KILGOROUND

SOME DAYS AGO we read an essay by Dr. Peter Mires, a geographer from the University of Delaware.

THE subject was the ages-old use of solar energy.

BACK in the day - way before we worried about fading fossil fuels and carbon footprints - we captured solar energy passively through what he calls "equator-facing fenestration." In other words, the doors and windows of our homes, he said, faced the equator.

AND, he said, in the northern hemisphere, homes were more numerous on south-facing slopes.

THE USE of solar energy, he reminds us, is another one of those "nothing new under sun" ideas.

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THERE is a season when the sun's touch, so recently a jab with an elbow, softens to a caress. We are in that season.

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WE continue to be amazed by the amount of remodeling work going on in downtown Kilgore.

THE old Masonic building, which until recently housed Kilgore Travel, will get a serious face-lift with floor-to-ceiling glass front. (Dr. Mires would undoubtedly refer to it as west-facing fenestration.)

KILGORE Travel and landlord Johnny Wade spiffed up the old Cunningham Jewelry building across the street, Carl Clower's shop — Expressions — already seems to have doubled the traffic on Kilgore Street, and Big Dave's Barbecue keeps threatening to open in the old Dollar General-then-Vinery building at the corner of Main and Longview streets.

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JUST WHEN you were about to get over being mad about the government's rescue of the debt and mortgage industry… the bill approved Friday includes a provision to soften the excise tax on wooden arrows used by Boy Scouts and summer camps.

THE staff of Rep. Louis Gohmert (he voted no) is unable to find out who asked for the special protection.

GOHMERT, the conservative Congressman from Tyler, will be in Kilgore Thursday to address a noon luncheon at the Meadowbrook Country Club. The luncheon is a combined meeting of the Lions Club, Rotary Club and Chamber of Commerce.

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HAPPY birthday today, Sunday, to Katie Honea, Jessica Hargrave, Charles Cline, Angela Rossum, Sharon Walker, Jason Randolph, Doyle Lawhorn, Annie Mae Palmer, James Allen Roberts, Verner Laird II, Bob Barbee, Suzanne Hunter, A.E. Gazette, Shirley Bellus, Jaleesa Roberts, Melissa Phillips, Diane Sibley Bell, Lanetta Williams, Renee Routon Smith, Adrian Canchola, Ma'kiyan Moye, Jerease Butler, and Kayedean Barker.

HAPPY anniversary to Mr. and Mrs. Robert Morgan Jr.

CELEBRATING birthdays Monday are Nick Holley, Beverly Stovall, Juliandra Morton, Teresa Williams, Mrs. Fred Hughes, Amber Jean Horton, John Hanisee, Sandra Miles, Mrs. Opal Glenn, Eddie Montgomery, Cyndy McFarland, Michael L. Smith, Doug Hageman, Kenneth Smart, Clarence Chastain, Dolores Hughes, Mike Conner, Tyshona Roberts, Lori Anne Dean.

HAPPY anniversary Monday to Mr. and Mrs. John Paul Jones.