piece of work at that age and invented most of the shit he is pulling.  However I didn't have all the advanced technology.  He's fun. We're fun. Life's a ball and it keeps on rolling.  Make the best.  The comet's gonna come anyway.