1958 Columns
---

Roaming in the Gloaming

With Bob Forrest

Things Material and Immaterial

========================

January 2, 1958

   While not in the curriculum of the school it is taught by almost all of them. The name of this subject is Hysteria. Boys and girls get their first session at about eight or nine. Their first approach is football, where they are taught to shriek, shout and yell in unison. But it is at the basketball games where they get their 32nd degree. The game as it develops gets to be a mad house. No wonder: for days before, the students and the faculty have talked about nothing else. They are all in a state of nervous prostration. The game starts, the lid flies open and here you see Hysteria at its best. You look at the poor distorted, frenzied, frantic looks on the tear streamed faces of these little girls sobbing far worse than they would if they had lost both grandfathers. If the kids get out of wind, up spring six or seven good looking older girls who prod the kids back to life again. Their antics are ridiculous, especially when they get down on their knees. Is it a wonder that we are a nervous hysterical nation? Like the ocean we’re always on the go, never still. The result of Hysteria in the schools. ---   The auto, the private auto, keeps up its attacks on the railroad passenger train. Some folks say it isn’t the auto, but both the buses and the planes are complaining about loss of business. The New York Central has lost fifty million dollars this year and wants to shed a lot of trains. One of the worst signs is that the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe have asked to consolidate their two crack trains, the Super Chief and the Chief. A confession that neither as many folks are going to California, nor are they using their autos, or they just haven’t got the money. ---   Some cities are getting so hard up that they have a city gas tax. St. Louis had a one-cent tax; it added a half last week and it’s going to be easy to add more halves as time goes by. ---   Everything seems to be on the down trend these days except advertising. After squeezing out some competitors, the Saturday Evening Post price on a two-page colored ad is $35,000. Of course when you consider that the Post has five million subscribers that’s not so high. ---   Another physician comes up with this one. He says, “No one” can tell if there is a drop of negro blood in the veins of white people. The old saying, “Blood will tell,” is not working any more. ---   We get the Stirling Journal and Advertiser sent to us each week. This paper was started in 1820. We were born in that town. It is the county seat of Stirlingshire with a population of 150,000. The Journal is well edited and has lots of news and ads. Why we are writing this item is so we can tell you that every line of business appears in the Journal with the exception of groceries. Not even a potato. In this country the grocers are the best advertisers. ---   Had a note from Donald Pattinson, who is spending the winter in Florida, and while he never mentioned about the cold snap a while back and about them skating on the Gulf, he did tell us that Mr. and Mrs. Emil Minder, former Slayton residents, are spending the winter at Lakeland and that Emil is one of the top architects on the new school there. Don had Christmas dinner at the home of Mr. and Mrs. John Phillips. She was the former Miss Ihla Reaney, a daughter of the Frank Reaney well known in Murray and Pipestone counties in the days gone by. A card from Dr. Leon Williams tells us that he has recovered from an attack of the flu and is back on his feet again. The doctor practiced medicine in Murray county for over fifty years, the first two in Iona and the remainder in Slayton. His home is at Lester Prairie now and he wanted to be remembered to his old friends in Murray county, especially to the army of boys and girls he brought into the world. ---   This one is worth re-reading. A little over a year ago, floods in Oklahoma caused an enormous amount of damage. It was a real disaster. Did they go to Washington, D.C.? Not Them. The legislature added an extra cent tax on gasoline until the flood damage was taken care of. The tax was taken off last week; and you’ll hear people say those folks in the South are dumb. ---   Christmas was a happy day for us. We spent the day before at the Ray D. Elias home so as to be ready for the Christmas Eve dinner, then the tree and the gift giving and receiving. The next forenoon we all made a Christmas Day call at the Win Brammer home, which was followed by a group dinner at the Leamington as the guests of Lieut. Col. Nola Forrest, Rtd. We certainly had a jolly Christmas, only for one thing there was no Santa Claus and no youngsters. What happy days they were when our youngsters were small and grandchildren the same way. How their eyes would glisten with the excitement of seeing Santa. Memories! ---   A school principal got so disgusted at the way one of his pupils was acting up at a school party that he slapped him a couple of times. Of course the darling parents had the prof. arrested. He had a jury trial and was found not guilty. The case was brought in West St. Paul. A dozen of red roses for that jury. ---   We’ll soon be back to the days of Mark Hanna when Free Trade or a High Tariff and a Full Dinner Pail were the real issues years ago. The American workman gets $2.20 an hour, the Japanese worker gets 20 cents an hour and Japanese imports to this country increase daily. ---   If a statue could be erected to the man that brought the greatest happiness it would go to the doctor that produced aspirin. He has certainly saved the nerves of 170 million people. We can’t tell you how many aspirins are taken yearly but it comes to 65 million a day. Multiply if you are interested. Some of you can remember the days when they were bad for the heart. ---   Medical scientists after an extensive study on protein have found out that a shoulder of veal and chinook salmon tied for first place: they each have 28 per cent. If the little woman is tardy in her snow shoveling and car washing, take home a couple of shoulders of veal. Don’t take three or you’ll come home some night and find her shingling the garage. ---   Heard a couple of fair sized dowagers discussing first names the other afternoon. One said, “I just hate to have some one address me with my first name. It’s deplorable, disgusting and makes one feel kind of common.” Mamie and Ike have passed no laws prohibiting it. ========================

January 9, 1958

  That freeze in Florida was a real disaster. The damage is estimated at over $300 million. The orange crop naturally was hit bad except the orange juice. People went ahead and filled up their big tanks with the frozen juice in spite of warning from the state that it probably would not come up to standard. Cabbages were frozen hard as a rock in some places and we saw a letter in a Minnesota paper where the man wrote, “It took them 3 1/2 hours to thaw out water pipes.” ---   There’s been a decline in university attendance of late. Minnesota is now in 4th place with an attendance of 25,825. The New York University that had an attendance of 70,376 in 1950 has dropped to 56,280. That’s quite a drop. ---   Last spring two school teachers, a Morgan lady and a baby were killed in an auto accident. The case was settled last week for $33,000. The same week a jury in North Dakota awarded Mrs. D. H. Gustafson a verdict of $59,950 for the loss of her husband who was killed in an auto accident. An awful difference in the price of human lives. ---   The retailers trading stamps are really beginning to hurt. Spiegel, third largest mail order catalog house in the country, has started to give trading stamps with every order. You get a stamp with each dollar in the order. These stamps can be used for the purchase of four stainless steel soup spoons for $2.00 and the coupons. Regular price is $5.40. We live in a dog eat dog age. ---   In the large cities all surplus dogs are put to death under the supervision of the Society of Cruelty to Animals. Then they are ground up into fertilizer. Why not can the meat? Every Indian tribe puts dog meat at the top of the menu. Lewis and Clark when they went West several years ago said it was the most palatable of all meats and that included buffalo, deer, antelope, beaver, etc. Why shouldn’t dog meat make good eating. They live on the same slop as the animal that produces that juicy pink smoked ham that’s No. 1 in many an American home. ---   Jack Stiffendahl claimed the world’s record for holding his breath. He never even said a word for 4 minutes and 2 seconds. Dr. Robert Kease of San Francisco, Calif. shattered that record. He said he holds the world’s record with 10 minutes and 5 seconds. We know two ladies that we would like to have enter this contest and practice several hours a day. They might besides other things win the championship belt. ---   The South has won the segregation war. Some states have passed laws that if the entrance of negro children causes any disturbance the school will be closed. Squads are already getting ready for the fray. The colored kids can have the public schools and the white will all go to private schools. Big business is being hurt. They went down there for cheaper labor and whites and negros were working together. Now the white men won’t work with the negroes. ---   They are still holding Christmas office parties, but they are getting fewer. They bring many a heart ache and too much necking and petting of people that hardly know one another. The heart ache comes from the young man that has a new wife in the office or the young fellow that has a sweetheart getting pawed over by some bleary man of 65. When there is nothing left, they start leaving for home. As they went the boss at one party handed each employee a good sized frozen turkey. After cleaning up the worst of the mess the boss started for home. Driving down a side street he saw two of his most valued employees playing football with their frozen turkeys. There will be less giggle water and more Coke at his office party next year. Instead of turkeys he could get the help frozen bantam roosters. They loft easier. ---   We had a card from the Landmans. They live in Goodnews Bay, Alaska, close by Vancouver Island. They are the only white folks there. An issue of the Goodnews Bay Chronicle, a mimeographed paper, was enclosed. They had a big storm up there the same time as high tide and it brought a lot of water, floating boats that had been put away for the winter. “Been a good winter and Molly predicts dog teams will be going by Christmas,” “Charley Roberts may make a trip to Wuinhagak to see an ‘old friend’ as soon as he gets his new lead dog trained,” “John Murphy, Martha Galalla and Louis Smith went to the Indian hospital. John and Louie are back but Martha won’t be home until she has her baby.” Mrs. Landmann is Gwen Fowser, a former Lake Wilson girl and a daughter of Mrs. Lloyd Fowser. ---   Estes Kefauver, the senator that did the senatorial muck raking stunt two years ago, is coming up with another one soon. This time he wants to know why autos cost so much. Get busy on this number, Estes, and if you cut the price of autos a thousand dollars each you’ll be the candidate on all tickets at the next election. You won’t need any campaign funds or visit to Minnesota. ---   If you take a daily in Finland you get a one year insurance policy that you won’t be killed in an auto accident within that time. Funny some of our bright newspaper or insurance men didn’t think up that one. ---   The colored TV set is not going over as well as expected. Only 150,000 sets were sold last year. The goal was 500,000. Not clear enough for the price is the main complaint. ---   Mr. and Mrs. Carl Peick of Slayton and Mr. and Mrs. (Ada Peick) Wm. Nelson of Minneapolis visited us for a short time last Saturday afternoon. They were on their way to the Mrs. P. J. Nelson (Mary Morse) home for dinner and a Slayton reunion. On Thursday afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Frank Jennings of Golden Valley called. Mrs. Jennings is a niece of Mrs. Forrest and as they had not seen each other for nineteen years they had something to talk about, while the men listened. ---   Glad to see the state Centennial celebration get rolling and is giving the people some of its plans. We are also pleased that Murray county is going to take an active interest in the big event. Some things are not very clear to the average citizen. The last legislature appropriated a million dollars to celebrate the big event; that’s a lot of money. There are 87 counties in the state and a million dollars divided by 87 would mean that each county’s share would be $11,494. Two weeks ago we saw where the Kittson county fair board had appropriated $300 to assist the county Centennial committee to put on a program at the coming county fair. Which naturally brings up this question: who gets the million dollars? ========================

January 16, 1958

  For you folks that like to pick up bargains here’s an opportunity to get something real cheap. A lot of the big companies are offering bargains to their shareholders or stock holders. If you are a shareholder you can get a 37 per cent discount on a Toastmaster. Out here in the west General Mills is offering stockholders a $6.20 bunch of Betty Crocker’s assortments: dishes, cutting boards, etc., for $3.25. In the east so many folks who have stock are taking advantage of the offers that the hardware men are putting up a howl. ---   Here’s two strains of thought. Minnesota compels all liquor dealers to sell whiskey at the same price. Across the line in Pembina, N.D. the liquor dealer advertises in Minnesota papers, “Discounts on Quantity Buying.” They are more free with their wet goods than they are with their pheasants. ---   Two or three years ago when we were trying to do some of the cooking the steak was always tough so we tried Adolph’s Tenderizer. We did not now much about cooking as Adolph’s Tenderizer did not work for us. Today it is the most important factor in the meat business. It makes a dollar steak into a three dollar one in the twinkling of an eye. Armour is going into this enzyme, the real name for the tenderizer, in a big way. They dip the steak in the enzyme for 60 seconds, then freeze it. Meat packers are using 20,000 gallons of enzyme a month. One outfit has a chain of six restaurants and they serve over 8,000 one-dollar steak dinners every day. It upgrades the quality of beef from range cattle to the old dairy cow. That’s making it tougher on the farmers. Many of them feed cattle and the farmers who raise the corn to make the tender beef. Is this something new? Not exactly. When Cortes conquered Mexico 400 years ago he found the natives wrapping their meat in papaya leaves over night to make it tender; here is where it all started. Enzymes are found in other plants than papayas. ---   The latest in autos is the new Rambler which is coming out this month. The A.M.C. claims it makes 34 miles to the gallon. Its cost will be $1,789 for a deluxe two door sedan. It’s up to my lady now to decide whether it’s dollars or fins; she stands between love and duty. ---   Over in Scotland they play cricket instead of baseball, and sometimes like the local teams go in the hole as they do here. Over there they don’t have Rummage Sales, they have Jumble Sales. With this difference, we give door prizes while the Scotch charge six-pence admission. ---   Rent an Auto, Rent a Truck, will soon be joined with Rent a Locomotive. The Pennsy road, the biggest in total worth in the world, is renting 225 diesels. It formerly issued ten year certificates for the amounts to pay for rolling stock. First thing you know farmers will be renting expensive machinery. ---   The unlucky girl, that is when it comes to getting married, is the girl that lives in Kentucky. She has first of all to get a blood test, apply for a license and wait three days. When you get your license you must wait three days more and to top it all, either he or she has to pay six dollars, the highest in the country. When it comes to taking blood tests Minnesota does not demand it, but neither does So. Carolina, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Mississippi or the Canal Zone, nor far off Guam, Nevada or Arizona. There are sixteen in all and Minnesota should not be one of them. Puerto Rico is Cupid’s favorite spot, you don’t have to wait as long as you have sixty cents. ---   Had a group of barber shop singers one night last week. We enjoyed them to “Good Night Ladies.” They sang the songs we knew. Reminded us of the early days when Slayton used to celebrate the Glorious 4th. The bowery was located on the lot north of the Lias Fish, Wet Emporium. Young trees clipped on the creek banks north of town were used for the roof and sides, and dancing started early in the afternoon and lasted until sun up. After twilight a group of men would start singing songs they knew and so did everyone else. In the group was big Pete Dampman the bass. Bob Grass who was just the opposite in size from Pete sang the tenor. Carrying tune with vim, vigor and volume were Frank Weck, Ed. Holmen, Doc. Morrel and Bob Forrest. We even thought we were good. That was in the long, long ago. How long? Well, it was before anyone in Murray county knew that gravel was good for making roads. ---   See where a doctor recommends when “he” or “she” snores too vociferously to get a pair of ear stoppers. Don’t do it folks. If the house got on fire you might never know it until after you’re dead. A new style cap is being put on the market that will cure all your ills--the snoring ones. The new cap fits under the chin and fastens on the top of your head. Keep the chin from wobbling and you can’t snore. Another feature is that it keeps too much fat from accumulating under the chin. Of course it has this drawback: you’ll never know what hubby is talking about in his sleep. ---   Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Jacobson of Minneapolis, formerly of Slayton, visited with us last Sunday afternoon. Bill was in the barber business in Slayton for years, also in the baseball business as a good umpire. His shop was always full of fans who could tell how the game was lost. Both Bill’s folks and his wife’s folks were pioneers in Murray County, coming to Leeds township in 1872. Janet is attending the university. Bill says he has a good business and likes it up here. ---   Corn is our largest surplus. On Oct. 21st the U.S. government had over a billion bushels on hand and the surplus will be larger next year. We also own 800 million bushels of wheat. What is your solution to this problem? If you have one, send it to your congressman or senator. They would like to know. Bib farms are slowly pushing the small farmers out of business. Congress would like your aid on this one, too. ---   While we have been basking in a wonderful winter, Florida continues to have its worst weather of last week froze juice in the oranges hanging on the trees. We’re old fashioned enough to believe that open winters are not healthy ones. We have plenty of time for a lot of winter yet. The coldest spot of weather in the history of Minnesota started January 18, 18-- [missing]. For 36 days and nights the thermometer never registered above zero. Snow storms were ...[missing]... blizzards during that period. ---   Fat hogs like some fat men and women are not always particular. Iowa farmers got stuffing their hogs to the busting point with soft corn. Last week in Chicago top slim hogs, the eating kind, brought three dollars a hundred more than the fat ones. The problem now is what can we do with the watery corn. ========================

January 23, 1958

  We are starting the column this week from the infirmary where we were taken after a bout with intensive intestinal flu, the most humiliating, uncomfortable and with burning pains that sear and sizzle. We’ve been through all of the flus since the deadly one of World War I down, but this one has ‘em all beat. If you feel it coming, start unbuttoning your vest and start running, but it won’t do you much good as you won’t make it any way. When the flu hit us we tried to doctor in our room. On the third day a knock came at the door, and it was genial Mrs. Trumble the housekeeper, who politely told us there was a regulation that if you were not down for meals for 2 days you had to see the doctor. There was a wheelchair outside. We were taken to see Dr. Buck, who turned us over to the infirmary. Up today, Thursday, and wrote a little. Later on, Friday afternoon, a nurse tapped us on the shoulder while we were lying down after dinner and said, “Better get up and put your clothes on. We don’t give flowers here until you’re dead.” So we grabbed our three pages of copy in one hand and our last digitalis tablet in the other and started for home, and made it. ---   Was sorry to hear of the passing of Mrs. Axel Fresk. The Fresks were young people together with us. Margaret was a fine teacher. She had abilities above the average and gave them unselfishly to the community in which she lived. The Fresks gave a fine family to western Murray county: the greatest gift anyone can leave. ---   Bill Crook, postmaster at Pipestone, while visiting with my brother-in-law Lee Hosmer got my address and wrote me a newsy letter. Bill is no stranger in Murray county. He married Isabel Knutson, daughter of John Knutson, for many years a popular county official. We did not know Bill as well as we did his father John. He was one of the real old timers from the days of the blizzard and the prairie fires. He was ten times more Irish than his name would indicate, and he told some of his stories with a mellow flavor that reminded one of the shamrock fields on the Shannon. He knew every old timer over near Flandreau across the line, every trotting horse, every fighting man, every Indian baseball player, with a little story for each: yet he never drank a drop. ---   Some time ago we mentioned they were bringing back the flavor to instant coffee. It’s here, and before the end of summer it will be everywhere. They tried it out in some of the big cities the last two or three months. One big concern chose Philadelphia as a testing ground. Threw out what stock was on hand. Put in the new and the result was an increase of sales of 20 per cent. Smell certainly does a lot in the sale of eatables. Who would ever thinking of eating lutefisk if it were not the delicious smell--or rather, odor. ---   In St. Louis when you go into a certain super market you tell a clerk to put 1 gallon of oil and 8 gallons in auto No. so-and-so. When you come out you pay the bill. Dandy, isn’t it? But is it safe. Some of those cars in the lot may have some guy smoking, he may flick out the cigaret when the car next to him was being gassed. Chaos would result. Women would be screaming about babies left in cars, etc. Safety first should be first and not last. ---   Saddened we were last Tuesday to learn of the death of one our loyal friends. Andy Anderson had passed away suddenly at his home at Grand Blanc, Mich. Andy was raised in Lake Wilson and when a youngster started setting type on the Pilot where he worked for several years. When he became 21 he started out in the world and since that time grew and lasted. He was the type of a friend that every man craves: he was for you when you weren’t there. His life should be an inspiration to some youths. He had no higher education, no college or university. He started to save his money at twenty-one. Went up into Canada, became a Canadian citizen. Took up a quarter section of land in Saskatchewan, a hundred miles from a railroad. Not having a truck he hauled his material in by team. Built his little shanty and barn himself. When winter came he left his horses with a neighbor and went to Flint, Mich. to make money to keep the farm going. He got a job in the drop forging dept. at the Buick plant. He did that for three years. Then the foreman who had watched his build and the interest shown, that he said to Andy, “Sell the farm, we’ll take care of you.” Andy did. Promotions came steady to Andy and he went as far as he could go until retirement time came. He bought a little place twenty miles from Flint. A farm dotted with oaks. He bought a trotter and a pacer. He loved horses and he told us last July of his dreams of enjoying life with his horses and his new home and how he would be back this July. Fate ruled otherwise and we lost one of our finest friends: right or wrong, he was for me. To Mrs. Anderson and family goes our tenderest sympathy. They lost not only a husband and father, but a real man. ---   It’s hard for some folks to believe that over five million radio table models, the smaller one, were sold last year. They don’t realize that in millions of homes the radio is the most important article of furniture. The housewife turns it on when she gets up and it goes all day long, not that she listens to so many programs, but it breaks up loneliness, soothes the nerves, tells the time of day . She can sit down and relax when her program comes on and as a woman said, “I always feel there is someone in the house with me when it’s going.” Any one still remember the convict at Independence, Mo. who used to play the piano so beautifully? How we waited for his program. ---   The auto continues its deadly work on the railroads. The big Brotherhood convention at Miami, Fla. has been cancelled. Reason given: economy. There are less men employed by the railroads today than there have been in the last twenty years, and it looks as if there will be less next year. Cancellation of train passenger service continues all over the United States. Out in western Minnesota a passenger train in some sections is as rare as a dry ear of corn. Look at the Omaha, once the most bustling line in the country: now only one passenger train between St. Paul and Sioux City, and we hear this is on the skids. ---   Our daughter, Col. Forrest, who has been visiting in Minneapolis for the last seven months, returned to California last Monday. She accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Ted Hill of Pine River. We’re going to miss her. She has not spent a winter in Minnesota for 30 years. ========================

January 30, 1958

  It gives us a pain in the neck to see both parties arguing about who is to blame in the satellite war. They are like a bunch of kids. What the people want is for both parties to work together: give it all they have. ---   Interested we were and admit being a bit pleased, to see an article headed, “Roaming in the Gloaming--Murray County Herald” in the front page of the Stirling Journal and Advertiser, Stirling, Scotland, carrying several items from the column. The Journal announced our arrival on earth over 85 years ago. ---   We folks who live in Murray County can remember our set and dry cycles. What would happen if Florida would have a cold cycle of four or five years? It would mean a billion dollar loss. The second frost was bad. One woman writing a Barnum paper said it was 22 on the night of January 8th, and that they slept with five blankets and a hot water bottle. Ice froze 5-8 of an inch thick. It’s no laughing matter, as it means more expense to us. The grapefruit section came through in pretty good shape. ---   Conditions are a lot worse for the railroads than most people realize. They are trying to get relief by a cut in taxes soon. If this does not come don’t be surprised if the government has to take over and run the roads at public expense. The New York Central omitted its first 1958 dividend. ---   You’ll be getting a smaller bag of popcorn from now on: popcorn is now worth $10 the cwt. ---   A red rose for the Lion’s club at Hallock. Just got through feeding a multitude with all the pancakes and sausage they could eat and all the coffee they could drink, free of charge. Pretty good solicitors are those Lions. The Russell Milling Co. furnished the flour, the Karo people the syrup, the Peters Co. the meat, the Gamble-Robinson outfit the coffee, and the Hallock creamery the milk. You can do a lot these days with enthusiasm, energy and a little nerve. ---   This has been a wonderful winter so far. Up here the thermometer has been below zero only twice. Croakers say look out for February. Sure, but they can’t take away from us what we have had. ---   Had a letter from Supt. Thune of the Home for Retarded Children at Shakopee, which thanked all those that sent cash donations and toys. You helped make the little ones happy at Christmas time. ---   Like you and the rest, we read the Abby and Ann columns in the Star and Tribune. Half of the letters seem to be from women who have made misguided marriages and the other half from women who want to make misguided marriages. In the old country, lady columnists write on other articles than sex. Kathleen Cameron who writes for the Stirling Journal writes about cheese with a pointed question. In going over the price of cheese she mentions a lot that we had never heard of. The price on some varieties cost two or three shillings a pound more in Stirling than they did in Lancashire, and ends up the article with this question, “Can anyone tell me why?” ---   Benson is asking congress for permission to change certain laws, etc. Remember he’s asking congress. So instead of throwing eggs at him and cursing him, start in on the congressmen who make the laws. ---   You should be able to find a case of turkey soup in the home of every turkey raiser this summer. The Campbell people have brought the name Turkey into more prominence than it ever has been before. ---   Small fry in the newspaper business often make errors, but you seldom wee the AP make mistakes as it did on the lurid write up on the Indian Klan battle. It said that 30,000 Indians of the Lumbee tribe that lived in Roebson county took part in the battle. The last federal census report says there are only 3,472 Indians in the entire state of North Carolina. South Carolina had 554, Minnesota 12,533. Total number of Indians was 343,313. Delaware is the only state that has no Indians. ---   We never read an article about the Klan but what there’s a tingling in my spine about my experience with that organization. A man said he was sent down from Minneapolis to see me and to appoint us head of a new Klan outfit in Lake Wilson. We told him we were not interested. Told him we could not see why we should join an order just to hate friends we had known for years. He got somebody else evidently to start his new political party here. It grew by leaps and bounds. At one time the Klan held a meeting in the public gym, but only one. Other meetings were held in the Ole Olson pasture east of town where new candidates were admitted. It was an awesome spectacle. All were dressed in white. Guards surrounded the field. You can imagine the torches, the all masked crowd and the awful darkness of the night brought an eerie feeling. Better show than any of the high priced orders. The Klan grew in bitterness. One garage owner had the letters K.K.K. painted on the walls. Others carried KKK cards with their auto plates. It was growing business. It drove the best business man out of town. A cross was burned for us as well as others. The coldness was growing. One of the bankers called me one day and told me, “I’m telling you for your own sake you should join.” It was wearing a guy down. Then a friend of mine who belonged said, “They never mentioned your name, but one of the speakers said a county editor in Georgia would not cooperate so they stripped him naked and rode him out of town on a rail.” Here we were with no police protection. Crosses were burned on Saturday nights. Finally the break came, and we always given God credit for it. A man came into the PO. with a brief case, said he had found it. We opened it to get the name. It was the Klan. All of the secretary records. Every name down to the name of the cross maker and the robe keeper. That was the end of the cold war for us. ---   Strange to say, yet it was the young men that really brought hygiene to Murray county. Some of the ladies whose hair is past graying will remember the boy friends of those days. When they took her to a spelling bee or dance, the young man prepared for battle. He sprinkled White Rose over his coat and vest and behind the ears, and bought two five-cent packages of Sen Sen. Maybe a few of you old men will remember those days. Using face powder by the girls brought sneers and jeers. If they had used rouge they would have been called the Scarlet Women; girls tasted like girls then, not like a paint shop. ========================

February 6, 1958

  Farming is getting so complex that it’s hard to understand. Just been reading about a county in northern Minnesota. Last year this county received $319,699 from the federal government in Soil Bank payments. This plan is ruining the county. Farmers put their farms in the Soil Bank, then leave for the city to seek employment. That cuts the business in the small towns and is closing many schools. Some high schools are in danger of losing state aid on account of lack of enough pupils. The county had 691 farms in the Soil Bank in 1957 and will have well over 700 this year. The name of the county is Kittson, had a population of 9,622 at the last census. Murray county had a population of 14,788 at the last census. Kittson should change its name to the Soil Bank county. ---   While still insisting that cigarets do not hurt the lungs the manufacturers are putting in more filters; one claims he will have 40,000. Filters in the long run are good for business reasons. Four years ago the makers got 325 cigarets out of a pound of tobacco; with the filters they use now the stems, coarse leaves, etc. They get 360. As for omitting tar and nicotine one honest researcher says, without them all you would get would be a mouthful of hot air. It would be like drinking beer without any alcohol content. ---   A new Soil Bank program is going over big. This one takes over the farm for five years. In one of the four experimental states a man with 234 acres will receive $5,850 a year and he can work or play just as he wants to. Last year the Soil Bank program paid out $618,000,000 to the farmers. This new plan will be tough on the small towns. There will be no one to buy goods. Every line of business will suffer including farm machine men, and what about taxes on the new school buildings? Always something, isn’t there. Ezra may not have to go now. ---   Wisconsin has some odd laws. Notice in a country newspaper ad from town treasurers stating that they had the tax rolls and would be at their homes or at banks on certain days so you could pay your taxes. Finishing the ad is, “If the taxes are not paid promptly, I shall proceed to collect the same in the manner authorized by law.” ---   Congress is going to try and help the small business man. Good idea but how are you going to help the small grocer when a supermarket starts up within two or three blocks of him? The only play would be for the government to buy the stock. But where can you move it? ---   He who hesitates is lost was true in the Canby swimming pool project. Bonds were voted for $100,000 in 1956. Now the best bid that can be had was for $119,573. If cleanliness is next to Godliness, Canby is sitting pretty. ---   Over in Stirling, Scotland if you have a little money you won’t be needing for some time, you can go to the Chamberlain at the municipal building. He’ll sell you a 25 or 50 pound Stirling bond that draws interest at the rate of 5 1/2 per cent. Of course you cannot withdraw it before it is due. ---   This turnover in railroad depots is not something new. It was discussed for this section over a year ago. Perhaps that was the time to start action against it by doing more business with the railroads. Let’s be honest, would we expect trucks to keep up their routes if they were losing money? ---   Something real laughable about this fishing contest and yet it was real. Janesville had a fishing contest last week. Two thousand people attended. First prize was a 14 ft. fiberglass boat. In the wall eyed pike division there were 21 entries, the heaviest pike weighing 3 ounces. In the Sunfish division Leon Allen of Waseca won with a two ounce entry. Roland Krienke of Waseca won the bullhead prize with an eight ounce bullhead, the heaviest fish caught in the contest. That sure was a contest. ---   The McClellan senate committee had a wonderful safari last year at the expense of the tax payers. They were hanging Union ... [line dropped] The show is over. It wants $500,000 to put on another show. What gall! The Union labor hides are gone. Hoffa has been permitted by court to head the Teamsters and Dave Beck is still huffing and puffing in Seattle, Wash. If this is the best the McClellan committee can do, why not get a new committee. ---   We notice that Judge Kolander was elected vice president of the Minnesota Judges of Probate. The judge is entitled to all the praise he getting in behalf of his work in juvenile delinquency. He has been making talks on this subject in neighboring counties and we notice he is going back, a sign that the folks liked him. The judge has a new method of reaching youngsters. When they get their drivers license the judge writes each one of them a letter on what to do and what not to do. In the letter is woven in advice, many items about juvenile delinquency and the way to be better citizens. The judge must handle his cases with common sense combined with good judgment: he has never had a repeater in for a traffic violation, which speaks well for the youngsters of Murray county and judge Kolander. ---   Doug Johnson, clerk of court, started up the ladder last week when he was elected treasurer at the state association. Do we know Doug? Well we can remember his grandfather Gulbrand, the father of Leeds township. We also cut bands on his uncle John G’s threshing machine one fall, and we’ve known his mother since she was a youngster. No woman we know gave more of her time and energy, working in the fields and doing chores to give their children an education than Freda Johnson. ---   Was sorry to hear of the death of Charles Swan. He was one of the outstanding men in western Murray county and aided largely in its development. He came to Murray county after the homestead days were over. Started working on a farm at five dollars a month, worked hard, was thrifty, had faith in the community and at one time owned over 3,000 acres of land in the county. He left a fine family of boys and girls, most of them engaged in farming in Lowville and Skandia townships. Few men made the progress that Charley Swan did. ---   Had two old friends visit us Monday and there were old friends. One was Herb Reed who was depot agent at Lake Wilson when they just had to have a depot agent. There were four daily trains then. The other was Mrs. P. J. Nelson of Minneapolis. One winter when we worked in the legislature, Mary was private secretary for State Treasurer Clarence Dinehart. We certainly enjoyed the short time we had with them and the nice we said about you. Herb was on his way home from a visit with his daughter in New York. ========================

February 13, 1958

  When congress is called upon to aid disaster stricken areas we would hate to be on that committee. What with wind and drouth there’s that frost in Florida that will mount higher than any of them. Some of the districts that froze will take five years to replace and then there is Mississippi with a $200 million cotton loss and so it goes. ---   Hard to believe that the biggest cash crop in the state of Georgia are the chicken legs. Folks are eating more chicken than ever. ---   A Texas woman shouted to her husband, “There’s a squalling kitten under the house. Go down and get it out. I can’t stand the noise.” Slowly the man wriggled under the house and found himself face to face with a snarling bobcat. Poor fellow, he’d only been married a year. If it had been ten years he naturally would have had some experience with snarling cats. ---   We were guests, both of us, at a family dinner party last Sunday at the Ray D. Elias home. It was in honor of Grandma’s birthday. Her granddaughters, with corsage and deft and nimble fingers made her look like a gal of 43 instead of eighty-three; why can’t they do that with Grandpas? ---   The American Air Lines take another tough crack at the wobbling railroads. It advertises to carry rail express just as cheap as the railroads do. The saving in time means a lot to many business firms: can you blame them? ---   The United States we live in is going to have prosperity if it has to buy it. We never seem to realize that pendulums ever come down. ---   Is it sensible to have three branches making Junos? Does the incentive to win spur them on? Is it economical? We said a while back in this column that when the time came, Uncle Sam would have the air full of gadgets. He’s started. ---   The Post Office department ran behind over $700 million last year. This year the deficit will be over a billion and still congress won’t do anything: reminds us of Nero playing the bag pipes when Rome was burning. ---   You won’t believe it but Minnesota is in the same class as Arkansas is when it comes to flouting federal law. The federal government holds that Bingo is gambling. Recently W. Barnes of the Sleepy Eye Herald ran an ad about a coming Bingo game. Next week he got a notice from the P.O. Department at Washington, D.C. telling him that if he did it again he would face a two year term at Leavenworth, Kansas. Any newspaper that carries Bingo ads will have to employ a force of paper boys, as he can’t run them through the mail. In spite of the U.S. declaring Bingo as gambling, the Minnesota legislature passed a law legalizing Bingo. ---   Had a letter from Trina Warren of Pipestone. We were neighbors to Trina sixty years ago when her name was Rathman. Trina is the widow of the late Ralph Warren well known Chanarambie farmer. They moved to Pipestone several years ago. She was telling about her grandson Warren Madison who is having a thrilling experience at the South Pole. He is ice breaking for the safe passage of the Task Force supply ships on Unit 43. His boat Atka also participating on operation Deep Freeze III. Warren had also made a trip to Little America. Warren is a great grandson of the late B. F. Warren, one of the pioneer aggressive farmers in western Murray county. He was also the biggest sheep raiser. Art Warren, Trina’s son, did not cling to sheep, he went into dairying and his model milk plant is admitted to be one of the best in this corner of the state. ---   The Wet Section: Anheuser Busch climbed to the top spot last year by making 250,580 more barrels of beer in 1957 than it did in 1956. Kentucky is making a law that will increase retail liquor sales by 10 per cent to pay for a new bonus law; that ought to help the ‘shiners. It was 24 at Tampa, Florida last Wednesday: the lowest in 53 years. ---   It’s been tough on the patents of late. A congressional committee ...[line missing]... from those high priced Aspirins, divulges the fact that all the so-called drugs and salves for removing fat from the human body are nothing but plain fakes. They just can’t do it. Only way is to clamp down on eating rich food. Exercise will help: if you walk 33 miles you will lose a pound. The New England Journal of Medicine took all the glamour from those high priced Aspirins, buffered or otherwise. It said that the cheap Aspirins that come 200 in a bottle at a tenth of the price gets into the blood stream at the same speed, gives equal pain relief equally fast and the relief lasts the same length of time. Do you think that will stop people from using the high priced and snappy ones: don’t be silly. ---   Had a couple of letters a while back that both spoke of money. One was from Joe Thompson for years Supt. of schools at Lake Wilson, now doing real well in his bank at Aitkin. The other was from Postmaster Christensen of Ruthton. They both wrote of money. “Bee,” just back from California said “Reuben” had made half a million. Joe said, “Reuben” had made another fortune. Who’s Reuben? Well, he used to be a cashier in the bank at Lake Wilson, later in the bank at Ruthton and is now president of the bank at Princeton, Minn. Reuben Rogde and Mae moved to California several years ago. He happened to locate at Anaheim, where Walt Disney just started to grow, so Reuben bought all the land he could get hold of. Did it pay off--the Disneys have the largest show place in the world now. Five years ago shares of stock in the company were 35 cents, last week they were worth $2.44 a share; some gain. Sixty-five well known U.S. business firms from Coke to Heads Free Baby station rent land so that they can sell the goods and folks pay 35 cents admission to get inside the 60 acre enclosure. The Three Little Pigs, Mickey Mouse and the Big Bad Wolf are known by more people in the world than President Eisenhower. ---   We notice that the Minnesota State Park board is looking for a lip stick eradicator. The lip marks are found on towels, napkins, etc. to the discomfiture of the board and it wants to get an eradicator. Here’s a hint: get a good looking Jane, dark or blonde, comely, with lip stick, vanilla flavor and have her gargle with Listerine. We have a man named MacPherson who’s willing to try and eradicate the lip stick, provided there is no entry fee. ---   We used to think that the judge of the prettiest baby contest had the worst job of all. He had nothing compared to the egg judge at the Brown County Egg Show Institute at Sleepy Eye a week ago. In the large white egg class, there were 73 entries. Fancy going up and down a row of 73 eggs and picking out the best. ========================

February 20, 1958

  Another new Soil Bank measure is going like wildfire in northern Minnesota. But it will not help the farmer of Murray County. It is called the Acreage Reserve and in some counties the chairman had to stop taking listings until it was seen what the allotment would be. Since that time 70 more farmers have been put on the waiting list. Under Acreage Reserve you can contract to remove 130 acres of wheat land from the planting program or not to exceed a payment of $3,000 a year. The farmer must agree however to plow the land and sow it to legumes. This increased removal of farm land is causing considerable worry in Kittson county, especially among some lines of business. Some oil and gas dealers will have to go out of business and it’s going to be tough on the farm machine business. When you start taking out three lines of business from a small town it starts others. The Conservation Reserve contracts are ready for signing. This is a long term deal consisting of soil banking for a term of two, five or ten years. Isn’t that a pretty long time to take a farm out of business? ---   That primary election for congressman in the first district showed up the wonderful ideas some men have of themselves. One fellow got 19,000 votes; on the other end, one got 143 votes and the man at the tail end got 61. They evidently went along for the ride. Reminds us of the story about the young colored fellow who told his old deacon that he had a vision and it had two letters, “P. C.” for Preach Christ. The deacon took a good long look at him and said, “You saw the letters all right, but they meant “Plow Corn.” ---   We think we have juvenile delinquency at its very worst out here. You should live in New York where policemen are stationed at some schools to keep the warring factions at peace. It’s not unusual for one kid to stamp another to death and then be back to school in two days. Reason: there’s no jail room, the standing room only sign is out. ---   Florida was not the only place hit by the frost. Florida cucumbers that cost $4.00 a bushel last year now cost $11 00 a bushel in New York City. ---   The St. Paul Dispatch is back in action again. There was a weekly Dispatch in the eighties that we thought was the greatest newspaper on earth. It was made up from items taken from the week’s dailies and how we did love it. It carried but few ads. Some of them we remember were Pear’s Soap, W. L. Douglas $3 shoes and Royal Baking Powder, and the price of the paper was 25 cents a year. Dailies were as far away those days as satellites. ---   Here’s a fine bit of news for this so-called depression atmosphere. 54 per cent of the people in the U.S. own their own homes: sad to say that’s more than who own automobiles. ---   The war on dogs has started early. Over at New Ulm a dog pound is being built and a dog catcher is to be appointed. All dogs over three months old must have a $2 license. At Tracy a big black dog so worried the neighbors that they signed a petition to the council about the dog. They were either scared of the dog or the owner, as none of them would sign the petition first, so they signed their names in a round ring. ---   While some towns are paying you $100 if you’ll only be in a trading place at a certain time one night a week, St. James took the other end and they closed all their stores every night for one wee: one week was enough. They keep open on Friday night now. ---   A number of counties in southern Minnesota are not paying bounties on foxes no matter how old they are. This means that in a few years no bounties will be ...[missing]...Brown county foxes did not now where the county line was and 50 of them drifted into the county. Twice as many foxes were brought in this year than last year and the county commissioners there and then abolished the bounty. ---   That man Salk who discovered the polio vaccine should have his picture in every school room. Just two years ago there were 510 cases of polio in the state of Minnesota. Last year there were only 47. What a really wonderful record. The people would give a winning football or baseball team more acclaim than they do Salk. ---   See by the New York papers that a resolution is passed in some schools to prohibit white students from putting on colored minstrel shows. Time was a law like this would have hurt in Murray county, which brings our minds back to the early show days here. Every village no matter how small had its own dramatic troupe. Slayton, the biggest village in the county, naturally was big league stuff. Can remember that two of the doctors, the late Dr. Richardson and Dr. Williams were always in the cast and the late Mrs. Alice Weck aided with her beautiful voice. Once the show was outstanding and they took it clear to Pipestone. Every town had its own minstrel show. Remember one at Lake Wilson, the late Dick Peterson and I were the end men and Rev. Varnadore was the interlocutor. The women folks in the cast “blacked” their faces same as the men, but they wore long black gloves. The R.N.A. sponsored the show. Then came the big show, the Kickapoo Indian medicine show. They brought real thrills. Always had a doctor with a seedy black coat and a jar of tape worms that his special medicine would eradicate. Then there was the Elixir of Life that would cure every thing. Big money was in the popular lady contest. With every bar of soap, tapeworm eradication, etc. you got so many votes. The prize was a diamond ring. You could almost see the diamond with the naked eye. After the law pushed them out. Then there were the cultured lecture courses, darn them, they never paid out. Then what happened. The Ole shows took over for a while. Of course there were always singing schools, spelling bees and at Christmas stringing bees, candy pulls that had post office attached. We had culture in those days too Had a literary and debating club at Lake Wilson, membership we noted was five cents. ---   Truer words were never spoken. Read where George Olson of Graham said the other day, “Feuds kill more small towns than anything else,” and if you live in a small town or have lived in one, you know these words are true. The feuds start over nothing and grow in bitterness with one side or the other never willing to give in and the energy and vim that should be used to hold trade in your own territory is spent in fighting each other at home. ========================

February 27, 1958

  For the past two weeks we have been interested in the Soil Bank and Acreage Reserve in Kittson County. What effect will the removal of so much land have on the economic life of the county? Last week one newspaper had a big article on it with a three column head, and it was waiting to find out how much money had been allotted for Acreage Reserve. This week we scanned the paper thoroughly but there is not one line about the problem. Is there an Iron Curtain or something in the state of Minnesota? ---   Even if you don’t like Harold Stassen, one cannot help but admire his ability. He came to Minnesota’s need when he took over as Governor and no governor ever left a better record of efficiency than Harold B. Stassen. He may lose but the Penn’s will know they had a campaign. ---   Here’s a little story worth repeating. Our daughter and a party of friends attended a wedding reception at a church close by Hopkins on Saturday night a week ago. It was bitter cold when they started for home and the car would not start. She went to a nearby Red Owl store and asked where she could find a garage. Two young fellows spoke up and said, “Perhaps we could help.” They asked the manager and he said, “Certainly.” They went out and got the car going. Marj asked them, “How much do we owe you?” They said, “Nothing,” but they did hand her a card which read, “Panthers of Hopkins Courtesy Cars--You have been assisted by a member of the Panthers Auto Club who are dedicated to courtesy and safety on the road.” You realize how much the ladies appreciated this service, especially when it was 12 below. ---   Minneapolis, a city of 600,000 followed in the footsteps of smaller towns like Chandler and Lake Wilson and had free movies for the kids on a recent Saturday afternoon. Forty thousand kids attended and besides seeing the movies ate up all the hamburger and popcorn there was in town. The downtown business men rented the seven biggest movie houses and they admitted the show was a financial success. Are the new stores like Southdale, etc. in the suburbs beginning to pinch a little? ---   There’s a touch of what we used to call yellow journalism in the so-called expose of rural conditions by Carl Rowan. Where did he go to find unfilled churches with weeds growing the sidewalks; why did he not come to Murray County? Here the churches are the backbone of the communities. In the little town where my heart lives there are three churches and they are filled every Sunday. Two of them added more space these last two years. Out in the farming community there is a church that is 85 years old and it is still full to the doors on a Sunday. About that farmer with more patches on his jeans than there are men on a checker board: why didn’t he come here and see. Take for instance the Heins brothers in Cameron township. Two bachelor farmers. They are farmers and have never been in the red since they started. It’s men with bank accounts like theirs that gives a bank in a town of 400 totals of over a million dollars, and remember one thing, Carl, if Murray county goes to the poorhouse they’ll go in two-tone cars. Of course you’ll find poor farmers. You’ll find misfits in every trade or profession. ---   We wore a bright red rose in the lapel of our coat last Friday. It came from a bunch sent us by the members of Murray Lodge A.F. & A.M. No. 199, Slayton. Over fifty years ago we were privileged to be master of the lodge there and we deeply appreciated the gift. We’ve had a rather odd experience being master both at Slayton and Lake Wilson lodge while living in the same house. ---   Last summer the doorsteps to the mayor’s office, the county commissioner’s office and the town board officers were really palpitating with the footsteps of women: skinny, fat, short with and without slacks and with uppers bare, were demanding that the mosquitoes be exterminated in five counties including the Shakopee marshes. Winter is a grand time to plan and organize but not a creature, not even a mosquito, is moving. What the group should have done is to send a committee to the women of Africa, those that live on the west coast. Pretty capable bunch. Laundering does not take up much of their time. Doctoring takes up more. They use the leaves of plants and trees for medicine, etc. Some leaves pulverized will halt a fever, others are applied to the body. The Lima bean leaf is good for ringworm, the palm leaf for palpitation and the coffee leaf for constipation, etc. But here is the leaf you have been looking for. Wearing even less clothes than some of the white women, when the mosquitoes get bad she steps outside her hut and picks some bitter leaves. After they are partly roasted she distributes the ashes around the houses and the skeeters keep their distance. What a blessing it would be to millions of people if this bitter leaf plant would grow in this country. Where did we get this information about the leaves? It came from a magazine that prints 2,500,000 copies monthly: one that would not tell a lie. ---   We saw a while back where Dick O’Connell Jr. of Marshall, Minn. was voted the outstanding young man of that town by the local Jaycees. His work in Marshall has been outstanding in civic lines. Now we don’t know Dick, but we did know his grandfather who would have been prouder of Dick than anyone else there. His grandfather P. J. came to Murray county from Dublin, Ireland in 1888 and took a homestead near Lime Creek. He became county commissioner of Murray county in 1889 and that’s where we come in. Just got into the newspaper game while he was county commissioner. Both being immigrants, we became friendly. Young then, we were always keen to meet men older than we were. We rejoiced in his company. He went so far as to write articles for us in the Lake Wilson Pilot in 1902. He was a brilliant cultured man, with plenty of wit: did not need to pound the table. A lover of the outdoors, one of his columns we remember was about the coming of spring. He told of the trees budding and the new birds arriving, said he had seen a shrike that day, with its strong hooked and toothed bill. You don’t know what a shrike is, neither did we sixty years ago. It’s a bird that is in the habit of taking his food such as mice, and impaling them on the sharp thorns of plum trees, etc. Few men had as much good influence on us as did P. J. O’Connell. A good farmer and business man was P. J. When he left Murray county he had over 1,000 acres of land. ========================

March 6, 1958

  Robin Hood and William Tell are riding high wide and handsome in northern Minnesota but they have not made much of a dent in the southern part of the state. Archery has taken the northern country by storm and every good sized town from International Falls, Bemidji, Crookston, Grand Forks, etc. have clubs. They have an archery league. Several girls have joined up. It’s both an outdoor and indoor sport. In the winter time they use the gymnasiums of the high schools. The youngsters are getting a lot of fun and sport out of it. ---   We’re a funny outfit. After all the palaver over the future in cigarettes and how they will save lives, the folks who live in the U.S. smoke more Camels than any other brand and you smoke it straight, as it has no filters. ---   The bell began to toll for the end of the trail for the two Becks. They were sentenced by a Seattle judge last week. The old man getting 15 years and the son was sentenced to a fine which if he doesn’t pay in three years he will probably go to the pen. ---   Latest thing out is a new electrical bulb which is guaranteed to last five years. A sixty watt bulb will cost you $1.00. Just think of the number of employees this new bulb will throw out of work; progress always hits the laboring man first. ---   Mankato is getting to be a real city. We notice in the police statistics for 1957 one third of police arrests were juveniles. The score was 1,237 total, juveniles 434. Sixty years ago, pa and the woodshed would have taken care of 400 of the juvenile cases. ---   Over at Sleepy Eye the Lions Club wanted the folks out there to hear Carl Rowan the negro pessimist, as they invited him to make a speech. Either the people were not interested or were too darned poor to buy a ticket, so the Lions went in the hold to the tune of twenty-five dollars. ---   We have a song fest up here every Saturday afternoon for an hour, singing the old hymns. We generally go down and join in. Last Saturday when we were in high gear we noticed a lady sitting next to me twitched. We leaned over and said, “Is my voice too loud?” She whispered back, “No, I love it.” To us it equalled Lord Chesterfield in gallantry. Telling some females about it half an hour later one popped up with the squelch. “She tells that to everybody.” “Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, as verily he will not be disappointed.” ---   Had a short visit Friday from Past W.G.M. Jane (Doonan) Topel of Balaton, a former Murray county girl. Jane who was a guiding influence in the erection of the new Chapel, was arranging for dedication services. ---   Here’s a smart idea. One of the towns in the north is giving adult typing lessons free. They use the school rooms and the teacher. There are 57 men and women taking lessons; more women than men, which makes it easier for cupid who hovers around just as he used to do at the old singing schools. ---   The new postal measure if it passes would raise the rate on common every day letters that go out of town to five cents instead of three. It will only be in effect for three years. Then we’ll have so much money we won’t need the increase. Letters for town delivery will be four cents. Few people seem to know, but the post office never gets a cent of the postal revenues. Every penny taken in for stamps goes to the U.S. treasury. Congress gives the department what “it” thinks it should have. After this when you ask a question in your letter, enclose a stamped envelope; four and five cents to answer some fool question is too much. ---   The Scots still cherish the memory of Robert Burns, the “immortal Bard.” He died over a hundred and sixty years ago. We notice that in the county we were born in, there were over thirty gatherings in his memory. We notice another item in the same paper. The National Farmers Union at Dunblane paid bounty on 31 foxes and voted to continue it this year. Foxes seem to thrive in Scotland as they do in Minnesota. That section of the country has been farmed for nearly five hundred years. ---   Congress is asking Benson to find a kinder way to kill hogs in the packing houses; why not put a rope, a razor and a bottle of poison in their pens and let the hogs do their own choosing. ---   Many of the big cities are not saying much but the loop districts are beginning to see the shadow on the wall. Busch of Pittsburgh is selling out its $3,00,000 stock of dry goods. It has been in business since 1869; can’t stand suburban competition. When Sears and Roebuck asked for permission to build a super store just back of the State Capitol in St. Paul, downtown loop merchants did everything in their power to stop it. You’ll notice Minneapolis, luring the kids downtown by free shows, this all shows which way the wind is blowing over there. The big cities are in exactly the same position as the small villages. Someone should tell Carl Rowan. ---   The world we live in moves too fast--we just stand and gasp. Here’s an ad of the Tiger Flying Line. Nineteen cents a pound will take your freight from Chicago to Los Angeles over night. Up here we pay 18 cents for an order to go from Sears weighing eight ounces, and it takes five days to make the return trip: total distance fifteen miles. ---   Calling on us last week were Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Oberg and Frank Nett of Lake Wilson. The men had been attending the State Farmers Elev. Association meet and Mildred came along to do some shopping. Les is one of the top farmers in the count. Came honestly by it as both his father Albert and his grandfather C. L. Bangson were outstanding farmers. Mr. Bangson was the first man to ship a car load of hogs from western Murray County. Les has been deeply interested in the Farmers Elevator Company at Lake Wilson. We used to work for Mildred’s father, Fred Carlson, when he ran a store at Lake Wilson. Frank Nett has been in the elevator for years, a born elevator man as his father was before him. He was our neighbor for many years. Had a real nice visit. ---   Cedric must have had Paul Bunyan writing for his column a while back. The item was written to boost the old days and the writer evidently thought snow shoes were wings. He said the mail used to be carried by dog sled from Pembina in North Dakota to St. Paul in eight days, a distance of 600 miles. One man went ahead on snow shoes breaking the trail for the dogs and sled. The sled carried the mail, bedding, dog food for the men and camping equipment and they went at the rate of over 75 miles a day. He evidently never saw a snow shoe. The original mail contract was from Swan River near Ft. Ripley to Pembina. The mail was to leave the first day of the month at 6 o’clock a.m. and to reach Pembina before 6 o’clock p.m. on the last day of the month. The item said, “All this less than a century ago.” The contracts on file are dated Feb. 13, 1851. ========================

March 13, 1958

  The Japanese are producing an auto that a few years ago would have revolutionized the industry. The Japs claim it will run 250 miles to the gallon of gas. The top speed limit is fifty miles. What America in this day age wants a car that can’t do more than fifty. ---   You saw where two little tots were suffocated at Austin one night when their parents were at a, call it a cafe, enjoying themselves. Folks shrug their shoulders and forget all about it. When it was proposed to send a mouse up in one of those big rockets the Prevention Against Cruelty to Animals got into the game. Made every front page in the country and the life of the mouse was spared. Seems as if there’s room for a society called “The Society To Prevent Children Being Burned to Death” negligently. ---   This man Ezra Benson seems to be a wizard. At his meeting here last week, instead of being assailed with eggs and tomatoes, was met by an audience of thoughtful farmers, and while they did not all agree with him they treated him courteously. ---   Florida is really beginning to feel the pinch of the cold winter. Forty thousand migrants are still in the south. Florida without work or food. Uncle Sam has been doing his best. Forty freight car loads of surplus foods have already been consumed, thirty more are on the way and it is estimated it will take over a hundred carloads. To those with cars Florida is advancing them money for gas to get home or just to get them out of the state, as the public welfare barrel is bare. ---   Southwestern Minnesota is going to have its own TV station. The tower which is to be 1,116 feet high will be located at Lewisville, the studio at Mankato and Walter Mikelson, the man with the money, at New Ulm. ---   Americans are wearing their laundry longer than formerly. Business is down so bad that one laundryman in Springfield, Ohio is giving you 13 new Arrow shirts if you’ll only have your laundry done at his place. One catch in the thing is that you must have a shirt laundered every day. There seems to be people who wear a clean shirt every day in the year. He estimates that a shirt is good for thirty washings. Another laundry man in Georgia is offering the one cent deal. With every shirt laundered you get another one for a penny. ---   Gov. Freeman says Minnesota faces a fifty million dollar deficit next year. Gird your loins brother for a real sales tax fight in Minnesota next January. ---   Half of the members of the U.S. Senate and 117 House members took expensive vacations this year on so-called committees, at your expense. All of them took part in the great economy move a while back. Your congressman on his vacations can have champagne and caviar three times a day. Live at the top hotels and spend money like a drunken sailor, but you’ll never know it Senatorial courtesy does not require you to itemize your bill; just the total. Wouldn’t that make juicy reading if some reporters got hold of the accounts. Senators who spend their time investigating others should remember what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. ---   You won’t know those big fat Iowa hogs any more. They are all entering a new era. All over northern and central Iowa meetings are being held to interest farmers in battery raising of hogs as they do broilers. Feed companies supply the feed, you feed according to directions and you will get 25 cents above market price. It’s going to be tough on the mama sow: instead of raising two litters a year the new plan is for four each year, which will make her a busy Lizzie. Purina, one of the big feed companies, now has 5,500 farmers, double the number of a year ago, out of its St. Louis base. A lot of companies are getting farmers tied up and the big packers are wondering if they will not have to get into it. Many feed companies are very busy in the south central states. The feed people will soon be in Murray county. Some farmers object to it as they have to feed the hogs what and when they are told. ---   Had a couple of callers last Sunday that brought memories. They were Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Reynolds of Minneapolis who formerly lived in Lake Wilson. She was a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Iver C. Moen, pioneers of Chanarambie and Clarence used to be a master printer on the Lake Wilson Pilot. The Pilot was a pretty crude affair fifty years ago. The chases containing the type were set on the press badly. At one end was a cloth frame upright. On this frame was the blank paper. On a table was a big daub of ink. Clarence used to take a two-handed rubber roller and keep working away at the ink until he got it in shape. Then he would ink the forms. Then he would let down the paper on top of the ink, turn an iron roller over the cloth and there was a Pilot. Why we called him a “Master” printer is because he was 13 years old then. ---   If you want to announce an open house for your tin or silver wedding in the newspapers of Cottonwood county you will have to pay a dollar after this. Notices of Golden or Diamond wedding anniversaries are inserted free of charge. ---   Had a card last week from Mrs. Sylvia Kaplan who formerly lived in Murray county. It was mailed at Tahiti, one of the French Society islands in the Pacific. Mrs. Kaplan loves to travel and this year is taking a leisurely trip through the Pacific on the Bergensfjord of the Norwegian line. Her late husband Louie Kaplan had stores in Slayton and Lake Wilson years ago. ---   We noticed a picture of a haul of rough fish in a Glenwood paper lately. The haul was made in Lac Qui Parle and netted 100,000 pounds. It must be a mighty poor lake to fish in, as there were only two wall eyes in the haul. The state gets 20 per cent of all saleable fish. Bullheads ranged from 12 to 22 cents a pound and Carp 3 1/2 cents a pound. The haul is not unusual, we can remember one haul over at Lake Shetek made by Chas. Durgin that brought in over 400,000 pounds. The crop was good that year and he sold over a million pounds besides giving away tons. The price on rough fish then was three and four cents a pound. Commercial fishing is as big a gamble as farming. Take it in 1945, he sold rough fish at 18 to 24 cents a pound. Chas. is a real fixture on the lake. He know the lake better than anyone else. He started in fishing bullheads for the market with hook and line. Farmers didn’t like it. They wanted him to shock at $1.50 a day, but he was making over three dollars a day and that was money in “them” days. ========================

March 20, 1958

  Was glad to see Mary Linsey’s letter in the Herald last week, because in spite of her advancing years she is still in the possession of all her faculties. To us Mary is the link that binds us to the real pioneer days of Murray county. No one can tell the story so graphically in words or pen as she. Mary was born in the county before a township was named, before the county was organized. She can tell you of the beauties of the early prairies, of the golden plover, of the shrill eerie calls of the crane high in the sky, and the clouds of brants, geese and ducks that fairly darkened the sky in the fall gloamings, of the bitter blizzards that isolated them for weeks, of the really golden days of the Indian summer, the boom, boom boom of the prairie chickens in the early spring mornings, the beautiful but dangerous prairie fires, the erratic darts and dashes of the beautiful snow bird. The heavy snow falls and how early settlers had to stick branches in the snow to keep them on the path at night. The early religious services, the terrible hordes of grasshoppers that almost made Murray county a desert and how they all prayed for the grasshoppers to leave and somehow miraculously they did in two days. She can tell you of the first and only sod schoolhouse in the county. She can also tell you about one of the outstanding schools in the history of the county. The Norwegians and Swedes in Skandia knew but little English. They were proud of their children, wanted them to be useful and loyal Americans. The farmers had but little money in that school district, yet they got out their thin pocket books and got enough money to buy lumber to build a frame school house; the farmers who raised the money lived in sod shacks or in log cabins. No one knew as much of the early history of the county as Mrs. Lindsey. Her father, Ole Aleckson, was a good carpenter, just fitted for the pioneer days. He made all the furniture which included a loom on which Mrs. Aleckson worked after she had carded and spun the yarn on a spinning wheel. Ole also made wooden shoes for the community from basswood trees from Bear Lake timber. Mary was born in 1871. She taught school for many years in different parts of the county. She married D. F. Lindsey in 1898. Hers was a life of service to the community and to the county. ---   Auto liability insurance will strike the highest prices in history this year. Fancy gadgets on cars, liberal juries, higher priced hospitals and nurses cause ever mounting costs. The highest spot in the country for liability insurance is New York. A young man under 25 pays $330 a year for protection against damage claims up to $10,000, $20,000 for injuries and $5,000 property damage. In Aspen, Colorado the same coverage would only cost you $72.80. ---   The Chesapeake & Ohio railroad is doing its best to hold passengers. If you buy a round trip ticket between Chicago and Grand Rapids on Tuesdays or Wednesday you get a $5.00 dinner free: you can’t say the railroads ain’t trying. ---   In the big magazines, advertisers pay $3.00 for a thousand readers. Some of the business men in the big cities have gone to their newspapers and asked them to cut down the size of the type used in depression articles. They want the newspaper to use a soft pedal. ---   Here’s an item of news we took from the Stirling Journal, Scotland, that we believe will be of interest to most farmers. At a meeting of farmers at the Bridge of Alloa one speaker warned them to hold fast to the benefits won. He spoke of what would happen to the economy of the country if all subsidies and supports were removed and farming lapsed again to the old days of 1920. Seems as if they have forgotten the subsidies to the point where everybody is satisfied. ---   When we read of the terrible condition of the farmers in southwestern Minnesota, we wrote county auditor Peterson at Slayton asking him if they took in enough money to keep things going. Back he came with this news: 99.58 per cent of taxes were paid to the date of Jan. 1st, 1958. Carl Rowan the Calamity Jane of the Tribune will feel bad about this. ---   Did you notice where 35 youngsters were trapped at a state wide beer party at New Prague? There were 37 at the party, 12 of them girls between 14 and 18; a twenty-two year old man who supplied the strong beer should be given five years at Stillwater: fining those guys is a joke. ---   Had a pleasant visit with Mrs A. H. Engebretson of Slayton and her daughter Connie of Minneapolis last Saturday. Lil used to work for us back in the county fair days. She was pretty efficient and combined with a nice personality, she drew top wages. Connie is with the Honeywell people. This company employs the most workers of any company in the city. Connie also finds time to do private secretary work for the chairman of the Republican party. ---   Some of you will remember the old expression, “You don’t know beans.” Still true. Notice the Amery Canning Co. is contracting beans for next year. Yellow wax beans 6 cents a pound Green string beans 10 cents a pound. ---   A friend handed us a copy of National Life Nov. 7, 1859. It was a semi-religious paper, with a lot in it about Quakers. The undertakers before the civil war were more aggressive than they are now when it comes to coffins. Harrison & Gregory of Auburn, N.Y. in their ad said “We have Rosewood, Mahogany, Black Walnut, Oak, Cherry and stained wood coffins and a new glass paneled hearse that cannot be excelled in the state.” Runaway slaves told of their harrowing experiences in print. The civil war was a brewing. One slave in a long article told of his experiences. The curse of over eating was just as bad then as it is today. He said he was a jockey and used to ride horses at the races for his master. One year he came up with too much weight. His master stripped him naked, tied him to a post and covered his body up to the neck with horse droppings. He then fed him brandy and crackers. At the end of ten hours they dug him out. He lost 14 pounds that day. Crude way perhaps, but it brought better results than that of the Conclave of Cultured Fatties in a nearby city. Who knows but what like Richard they will soon be shouting, “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.” ========================

March 27, 1958

  California had its 49’ers and Murray County is going to have its 75’ers of 1958 in honor of the 100th birthday of the State of Minnesota and the 101st birthday of Murray County in this Centennial year. We are going to help in a modest way by printing the names and a short sketch of those who have lived in Murray County for 75 years. We will start printing some the 75’ers next week. Just send us your name, where your folks came from to the county. When they came and your occupation. Drop this short sketch to the Herald office. If you’re eligible don’t miss it. Your great grandchildren will read with pride that you were a 75’er in 1958. You can mail your name, etc. or leave it at the Herald office. ---   Pennington county advertised for bids on culverts for the coming season. There were six bids and every one exactly the same. Results were the county rejected all bids. Those salesmen were foolish. Every county in the state now knows what they are up against when asking for bids. ---   New Ulm, that good old sturdy German town, is raising $600 to send Burgs horse battery to the big Centennial parade in St. Paul. There are 33 members, 21 horses and two sets of cannon and one caisson will be taken. No county in the state will equal their effort to honor the Minnesota Centennial as the people of New Ulm. ---   Over in Wisconsin farmers who in the march of Progress are forced from their small farms are going into the broiler business: pretty soon there’ll be two chickens for every pot. ---   A group of youngsters at Moose Lake wanted to learn to tap dance. A teacher from Duluth wanted $30 a day. Pretty high. The school board looked at the dances and said there was more muscle movement involved than anticipated, so the school put it on as a course, with ballet and acrobatics; talk about muscular movement: they should see Lars Aga dance the old fashioned polka for muscular movement. ---   Had a free Bingo game here Monday. There are about 40 men; five of them were in the smoking room. There are 100 women here; not one was in their Sun Room. Average about the same as it was in the old county fair days, when they called it the corn game; women are more inveterate gamblers than men. ---   While Truman is trying to put pep in other things his $10.50 memoirs are on sale in Washington for $1.98. The Memoirs hit a real recession. ---   The little women will soon be feeding you on pellets, not pullets but pellets. Investigators and farmers have found out that they can fatten chickens faster with pellets than in any other manner: Abigail will soon be coming home with a can full of roast beef pellets, a can of wall eyed pellets, a can of pumpkin pellets. Look at the work it will save the domestic slave and the time you’ll save; don’t laugh, if anyone had told you twenty years ago that you’d be eating all kinds of frozen dinners you would begin to think they were a little screwy. ---   An eastern magazine a while back was offering a prize for the Most Perfect Squelch. Sorry we did not enter this one. It happened when we were operating the State Angleworm Hatchery at Lake Wilson. One nice spring morning one of the angleworms pushed his head slowly above the ground. The weather was so nice that he went a little farther. It looked around, saw another worm close by. Being springtime he started waving his head back and forth, going faster and faster. The other worm became irritated and said, “Stop it, you darned old fool. I’m your other end.” ---   All week we have been wearing a big round badge, the Murray county edition of the Minnesota Centennial Day. For which we paid one dollar in cash. We were glad to do it. Murray county down through the years has been mighty good to me. We notice the slogan, “Home of Lake Shetek” on the badge. Very fitting, as Shetek was the first name given anything or place in the county. It is, with its bays, islands and beaches and new summer homes one of the really beautiful lakes in the state. It is the largest body of water between Lake Minnetonka and the Missouri River. At the old upper dam, wagon trains full of supplies rested here to wait for the bodies of soldiers to escort it through the Indian country. Some of those trains were pretty big outfits. The one John Low was with in 1863 had 140 loaded wagons, with two or three yoke of oxen as it wound its way from the upper dam through Mason, Lowville, Cameron township. We can remember the worn out trail in Cameron. ---   Carlton county which borders on Wisconsin was told by a Minnesota game warden that it would be hard to tell the difference between a Minnesota fox and a Wisconsin fox so they killed the bounty on foxes. Just then a commissioner said St. Louis county had discontinued the bounty on bear so Carlton county followed suit. Only 17 counties in the state have discontinued paying bounties on foxes. Live deer and bear are a real tourist attraction. ---   Speaker Rayburn, czar of the lower house of congress, told his members not to ask any senators before their investigating committees. He said if they asked him to appear before them he would tell them he was going to dig potatoes. So Sam, the big man, is in the same class as the racketeers pushing them aside so he can lean on the Fifth amendment: Let the people rule. ---   Coffee stands at the brink. Brazil has been propping up the market for years. But the government can’t stand the pressure much longer. Right now the government is holding the sack for nearly 12 million bags. Big stores in New York are buying their July coffee for six cents less. ---   Will some one kindly tell us why Labor stands quietly by and never lifts its voice for the farmer. Is the F.L. for election time only? ---   Had three visitors last Friday that we were sure glad to see. They were Jay York, Vince Harmsen and Galen Parrott, all of Lake Wilson. They talk our language and about things we know. We were just going down to see the doctor about our ticker and did not get the time we wanted, but they promised to come up in the summer. As it was they did us more good than medicine. Be it ever so humble there’s no place like home ========================

April 3, 1958

  The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad famed in story and song is getting down to its B.V.D.’s. Years ago it quit running trains into Santa Fe and last week it dropped its train service to Atchison, so the name in order to save ink can now be called the Topeka. It took off one of its two crack trains a short time ago. Those jet planes are playing havoc with the railroads these days. ---   The government has a mess on its hands with the soil bank program. In some sections it is really ruining the community. In Georgia the broiler state, it is estimated that every dollar spent there in soil bank takes three to five dollars out of circulation. Uncle Sam to be fair should be subsidizing the merchants in the small towns. ---   Tragedy and glory were plentiful at the annual basketball hysteria show here last week. There were no twin city teams in the play this tournament yet there were bigger crowds than ever; looks like Minneapolis loves amateur basketball better than it does the professional type. ---   Something new every day. One cigaret manufacturer, The American Tobacco Company, is coming out with a filter that is half charcoal and one other substance. The pipe folks say that the recession is adding to the number of pipe smokers. In the final analysis the pipe is the real smoke. It brings “thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes, peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close.” ---   Will this chicken business become overdone some day? One hundred and ninety eight million were hatched in February, 11 per cent more than a year ago: a real increase. California is sagging behind in the broiler business: only raises half enough for home consumption, so a kindly legislature is helping out the home growers by passing a law that would provide that every chick sold in a retail store must have a label saying when it was killed, that ought to stifle southern state competition. ---   Notice that some counties in Minnesota are not buying heavy road equipment. They don’t rent it. They hire it by the hour, including the operator. Saw a county ad that was asking bids by the hour on seven types of road machinery from a drag line to pull blade on tractor. It would be interesting to know how the plan works out. ---   The saddest story in the auto world is that the Nash or the Hudson have not built one car this year. ---   Twice as many of foreign made cars have come to the U.S. than there were a year ago; you can’t stop bread lines using this plan. ---   A year ago the Ford auto was leading the Chevvies. This year the Chevvies are well out in front: folks are whimsy, aren’t they? ---   Hysteria crazed basketball youngsters raised heck in the Leamington Hotel, one of the better places in Minneapolis. They destroyed everything in their room that was desirable, tore down the drapes and threw what stuff they could out of the windows. Police were called and quite a fuss kicked up. In all fairness to the rest of the out of state fans the names of the boys and the school they are from should be furnished to the public; every school should not carry the title - the leading school of juvenile senility. ---   Over at Mapleton a night club operator was arrested and fined by the state for selling booze. The federal men stepped in then and said, “You’d better get a federal license or we’ll have to arrest you.” He did. Then the State of Minnesota stepped in again and said, “It’s against the law in Minnesota to have a federal stamp unless you have a Minnesota license.” Great world. ---   Read in one country newspaper that Benson was the arch villain in the subsidy business. Did you notice how the vote went? In the senate he only needed eight more votes to have a majority. The house vote was 210 and 172. Pretty soon it will come out in the open that the big cities and Union Labor are backing Mr. Benson. ---   It is indeed fitting that the Minnesota Centennial train should visit Murray county this year. No county has more historical lore than Murray. Few people realize that Murray county is rich of Indian lore in Buffalo Ridge, which gets its name from an outline of a buffalo made with small rocks hundreds of years ago. This high spot contained more of this type of Indian work and graves than any other place in the state. In one other type the mound builders who were here around A.D. 1000 made their largest mounds in Murray county. One of them near the Sweetman farm near Lake Shetek was the largest in the state. Many of these mounds were found in Murray township. ---   The Little Pig market at Little Falls, the largest in the state, was jarred last week when it heard that there was an embargo against Minnesota piglets being shipped Iowa. Reason given is that southern piglet shippers had sent in a lot of pigs with cholera and lung worm and the state of Iowa says, “Don’t ship hogs unless you have a permit.” The embargo may last six months. Little Falls had 2,225 pigs one day last week. ---   There’s a justice of peace at Blue Earth that is pretty reckless with other folks’ money. A bunch of the kids were whooping it up and one saucier than the rest leveled his abuse at the chief of police of Blue Earth while driving up and down the street. The cops nabbed him. The justice said $100. A few days later the mouthy kid came back, made a race track of Blue Earth’s main street. He lost again and the fine was the same. If this section is knee deep in a recession where did the kid get the cash? ---   You remember the lion and lamb story: here’s a modern version. The National Association of Bus companies favor tax relief for the railroad companies. If they don’t get help the bus companies say they are facing financial failure. Recessions make strange bedfellows. ---   The McClellan report is going to cut some figure in the coming election. It sounds like we do out here on juvenile delinquency. Although they number only less than one per cent we give them first page notice, forgetting even to give a pat on the back to thousands of good clean young Americans who are a credit to their community. ---   France might as well give up Algeria right now. It will save money, lives and friends. Every European power that has interests in Africa should see the handwriting on the wall. ---   Mrs. Lartigue of Franklin, La. is bringing suit against two tobacco companies for $779,500. She claims her husband died from smoking cigarets. He was 65 when he died. Medical men galore will be there as witnesses. Don’t this look like it is a frame up to you? ========================

April 10, 1958

  How many dry counties are there in Minnesota? If you know that and can name them you can go to the head of the class. Well, there are only nine dry counties in the state: Cottonwood, Grant, Isanti, Kandiyohi, Kittson, Lac Qui Parle, Marshall, Pope and Roseau. At the repeal of the Prohibition act in 1933, twenty-eight counties voted to stay dry. Since that time nineteen of the dry counties have voted wet. Leaving only the nine. ---   Under the piercing eyes of the U.S. eagle, the sheltering arms of the Civil Rights committee and the indifference to both houses of congress, a colored person cannot get a job as sales person in any of the department stores in Washington, D.C. We whine and grip about Little Rock, Ark. Uncle Sam must have a lot of rugs to sweep the dirt under. ---   Here’s one highway billboard that you should have a glance at as you hurry by. It reads, “Attention Speeders: We furnish complete funeral service.” A lot of folks will talk about it: that’s what it is there for. ---   The Minneapolis Council came out in the open last week and asked Gov. Freeman to extend Daylight Saving time until October, showing its lack of interest in the rural communities. Folks out in the country can see what will happen if the reapportionment bill passes. Right now is the time to talk this over with your representatives and senators. ---   Sorry to see the Murray County Memorial Hospital go in the red again. A government subsidy should be given to every hospital that goes in the red: say a subsidy of a $1,000 a year of every registered nurse until the hospital gets safely on its feet again. The barrel will be open soon, there won’t be any spigot or faucet so get it while the getting is good. Talking with three nurses the other day, they were telling us that if you wanted a special nurse these days, that means three nurses at 8 hours a day. They get $15.00 apiece. The room is $24.00 a day and up, then there is the medicine and doctor. The cost of being sick never decreases. If the Murray County hospital had rates like the above it would be in the black up to its ankles. ---   We certainly are funny people. A year ago the Quiz program with its $64,000 show held the stage. Now it is the Cowboy Show. Why people can glorify the cowboy is hard to understand. They were a cowardly lot generally, killing their victims before they were warned. They were a sort of an Al Capone outfit on horse back. If you want to idolize, pick a Minnesota Lumber Jack. ---   Last year we wrote J. L. Donovan, Sec’y of State, asking him if he would not see that the little item about Lake Shetek in the Blue Book be made less confusing. We just received a Blue Book and the improved item or sketch about Lake Shetek reads as follows. “Lake Shetek State Park, established 1937. Comprises 263.71 acres, three miles north of Currie on the east shore of Lake Shetek, one of the largest lakes in southern Minnesota. One island, Loon, is within the park area and near the entrance is located the Lake Shetek monument, which commemorates the massacre of twelve families during the Indian uprising of 1862. Picnic, camp grounds, swimming beach, bathhouse, boats and organized group facilities are provided.” ---   The Minnesota Blue Book this year is really a work of art. With its beautiful colored pictures, its black and white prints and sketches and its Centennial story combines to make it the most beautiful and interesting in the history of Minnesota. ---   Russia don’t walk like a bear any more. The picture of the last group of Russians looked like a bunch of U.S. tycoons, with one difference. None of the Russians wore spectacles. If it had been an American group three fourths of them would be wearing spectacles. ---   Did you know that when you see a can with the name on it “Chicken and Noodles” that means there is more chicken in the can and vice versa. Uncle Sam says it must be that way. ---   South American countries that produce much coffee are facing trouble. Africa, the dark continent for many years, today sells over 25 per cent of the coffee drunk in the world. Cheap labor and lost of it, helps. ---   Small farms like small stores continue to drop in number. In this decade there seems to be no room for the little fellows. It’s sad to think of losing these people, but “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men” can’t get them back again. ---   Some folks criticize Princess Margaret because she visits with her old sweetheart. A kindly old lady told us that many precious moments are spent with an old sweetheart; what might have been. ---   One air company director said the other day that in ten years you can cross the country in a rocket plane in 20 minutes; takes more time to get ready than to make the trip. ---   We were called to Lake Wilson Saturday by the sudden death of C. F. Lentz, our brother-in-law. He was one of the finest gentlemen we ever knew. Modest, sincere and a model citizen. We remember him for the many acts of kindness during his life. ---   We are an odd race of people. A few months ago the press was full of Sputniks. Everybody was scared to death, a lot of them crept below the bed to sleep. You never hear about them any more, another touch of hysteria that had a short life. ---   Farmers can still put land in the Conservation Reserve which is another form of income insurance. It is available to farmers growing every kind of field crop in every state. ---   What are “set ups,” some folks would like to know. They are the 7 Up, Ginger Ale and ice that you get in some restaurants to mix with liquor. The law provides for the serving of set ups at restaurants, etc., but according to L. S. Nelson of the State Liquor Control Board, the municipalities or the members of the county commissioners may prohibit the serving of set ups or even the consumption of alcoholic beverages on premises which are not licensed for the sale of such beverages. ---   This would be a fit and proper time for Gov. Freeman to start a Minnesota Tree Farm for the benefit of folks yet to come, and for a financial venture. New Zealand has a man made timber lot of 350,000 acres, all planted by hand, which they are now using and replenishing each year. This job would give thousands of manual laborers work, and being Centennial year would be more than fitting. ---   Big mail order houses say this is the season when the mail order houses thrive. People read the catalogues with their 120,00 items instead of buying gas. ========================

April 17, 1958

  A group of men on the west coast, irked by the high cost of beef cattle, are planning to ship 10,000 beef cattle from New Zealand this year. Right now is the time for the beef men to get busy, write your congressman at once. Get the tariff raised so it won’t pay. You’ve got a good market now; strive to hold it. ---   Mrs. Oscar Johnson of Dovray expresses this fine sentiment in a recent letter. “We should take some time to visit our old friends and neighbors. Many of them live alone and love company. A lot of them are up and around all anxious to do something, but they crave company.” ---   Little pigs are keeping company with beef. We notice that at the Little Falls market there 2,771 piglets and thirty-five to forty pound Hampshires brought $17.50. Not bad. ---   In the first two months of 1958 the New York Central, one of the big railroads in the country, lost over 12 million dollars. But it made money on their hotels. It owns the Biltmore, the Barclay, the Park Lane and the Waldorf Astoria. Some of them increased 50 per cent in the last two years. People must eat and sleep. ---   You’ve heard a lot about vodka, the Russian drink that knocks ‘em cold. They are making it out in Oregon now. It’s made from cannery rejected peas. They say it is tasteless and in the same paper we read of anew drug that can sober you up in half an hour not matter how pickled you are. ---   In order to do the right thing the beef men and the little pig men should be sending wires to Benson saying, “You are the right man in the right place.” ---   Schooling was at a low ebb back in 1859 according to National Life and the school ma’ams did not receive the wages of today. Terms were generally 14 weeks in length. For board with furnished room, washing and fuel, the cost was $2.25 a week. Tuition varied from $4 to $8 for the term. At the Fairfield Seminary where there was a gymnasium for ladies the price was $27.50 for the 14 weeks. Rates for tuition were modest at this joint, being from $4 to $6 the term. In the same paper Rev. H. N. Downs had an elixir that cured coughs, colds and even stopped consumption, which he sold in “prescription” bottles with his name written on the bottle in pen and ink. Any clergyman could have a bottle free of charge. Here’s one that’s got us guessing. Elias Brown wrote a book on “Slavery” and in his ad said, “Anyone sending me a dollar shall have a book forwarded to him free, and will also receive twenty-five cents in postage stamps.” ---   Visiting us last week were Mrs. Kittie Forrest and Miss Violet Ring of Pipestone. Mrs. Forrest was formerly Miss Kittie Hart and a member of the Pipestone County Star staff. The Star has a real record, it having been published by four generations of Harts without a partner or associate. A record in Minnesota. The Star was started by I. C. Hart in 1879. Mrs. Forrest is the widow of our eldest brother. ---   We’ve got a three tine fork and are looking for the bird that said, “Talk is cheap.” It costs $1.55 to talk to Slayton. That ain’t cheap. ---   That thirteen year old daughter should get a bounty for removing that gangster from this earth and Ma Turner should be put in a mental hospital for 5 years: an air cooled one. ---   Are we a squawky race of people? Here we keep blaming Russia for all those new deadly weapons when it was Harry Truman that started it all when he ordered that try-out on Hiroshima, Japan of the first atomic bomb. It worked. ---   See where South Korea is going to take North Korea “again.” This is neither the time or place for two squints to start war. Someone should tell old man Rhee to hold fast to that which is good. Wars cost too much money these days. The first thing the old man would do if he got stalled in his attack would be to phone Uncle Sam for more money. The old gent is too busy hunting for money to keep the home fires burning. ---   Was down to my country last week. We saw neither repression nor depression. Driving through Slayton we found it was as hard to get a car moving as it was to get the camel through the needle’s eye. At Lake Wilson there was as many cars on the street as there were when we left and there were no men selling red apples on the street corners. ---   It won’t interest you, but would your grandpappy. The American Tobacco Company has stopped manufacturing chewing tobacco. Years ago it was a must and every home had a beautiful spittoon. ---   If sentiment is not dead this Centennial year, it would be nice for some organization or private party on May 1st to place flowers at the Lake Shetek monument for those massacred in 1862 and are sleeping their long last sleep listening to the sob of the wind through the oaks and the gentle ripples on beautiful Lake Shetek. ---   Can you imagine 78 of the leading business men of St. Paul signing a petition to the city council asking that it keep out Sears Roebuck and a bunch of other business men from starting a shopping center near the Capitol. The village watchman instead of saying, “All’s well” to the morning is singing “Please Fence Me In.” ---   The new chemise is a joke to men that lived. It looks like a degenerate Mother Hubbard in the old days. If you love your husband don’t wear one. He knows what the boys down at the office will be saying if they ever find out. ---   This is not a criticism but a suggestion to the county board about the Murray County Memorial Hospital. Why not advertise it? It is one of the newest and up-to-date hospitals in this section of the state, yet there are people in the county that evidently never heard of it. Why not put an ad in the Fulda Free Press, the Lake Wilson Pilot and the Murray County Herald. Change the ad every two weeks and tell the people the many fine points about their hospital. Remember one thing, boys. Churches advertise. Churches save souls: hospitals save bodies. ---   Notice that some of the big concerns are making every effort to cut down their expenses. Most of them are getting out smaller booklets, smaller envelopes and shorter filling clips: why not one of the salaries of the $100,000 a year men? ========================

April 24, 1958

  No county in the state has a more interesting Centennial story to tell than Murray County. The story starts in the last months of 1857 but did not end until 1858. The year 1857 was election year, the year that ended territorial government and established Minnesota as a state. The election was as brutal as muriatic acid and as crooked as the Beaver Creek. Rival candidates for Governor were Sibley and Governor Ramsey. Here’s where Murray County came in. The Sibley forces built two “towns” in Murray County in 1857 out of paper, one, “Cornwall City,” a mile south of Lake Shetek, and one on the east bank of Bear Lake (Oasis). They took “census” of the Cornwall City. There never were any such towns. In fact there was not a white person in the county. N. R. Brown, who “took” the census, reported that Cornwall City had cast 75 votes for Sibley, Governor Ramsey 0. We saw the returns from Oasis (Bear Lake) in New Ulm in the late Fred Johnson’s historical collection. It was on a common piece of paper and if we remember right, Sibley got 30 votes, Ramsey 0. The Cornwall City vote was later thrown out. Don’t know what happened to Oasis. Sibley won out by 450 votes. How many other “ghost” towns were there in the state? We are still in the kindergarten class when it comes to politics. ---   If electricity had stayed at the same price it was in 1882 or it had kept pace with other household facilities, all of its wires would have been under ground. ---   South Africa where the negro is on a level with an animal, negroes are not allowed to vote. In Liberia, the negro republic on the other side of Africa, white people are not allowed to vote; both countries will change their laws before another decade. ---   Sleepy Eye has local stomach ache and the town is in a bad way politically. At the recent election one candidate got beat. He put in a card thanking those who voted for him and his wife put in a card thanking those who voted against her man. A new mayor was elected. At the first meeting of the council last week, the new mayor objected to two of the council members sitting on the board. He wanted three policemen. The council wanted five. The mayor wanted to fire the city attorney, the council didn’t and thus it went on. Best show in town this summer will be the meeting of the council, and by the way the woman was right and over at Mankato there’s a bitter feud. The police department hailed the entire city council before the district county judge Saturday. The police department also demanded the public examiner go over the city books. Great world if you don’t weaken. ---   Do you like canaries? Well, you can have one now that will sing whenever you want it to and as long as you want it to. It comes in an attractive brass cage. It moves its head, tail and beak when it sings. Guaranteed to please and costs only $49.50. Just think of the bird seed you can save. ---   If atomic power gets real efficient and as economical as gasoline, will gasoline follow the horse, the ox and in many cases steam? That would be a real revolution, wouldn’t it? But who ever thought where gas would go in 1900. ---   It’s true, this fish story, and they are re-telling it again when it really happened at Lake Shetek three years ago. A group was fishing and in order to stimulate the bunch one man said, “The man that catches the first fish must give the others a drink of ‘coffee.’” They fished a while and the man that made the proposition got a bite, pulled up a four-inch bullhead and paid off. the man on the end of the bench said, “I can now put a worm on my fish hook.” ---   Americans are peculiar: they are more than that when it comes to autos. Last year remember how they turned on Buick and gave it an awful beating. This year it is DeSoto. While all cars have taken a loss this spring, DeSoto only manufactured 11,133 this year so far, last year for the same period they had made 49,135. You don’t think Groucho has insulted so many people that it’s beginning to tell? Surprising is the Cadillac. Last year there were 49,000 made, this year so far 45,000. The Rambler is astonishing everybody. Last year up to this time 26,609. Last week’s figures for the same time 47,746. The Dodge has also taken it on the chin badly. Up to this time last year it had made 97,921, this year it has dropped to 28,647 in spite of the Lawrence Welk orchestra. The Chrysler has also taken it in the neck. Last season 44 thousand, this season 17 thousand. These are dreary days for auto men. You can see why there is a depression. Has the low price car come to stay? ---   Few people realize that County Auditor Clair Peterson has the right to withhold another elected county official’s salary. Years ago some probate judges were dictatory with their probate cases, so a legislature passed a law that if the probate judge does not file an affidavit stating that all probate cases over 90 days have been decided, the county auditor cannot issue his salary check. A case of this kind was before the Blue Earth County grand jury last week, when the probate judge did not get his monthly check. Judge of Probate when before the jury admitted that he was behind with his work and that he would not ask for his check until was o.k. with his work. Judge Morse’s term expires this fall. ---   Mosquito time will soon be here and but little is done in this section. The only thing along that line that could be called definite is from a Sleepy Eye man who offered to eradicate the mosquitoes for $4.00 an acre if he could get at it right away. He also stated that the alleys might need a dusting off once in a while. Four dollars an acre seems reasonable on the 200 acre Sleepy Eye tract, but what about us. We live in Bloomington, the largest village in the state. There are over 42 square miles in the village, a total of over 25,880 acres at $4.00 an acre would be $107,520, quite a tidy sum to pay for a few mosquitoes. Better make each lady a present of two fly swatters and a pair of aluminum knee leggins; over knee high. ---   A reader asks, “When was the blizzard when calves froze to death standing up?” That was Armistice Day, November 11th, 1940. ========================

May 1, 1958

  Near St. Paul last Sunday three deer on the highway caused two auto accidents. One car endeavoring not to hit one deer ran into another. Another car came along and got tangled up in the mess. Result two dead deer and two cars damaged to the extent of $1,200. If a farmer willfully let his cattle run on the highway and a motorist ran into them the farmer would have to pay the damage. When the state willfully lets its deer take over the highway it should pay the damages. ---   If we had a big red rose this morning we would send it to Mrs. Johanna Lundblad of Slayton. Mrs. Lundblad is one of our outstanding citizens and it is very fitting that she should have a rose on Centennial Day. She has the distinction of being the first white child born in Iona township. She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Anderson of the Badger Lake area. John was a rugged pioneer. When grasshoppers were wiping out crops year after year, there was no giving up. He walked to Heron Lake and took the train to northern Minnesota and worked in the pineries in the winter. Men like John helped make Minnesota. ---   One of the oddest things in the country today is that is spite of the continued arguments from the rural sections about low prices on farm products, the price on farm lands has increased each year and will this year, even if we have a depression. ---   This country is going chicken crazy. Five billion, billion mind you, pounds of chicken were sold by poultry raisers last year. It’s become big business and Ezra Benson is getting out a new law that among other things provides that all chickens must have a U.S. stamp on them, stating date killed, etc. Among other features of the bill we notice “All toilets must have doors,” indicating some of the chicken outfits are still in the raw. ---   The very latest on the market today is a pocket radio a little larger than a deck of cards. It needs no batteries, etc. You get it on a ten day trial and it costs you $4.95. ---   Start saving your pennies right now. You’re going to need a lot of them next year. For the sales tax is coming as sure as fate. Smartest thing the Governor could do would be to appoint a commission to investigate the plans of all the states having sales taxes and have the figures ready for the next legislature. The deficit will be so large this year that some do not hesitate to say that the sales tax will not be enough. ---   Rates are high in some motels in Las Vegas. The charge is $16 a day for two persons, but they give you a refund of $10.00 in chips that you can play in the machines, you tuition fee into gambling. You keep all you win. ---   It is doubtful if the daring head strong young women of this day and age ever had the spunk of the Queen of Sheba. On a camel with the rocking motion of a rock and roll dance, she rode 1,200 miles on a blind date to meet a male with whiskers a foot long. Bet she got off once in a while so she could take a walk. ---   The United States is not the only country where women have outside jobs. Notice in the Stirling Journal (Scotland) that 60 per cent of the women of that country between 16 and 60 go out to work. ---   There’s one name missing in our old book from the list of Murray County Athletes published in the Minneapolis Star last week, whose name is more widely known in Minnesota than that of the entire list of names from ten counties. He was raised in Fulda, a brilliant baseball player who earned money to go through school playing baseball several summers with fast semi-pro teams. His name: A. H. Knox of St. Paul, U.S. revenue collector who has been looking after your income tax for years. ---   At last we’ve found out who is to blame for the carp. A German with a big heart brought 125 carp to this country in 1876. Put them in lakes near Baltimore. They increased so fast that more lakes were needed. None could be found so the folks went to the U.S. Congress and congress appropriated $5,000 to put Babcock Lake in shape for carp raising. They multiplied so fast every state hungered for them. At one time they were called “Lake Erie Salmon.” They have been called other names since then. ---   The Chatham Islands lie off the coast of New Zealand and while crop conditions, including grass, grain, flowers, etc. have been good, the yields have been getting smaller. So New Zealand sent out an expert to remedy conditions. What did he take with him? No, it was not that. He took 600,000 honey bees and an instructor who will teach the Chathamites how to raise them. There were not enough local insects to pollinate the blossoms. ---   This has been a rotten season for Florida. Just got through the worst winter in history It tried to reimburse its losses by advertising what a wonderful place it was in summer, when along came 4 tornadoes and blew down the signs. ---   This will be news to you, too. Dan Albone of Bigglewade, Bedfordshire, England made the first tractor in 1897. It was called the Ivel and was shipped to many countries including the U.S. It could handle a 3 furrow plough. ---   If these airplane accidents continue to increase, the Atcheson Topeka and Santa Fe will be taking the Super Chiefs out of the moth balls. Seems odd to have these planes using the same air level. As long as you have human beings operating deadly weapons you’ll have accidents, and then there is the man on your right who mumbles, “I thought you couldn’t have accidents anymore since we got radar.” ---   The Buick people cancelled its magazine advertising for the month of May. It was using Time, Look, Saturday Evening Post and Life. The cost would have been $208,925: too much for a country that tells everybody it has a sour stomach. ---   A man who knows more about cars than we do, which would not be much, was saying the other day that some of the main bearings and connecting rods on the Rolls Royce are made of wood. It don’t seem to hurt any. Top price is $30,000 and it has a shape like a woman in those new black chemise outfits. ---   Don’t spend any more time than you have to worrying a bout the Chrysler Auto Co. It just got a loan from the Prudential Life Insurance Co. for 250 million and it runs for 100 years. All American business men are not afraid of depressions or being blasted from the earth by Sputniks. ========================

May 8, 1958

  Cheer up, boys, those pellet feeding days are nearer than you think. They have proved such a success with chickens, the business men in Karlstad up in the northern part of the state are planning on building a factory that will cost $100,000. Needed foods are made into a paste and the paste pressed through a huge sieve and made into pellets. Turkey pellets are naturally larger than the chicken pellets, for sheep a little larger still and for cattle the size of an index finger in diameter, then next the size of a thumb for human beings. Just think, all the little woman who has toiled so hard over a hot range wearing her fingers down so far that she can’t hold a bridge hand will get relief. Before she goes to bed all she will have to do will be to set out a jar of pellets for her man’s breakfast. At present the pellets are made with a base of dried and powdered slough hay, added to this is a cheap nutritious molasses, vitamins, etc. Mr. Peterson said the pellets would compete with corn as a stock food, and what’s good for the stock can also be made good for humans. Cheer up, girls, your days of bondage will soon be over. ---   Where’s your mole? The book says every one has moles. If you are an average person you should at least have twenty, ranging in size from a pin head up. They are cancerous to a very modest degree: one in a million. Medical men say you are born with moles. Different with warts, they come and go. Best cure when we were a kid was to cut a potato in half, rub one half on the warts and bury it in the garden. Wonder if the kids still do that? ---   Here’s the story of the auto in the U.S. for the year 1957. Killed 38,700, injured 2,525,000. 850,000 casualties from speeding, pedestrian casualties 229,700. Twenty-six per cent of drivers were under twenty-five. Deadliest day to drive is Saturday. Worst time is from one to six a.m., and the safest time is between 8 and 9 a.m. on Wednesday. Out of 38,700 killed, 32,930 met death when the roads were dry and the sky was clear. ---   The Daylight saving idea brings a lot of quirks. Ohio don’t have it, but some of the cities have it and some don’t. A plane leaves Akron, Ohio at 7:58 a.m. and arrives at Columbus, Ohio at 7:39 a.m. Kentucky killed the law in the state, but some cities are all set to test the new law. Some companies in Milwaukee with the consent of their men set the clocks two hours ahead. The men have a late dinner and added time to go places. Last year when Minnesota went D.S.T., Grand Forks, N.D. followed suit. The new council put the town back on Standard time this spring. ---   You can’t go back: Oh, yes you can! Minneapolis business men have been touring the state asking the rural element to attend their baseball games. You remember the slogan, “On to Nicollet” in the days of Andy Cohen, Hauser, etc. “We’re interested.” The Minneapolis ball park is located in our “little” village. ---   The drug people had a good year in 1957. They give credit to the flu. People bought more medicine than ever to prevent getting the flu, which was never used. ---   Iowa as going to try her luck again. Last year she offered $25,000,000 Korean war bonds for sale at 2 1/2 per cent, she never even got a nibble so she is going to try again this spring. ---   Every time you hear one mention subsidies you start thinking about the farmer. Raise your sights a little, brother. The air line subsidies so far are nearly $700 million. Mail subsidies in ten years were six billion. Even Life got subsidies from the government for nine million one year. Helping out on shipping, cost over six billion and so it goes. Even a cotton growing concern in Mississippi got $1.4 million. --- Here’s a drug that the world has been waiting for ever since the days of Lot. The new drug has a heck of a name. It is “Tilodothyronine,” usually called T-3. Here’s what it does: a young man in New York drank 18 Martini high balls and was laid out, as they say, dead to the world. It took five hours to drink the high balls, two hours afterwards he was given 2 T-3 tablets; within one half hour after beginning treatment he was entirely sober. Dr. Koch said, “This is not a cure. It may be a control for drinking.” ---   We know it is wrong to laugh at a perjured criminal but we can’t help grinning at 15 year old Richard Marlen of Lamberton with the wonderful story of his kidnapping and how he outwitted the sheriff and county attorney. That kid is more of an actor than a criminal. He’s Hollywood bound. Lots of men would like to find out the name of the whiskey he drank. Couldn’t they weave some wonderful stories when they come home at 2 a.m. ---   A writer was telling the other day about Pug Lund, ex Minn. football grad. They trained in those days laying tiles and driving spikes for railroads, hauling freight, carrying ice, etc. Those jobs seem to be gone. We notice where Capt. Jeliaka and two other letter men of the Minnesota U squad have a novel method of training. They were arrested for spearing wall eyed pike illegally, and of course they were fined. Quite a letdown for a bunch of kids who admired those stars. We also notice that students from the Mankato State College are getting in the police column. Pretty soon someone will make a motion to remove the word Juvenile from in front of the word “delinquency.” ---   Farm land continues to rise in price. Farms in the U.S. were valued last fall at $114 billion, are now valued at $117 billion and there does not seem to be any big companies buying up blocks of land. What’s making larger farms is the motorization of machinery. If you have a lot of machinery you’ll be buying another quarter or an eighty and away goes another small farmer. ---   Vandalism had another outbreak in Brown County last week. Thirty U.S. rural mail boxes were smashed and mail strewn over the ground. Years ago Uncle Sam was awful mad when you tipped over his mail boxes. He isn’t so particular any more. ---   What does it mean to call a state a disaster state? Both the Governor of California and the President called it that. ---   One the same day we mailed our last story we received one 75’er sketch. It is about an old friend Hjalmer Carlson. He came to Lake Sarah township in 1876 at the age of three from Sweden. Hjalmer is best known for the splendid service he rendered Murray County for 25 years as county commissioner, starting in 1929 until 1954. ---   Did you notice that Secretary Benson went before the House committee to ask permission to issue regulation against the manipulation of the onion and potato markets, which as been rigged by clever sharpies for the last two years. Haven’t heard much about Ezra of late, seems as if the milk group is the only one with a grievance. ========================

May 15, 1958

  Folks who live in the rural districts must forget politics this year long enough to go together to fight for a reapportionment bill which will give either house to the rural districts and the other chamber to the cities. If you don’t, you’ll rue the day. When they come with their fine talk, remind them that the state of South Dakota with a population less than that of Minneapolis has the same representation in the U.S. Senate as New York with its 14 million. ---   France has succeeded in creating a new country in North Africa, most of it with a bitter hatred for white people. France today among nations occupies the same place as St. Louis in the National League. ---   Mr. and Mrs. Joe Thuringer called on us last week and we were glad to see them. They were our across the alley neighbors for years. We shared each other’s gardens, etc. The women folks got along fine, too. It was nice having them. They were up here visiting relatives who brought them over. ---   Right now there are over twenty of the suburbs of the twin cities that are really shivering in their boots. They’ve heard that there is a chance or a quirk in the law that allows cities to annex suburbs when they want to, without giving the suburbs a chance to vote on the proposition, and things are seething. ---   Was invited to one of those family gatherings at the R. D. Elias home in honor of our two granddaughters’ birthdays last Sunday, and how we did enjoy the dinner and the afternoon. Among the guests were Col. Nola Forrest, who returned from San Francisco, California last week. ---   You hear a lot of talk about compulsory auto liability insurance. Yet it is only in effect in three states: New York, Massachusetts and North Carolina. ---   You read about towns in Minnesota dubbing themselves as the Turkey Capital of the state. They’re all wet. The real turkey capital in Minnesota is on the Eddie Velo farm near Pelican Rapids. On his farm this year he will raise between 100,000 and 200,000 white turkey broilers. He rears these birds in 16 weeks and his plant is capable of producing 52,000 in a hatch. Minnesota ranks second when it comes to raising turkeys. California comes first. ---   A new Ku Klux Klan outfit is operating in the South, calling themselves “The Confederate Underground.” Besides lonely homes of the negroes, these brave men of the Underground bombed the Jewish synagogue in the dead of the night. One might well wonder how many states are really in the Union. ---   People who invent things help to bring on recessions. The G. N. Railroad at St. Paul closed its fifty year old roundhouse last week. It had 119 employees. The new Diesel engines only need 27 men to care for them. The other 92 men are “furloughed.” ---   San Francisco can truly be called the “Gomorrah” of the U.S. One out of every two marriages don’t take. It has three times the suicide rate of any city its size and in alcohol drinking it is close to the top. ---   The judicial council of the South Dakota State Bar Association has recommended removing all minors over 14 years of age who commit felonies and traffic violations from juvenile court proceedings. There’s a lot of merit in this suggestion: kids grow old faster these days than they did fifty years ago. ---   Motor boating on the Minnesota River is one of the new outdoor sports. Docks and slips have been completed and motor boats weighing up to 4,000 lbs. can be handled. The opening of the Minnesota River to motor boats should bring joy to those interested in the early history, for boats plied on the river back in the fifties. On the river the motor boatist can visit Traverse Des Sioux at St. Peter. ---   Paper, that big heavy brown wrapping paper, some of it goes into bats, has reached a new high. It is now $180 a ton. Is the pulp wood getting more scarce? ---   Congresswoman Coya Knutson who stirred up a big ado in the DFL ranks with the aid of Senator Kefauver a couple of years ago, is in a bad way and it looks now that when she comes home the next time she’ll bring her trunk with her. All we hear is froth. You have an idea where the trouble is. If Coya does come home Andrew will begin to realize the literal meaning of the word h___. ---   Bringing Judy Garland to Minnesota to sing is no credit to the state. Time was when she was tops. Her trips down the primrose path have been too checkered of late to have any one proud of her. Would you like that daughter of yours to live the Judy has of late? ---   We’ve changed our minds about those Chemise dresses. It’s the same old story as it was 60 years ago. The dressmaker with her mouth full of pins trying to make the dress look good on the short dumpy ones and the big dumpy ones without avail. Then a woman or a girl would come along, you could throw a dress at her and she’d stalk off as proud as a Lady Windsor and looking a lot classier. We saw some of that type the other day. It all depends on what you’ve got on the ball. ---   Here’s a fill-in item we read in the Moose Lake Star Gazette. “William M. Davis, Murray county farmer with the Fourth Minnesota Volunteers in the war of the 60’s carved his name so clearly in a tree near Warrentown, North Carolina, it is still legible.” Murray county records do not show the Davis name. There were only 12 families here at that time of the massacre in 1862 and the first white man to come after the war was Capt. Aldrich in 1866. There was a W. Davis living in Fulda in later years. ---   The Bureau of Public Roads is watching tests of the use of aluminum for making bridges: if the tests get its o.k. it may be felt on the Iron Range some day. ---   Radios without batteries are now on the market and so are “hearing aids.” This will be a boon to those folks, some of whom are paying $12.00 a month for tiny batteries. Changes come fast this day and age. ---   The manufacturing of autos in April was the lowest level for that month for ten years. Three hundred thousand foreign cars, most of them small, will be sold in the United States this year. Trouble is, Americans don’t like to do anything in a small way. We want to be leaders: not keep up with the Joneses, but be ahead of them. ---   The Monon Railroad that has soured on passenger traffic has asked the state of Indiana for permission to drop all passenger service. Its loss last year was over six hundred thousand dollars. It said if compelled to have passenger trains they would have to go out of business. ---   Not all our young men are hitch hikers, see where an 18 year old rode his bike from Minneapolis to Redwood Falls in 12 hours. ---   A lot of our older county residents will be interested in knowing that some former Slayton people will be observing their golden wedding anniversary at Auburndale, Florida on June 1. Mr. and Mrs. Emil G. Minder are completing their half century of married life and might appreciate a few cards from old friends in this area. Their address is 2302 Lake Lena Blvd., Auburndale, Florida. ---   May 22, 1958

  A group of Humboldt men is asking the village council of Hallock for a franchise for the installation of wired T.V. Nothing cheap about this form of entertainment. The proposed fee is $3.75 a month ($45.00 a year). There is also an installation fee of $125. At this price they should get everything from grand opera to big league baseball. ---   The Frigidaire people are getting out a refrigerator that will certainly please a lot of women. It is a non-frost refrigerator and does away with all the messy defrosting and bother. They will cost around $700. ---   Ike urges Congress to grant more money for building hospitals. Good idea, but add a little more to it for homes for the aged, which should be located close by the hospital: close enough for a tunnel between the two. ---   Those folks that like to read better start saving your nickels as both houses of congress agreed on raising the postage rates on magazines and newspapers over $25.5 million. The raise does not start until Jan. 1st, 1959 and naturally it will be passed on to the subscribers. Congress right now is planning a four cent postage stamp for letters, whether they go only a block or to California. ---   Those tiny ant farms are still going good. The small ones have from fifteen to twenty ants and the large farms up to fifty. The kids and some grown ups like to watch the ants at work and play. The ants have a queen as well as the bees. There is one queen to thousands of workers that have to feed the queen when she is laying eggs. One company has sold a million of these ant farms. It pays a cent apiece for ants, and has already bought five million ants. We can remember 65 years ago while we were herding cattle on the prairies, coming across ant hills or mounds that were over two feet high and were just seething with ants, then worth nothing, today a fortune. ---   Citizens of Bloomington and the Sun took exception to the school board having a dinner party at which time some matters could be decided which really should come before the regular meeting. Over at Windom the board pulled a fast one. It fired the superintendent of schools and hired a new one without notifying anyone, and one of the papers and a lot of the citizens don’t like it. All they can do now is to remember. ---   What will the super markets come up with next? A Utica, N.Y. super market has a loudspeaker and broadcasts Bingo numbers store wide. Customers fill free cards while doing their shopping. They win everything from phonographs to nylons. ---   Mr. and Mrs. Harold Hanson of Lake Wilson called on us last Sunday and we were sorry we were not at home, would have liked to take Harold to see the Shriners Patrol, a swell bunch of horses. They are kept on the farm here the year round. Mrs. Hanson is a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Goppell, early settlers of Chanarambie township. ---   Two women left impressions last week which were not for the benefit of the race. Princess Astrid being introduced in a cloud of cigaret smoke and Coya. Many a daughter will be asking, “Ma, why can’t I smoke, Princess Astrid does,” and many a young wife will run into trouble when she serves Coya’s logic to her husband: divorce courts are already too familiar. ---   We enjoyed a short visit with Mrs. Frances Johanson, Worthy Matron, Prairie Chapter O.E.S., and Mrs. Curtis Kragness of Slayton, while they were up here for the doings. ---   The county control of the mosquito problem is bogging down in some counties, some tax payers are objecting. They say the plan is made up for towns and villages and not for the country folks. They object to being taxed and not receive any benefit. ---   A few years ago, like a lot of other folks, we started eating Ry-Krisp crackers to reduce our weight. After last Monday we were glad we quit using them. Federal Judge DeWitt fined R. F. Partridge, manager of the Ry-Krisp division of the Ralston-Purina company, $500 and the company $3,000 for shipping adulterated food, made under unsanitary conditions. It was charged that insects got into the foods. Many a fat person may have an ant farm of their own and don’t know it. ---   A head on the Coya Knutson story could well be, “The Worm Turned,” and got stepped on. Most of the women who wired or wrote Coya to pay no attention to her man are the type who put R.I.P. on their husbands’ tombstones: they new he did not have any on earth. Some women here for Coya said “Judge not, etc.” But Coya took a shot at judging when she said, “This is no Bing Crosby affair.” ---   Have always been interested in the Murray County Memorial Hospital. Last night we were thinking of it. That thought brought us figures that showed if all the babies born there could be got together, it would be the largest village in the county. Sounds incredible, doesn’t it, but here are the figures. 2,245 babies.
   Births are per month: 1951, 284, 25.8; 1952, 283, 23.5; 1953, 291, 27; 1954, 324, 27; 1955, 318, 26.5; 1956, 111, 27.7. Total 2,256.
   Just think, in 12 more years some of the babies of 1951 will be bringing their babies for the annual reunion at the Murray County Memorial Hospital.
  And Nixon came home with the nomination. ---   The new chapel at the Home here was dedicated last Wednesday afternoon with appropriate services. It is a beautiful building both inside and out. It cost over $50,000. Has a fine new organ, etc. It will seat over 200 worshippers. It was built entirely from Eastern Star funds. One lady present got a lot of joy and satisfaction out of the dedication. She is Mrs. Charles Topel of Balaton, formerly Jane Doonan of Murray county. While Worthy Grand Matron of the Star order she proposed the erection of the Chapel and since that time has devoted a lot of her time and energy in helping raise the needed funds. ========================

May 29, 1958

  Was a guest at a family luncheon at the Sibley Tea House at Mendota one day last week. Went through the Sibley home. Was keenly interested, for Sibley was connected with the early history of Murray County. In 1834 he followed Baily as agent for the American Fur Company. He visited the post at Bear Lake (Le Grande Lisiere) in 1835. Saw the desk where he made out the invoices for goods a hundred and twenty-three years ago to go to the post at Bear Lake. That was years before anyone ever thought of the name “Minnesota.” ---   Have you hear this one? A man driving a horse and buggy was pushed into the ditch by a motorist. Of course the man in the buggy sued for damages. He was asked by the defendant’s lawyer, “Why did you say you were not hurt at the time of the accident?” He turned to the judge and said, “While we lay there in the ditch another motorist drove up, saw the buggy a wreck and the horse with a broken leg, went back to his car for a shotgun and shot the horse dead, then he put another shell in the gun and said to me, ‘Are you badly hurt?’ What would have said, Judge?” ---   Lakes in northern Minnesota are going through dry periods, same as lakes in southern Minn. Rainy Lake has receded 30 feet from the shore line. It is down three feet and big boulders which old timers say they have not seen for 40 years are showing up. Kabetogama, another big lake, is down seven feet from high water mark. Lack of heavy rains last fall an no snow last winter is going to make fishing better than ever in the north country. ---   Here’s an odd strike or rather boycott. The colored folks in Detroit, and there are a lot of them, want a negro baseball player on the Detroit National League team. If it does not have a colored player by June 1st, they start picketing the park. ---   The lamprey, a sort of a leech that fastens itself to the Lake Trout in the Great Lakes and threatens to exterminate the trout, is a high priced sucker these days. The Federal Government is trying to exterminate them, but for every good sized lamprey taken last year your Uncle Sam paid $7.50. ---   Rev. Dallas Johnson and mother Mrs. M. Johnson of Glen Lake visited us last Sunday in a visit that was really too short. Rev. Johnson was pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Slayton for years. Glen Lake is a suburb of Minneapolis. ---   Sorry we did not think of it, or anyone else, but when they were asking for the names of the famous athletes of Murray County we should have mentioned the Hadley baseball team, the oldest baseball team in Murray County amateur history. It was organized in 1882 and has been in existence ever since. In the 1882 team were Dave, Tom, Bill, Jack and Alex Lowe, Ben Stine, Bill Forsaith and Ed Sanderson. It is doubtful if any village in Minnesota can equal the Hadley record. The team while always a tough one hit the high spots in the 40’s. For six years in succession the team was in the district finals went to the Minnesota State Tournament three times. A wonderful record for the smallest village in Murray County. Baseball is a real tradition in Hadley; you’ll always find players with the same names as those of generations ago. ---   Government surplus food is coming to every county in the state of Minnesota and if you are on old age assistance it will not be deducted from regular allowance. Even if you are not on old age assistance and what little income you make barely makes both ends meet, you still are eligible for flour, cheese, dried milk, rice and corn meal will be available in June. The distribution is different than it was years ago: you make application and if accepted you don’t need to go and get the food, your neighbor can get it for you. Now, you well-to-do folks, don’t go around sniffing and raising your eyebrows, for your kids have been getting this same treatment from Uncle Sam if they have been going to school. ---   Murray county, in that opened grave story, has the mystery story of the year. Here’s something along that line. Back in the early days, S. P. Macintyre surveyed the Lake Wilson cemetery. He used oak pegs to mark each grave. Time rolled by, cemetery was uncared for. Fire was used to clean it up: away went the pegs. We remember two of the local grave diggers, Dett Reese and Adolph Haberman, telling us that twice within the last ten years they had dug graves and struck caskets. They had to refill the graves and try another place. ---   To try and stop those head on auto accidents on clear days and cloudy days the governor should order an eye test on every Minnesota driver. Lots of people have faulty eyesight and don’t know it. ---   Abigail, one of the two Emily Posts of the underdone or overdone marriages and post graduates in sex matters, read by most adults with the exception of elderly men, had a story in Time last week about an old gal. She said she found a bunch of awful mushy letters in the auto trunk from another woman to her husband. She asked Abby if she should give or tell the other woman, tell her husband or tell her own husband. Abby ran it in her column, then the pot boiled over. Women from all over the U.S. wrote in and asked that the letters be returned to them in order to save broken homes, one wanted to pay cash for them, and so on. To us the story smells fishy. Our memory went back over fifty years when an item appeared in the editorial columns of a small country weekly. The item ran as follows: “If the man who’s holding another man’s wife when he should be holding his own don’t pay up his back subscription to this paper, his name will appear in the front page next week.” The paper wasn’t dry before a man was at the editor’s house and said, “I’m leaving on a two weeks’ vacation and would like to have you send me the paper up there. Here’s three dollars. Must be back a year.” The next morning when he went to the office there was a man sitting on the step. His story was that he was taking the family down in Iowa for a visit. He always liked the paper. “I must be some behind. Here’s a check for $7.50.” One old cuss that surprised the editor shoved over a $10 bill and acted kind of angry, then there was a guy that was bringing in a load of hogs the next day. A quiet looking man said, “I know I owe you $3 but I’ve only got two, but will mow your lawn this afternoon.” Last man was a middle aged bachelor. He was not even taking the paper. He pushed over $2. The editor said, “What’s this for?” He answered, “Insurance.” If Abby had been living then they could have agreed on one thing: there’s a lot of guilty consciences running around. ========================

June 5, 1958

  Seven southern states have sworn by all that is Holy that they will not obey any United States law on the negro problem, and will do all in their power to harass any Commission sent into their states. Some of them are mentally burnishing up (mentally) the muskets of the civil war. Are we going to be another France? ---   Over at Tredric, Wisconsin, the Stokely Canning company has 1,500 acres of beans to be picked this summer. The company has bought five mechanical pickers at a cost of $11,00 each to do the work and the folks who used to pick the beans will stand and look on while the pickers pick the beans and their pockets. New inventions are a Jonah to the working man and woman. ---   Reading through two columns of woe from railroads over the passenger business, we came to the conclusion that the Illinois Central is the best of them. Back in 1915 it was running 450 passenger trains; today it has 37. If it keeps losing trains it will soon be in the black. ---   The country’s main occupation this summer will be taking vacations. More people are going to Europe this season than ever before. Even in Minnesota resort owners say they have more reservations this season than they have ever had before, and the new houseboats, a new slant in wishing, is going to add to the number of vacationists. It’s hard to realize that we are in the throes of a depression, isn’t it? ---   Most of you cigarette smokers never heard of it, but the sale of one type of tobacco was banned in North Dakota for 14 years. Snuff was chewed in the early 1900’s, got so bad that the snow from Pembina to Milbank and from the Big Mo to the Red River was as yellow as a dandelion in the spring. A bitter campaign was waged, snuff was blamed for every ailment under the sun. Here is what Francis Breidenbach, special assistant attorney general of North Dakota said in a letter, “Please be advised that in North Dakota the sale of impure snuff was first prohibited by law in 1911, that the prohibition became directed at all snuff in 1913 and remained that way until 1927 when the law was amended to read as it now does in prohibiting the sale of snuff only to minors. Incidentally the constitutionality of the law was unsuccessfully challenged in State vs. Olsen, 25 N.D. 304, 144 N.W. 601.” Will the time ever come when they will vote on the sale of cigarettes in Minnesota? Never, we need the tax money. ---   This makes us think we have lived a long, long time. When we came to Murray county in 1883 we lived on a farm north of Lake Wilson. There was no schoolhouse in district 44. The board rented an upstairs bedroom in our home for $4 a month. Last week Bloomington, the town in which we now live, voted $2,000,000 bonds for a schoolhouse without batting an eye: some change. The first teacher in 44 was Tallie Smith, a sister of the late A. D. Smith, former supt. of schools. She later lived in Slayton. The two pupils in Dist. 44 were our two sisters. ---   Mr. and Mrs. John Price and a group of friends visited us last Saturday afternoon. We enjoyed, and so did they, a trip through the buildings. They were impressed with the Home and the beautiful grounds. ---   The Coya Knutson story is still simmering in Washington, D. C. Seems as if Coya, who is on the agricultural committee, is not saving the farmers as often as she should, one of the male members saying that he can’t remember of her attending one meeting. Another angle is Coya’s high flying stunt with Kefauver a while back, and ended up with her refusing to vote for Senator Humphrey. Politicians like elephants have long memories. There may be something brewing in that sector. Some women of the neurotic type claim that Coya was ... [can’t read]... of the family ... [missing] ... her getting $25,00 a year and perquisites and the man left at home working by the day with patches on his overalls. Shame on you, Coya. ---   Don’t write a bouncing check if you live in Colorado. If you do, you have only 24 hours to make it good. If you don’t, John Law comes along with a warrant with a seizure attachment and he can take your car or anything else, or even garnishee your wages. That ought to stop the light fingered penman. ---   Turkey men say the breast and leg meat of the turkey have more protein than any other cooked meats. Turkey meat is one of the lowest of all meats in fat content. It is extremely low in cholesterol (whatever that is). Turkey is unusually rich in riboflavin and niacin, etc. The turkey men should have a slogan, “Eat turkey meat and save on your vitamin bill.” ---   Judy Garland keeps in hot water all the time. She owes a musician $1,200 and won’t pay it. Now the Union in Los Angeles won’t play a note for her until she pays up. ---   In a letter we got from clerk of court Doug Johnson, he was telling us that marriage is not as popular in Murray county as it has been in the past. Maybe the legislature is to blame. It raised the license fee to $5. That’s too much. It should be a dollar or even fifty cents. We’ve got to keep the hospital busy. ---   Noticed a man got a verdict of $490,000 from his best friend whom he accused of stealing his wife’s affections: how can the affections of an immoral woman be worth that much money? Did you ever stop to think that if the woman had been killed in an auto accident all he could have got out of her would have been around $30,000 at the most, which leaves $460,000 for affections: they’re worth more than rubies. ---   Some day when you have time go down to the printing office and have the printer print 100 or so self-addressed envelopes, then stop at the post office and get 100 4 cent stamps. When the new rate goes into effect August 1st, never write a letter that requires a reply without slipping in one of your envelopes. Your correspondent is entitled to that courtesy. ---   County attorney Lynch of Ramsey county is going to get out of that little highway fracas without a scratch. He swung at the highway cops and got a ticket. It’s evidently been thrown away. The law did not now exactly where the hassle took place but they knew where it was when they came to fine the charming widow. The woman always pays, but not enough some times. The county attorney should have been made to attend the juvenile delinquency court for trial. ---   Saw a fishing store equipment ad in the International Falls Journal last week that was offering a new kind of bait. “Fresh frozen and sugar cured minnows for sale. Guaranteed to catch wall eyes. Three dozen for $1.50.” Bet Charley Durgin never heard about this one. ========================

June 12, 1958

  The U.S. Weather Bureau is going after tornadoes this year. It is not going to try to stop them, but is going to try and give warning when they are in your vicinity. Near Wichita, Kansas radar is to be used for detecting tornadoes as far as 70 miles away. Some tornadoes have a velocity of 500 miles per hour. Even an atomic bomb does not have the force of a tornado. Some business firms have installed their own radar system. These precautions are taken to save human lives. The old “cyclone” cellar, 2,500 of them are back, made of concrete. The most sensible gadget is an air horn. Air pressure always drops in advance of a tornado. This new device is a battery powered horn, small enough to go into the glove dept. in your auto and whenever barometer pressure goes down to 29.1, then the horn sounds its warning. Remember air pressure always drops before a tornado hits. They are selling like hot cakes. They were put on the market last fall and 10,000 have been sold. Ninety five per cent of all the tornadoes in the world occur in the U.S. By the way, tornadoes are not so very deadly. Last year there were 924 tornadoes--lives lost, 191, not as many as the auto kills on a holiday. This horn gadget is the best bet. It will warn you if you see that the batteries are always o.k. If interested, the manufacturer is Tornado, Inc., Oklahoma City, Okla. Before we forget it, the U.S. weather bureau says “Tornadoes always accompany thunder storms.” ---   Of course there is not much use in issuing warnings when you don’t know where to go. If you were told a tornado would hit in four minutes, what would you do? Where would you go? In good sized towns with air wardens they could be put in charge. Instructed as to the safest places to go when the warning comes. They could inform every one. All towns however are not what you would call tornado conscious. ---   Perhaps we’re speaking out of turn, but we think that the Centennial Committee at the State Fair grounds meeting could well have exchanged an official of France for a T.V. artist from California. The first white explorers in Minnesota were the French. The first missionaries in what now is Minnesota. Grand Marais and Grand Portage were French. The French were the first fur traders. They brought the colorful canoe men and the half breeds who with one ox and two-wheel carts brought fur and other goods from Ft. Garry (Winnipeg) to St. Paul. The French were the first traders in Murray County. They were here in 1750. Leaving such names as Coteaux des Prairies. St. Pierre’s River was named by the French 150 years before it was changed to the Minnesota River. The French should have led the parade. ---   This section needs more rain. Was down past Longfellow’s Minnehaha Falls Sunday. There was just a trickle of water coming over. The city of Minneapolis should make a good sized reservoir, fill it full of water, put in an electric pump out of the cistern. Give the crowds a real good show, they’ll never know the difference. ---   The Southern Pacific railroad was allowed to discontinue a passenger train last week. It was costing the road $1,800 a day and the daily receipts were $12.00, yet there were groups fighting to keep the train on. ---   Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt has changed her hearing aid again. She has had about as many hearing aids as France has had premiers. Remember Eleanor boasting about the Zenith, the Sonotone, her new love is the Otavion Listener. She says, “I didn’t realize there was a hearing aid as good as this one.” You don’t suppose Eleanor got paid filthy money for each time she changed her mind. ---   The members of the Ruthton lodge sent us a beautiful card congratulating us on being a member of the order for 60 years. Their friendly greetings were the kind that an old guy needs when he gets past eighty-five. We notice that Dr. W. W. White is the present W.M. He used to make professional visits to Lake Wilson years ago. ---   The Readers Digest, the biggest magazine in the country, finds that the new postal law will add $2,500,000 to his postage bill by 1961, but don’t shed any tears for the Digest. It has over 12 million subscribers and has announced that it will raise the price from $3.00 to $4.00 a year, which means that the poor Digest will be making a profit of nine million a year out of the raise in rates. By the way, the Digest is having another cigarette article. This time on filtered cigarettes. ---   Don’t look as if Russia really wants war. France has left a gap in the line that won’t be filled for years. North Africa is ablaze. Russia will never get a better chance. ---   Here’s something that a lot of folks have been waiting for, for a long time. It’s a new repellent powder: when applied to your clothing or your skin will repel gnats, ticks, mosquitoes, etc. Some army doctors say it is o.k. Cheap, too, costs 98 cents for a 6 oz. bottle or can. If this stuff (it is called Ticks-off) does what it claims to do, just think we won’t need all this mosquito spraying. It is made by Whitmine Research Co., No. 339 S. Vandeventer, St. Louis, Mo. ---   Had a too short visit with Ralph W. Kellogg of Minneapolis one day last week. Ralph is manager of the Minnesota Press. Has been for years and although the thatch is white, still enough fire comes through the eyes to tell you that the furnace is working on all six: a grand guy. ---   The use of snuff is one of the delicate vices of womankind and mankind in the U.S.A. They consume over 36 million pounds of snuff every year. Snuff seems to have no ups and downs, the consumption staying at the same level for twenty years. It is sold everywhere, the smallest village handles snuff. When we were a boy, snuff was taken through the nose, followed by a long and boisterous sneeze. The habit changed and everybody chewed snuff. When they took away the cuspidors snuff went out and so did chewing tobacco. So the dipping habit started. In the south many women use snuff. There are sixty brands of snuff in the U.S. and only 40 brands of cigarettes. Snuff names run all the way from old standby Copenhagen to “Ladies Choice.” Snuff is used by a lot of men and women who work in factories where smoking is prohibited, so they take to dipping, which is putting a pinch of snuff inside the lower lip. Dark fired Kentucky tobacco is used to make snuff which comes both in dry and damp form. Addicts claim snuff dipping is the cleanest way to use tobacco. Smoke filled rooms are unknown, ash trays are not needed and you don’t have to be hunting for matches all the time. It is a quiet modest way of using the weed and many a man goes to church on a Sunday in Murray County with a pinch of pungent snuff at the lower lip to keep the breath sweet. The dipping habit is spreading north and many a female bridge addict takes a dip of snuff before she goes to the weekly bridge meeting. It keeps her “up” all afternoon. ========================

June 19, 1958

  Notice where President Theodor Heusss of West Germany has been visiting at the White House. Too bad he could not have been at the Centennial meeting at the State Fair grounds as the Germans constitute our largest national group. In southern Minnesota a German town named New Ulm was organized before there was a state of Minnesota and is there today. One of the outstanding cities in the state and is still a city of homes as it was the fitful day in August 1862 when the Indians whose attack on Ridgely failed, swooped down on defenseless New Ulm which was fast filling up with survivors of the massacre to the west, some of them from Murray County. Twenty-eight Germans were killed in one attack. They burned their homes so the Indians could not use them in the attack. For two days they withstood the Sioux. Then came a lull. Then they bundled their families and refugees into 154 wagons and escaped to Mankato. No nation has contributed more to the development of Minnesota than the Germans. ---   Honestly, you’ll never believe this one, but it has a moral. Scotland joined up with England in the long ago. It did not keep its Parliament it agreed to be governed by the British Parliament. What happened? Nothing, but what can happen to the rural districts in Minnesota. Stirling, a town of 20,000 needed another public lavatory, (they call them that over there) and purchased land for that purpose in 1953. The Council wanted to add a public waiting room. They wrote to London to the Secretary of State for Scotland. His answer was printed in the Stirling Journal May 22nd saying the secretary has rejected the request that it be given power to acquire land for that purpose, and that’s that. The Prime Minister is a Scot, and Queen Elizabeth is a Scot, but unless you have votes it does not cut much figure. Just remember this. ---   Things don’t look so good for Coya. Her husband embittered by her indifference is supporting her opponent for congress. When Coya takes the stump this fall the most important subject won’t be the subsidy bill. Andy’s story isn’t going to get her any votes. Looks like a modern version of “It’s the same old story that for ages they have told of a woman dazed by bright lights and the man growing old”: or cold. ---   Ann and Abigail, disciples of the late Dr. Kinsey, who have taken over all sex glamour affairs are really going places in the American papers. At first they were tucked away among the medicine ads, last Sunday they were on the front page of some sections. The first commandment of the daily press is to give the people what it wants even if it is a story as old as time. ---   There’s no recession at the Rambler auto plants. The Rambler sales in May were over 104 per cent more than they were in 1957. Ramblers and small cars from over the water are 10 percent of the car sales. Last year 4.9 per cent. ---   A backslider. Haven’t heard that word for a long time; anyway this one was having too good a time and surprised everybody by going to church. Preacher said “Glad to see you at church with your faithful wife.” The man said, “To tell the truth, Reverend, it was either your sermons or hers.” ---   Are we ever going to see the end of broiler raising? A plant at New Richmond, Wis. just completed, will produce more broilers this year than all the farmers in St. Croix County. Odd isn’t it, the amount of chickens we eat, yet the price of beef and pork seem to hold their own. ---   Over at Welcome, Minn. the council pays the Gopher Chemical Co. $2.00 a day to keep the rust etc. out of the water pipes, plumbing etc. The village is trying it out for a year. If this chemical does what they say it will, a lot of towns will be using it. ---   At the annual graduation exercises of the Minnesota University at Minneapolis last Saturday evening was our youngest grandson, Robert B. Forrest, III, so don’t blame an old man if he’s just a little proud this week, as Bob has a real record as a student and scholar. Bob started his education after graduating from Marshall High School in St. Paul at the age of 17, winning a scholarship. He furthered his education while in the Air Force, so that he was able to graduate with honors from the University in three years. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated as a Chemistry Major. Has a position with General Mills this summer and plans to go to Ohio State for his masters degree this fall.. The Phi Beta Kappa award is about tops in educational circles. It is given for scholarship and you’ve got to be good to get it. Out of a graduating class of 3,000 only 37 were awarded the Phi Beta Kappa pin. Bob was selected as the outstanding senior in chemistry in the College of Science, Literature and the Arts. Among the relatives at the graduation exercises on Monday was his mother, now Mrs. Ted Hill of Pine River, the former Grace Meyer. Both Bob’s father and mother were members of the Slayton High School class of 1920. ---   One of the contestants in those big quiz programs got a rude awakening the other day. He had won over $100,000 and was turning it over to a charitable institution to get out of paying income tax. The revenue department held different. It says that the quiz winnings constitute income to him. ---   From what we hear and read Murray County is to be congratulated on its fine display of historical exhibits. For which the county owes a debt to Mrs. Eva Roberts, efficient secretary. It was through her untiring efforts that the Murray County Historical Society has been held together so long. She has been ably assisted by president John Silvernale, but the secretary always has the detail work etc. and Eva has done a splendid job. Congratulations! ---   Mr. Adams made a grave mistake in letting A. Goldfine a financier pay $2,000 for his hotel bills. If it had been a cigar or a drink it would have been different. You, Sherman of all people shouldn’t have done it. Out here we look upon $2,000 as money. Pay the man for your bed and board and then take a three years leave of absence. Your namesake said years ago, “War is Hell”: so is politics. ---   The auto business is perking up a little. This year the Chevie is out in front and it looks like it will stay there. The Rambler leads all cars. Funny things do happen, here’s Ed Sullivan and his biggest TV show on earth. Last year up to this time there were 162,000 Mercurys. This year 60,000. The Buick is off 100,000. Cadillac is nearly even, but the ... [rest is missing]. ========================
---Missing Columns---
========================

November 27, 1958

  We’ve been reading several northern state papers that weeks ago were filled with the word Coya; we did not see it the past weeks. She’s in Washington packing up and Mr. and Mrs. Odin Langen of Kittson county are doing the same thing Langen received hundreds of phone calls and telegrams on his victory, one of them from President Eisenhower. An old fellow here who knows Coya said, “I’ll bet she goes back to Oklee.” Our answer was, “And you don’t know Coya like I do, said the little bird on Nellie’s hat.” ---   Those drunken office parties so common ten years ago are on their way out as they should be. Only 30 percent of the 237 business houses in Chicago will have them this year. ---   Studebaker, which has been in the dumps for some time, hit the jackpot this fall with the Lark, and it is going over with a bang. It has almost as many orders already as it did during the past year. It went 22 million in the red last year. ---   Some of the folks at the Home here attended the service at the Knox Presbyterian church last Sunday night. The services were conducted by Dr. Elson, who preaches to President Eisenhower at Washington, D.C. The next morning, some of those who were over said there was a pretty girl at the meeting that asked about us, another attending came with her name. It was Mrs. Van Every, Don Weck’s girl Drexel. You elderly folks know every once in a while you run across a youngster that can visit with you in your own language. Drexel was one of those when a youngster. She had the happy faculty of seeming to feel interested in what you said and we had many pally visits at the fair grounds during fair time. Visits that we haven’t forgotten. Mr. Van Every is one of the tops in U football. Sorry we did not see you, Drexel. ---   Got one of those California Christmas Gift Fruit catalogs last week. Took one look, saw large prunes were $1.25 a pound. We remember the days when poor skinny shriveled prunes could be bought for 2 cents a pound. In those days only the lower five ate prunes, nowadays they are only eaten by the upper ten. Folks who ate prunes 40 years ago were sort of ashamed of it. Time changes. ---   This is the season whenever three snow flakes fall and a wind tosses them around a bit the daily papers shriek, “Blizzard!” Don’t shout blizzard boys, until it gets below zero. It had to be away below that in the early days. ---   Over in a neighboring town, Shakopee, lives one of the most noted women in Minnesota. Her name is Mrs. Halver, wife of the Mayor of Shakopee. She is the defendant in more libel suits than any other person in the history of the country newspaper. Last week she was sued for the fourth time by four members of the council for $5,000 each, which will make nearly a million dollars total. Mayor Halver and the Shakopee council are at loggerheads. For instance, the village has a sewage tax based on the water you use. The big malting company and two other plants have their own wells, use the sewage system but pay no sewage tax. The unsavory thing seems to be that Collier the city attorney is also attorney for the malting company. “The Voice of the People” has 8 mimeographed pages. It is slightly critical and naturally has a lot of criticism. If you were on the jury how would you vote on the sewage? ---   Biggest change in turkey eating in 50 years. You’ve all knived the big white slices of white meat from an old Tom. They are pretty dry and lack flavor. Next year you’ll see a difference. In their feed 8 percent of lard has been added. The birds brown better, look better, are juicier and more succulent than the birds that do not get the lard. What about giving lard to those flat breasted Leghorns? ---   There’s a new gun out that is bringing joy to the zoo keepers. It is called Capchur and it shoots tranquilizer liquid and antibiotics into wild animals who acquire diseases the same as human animals. It’s hard to pen, say an Elk, with big antlers, or even a giraffe when they are ailing; this gun does the job. It will shoot a cartridge with a 2 1/2 inch needle into the hide of a hippopotamus with a dose of antibiotics that will cure his ailment. If a snarling dog comes on your lot keep shooting him with tranquilizers and then call the dog catcher: why not use them on nagging husbands? The guns cost $98.50 and the shells from two to six dollars. ---   You’ve read and heard of the wisdom of Solomon. An early Murray county board of commissioners was just about as wise. In the fall of 1876 burglars broke into the county offices at Currie and stole the county and township funds. The county had no strong box. Some of the townships wanted to absolve Dr. Shepphard, the county treasurer, of all blame but the county board said, “No.” Six hundred and sixty-two dollars and 92 cents were missing and had to be replaced. The good doctor did not have the money and would not take the office of treasurer again even if they did get a safe. The board insisted, Doc said “No.” Then the board got tough and told him, “You’ll either take the office of county treasurer for two years or go to jail,” so the doctor took the job for two years more. That was one way of electing county officials in the good old days. ---   A month ago we noticed where a Presbyterian minister at Little Rock, Ark. invited three negroes to church. When they got there, three good sized men told them to get out and stay out. They must have been Scotch Presbyterians: they did a lot of dissenting. We were raised in one of the cradles of Presbyterianism in the town of Stirling. The Church of the Holy Rude was built there before 1523, as records show it was rebuilt then. There had been a church there as far back as 1129. Things went along peaceably until 1656 when an argument came up about the service. One group wanted it one way and the other was against it. It ended up by building a stone wall inside the church in the center, from floor to the rafters, and the two sections were then the East Kirk and the West Kirk; but the really wonderful thing about the wall was it remained there for 280 years before it was torn down: stubborn folk are the Scots. This Church of the Holy Rude is still in good repair. It is really a historic place. Scottish Kings and Queens attended church there. It was there John Knox the great leader preached. To him Mary, Queen of Scots, brought her 14 months old son to be crowned King James VI, later to be King James I of Britain. It was he that assembled the body of learned men who gave us the King James version of the Bible. ---   Among the cheering youngsters for Washburn High cheering outfit with our granddaughter is Sue Sierk. She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Sierk and a granddaughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Sierk, prominent residents of western Murray county. ---   What price life? The government holds that oranges are covered with a poisonous substance by the growers. The growers’ attorneys claim it would hurt the sale of them if they were put on the market green: better find a yellow covering that is non-poisonous. ========================

December 4, 1958

  Was glad to get a letter from Miss Ethel Payton of Santa Cruz, Calif. She says, “Your paragraph in the Herald, Oct. 20th on Indian Summer takes me back in memory fifty years. I was teaching in Hadley then. I remember the Indian Summers and recalling the ballooning the young spider which accounts for the strings of cotton seen in the air at that time. In Santa Cruz the air was filled with little white balls of silk, which indicates another form.” Miss Payton is a daughter of the late Henry G. Payton, a leading farmer in Slayton township for years. Thanks for your kindly comment on the column. Miss Payton’s address is No. 319 Standford Ave. ---   Eggs have a variety of prices. In Minneapolis you can get small eggs, but they are awful wee, for 20 cents a dozen. Up at Barnum, Minn. jumbo eggs bring 63 cents and out at Ridgecrest, California, countryside large grade AA eggs bring 45 cents the dozen. ---   We’re mighty proud of western Murray County this week. It was where we spent so much of our life. Three of its young men were honored. Winthrop Warren, grandson of Tom Warren, was elected president of the Murray county Farm Bureau, and Donald Nepp, grandson of Julius Nepp, was elected vice president of the Murray County Farm Bureau. Tom Warren came here in 1881, we came in 1883 and Julius came in 1886. Another keen young farmer, Brent McBeth, was elected delegate at large for the same organization. Brent lives on the farm that was developed by the late W. S. Pattinson, who came across the sea with us in 1883. These young farmers are young enough to temper it with conservatism. Good luck, boys. ---   The new six million St. Barnabas hospital opened its doors last week in Minneapolis. It has 308 beds, air conditioned and a beautiful building. Among the nurses who graduated there last September were Barbara Markwardt of Slayton, Dorothy Sheffield of Marshall, a granddaughter of the late Dr. D. A. Williams of Slayton, and Jane Medhus of St. Cloud, a daughter of the former Ethel Brewster of Slayton. Carol Hendrickson of Slayton is a junior there and two former Lake Wilson girls are seniors. They are Connie Smith and Kae Elias. Kae is our granddaughter. ---   Less than a month ago Benson was blamed for losing the election. Last week the same farmers voted by a large majority their endorsement of his corn policy. ---   The stock market goes up and down and so does the chicken market. In the Delaware-Virginia area last week broilers hit 13 cents, the lowest in years. ---   The present athlete situation at the “U” has smothered hopes for a new stadium. Deep down the feeling among many followers is that both Armstrong and Warmath have passed their days of usefulness, but the fans don’t like to admit it publicly. ---   The most dismal place in the country today is Washington, D.C. Forty-four senators and representatives are packing their official files. Some of them will not go back home. Washington is in their blood. The hardest hit of all are the office staffs those men had. There must be around 500 bright young men and women and jobs for them are hard to find. They have been drawing good pay and you know how it goes. Senators and representatives who serve six years can draw $5,000 pension. Two congressmen, Knutson of Minnesota and Hays of Arkansas have only served four years. The help condition is more serious than you think. Some staff members will have to call on the government for unemployment compensation. When asked what her plans were for the future, Mrs. Knutson said she had none. ---   The G.I.’s can’t be very potent in Illinois politics: the voters turned down their request for a Korean War bonus. ---   Among the interesting votes in the recent election was Oregon’s determination to keep on hanging murderers. It also repealed a new law that was passed to help pay veterans’ bonuses. You’ve heard a lot about 18 year olds voting. In South Dakota when it went before the people they said nothing doing. Utah turned down pari-mutuel horse racing, but you can still play poker there without a license. ---   This year Union Labor is in the saddle in both houses of congress. It has 56 votes in the senate that it has O.K.’ed. If union men, the type of Hoffa and Dave Beck, get to running the country, God help the country. ---   Republican women candidates were real fortunate at the last election. Three new women were elected to Congress and all of them republican. ---   A man hunting deer illegally and who accidentally shot a man in the leg was sentenced to 180 days in jail at Virginia, ninety days for hunting deer out of season and ninety days for carrying illegal firearms; for shooting a human being in the leg nothing. ---   Billy K., writing in a London newspaper, says juvenile delinquency is the result of parents trying to train children without starting at the BOTTOM. ---   Notice where Benedict Hardman, Keeper of the King’s English, put three well known columnists in the booby class because they use the phrase, “Can’t help but think.” He says it is a double negative, whatever that is. Come to think of it, who doesn’t use the phrase. Custom changes even the King’s English. ---   English has always been a puzzle to us. Here’s an example taken from an English paper. A young teacher deputized for a friend who was on her honeymoon. A few weeks later the newly weds and the teacher were at the same party and the hostess started to introduce the groom to the wife’s friend. “Oh,” he interrupted brightly, “I now Miss Rose very well, in fact she substituted for my wife on our honeymoon.” (You’ll notice they say ‘deputized’ over there, we say ‘substituted’.) ---   (Dec. 4) Two weeks ago we said that if the Andy Knutson suit ever came to trial it would be juicy. It’s getting juicy now before it has gone to trial. Looks as if Andy had spilled more stuff to his lawyer than he intended. Also looks like as if some one in Coya’s office had helped things along by doing a little squealing: a pretty unsavory mess at this time. ---   One of the finest things to have when you are old, when Thanksgiving rolls around, is to have relatives close by who will ask you to the traditional dinner. We have them in Mr. and Mrs. Ray D. Elias and what a wonderful day we spent. Thanksgiving is the real family day of the year. It ended with a drive through the beautiful Christmas decorations on Nicollet. They are more beautiful than ever. What a wonderful day it was. ========================

July-December 1957          Home          January-June 1959