The following column was taken from the August 22, 1974 edition of The News, written by Mr. Charlie Walker.

My morning newspaper contained the usual bad news. Inflation, the NFL strike—it was business as usual. At least until I read Dear Abby. She really rang my gong. Nothing has shaken me up so much since I read that John Wayne was really a midget and rode a chihuahua in all those movies to make him look taller. Today even the comic B. C. was as ho-hum as a streaker in a nudist colony. Then I read Dear Abby, and the sun shone one more time in my little corner of the world. Now to those of you who may have been out looking for the abominable snowman in the Himalayas for the last few years, Dear Abby’s column in the newspaper gives advice on everything from how to take out a water moccasin’s appendix without breaking the skin to the young ladies who wrote Dear Abby asking her advice on a masquerade ball she had been invited to. It seems the young lady was incredibly skinny and she asked Dear Abby’s advice on what kind of costume she should wear. Dear Abby told her to wear a blond wig and go as a “Q” tip. And this other lady wrote dear Abby telling her that she had heard of a lady in California who was so upset about animals living in ‘sin that she had married two of her poodles. I laughed so hard my wife thought I had gotten a tax refund. If this idea should vibrate all the way from California to Sandy Bay the people out there would have a hissy. In fact I think it’s a great idea. We are going to have a cat wedding at Sandy Bay—a first for Williamsburg County. My old tomcat Rubarb and his faithful female companion Clarabell (C. B. for short) will tie the knot. It will be the social event of the season. Even surpassing a Garden Club meeting in Greeleyville. We’ll even get Rubarb a dinner jacket and since Sears don’t carry formal wear for cats with our usual ingenuity, we’ll improvise. We’ll go to the Greeleyville Army and Navy Store and since nothing you buy over there is Sanforized, we’ll buy a size 42 and when it gets cloudy it will shrink up and fit that darn cat. Even a cat’s wedding needs entertainment. So we are going to have that psychedelic rock group from Holliwood Heights, Snowflake the Albino Gorilla and his Electric Bedpan. He appears nightly except Sundays at the Vanilla Vampire Night Club in Cades. We had planned to send Rubarb and C. B. to Niagara Falls for a honeymoon, but since Rubarb is busy helping Dale McKenzie crop tobacco, this is out of the question.  So the bride and groom will spend their honeymoon in the bushes behind our house at Sandy Bay under the bathroom window. This is the perfect place because every time somebody flushes the John it sounds like a dinosaur gargling. To Rubarb and C. B. in their ecstacy, this will create the illusion of Niagara Falls. From now on when I pick up a newspaper, I am going to read Dear Abby first. At least until football season starts.