KILGOROUND

ADMIT it - you envy your legislators their lives of luxury. They trade votes for trips to Barabados and St. Croix, they spend evenings sampling the finest wines at the nicest downtown restaurants, they get 'comped' at the golf and tennis clubs ...

SURPRISE, surprise, surprise - as Gomer Pyle would have said. At least for your Austin delegation, it doesn't work that way.

DURING a Thursday morning telephone interview with Rep. Tommy Merritt - ostensibly to discuss school tax reform - Kilgore's favortie son interrupted the deadlinedriven conversation: "Can you wash sheets and towels together?" he asked.

TOMMY was doing his own laundry.

(WE told him it was safe to launder the towels and sheets together unless the towels were red and new. Now we find ourselves wondering how the laundry turned out.)

+++ LANCE and Amy Wingfield, unlike most Ameri

can families, raise their kids on one income. They home-school the children and they seldom get a vacation. Their "weekend home" is their Redbud Street back yard.

SO they entered a contest sponsored by a Tyler television station, hoping to luck into a $15,000 back-yard makeover.

THE good news is that they are among the finalists.

THE even better news is that you can help them win by logging onto kltv.com, finding the landscaping contest and voting for the Wingfields.

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GASOLINE is close to $3 a gallon and pretty much everyone is sitting around the house, scratching their heads, trying to figure out how to save money on fuel.

GET a motorcycle. We get about 42 miles per gallon on ours. One KNH staffer gets about 65 miles per gallon on hers.

KILGOREOS could adopt mo-peds as a favored means of transportation. We could all buzz around town on the

little motorized bicycles and get close to 100 mpg. There could even be a local organization of mo-ped riders called Heck's Angels.

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POLLY Richardson's open house at The Vinery and Antiques Friday was a rousing success. She's taken the old Dollar General Store on Longview Street and turned it into something special.

SOME of us prefer edibles to antiques and so were drawn - magically - to the section featuring Texas foods.

IF you've not yet visited the shop, you owe yourself a visit. It's way more than just an antique store.

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CELEBRATING birthdays today (Sunday) are Al Grush, Joel Charchio, Mrs. M.T. Jones, Elmer Calico, Claudette Breaux, Annette Rhodes, Rayfee Williams Jr., Kelly Summy, Leo Wheeler, Patricia Sheffield Clayton, Christi Henley, Stan Jones, Jack Anderson, Barbara Wheeler, Annette Echols, Robert Partain, Hubert C. Smith, Kendall Bell, Isaiah Smith, Katlyn Robertson, John Kirkpatrick.

HAPPY anniversary today to Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Calico, Mr. and Mrs. W.C. McCollum.

BLOWING out birthday candles Monday are Sandee Sidener, Chuck LeBaron, Kristin Cranford, Kelli Nelson, Margie Britt Frey, Chris Maxwell, Mae Lewis Smith, David Rhodes, Daniel Odom.

MARKING their wedding anniversaries on Monday will be Mr. and Mrs. Robert Rouse, Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Swigner.