1951 Columns, July - December
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Roaming in the Gloaming

With Bob Forrest

Things Material and Immaterial

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July 5, 1951

  “So What” in the St. Paul Pioneer Press last Thursday said that a former St. Paul girl, Phyllis Kremer Gordon, is writing a radio script for a Los Angeles cemetery. She and her husband sold two radio shows to Orson Welles lately. Phyllis is a daughter of the former Mildred Hanstrom who taught in the schools here over a decade ago. Some of the readers of this column will remember her.
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Some of You Gals Try This If you want to lose some of that fat economically just start walking, and after you’ve walked 66 1/2 miles you will have lost a pound of fat. If you’re young enough to run you can take the pound off in 44 miles. That’s what an eminent Scotch doctor suggests. Try it, gals and matrons, and tell us how you come out.
---    Some of the kids have freckles and mothers worry if it is a girl: boys don’t matter. In the good old days your grandmas wore a big sun bonnet, about the size of the cloth top on a covered wagon, when working in the garden, in the hay fields or harvest field and they all worked in the early days: can’t remember of ever seeing one taking a sun bath.
---    We must be getting old. Our youngest grandson joined up with the air force last week and is now at Lackland Field, Texas. Wasn’t anything pushing him. He is just 17, won a scholarship in the St. Paul Marshall high school, and was tops in aptitude. He always had a yen for the air. Good Luck to you, Robert Forrest III.
---    Felix De Leon, no relation of Ponce, was convicted in St. Paul last week of his fourth drunken driving offense: he got 90 days straight in the workhouse, no discount and no suspension: the leaven is working.
---    The outlook for peace in Korea is bright. Those men who continue to raise obstacles in the peace movement by insidious arguments should be give a taste of the war that they want to be continued. Seven Minnesota boys were killed last Saturday, why not beat it for Korea and take their places.
---    Saw a picture in a daily, Thursday, of the mangled body of a five year old boy lying in the street. Nearby his father gazed with eyes of agony and grief. The lad had run from behind a car into the path of a truck. But for the Grace of God, a similar accident has not happened in Main St. here. The hairbreadth escape of some of our little ones brought chills to many an auto driver.
---    “Mow the Weeds, Mow the Weeds” ads are appearing in every rural paper this week. It’s a waste of time and effort. Not ten per cent of the land owners ever pay attention to the weed law, and the weeds grow merrily along the highways spreading their seeds into the adjacent fields and the weed stalks clog the roads in the winter.
---    The ever increasing illiteracy in this section of the state is really deplorable. Drive along the paved highways and you’ll notice that not half of the drivers coming in from the secondary roads can read the word “Stop.” Some are terrible when it comes to reading numbers, too. The highway signs in the village are marked 30 miles an hour and most of them take the “3” for an “8” and go down No. 47 like a bat out of Hades.
---    See where Gov. Youngdahl is sending over a peace pipe to the King of Denmark with Senator Hans Pedersen. We knew the Danes are a fighting people, but we didn’t know that Minnesota was at war with that country.
---    The Tracy Herald group the births each week under the head, “The Cradle.” Time was when the cradle was an institution. They were handed down from generation to generation, with instructions how to keep them going, part of the time. Like many another household article they have vanished. Have not seen one for a generation.
---    There’ll be no howling dogs in Tracy from now on. City dads say muzzle the pups from July 1st to Sept. 1st.
---    The postoffice department is cutting out a lot of red tape with the new money order. Heretofore all postal money orders had to be cleared through the post office. The new type now in use may be cashed at any post office or bank and will be collectible through any Federal Reserve Bank. Inasmuch as a money order is not drawn on a certain post office and, therefore, is payable at any post office or bank, a fee will not be collected incident to the payment of an order. Money orders paid by banks will be cleared through banking channels and will not be delivered to a post office for reimbursement. Money orders paid at any post office will either be deposited in a local bank or remitted to the central accounting post office.
---    The colored line in the First Night league is not what it used to be. Last season there were so many boys in the league that it reminded you of a Tasty raisin loaf. There’s only one colored youth in the league this season and he plays with Lamberton.
---    Smoked carp are really delicious. The equal of smoked white fish or salmon. Most carp you get have been smoked too hard and at times too salty. Arnold Knutson is a master smoker. His fish are not too dry, not too salty and they are really fit for eating. Use a good size carp for smoking--about five or six pounds. Small carp do not have enough meat on them when smoked.
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July 12, 1951

  The death of Mrs. Chas. F. Sierk brought sadness to a wide circle of friends in western Murray county, where she had made her home for the last thirty-six years. Since coming to this community she has been active in civic and social affairs. She took an active part, both in Cameron township and in Lake Wilson for things that were for the betterment of this section. She was a wonderful mother bringing into the world six fine sons, a loving and faithful wife, a grand friend and neighbor. To many of us she stood as one of the outstanding women in Murray county and she will be sorely missed. The sincere sympathy of the entire community is extended to the Sierk family.
---    The postal department has started economizing down in southwest Minnesota. The three rural routes of Balaton that have existed for nearly forty years were recently consolidated into two routes.
---    In the going of Governor Youngdahl, Minnesota loses a strong man and an able one. He did more the state for the mentally ill people than all the governors we have had, put together. We voted for him every time he ran, but some of his methods were too darn rank. Minnesota has survived the loss of a lot of good governors.
---    As a nation we are really a disgrace to our traditions and to its ideals. We remember when the Armistice was even proposed in World War I. Church bells rang, whistles shrieked, groups of men and women in the dead of night wakened their neighbors to tell them of the good news. What happened last week? Absolutely nothing. People did not even talk about it, they weren’t interested. The men that have died and those in captivity seemed to be of no concern. Besides a religious revival we also need a patriotic revival.
---    The hospital strike at Minneapolis was a disgrace to a democracy. The strikers shut the patients off from food and medicine. Just goes to show how low-down a class of people can get. The law prohibiting hospital strikes was passed by the last legislature and signed by the governor, who was too busy grinning after his appointment to ever dream of the sick and maimed.
---    Looks as if Elmer C. Anderson of Brainerd is about the strongest candidate the republicans have in the stable at the present. But he has always been a strong vote getter. What he may lack in culture he makes up in common sense.
---    After all every man has his price, Youngdahl’s was a federal judgeship.
---    South Dakota is a queer state as far as drivers licenses are concerned. You don’t need a license to drive a car in that state, and by the way it is the only state in the union that does not have a drivers license. May be queer in that respect, but when it comes to enforcing the auto driving laws, they are tops over there. See where Lloyd Leum of Dell Rapids paid a $100 fine, and costs up to $13.80, and on top of that went to jail for ninety days, and then the judge said, “You can’t drive a car in the state for a year, and before you do drive you must post a bond for $2,000.” All this on a drunken driving charge.
---    “Bob Forrest, columnist for the Lake Wilson Pilot, has been having quite a time the last three weeks showing off to readers how prejudiced and narrow-minded he is. This isn’t libelous either because two weeks ago, he even admitted he is prejudiced. After taking a couple digs at other races last week he went the limit when he wrote: ‘An interesting sporting event would be a champion baseball game between colored and white players in the major leagues. Wouldn’t that have the fans a buzzing. ‘Twould be a good game: if the white players won.’ What I wonder is: Bob, what makes you think your tough old Scotch hide is better than a Negroes?” Phyliss Nelson in Murray County Herald. My, my. Now that you’ve got that off your chest, put up your hair, dash a little rouge on your cheeks and a dab of perfume back of your right ear and relax. This old Scotch hide of ours has been bitten by wasps, hornets, mosquitoes, wood ticks and even bed bugs so we are somewhat immunized against jabs of this type. We are not prejudiced against colored people but we do think that it is not sensible or practical for them to intermingle too deeply with the whites. A white woman is just as much out of place in a negro settlement, negroes tell me, as a black woman would be in a white settlement. We have several good negro friends, men of high calibre, real gentlemen, but we have never heard them discuss the matter that they did not say “The time is not here,” and we don’t think they will ever mingle promiscuously. And talking of prejudices, my thin skinned Norwegian friend, would you marry a black man or are you prejudiced?
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July 19, 1951

  This so-called anti-crime wave in Minnesota did not start with Gov. Youngdahl as many admirers assert. A couple of decades ago the city of St. Paul was just about as tough as they made ‘em. They had everything they shouldn’t have and a lot of it. Crime ran rampant. The city fairly reeked with vice. It was the refuge for criminals. The big mobs moved in. Then came two kidnappings and with it came the stern realization of conditions to the citizens. There was no waving of flags, no drums beat. Just the minds of an awakened citizenry, and what a wonderful job they did. From being a cesspool of vice they changed it to one of the cleanest cities in the United States.
---    “Local Man Has Perfect Record at Convention” says the Tracy Headlight Herald. That town must be getting better.
---    They must have had a different kind of rain back in the real “flood” days. After forty days and forty nights the whole earth was nothing but a sea: here we’ve had sixty days of rain and we can still see the top of Buffalo Ridge.
---    We kind of admire the spirit of the North Koreans in debarring our newspaper men from the peace negotiations. Discussing so grave and important a matter as an armistice should be discussed in the spirit of deliberation. Some newspaper men seem to go to public hearings for the sole purpose of belittling some of the participants. The click of the camera and the news about what this man said can wait another half hour: the most important thing we want is peace.
---    To the husbands who need it, this information is free. A Birmingham, Ala. man got peeved because his better half was staying out a little too late at her parties, so he rigged up a pail of water atop the door so she would get doused when she sneaked home with her high-heeled shoes under her arm. In she came, the pail of water sloshed over the mascara, paint and powder that was already showing the signs of wear as she stumbled into the house. The man was waiting for her with a club and beat her up. She rushed to court and got a divorce. Water may cause damage to Kansas and Minnesota but it was sure a blessing to that man.
---    An old cottonwood tree stands at a section line intersection south of Lake Wilson. Walt Warren and Jim Post jumped us the other day and said why don’t you write something about our “Lone Tree.” Walt added it’s the biggest in Minnesota. We admire your sentiments boys, but sentiments are sometimes far from the facts: we know of a cottonwood tree in Minnesota that is 20 feet in circumference. but cheer up boys, your tree is still young.
---    Tracy kids are the luckiest kids in the country. A new swimming pool is being constructed there and up to 13, children get in free: don’t you wish you were a kid again and lived in Tracy?
---    The resignation of Gov. Youngdahl has a flood of rumors following the tragedy. Humphrey and Truman are getting the credit for the kidnapping. To an old cluck like us it is as plain as the nose on your face. Evald, the rich Mpls. milk man was a friend of Luther’s and was told by the gov. after he ran into the snag last winter that he wished he’d stayed on the supreme court. Evald was also a dear friend of Humphrey’s and put money into his campaign fund, so what was more natural than the suggestion to the senator that Luther get kicked upstairs. Humphrey was getting rid of two birds with one stone: paying his debt to Evald and getting rid of Youngdahl.
---    This has been the longest cold spell we can remember: had a little heat off and on every day except three, since last August.
---    How quickly the days go by when you get old. How time does fly. Come next Friday the Roamer will be starting his 80th year. Who in heck ever expects to live that long when they were young. Sixty-five is all you’re expected to live nowadays. No matter how able and capable you are in American business circles today, your day ends at 65. Only old politicians live on. Like old soldiers, “They never die,” just keep on, living long enough to irritate folks.
---    See where five women were selected as judges in a beauty contest at Long Beach. There were five contestants in the finals and they each received one vote. The judges would not budge, there could be no compromise and a jury of five men had to be selected. That would never have happened in Minnesota. Minnesota women are reasonable are willing to compromise at all times: so we’ve been told.
---    Perhaps the dogs will have to do their howling inwardly. One pup has been taking small chunks out of the kids and folks are beginning to talk about rabies and the hot days coming up.
---    The warm weather of late has been doing its best to revive baseball, but in many cases it is too late. From the big leagues down to the Gopher League there’s been a dropping off in attendance. The pendulum swing has been definitely on the downward trend this year.
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July 26, 1951

  As usual, Lake Wilson made its customary efforts in the Bloodmobile campaign. Out of 600 pints of blood donated in Murray county, Currie gave 83 pints, Fulda 133 pints, Slayton 233 pints and Lake Wilson 140 pints. The local officials worked hard and the amount of blood donated in this area was most gratifying. Let’s not overlook, however, the grand support given by the Hollanders from Chandler.
---    George Tripham, 61, of Plymouth, Wis. accused his 62 year old wife of infidelity. Took a 32 calibre revolver, shot her dead, then hung himself: some men get fussy in their old age.
---    The death of Dr. Henry Doms of Slayton removes another of the early residents of this section. Not only the Home hospital was from his inspiration, but the hospital in which he died stands today because of his efforts. No man in the county did as much for the Murray County Hospital as he. In the early days of the movement when the foundations were being laid and groups organized to promote the work, Dr. Doms gave of his talent and time freely without hope of reward or glory. Patients and friends realize his value to the community.
---    Whether you like it or not, this village is going to wake up some morning and discover that there must be more police protection than we have at the present time. When a majority of the voters in a village vote to engage in the liquor business and enjoy the profits thereof, it must also assume other responsibilities, one of which is law and order. The present marshall with his many duties cannot be expected to give service through the midnight and early morning hours.
---    Remember the old saying, “There’s no fool like an old fool” refers to females as well as males.
---    Had a nice visit with F. J. Baron (Hazel Campbell’s husband) the other day. He lives at San Salvador, C. A. in the heart of the coffee country. Everyone here has been interested in the upswing in the price of coffee, and according to Mr. Baron it started not with big business in the U.S. but in the coffee countries. Not a pound leaves these countries for less than 57 cents a pound. A few years back it brought 13 cents a pound, and before that it was burned in the dinky locomotives down there in place of coal. Found out from him about bananas. We never knew how they were planted. He said that they grow like a dahlia root. Come planting time men cut the roots into small sections with an “eye.” The future for bananas is getting dimmer. San Salvador was a real banana country, but the plants take a tremendous amount of vitality from the soil. Millions of dollars are spent for fertilizers; expense is costly so the country is turning to coffee.
---    Saw a cartoon last week of Harry Truman and the title sneeringly was “Margaret Truman’s Father.” It’s a healthy sign for a nation when fathers take pride in being the father of a fine family, pride enough to even be proud to be known as the father of an outstanding boy or girl. Truman never had the benefits in youth as his predecessor Franklin D. Roosevelt, who came into this world with a silver spoon in his mouth. Filled with culture, lineage, and arrogance. Look at his offspring, their multiple divorces and escapades. A stench in the nostrils of people who believed that this country should stand at all times for the cleaner and better things in life. Don’t laugh at Harry for being willing to walk in the shadow of a clean wholesome American daughter: and we never voted for Mr. Truman, either.
---    What’s the matter with our hospitals? Over at the $1,000,000 hospital at Worthington more than half the beds are empty. What is the trouble? Are the people healthier than they were last year or are the rates too high? If the rates are too high, slash them. As long as we have to be taxed for maintenance the rates should be cut. Taxpayers would rather pay taxes on a hospital jammed with patients, doing a service to the community, than for just a handful. Let’s get something for our tax money.
---    Phyllis in the Murray County Herald wrote “Finis” to her wanderings and vaporings on the race question. She did not even do this column common newspaper courtesy of reprinting our last item, but picked here and there like a bird. In her swan song, she said: “What you wrote last week doesn’t have much of anything to do with what you wrote in previous weeks. And it certainly wasn’t any answer to my question why you think your skin is better than a Negroe’s skin. What you did say only bears out the fact that you think it is better.” I admit that I think my skin is not only better than a negroes and a lot of other nationalities besides. Never saw a man or woman that did not think they were better than someone else. When a Yank goes to Europe or Asia, he quickly tells that this country is the best in the world. Negroes and every other colored race have their ideals as well as other people. Take the Indians, every tribe thinks they are better than the ones over the hill. So long girl, and we wish you well in your crusade.
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August 2, 1951

  The recent discussion of the race question brought back memories to the Roamer, and the realization of the fact that if it had not been for a negro he would never have been in Lake Wilson, or anywhere else. Our paternal grandfather, Wm. H. Forrest, was born in Stirling, Scotland in 1799. Got his surgeon’s degree at Edinburgh university in 1828. He left for America in 1829 and practiced medicine until he contacted yellow fever in 1832. A wave of it struck the city of Charleston, So. Carolina where he was located. He contracted the disease. A negro lad stayed with him and nursed him through the sickness and when grandfather got well he returned to Stirling. He bought the negro lad and brought him along. He was an object of curiosity. He was the only black person in town, but his genial ways and pleasing personality brought him a lot of friends. He took care of the gardens, the stables and the Forrest boys. When his time came to go, he was taken to the old family burying ground up near the castle and buried there. The big marble stone has the names of Forrests for generations. They are all there, from New Zealand, Australia, Minnesota, etc. At the bottom of one column of names is engraved, “Tim.”
---    This nation today has less interest in the welfare of his neighbor or his property than any other generation for years. Snooping is getting worse: everybody wants to see what the other fellow is writing. If there is a letter lying around somewhere addressed to you, folks pick it up, not to hand it to you, but to read it. Why snoopers exist is a mystery, but some of them will be reading this before it is printed.
---    Worthington, largest town in the Night League, withdrew from the organization last week: could not interest the Worthington business men or the fans--costs too much money to run a team in the night league. Minneota will take the place of Worthington and the show goes on.
---    Last week it was Boyle that got in the limelight for taking unearned increment from some big firm. Folks out here are beginning to believe that if a new bible was written, Washington would crowd out Sodom and Gomorrah.
---    The Cerfsboard in last Sunday’s Trib has something that don’t look right to us. It reads, “Washington had 121 American towns named after him.” That’s almost three to a state. The postoffice dept. must have had a hard time getting the mail to those folks. According to the U.S. Postal guide there are only 27 towns by the name of “Washington” in the United States.
---    Congress will shortly pass a law raising penny postal cards to two cents: will cut down the postal deficit but hold on, in order to take up the slack, Harry has asked for a seven per cent increase for postal workers. So the savings will be what the little boy shot at. There is one group in the postal service that sadly needs adjusting: that of the star route carriers. The guy that trucks in the mail--his wages are below the starvation level.
---    Baseball minded folks are not so plentiful in Minnesota after all. A recent survey showed that 70 per cent of the population were interested in fishing and only 15 per cent interested in baseball. The category of sports did not give pinochle so we are unable to give you late standings on this important indoor sport.
---    C. Elmer Anderson of Brainerd seems to have the backing of countless friends in Minnesota. There’s nothing of the politician about C. Elmer, just a square shooting business man. We watched him during two sessions of the senate. He was always agreeable, courteous and efficient. Had no high-minded ideas like some of the senators, who would wrap their togas around them when they passed by the hired help. You can’t go wrong with Anderson.
---    Gov. Youngdahl must have had a red face and a red neck when he read in the dailies that his house, as given in by the assessors, had a true value of $5,002 and is not for sale at $68,000. The homes of the idle rich and the politicians seem to have a wider spread than the homes of the sticks. If an assessor did that out here, the village council, the county board, the county auditor and the county assessor would all be on his tail. It’s a good thing the governor is not running again. We can just see the D.F.L.’s plastering the sign boards with a picture of his house, the assessed valuation and what it sold for. Too many of our idols have feet of clay.
---    Seldom have we seen a more perfect presentation of an outdoor attraction than that of the story of Hiawatha by the Pipestone Exchange club at the old Pipestone quarries. From the narrators down to the men parking cars the entire performance went off without a hitch. The natural scenery was enhanced by beautiful electrical effects. The group of narrators was outstanding, and the chorus as well as the instrumental arrangement was harmonious and carried the audience into the spirit of the old Hiawatha story that never grows old. Longfellow wrote the poem in 1855, two years before Minnesota became a state, but the tales that had been heard from the early trappers and explorers struck a responsive chord in the brain, hence came Hiawatha.
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August 9, 1951

  Ed. Ryan, sheriff of Hennepin county, is going to run for governor on an independent ticket. He’s like the guy that don’t belong to any church: there won’t be a heck of a lot of folks at his funeral.
---    The lust for money among basketball players has reached out into the rural sections. Bradley college had an outstanding team, winning a lot of games. They kept the scores well in hand and profited thereby: now they must face disgrace. That isn’t the worst of it--some of them will have kids and they will inherit their father’s disgrace. These are turbulent days in the sport world. The money cancer seems to have crept in one way or other into every line of sport. Makes us shudder when we think of that pass from center that was too low or too high on the third down, and of the player grabbing the ball, then fumbling or stumbling. Washington to the lowest slum section in the country has gone money crazy. It certainly has deadened our patriotism. The wording of the Great Seal of the U.S.: “Novus Ordo Seclorum” (whatever that means) should be changed to: “Get It While the Getting’s Good.”
---    You heard the story of the man stepping out in the hall and the door with the night latch on slamming shut. Well, that very thing happened in Lake Wilson. A young man heard a noise in the hall, got or rather stumbled out of bed to see what was the matter, when slam went the door behind him and night latch was on, and the guy standing in the hall with only a little short shirt on. It was in the early morning and he waited hopefully until he was able to signal a truck driver. The driver found an old pair of overalls, then hunted around and got a pair of old shoes. First thing he did was to grab a wrecking bar and a ladder and got back in his room, vowing not to use his night latch again--and to buy a longer nightgown: he said he just felt terrible with that little short shirt on.
---    Bobbie Smith who was down from Pequot Lakes last week was telling us he had a bottle of Doc Surber’s mosquito repellent made up it was really tops. Bobbie lives in a section where the skeeters ride bicycles when they are half grown.
---    One of the tops in national baseball is Casey Stengel. ‘Twasn’t always this way with Casey. He was with the Giants in the old days with McGraw. The Roamer was a Giant fan several decades ago. Casey was a hero to us: didn’t he hit two home runs in one World Series game? Age caught up with him and he managed the Mud Hens (Toledo) in the A.A. We used to meet him at the St. Francis hotel in St. Paul: the baseball teams stayed there in those days. We were chatting with him the St. Francis lobby on that memorable day when the Yankees played the Saints. The Hen date was canceled. The Yanks came bustling into the lobby, bustling, hustling Babe Ruth at the head, then George Pipgras, etc. Casey sat there and named all the Yanks as they came in. Baseball fans, and there were a lot of us, had three or four baseballs to be autographed by “Greats.” The “Greats” stayed in their private suite upstairs and landlord Turgeon took my three horsehides and had the names of the tops on them. Some fans tackled the substitute members of the team in the lobby. Casey sat by our side looking gloomy and no one seemed to remember him. The Roamer pulled out a well autographed baseball and asked Casey if he would write his name on it. Kinda pleased the old--not too old--man, and he warmed up a little. His Mud Hen team was at the bottom, and it looked bad for Casey. The wheel took a whirl and today he is manager of the New York Yankees, the richest baseball outfit in the world, and the big dailies catch Casey’s words today as if they were pearls. Age does not always wither: it sometimes stimulates.
---    It looks as if Diogenes would need two lanterns and a gas mask if he lived in these United States.
---    Ninety West Point cadets have been discharged from West Point for cheating in their examinations. Nearly every member of the football team is on the list of the boys who cribbed. Some are beginning to wonder if the game in which they were beaten last fall by the Navy was on the level, or a money game. We have fallen on evil days.
---    Pheasant hunters in this vicinity are hoping that the Minnesota Game and Fish dept. will not be as liberal with their open season days this year as they were last year. Most of the hunters here, some of them who travel the country roads daily, say that the pheasant crop is woefully short due to the wet spring. They hope that the season will be restricted to ten days at the most.
---    Merritt Oelrich says, “That guy that said you had to walk 65 miles to lose a pound of fat is nuts. I’ve lost over 20 pounds down here at Wichita Falls, Texas and I know darned well I haven’t walked 1,200 miles.”
---    The saddest news this week is that the truce with the North Koreans has been broken. The truce is not the only thing that will be broken: think of the broken homes (and the broken hearts).
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August 16, 1951

  Balaton had its annual Sportsmen’s picnic last Sunday afternoon. This annual gathering is sponsored by the Balaton sportsmen and it is a real sportsmen’s gathering of the folks who believe in conservation in Balaton and vicinity. No politics, no seeking the spotlight, just an honest endeavor to do their bit in a humble way to maintain what little wild life we have left. Minnesota needs 200 more clubs patterned after the Balaton Sportsmen’s club.
---    Who would have thought it: there is some honor left in these United States, and the academy at West Point seems to be the one lone spot. Some of the young cadets are accused of “cheating”. What does cheating mean? What did they do that was so heinous? The accused, at least some of them, seem to have been real fighting men, and that’s what we expect out of West Point. Heroes in the battlefield, men who give their lives for others and men who lead forlorn sorties are few. When they pass on, the folks never question, “Didn’t he ask a classmate how to spell “obsolete” when he took his exam?” And who are those that would pass judgment, these “whited sepulchres” of congressmen and senators who violated every law of decency and morality in their surge to get to congress. Or is it the heads of the colleges and universities, who should know that everyone has been dealing in human flesh for years. Take our own Minnesota: you know of outstanding athletes that did not pass their exams without crowbar assistance. Or we should start at the high schools, where kids have cribbed or been pushed for generations. Water does not rise about its level.
---    Saw Edna Ferber’s “Show Boat” movie last Sunday. It was in technicolor and was a grand show in spite of a superfluity of legginess at times. It brought back vividly the life on “Old Mississippi” of a half century ago. We made the trip down the river from St. Paul and back, forty years ago. A trip that was full of romance, scenic beauty and a quietness and peace that was entirely different from the vacations of these hectic days. The trip was taken on the “City of St. Paul,” one of the big stern wheelers. ‘Twas a quiet happy trip, eleven days and nights of pure vacation. There was no hurry, no bustle, no flat tires, no detours and no hustling for motels. The boat stopped at most towns along the river. It had a colored quartet, an orchestra: the kids played and the old and young folks danced the waltzes and square dances. And those moonlight nights sitting up on the deck watching the spotlight pick up the shore markers along the banks. Passing “Show Boats” tied up at the wharves at towns as we floated majestically by, looking in the windows and seeing the actors and actresses strut their stuff in “East Lynn.” All these little events were brought back to us last Sunday. The tall funnels on the boat, belching out clouds of black smoke, the big wheel at the stern, the good meals, no hurry, just floating along to old St. Louis and back. The trip down the river was one of those “Golden Days” in our book of memories. The cost of the trip: $44 from St. Paul and back, with meals and bunk thrown in: bet there are a few folks living that would like to make the trip today.
---    The village of Edgerton has upped its water and sewer rates. The sewer rate is now $12 a year for a single dwelling: Lake Wilson will soon be doing the same thing. It will be odd for us to pay for the use of the sewers, but it’s coming.
---    Cool weather last week halted the corn growth, but some fields, the early planted ones and the ones on high ground, showed a wonderful improvement.
---    What’s become of the flies? Years ago they were here by the millions. Dr. Balcom gave prizes for the largest amount of dead flies brought in: one bunch brought in a bushel. In those days it was always the duty of some girl in the family to wave a bunch of papers on a stick while the guests were eating dinner.
---    There are some things about democracy that are a joke. Take for example the chairman of a committee in senate or in the house. No matter how meritorious a measure may be, its life or death rests in the hands of the chairman of the committee to which it has been committed. He can keep it in his pocket as long as he wants to, have hearings on it when he wants to, and he can kill the bill when he wants: sounds like a Stalin idea.
---    Most of the county papers carried items like this: “Twenty-Nine Driver’s Licenses Revoked.” Informative perhaps of conditions, but not enough help in keeping down accidents. The state highway dept. should give the names of all those violating this law. Otherwise it might just as well keep still.
---    The fight against weeds seems to have bogged down. Weeds are everywhere this month. They infest alleys, streets, school grounds, highways and parks. Nature gave them an ample supply of rain and they certainly have flourished. Next year’s crop should be a pippin.
---    When you’re driving in the country, watch the corner where the corn stands high: death lurks in every corner. Go slow. You think you can’t spare the time. Take a chance and you’ll perhaps have plenty of time, but it won’t be in Murray county: you might be singing, “Highways are Happy Ways” with a golden harp with silver strings. Your life won’t be shorter by driving carefully.
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August 23, 1951

  We’ve lived in Murray county 68 years. Have listened to senators, governors, congressmen and big public meetings, yet it fell to the lot of Cedric Adams to attract the largest crowd in the history of Murray county, and he did not disappoint his audience. It was one show that gave 100% satisfaction. It is estimated that there were over 5,000 people on the grounds.
---    Nearly every county in southwestern Minnesota lost over 1,000 in population in the last ten years, and they will continue decreasing in the coming decade. The number of farmers are growing smaller due mostly to the fact that the trend among investors and non-residents is to buy “bar” quarters. Farm buildings on many a farm are going to wreck and ruin, many owners are offering the buildings for sale. Mechanized machinery enables the farmers to handle more land and the result is many a young man really interested in farming is finding it harder to get a farm to rent, and so they have to move, mostly to the cities.
---    There’s a lot of good guys in the world. The Roamer happened to be on the Cedric Adams end of the program on last Tuesday night. The weather was dark and lowering and the clouds and the weather man threatened rain. So we had to hustle around and be prepared. What fine cooperation we received from Carl Knapp of the Northern States and John Holland of the Central Telephone Co. They were all ready to make arrangements to move the show to the school auditorium. Then we went and saw Supt. Anderson, and we cannot remember ever receiving more generous cooperation than the committee got from Anderson. Everything was in readiness to make the change if rain came early, but fortunately it held off. We can’t forget the cooperation of these three men. Pretty good world after all.
---    Cedric Adams and the weather man ganged up and saved Murray county fair association from some little financial embarrassment on Tuesday evening of last week. If the rain had come two hours earlier, it would have been “Good Night Irene” for this year’s fair.
---    Heavy rains last week did a lot of damage to the corn crops, and the cool nights were not encouraging to the corn crop. We’re going to need a lot of hot weather if King Corn is going to come out the winner.
---   
Good news for the tax payers When the taxes get unbearable and the municipal palace goes dry, there is an inexhaustible source of revenue that remains untapped. When in operation, will have not only every street but every avenue paved. Cops will be on duty on every corner and there will be swimming pools all over town. Some time ago we say a young lady, hardly what you would call a resident of the sticks, striding down town. Her attire was a pair of men’s overalls and a man’s shirt dangling over the pants, adding nothing to the beauty and charm of womanhood. Then we thought of Lake Wilson’s book of ordinances. Ordinance No. 1, Chapter III, Section 7. The fine for violation of this ordinance can go as high as $100. “No person or persons within the limits of the said village of Lake Wilson shall appear on any street, lane or alley, or other public place within the limits of said village, in a state of drunkenness or in a state of nudity, or in a dress not belonging to his or her sex, or shall make any indecent exposure of his or her person.”
---    A Pennsylvania banker stole $600,000 in a period of ten years. Was arrested but was unable to give bail: the crookedest path seems to be the shortest one to the penitentiary.
---    The carnivals cut a bigger swath with county fairs than they have ever done before: Lyon county was compelled to postpone its fair for three weeks so that they could get merry-go-rounds, etc.
---    The present session of congress is perhaps the worst in history. Neither party seems to know what it wants and where it’s heading for, except to raise taxes some. Republicans vote with the Democrats oftener than they do with their own party, and democrats vice versa. Members have visited nearly every country in the world and have investigated everything, except the love life of a cockeyed one-legged bluefly. Two outstanding men in congress are Senator Douglas of Ill. and Carl Anderson of Minnesota. Both these men cut and slashed at useless appropriations. Got them by the committee, but when they got on the floor of the house the wolves started tearing them to pieces.
---    See where the Minnesota medical men are reported to be drawing the highest average pay of any state, averaging $13,000 a year. Could be, but don’t forget the hundreds of doctors at Rochester. Those guys are all big league when it comes to salaries. They can’t all pitch: some doctors must play in the outfield.
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August 30, 1951

  The most talked of romance in the last twenty years is heading for the rocks, they say. A man who gave up a kingdom and a woman who gave up two husbands are now on the crossroads. The Duchess of Windsor evidently got hold of a new hormone and is on the make again. This time it is a youngish man by the name of Nype. The poor old skinny dame at 57 still thinks she has “it” enough to get a new man. The duke has been busy writing his memoirs of late, but he should have taken time off to read Kipling. He’s the guy what wrote, “A Woman is Only a Woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.” He also wrote: A fool there was and he made a prayer (even as you and I) To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair (We called her a woman who did not care.) But the fool, he called his lady fair. (Even as you and I.) Kipling seems to have pronounced ideas on females.
---    Down at Albert Lea last week a riot was narrowly averted. The carnival company playing at the county fair got into a scrap with a young farm lad. The sheriff cam waddling in and stopped the fracas which was evidently over two girl shows on the midway. Albert Lea must be a blithe town to allow two girl shows on at one time. Out here we thought that went out with the Hoover depression: it’s a big world after all. The officers of the Freeborn county fair will have some tall explaining to do at the annual meeting of county fairs next winter.
---    St. Paul police arrested Don Brown last week: a confessed rapist. He is of the vicious type, his specialty being burning the breasts of his victims with a lighted cigarette. Last August he slugged a 54 year old woman and was sentenced to up to a five year term with the Minnesota Youth Conservation commission. Brown may be “nutty,” probably is, but not half as nutty as the officials of the Minnesota Youth Conservation commission who put Brown on the prowl again after being in the petted atmosphere of the state commission. Come on, Youngdahl, we’ll forget all about your assessment if you’ll only take some action in this matter--or are you too busy.
---    That little matter of assessment on his home had to be explained by Gov. Youngdahl before the senate examining committee last week. The governor said that all the assessments in the area of his home had been doubled since last year. A kindly assessment board of review reduced them 35%. Was the assessor the board right?
---    Senator McCarran struck a sensible note last week when he said, “Are we not now admitting other Fifth columns into the United States when we let down the bar to 300,000 displaced Europeans.”
---    There are three deer that make their home within a mile of Lake Wilson. They are marked for slaughter Nov. 17th: too bad they can’t be saved.
---    Hunters in this vicinity are not only incensed at the long open season on pheasants, but the fact that shooting hours on Sunday extend from sunrise to sunset. In many counties petitions are being circulated among the farmers asking them to forbid any hunting on their farms on Sunday.
---    Do some of you older folks ever have some incident of bygone days come back to you? Something that happened in the long ago, something that you want to forget? The Roamer has one that comes back every now and then to plague him. Back in the old days we clerked for G. H. Smith in the J. E. Wilson store. We also ran the postoffice and paid the Hubbard and Palmer grain checks. Everything was paid, that is the grain, in cash and Mr. Smith kept over $1,500 on hand at a time and when he was gone we had to take over. One fall evening Festus Bannon of Iona who taught here that year and the Roamer had dates in the country. The gals lived in the same direction and we made one team do the business. We were in a real hurry that night. The cash was put in a cigar box on the counter so it could be picked up in a hurry. Brooms and dusters were kept busy, old papers and scraps, etc. were whisked into the big pot-bellied stove. All at once we noticed the cigar box was missing. We saw some smoke coming out from the stove door and we jumped the counter and grabbed open the door, and there on top of the blazing papers and scraps was the cigar box. A half minute more, that box would have disappeared without a trace. We two would have looked at one another and though, but what about Geo. H. and elevator company. How could we have explained it. Would it have meant the pen for one or both of us? How would you have voted if you were on the jury? We often think of this incident when we hear a witness pour out his plea of innocence in spite of the strongest circumstantial evidence. We had more trouble with the elevator cash. Later we were coming home (no curfew then) from the same direction, same gal. Driving in the semi-moonlight drowsing, we heard a voice shout, “Stop!” “Hold on!” Had the cash in my pocket and a revolver on the buggy seat. Raised the gun, we were getting nervous as we were being headed off. When he shouted, “Hold up, Bob!” then we knew it was Gus Zieman, who had been out on business matters. The gal I went to see: nothing happened, except we were married.
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September 6, 1951

  The list of graybeards is growing in the top official circles in Washington. If Truman is re-elected he will be 68 when he takes over. His heir apparent, the golden tongue Barkley will be 73 and the runner up Sam Rayburn, the speaker of the house, will be 71. Old politicians neither fade away nor die: they just stay in office.
---    Congratulations to Gov. Youngdahl in securing his appointment to a judgeship in the nation’s capitol. We did not always agree with his theories but he has made a grand governor and proved to all that the law can be enforced in every section of the state when an efficient and courageous governor has the cooperation of the people.
---    The Roamer has been asked several times why he did not take an active part on the present school problem. After one gets to be 80, his flag waving days are over, either for or against a movement, and always would bring up the query, “What difference would it make to him?” which is all too true. One thing we do know and that is, there will be a change in rural school conditions. It many not come this year or next, but it will come. You can’t stifle progress.
---    Heard a couple dames bemoaning the evil ways and the law violations in the large cities. You’re right, sisters, it is deplorable. But out in the sticks we have a kindergarten crime wave all the time when laws and ordinances are rudely broken. Over in Balaton, kids on bicycles ran into an aged lady; she tripped and sustained a broken hip. In another nearby town, youngsters had kept people awake with their reckless driving. The council had the culprits arrested. What happened--nothing! Mama and Papa drove into town and laid the law down, “Either drop this suit, or else.” Firecracker ordinances are laughed at and so is the law regarding B-B rifles and air guns. All these acts are violations of the law. But who cares? There’s been a big difference in family discipline since the days when Pop ran the roost and really stood for something around the house. Now he’s a voting partner, and most of the time his name is not on the roll call.
---    Folks near town are getting interested in the three deer that have been staying all summer, and are sincerely hoping that they can be spared. Killing a forty pound fawn with a shot gun slug seems as horrible a sport as it would be throw a kid beneath a truck.
---    County fairs in this section of the state took a beating this year. Murray county was drowned out, while Jackson and Pipestone gave the opposite story: good weather kept the farmers in the fields. There is some criticism of county fairs, but people forget that it is not the fairs that have changed, it is the people. County fairs fundamentally are for educational purposes, and when a county like Murray has 3,600 entries as it had this year, it certainly is fulfilling its right to exist. Many people go to a fair purely for the entertainment. The fairs have run the gamut of human appetites for entertainment. At the start we had just a fair, then some “free acts” were added, then came horse races: trotting, running, and pacing. That faded in interest. Then baseball, that lasted for several years but it died. Then came the auto, followed by planes with parachutes and driving through a burning building, but that failed to hold interest. The people of today want thrills, thrills that border on death. They like action and blood. A real headliner next fall would be two planes meeting in mid-air and both pilots being killed. Down in the eastern part of the state where two people were killed in hot rod races, there was a larger attendance than ever this season.
---    You old fishing guys have got to learn all over again. For years you have been talking about pickerel. Well, there ain’t no such thing in Minnesota. The gam and fish dept. representative at the state fair said, “The last pickerel was taken in Minnesota over twenty years ago.”
---    Corn had a fair week. The weather was hot and muggy on Thursday, but the next day was as cold as ice. With good weather for the next two weeks, we might be able to get about 60 per cent of a crop, but the weather will have to be good.
---    Wars seem to be easier to start than they are to end.
---    If Sioux City folks keep on treating the Indians inhumanely, first thing you know the Sioux will forbid the city from using their name.
---    The “So What” column in the St. Paul Pioneer Press on Tuesday of last week suggested that if the village of Lake Wilson was smart it would appoint the Roamer an officer of the law to collect fines for those culprits who persist in wearing clothes of the other sex. If we have to do our duty, they should appoint us to look into the matter of nudity, which is also in the village ordinance. But how nude is “Nude” in this day and age? Back sixty years or so ago, a woman was stark naked when you saw the fringe on her drawers, but how those garments have shrunk. They are so thin and scraggly these days that one cannot tell whether some of the gals are dressed in a degree of latitude or the equator.
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September 13, 1951

  Up at Montevideo the annual Fiesta Day was not so good. The show went into the red $592: you just can’t beat the weather man.
---    Tracy’s Box Car day proved to be the biggest attraction of the year. Fine weather brought out a crowd of over 30,000 people to see the two-mile parade and enjoy the fine program.
---    This has been a poor summer for lawn chairs: some of them weren’t “set in” more than three times all summer.
---    Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. H. J. Haydon of Lakefield, who celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary last week. John has been in the newspaper business in Lakefield for over forty years.
---    With all his talents Senator Taft does not seem to have the stuff that the people of Minnesota crave.
---    A change was made in the pheasant season last Saturday: there will be no hunting on Sunday forenoons. While groups of sportsmen aided in making the change, the real power was Gov. Youngdahl. All his life he has been associated with church groups and he could not let them down.
---    Mrs. S. Barrows of Chandler, first Gold Star mother of World War I in this vicinity, celebrated her 92nd birthday last week. The last of the early pioneer mothers in Chanarambie township, with a life behind her full of service to the community, she has a large circle of friends. The Roamer has known her for 68 years and will never forget our first meeting. Jim Peters was building a chimney on the Barrows house and yours truly was mixing the mortar and carrying pails of brick and mortar up the ladder to Jim, who was doing the work. Like the Seven Dwarfs we sang and whistled while we worked. When we came down one time for a pail of bricks, Mrs. Barrows came out and said, “I hear you like to sing, come in and we can sing together.” She sat down at the little organ, and for a half hour we sang the old hymns, hymns that we have never forgotten, and up on the roof Jim was pounding and shouting for more bricks. The concert concluded abruptly, but ever since that day we have enjoyed a wonderful friendship with this grand pioneer mother.
---    In company with Ed. Engebretson, the Roamer took a 700 mile trip north and west of here, and in the 700 mile trip we saw only 2 bunches of pheasants and they were in Murray county. Saw some fine oats and wheat crops--stalks were up to five feet high, but owing to rains the shocks had been turned three times--not much of a country for combines--best section we saw was around Wadena, where the dairy farmers seemed to be the most prosperous of any, in spite of margarine. Big herds of Holsteins, large silos and huge barns gave to parts of Wadena county an air of prosperity and satisfaction--the dry parched fields were missing this year and clover and alfalfa crops were out in front--saw several truck loads of second hand machinery on their way to the farmers around Walker and Pine River. Fishing was as usual, “You should have been here last week,” or “Next week they will start biting”--fishing is always at its best in the Sunday newspapers--resorts had a good season, but not as good as anticipated: they never do. Prices naturally are still at parity prices. Every place has “vacancies” signs out. Talked to two men from Indiana--they had been wall eyed pike fishing for 3 days at a cost of $6.00 a day each, total catch: walleyes 0. Sweet corn up at Cass Lake was 35 cents a doz., tomatoes 20 cents. A resort county is the wrong place to look for bargains. There is not a gas war on up there--the season is so short. Roads are wonderful--you can drive for miles through a section where there isn’t a house and find better roads than there are in Murray county. The corn crop is much the same from Lake Wilson to Cass Lake. Here and there you see small patches of what might make corn. Too much rain, not enough hot days and nights put a damper on corn this season. Fields seem to have a lack of something this year. Even the fields around Marshall and Montevideo are weak this year. We pointed to one field in passing and said, “Ed, there ain’t many ears of corn there.” He curtly answered, “You can’t see the ears so well against the sun, and they weren’t there in the first place.” Stopped at Alexandria. Ed wanted to see the Runestone, being of Norwegian descent. We expected to see as much reverence paid to the Runestone as is paid to the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, where you take your hat and shoes off when you enter the Alamo. Folks in Alex, when we asked them, looked at us kind of curiously. We finally located it in a bank alcove. There was no crowd there with eager eyes or gaping mouths looking at the slab of stone. Even the waitress looked askance when we asked her if “Lief the Red” had ever eaten there. She said she didn’t know, but would ask the proprietor. The Runestone, over which there has been so much discussion as to its authenticity, was found at Kensington, twenty miles south of Alexandria, and was purchased by a group of Alexandria business and professional men. It has brought a lot of publicity to that section of the country. Had a good trip, saw a lot of old friends and a lot country we knew in the days gone by.
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September 20, 1951

  Five hundred car loads of gravel are being shipped by rail from the pit west of Woodstock to Canby. The distance from Canby by road to the pit is about 55 miles. The Omaha hauls the gravel to Butterfield, then to Tracy and from there to Canby, a distance of 155 miles. There is still room for the railroads in our transportation problems.
---    We’ve been hearing about rain producers for years. What this section needs is a rain stopper: we’ve had enough for one year.
---    We wrote to our brother Bill about a month ago, telling him about our garden and the new tomatoes: he’s at Berkeley, Calif. and wrote back that there were no ripe tomatoes on his vines at that time: most of us including the Roamer thought that California would be ahead of Minnesota.
---    Some of the rendering plants are paying eight dollars for a dead critter: that’s more than you can get for a dead human being.
---    Robert Lovett was selected as secretary of defense by the unanimous vote of the senate: the millennium must be close at hand.
---    Statisticians inform us that the month of August was the coldest since 1915: that’s one thing we did not need the experts to tell us.
---    More farm machinery is sold out of Lake Wilson than in any other town of its size in Minnesota.
---    Down in Granada in Martin county, eighteen villagers complained about odors arising from the Henry Schultz hog yard, and he was fined $50, with an additional $37 as costs. Agriculture experts will soon have to produce an odorless hog, or compel the poor porkers to take a daily bath of Mum.
---    An absolute cure for the common cold has been promised by experts. It is said that the common cold is responsible for the loss of a billion work hours each year: if there were no colds it looks as if there would be a lot of folks hunting for jobs.
---    The Swiss are cutting the Swiss cheese exports to the U.S. twenty-five per cent: that will be easy, all they will have to do will be to make the holes smaller.
---    The Tracy Headlight pointed out last week that this is the first time in years that the rank and file of the republican party will have a say in who is to be governor. You’re right, brother, ever since Stassen got in governors have been handpicked by the powers that were.
---    Sportsmen who bemoan the shortage of pheasants should be able to promote anew type of hunting for this section in the fall. In the south one of the most glamorous and social events of the game season is that of coon hunting. Groups of men participate in the sport, with torches and hounds that bay and bellow. This year nearby Bear Lake woods has the largest crop of raccoons for years, and they are doing damage to what good ears there are in nearby cornfields.
---    Former Governor Hjalmar Pedersen in his Askov American chides the Roamer for publishing the ages of the three top men in the United States government, insinuating that we could be using the same for political purposes for the coming campaign. Never thought of it along that line, but they are getting long in years. Age does cut some figure in government. Hoover would be denied millions of republican votes purely on his age, if there were a presidential primary. We, being close to 80, have more than a nodding acquaintance with Father Time and we realize that a man along in years is like an old auto. You never get up in the morning but what there is a new squeak or rattle. The carburetor leaks, the spark plugs lack the old vim, the water system has a tendency to corrode, lights are dimmer. There’s a general breakdown due to excessive wear and tear, combined with old age. Even the exasperator, whatever that is, ain’t what it used to be: one thing you can’t buy is youth.
---    The investigation of the St. Cloud prison is progressing slowly and the facts are yet in the dark. If cruelty has been inflicted on a prisoner, or if guards or other prison officials have been selling or giving drugs to inmates, they should get the works.
---    Many of the players in the Nite league should have been complaining bitterly over the umpiring the past season. Trouble evidently is that some of the umpires in the Nite League should have been calling them in the “B” League. Another factor that hurts decent umpiring is the cocky strange player who knows all the tricks of the game, and when he gets in a jam he knows how to agitate the crowd against the umpire.
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September 27, 1951

  The meanest man in the world lives in Milwaukee, Wis. He has a hearing aid, and every time his “bitter” half starts on a tirade, he turns off his aid. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, so she has sued for a divorce. She wants a man that will with bowed head sit and take it. By the way, where can one get a few those (dummy) hearing aids. Two of the guys are interested and they’re not so old, either.
---    This is not a plug for the coal dealer, but a hint to you if you burn coal. There’s twenty per cent less coal on the docks at Duluth than there was a year ago. Good hard corn cobs are going to be scarce this winter, so you’d better get that bin filled.
---    Eighteen police officials in New York who were charged with graft went free last week, when the main witness refused to testify against them. No pleading of the judge or attorneys could get the crook to talk. As Joe Hufuss used to say, “And you call this a government.” The president should get Senator Kefauver to reassemble his committee. It seemed to have something that made most of the crooks talk.
---    Eight different persons in Lake Wilson and vicinity who have had mail-order accident and hospital insurance were unable to collect a cent when they had an accident or were hospitalized: they were just pushed to one side with, “Sorry, but your policy does not cover this type of accident,” etc. There’s a resident insurance man in Lake Wilson that handles this type of insurance. Why not patronize him? It may cost you ten cents more, but he’ll see that you get something out of your policy. You’ll find his ad in this issue of the Pilot.
---    Senator Taft has come and gone. He is one of the ablest men in the United States and has a host of friends in Minnesota, but a lot of them would rather see him remain in the senate where he is a power for good, than in the White House.
---    Tine cans, old ones, are back in the limelight once more. The St. Paul Community Chest organization is picking up the tin cans.
---    There’s going to be a raise in postal rates. If it will improve service there will not be any kick. The postal service not only in Murray county but in every section in the United States is the worst it has been in thirty years. Lake Wilson at one time had three mails a day, had Saturday afternoon service and Sunday service and then there was mail on holidays. How we have one mail a day. What is true in the sticks is true in the cities. In some of the large cities, letters take two days to get two blocks. Under the present system a business man in Fulda tells us that it takes four days to reach some parts of the county. We admit that we have the keenest, shrewdest and efficient business men in the world, yet Canada operates her postal service at a profit. Our government operates our systems, and ends up in the red, clear up to its thighs.
---    This is the time of the year when there is a heavy traffic of farm vehicles, such as tractors, horse drawn wagons and flax straw trucks on the highways and fatality list grows. Every vehicle in Minnesota must have a red light or a reflector on the rear and one or two white lights or reflectors in front. If you fail to observe these regulations and have an accident, you are a potential murderer.
---    Even Gabrielson, top man in the republican party, had to stick his fingers into the dirty, slimy R.F.C. pot of graft and corruption. Seems it would be a good plan to run the story of the R.F.C in serial form, instead of peeking at it here and there. The democrat chairwoman of Iowa got her fingers in the cookie jar, too. She got millions for a western lumber company. No wonder folks kick about taxes.
---    Did you read that item in the dailies a week or so ago, telling about the South Carolina bridegroom of three weeks suing for a divorce on the grounds that his bride had a wooden leg. Now don’t start wondering how he ever found out. Just forget it. South Carolina is the one state in the Union in which you can not get a divorce. When you’re wed down there, you’re stuck.
---    The story of the Lithold Co. of St. Louis, Mo. that borrowed money from the R.F.C. is one of the most sordid in United States history. Men in high government positions seemed to have the power to assist the St. Louis company in getting huge loans and profiting thereby, from the sum of $65,000 down to Boyle’s $1,500. But glory be, one man was fired. He had taken a quart of whiskey and two dinners from one guy. “Naturally” he was promptly fired and the country saved.
---    See by the Fulda Free Press that the local fire dept. has asked central that when there is a fire it refrains from giving the location of the fire to anyone but fire dept. members. Good idea, as it will save cluttering up the streets.
---    Even “Time,” the super critic of the magazine world, goes awry sometime. An article last week on page 35 tells how the Reds in the Far East were raising U.S. money orders from $1.37 to $1,37944. No money order ever printed by the U.S. ever had a larger value than $100. Ask your postmaster.
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October 4, 1951

  Of course the republicans can beat the democrats hands down at the coming national election. All they have to do is to raise the wages of union labor and shorten the hours, guarantee an increase of prices in all farm products with not too much rain and no frosts until November, lower the prices of food and manufactured articles to the consumer, lower the price of autos, have three holidays a week, cheaper fuel and winters that have no cold weather: good government, pride, honor and even the war in Korea are but specks and little ones at that in this civilized day and age.
---    The army has just issued a bulletin that says, “All childless husbands are eligible for service.” Books on birth control that cost five dollars “with many full page illustrations,” have a marketable value of 11 cents now.
---    The republicans, green with envy over the democrats stealing so much front page stuff on graft, opened up one of their own in Staten Island, New York, and Governor Dewey has got a big stick-sized broom and is sweeping these bushers out of the league.
---    Daily we read about top political leaders taking a trip to the Korean trouble in the Far East. They hop blithely from place to place talking with big shots, then come back and sell their stories to the dailies and magazines. A lad, Kenny Gowin, who we have known since he was a kid, came back last week. He’s a young man that does not boast or blow and tells you just what he heard and saw. I answer to our queries we found out that “The Japanese people are intensely loyal to the U.S.--that they love baseball--don’t play much football--loyal to their Emperor, but don’t believe that he is a god--Tokio is the real headquarters of the war--here come the wounded and dead service men--the big air fields service the planes for the two hour flight over to Korean battle fields--Koreans are a poor lot--not much start with and war finds them lower in body and spirit--Korea is a land of mountains and full of cold weather--the army, that includes all the branches of the service, have never been in better shape--men are keen and alert--equipment first class-officers tops, especially when you have West Pointers--rice is the bread of life--South Korean soldiers get no pay--many American soldiers are marrying Japanese girls--few marry Korean girls--the G.I. is getting treated better as the wars go by--if a G.I.’s father or mother is deadly sick and there is hopes of the lad getting to the states before the end, the brass get busy, he takes a top priority plane to the states and back--Ridgeway is tops--admired by service men and Japs alike--when MacArthur was there and left his office for his home, streets were lined with Japs, bowing low--they ain’t doing that for Ridgeway. He’s a man and treats them as if they were men--if you want to rise from the ranks you can take a college course (run by a California university) that will help you--was in Hiroshima, saw Jap men and women with one side of their face red from the burns from the first atomic bomb, they seemed to be proud and turn their face so you could look at the burnt side.
---    The “Join the Crusade for Freedom” is a very laudable effort to bring to the Iron Curtain the benefits of a democracy. But its effort must be sorely hampered by the news of the graft and corruption that fills the front pages of the newspapers. Too bad we are not able to sweep our own floors before going so far afield.
---    Ran across a small book that has been in the Forrest family for some time: a Church of England (Episcopal) prayer book that was printed in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1752 and has been in the family since that date. At the top of the page starting the Psalms is the following head: “A Table to Find any Pfalm whereof you have the first line The Figure fheweth the Number of the Pfalm”... Strange to say that last year we found that for two years in early days one of the townships north of us had a clerk that used this same style of English: No “S’s.”
---    One of those things that hurts baseball is a poor umpiring. The work done by umpire Dascoli in the Giant-Brave game last week. It wasn’t the error of judgement at the plate we criticized, it was in banishing Campanella from the game because he threw his glove on the ground. Men in the bitterness of the game and their eagerness to win, and fact that the pennant was on Campanella’s going, the umpire should have tempered his judgement with common sense and looked the other way.
---    Rabies have broken out in many a Minnesota farm this year due to infected skunks who attack farm animals. Over at Edgerton all dogs have to be tied up or muzzled. A mad skunk attacked a bull on the edge of the village. The bull died, hence the new order.
---    Minnesota has a new governor. A new type of government, never experienced by the state since we can remember. This new governor has never been active in politics, unless to get himself elected. A sort of lone wolf, not the biting, snarling kind. No governor has ever turned his cheek or forgot has many political slams and slurs as C. Elmer Anderson. He’s young, sincere, honest and fair, not going to rend the atmosphere with wit, wisdom or sarcasm, but he will make a mighty fine governor, don’t forget that.
---    See where the state is offering $178 a month for a seamstress: seems like yesterday when the sewing girls that made the rounds in summer and fall got $2.00 a week and board.
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October 11, 1951

  Next department to be investigated at Washington, D.C. is the internal revenue dept. In the east especially, where there are so many manufacturing plants, etc., seems as some of the revenue men have gone in with their little brief case and asked, “Do you need any stationery or printed matter? I’ve got a friend in the business.” Naturally, the business man is anxious to make a friend with the revenue man.
---    How many of you old timers remember the mirages of the old days. When weather conditions were right, some mornings we could see cities, lakes and timber suspended. Often they would appear inverted and they made an awesome sight. These mirages, they tell us, were caused by atmospheric conditions, but they certainly were a real show for the youngsters.
---    Many farmers are getting gun shy of the 110 day corn and a lot of them are saying they are going to plant some of the old Minnesota No. 13. This corn was planted extensively before the hybrid came in, especially in prohibition times as it could be used both by animals and humans, the humans getting theirs in liquid form. The best moonshine in the dry era they tell us was known as Minnesota No. 13.
---    A wealthy Milwaukee woman was found nude in a theatre a while back with the manager of the show house. It looked like a frame-up to give the manager a divorce, but the injured wife countered with her right, which was a $50,000 balm suit against the wealthy heiress. Like hogs, sweeping compounds and soap the price on men seems to have advanced. How can a man’s affections be worth $50,000 when he has no affection?
---    At the coming village election the council should give the citizens the opportunity to vote on a sewage tax: it’s going to come some time and we should be getting something in the pot.
---    Baseball fans are appreciative of the fine handling of the World Series by KMHL of Marshall.
---    Had a letter last week from our seventeen year old grandson, Robt. B. III. He is in the air force at San Antonio, Texas. He wrote, “Last night Capt. Mark Fowser and his wife drove over. He had gotten me a pass and he and Mrs. Fowser drove in their Packard and picked me up and wined and dined me. Eating real civilian food, steak, french fries and cherry pie, boy was it good.” Sure enjoyed and appreciated the courtesy. It’s grand to know kindly, friendly people like Capt. Fowser and his good wife. The old man hereof also adds his thanks.
---    Was pleased to get a letter from Mrs. Ruth Swenson last week. She sent a clipping from the Seattle Times and as it refers to one of the oldest residents in this vicinity will give you the letter. “Our Seattle Times last week had a picture of Mrs. S. Barrows, who had just arrived by plane from Minnesota and being 93 and this her first trip, it interested me. Knowing your friendly interest in people, thought you might like to see it. We drove out to the address given as we wanted to see her, but Mrs. Barrows had left for Portland, where she will spend the winter with her daughter, so we did not get to see her. All of us are enjoying the west so much. We’ve had such a beautiful summer and now that autumn has come it feels more like spring. Flowers are blooming everywhere and the lawns are like green rugs. A special “Hello” to Mrs. Forrest and please give our greetings to all our friends in Lake Wilson and vicinity. We would be happy to see any and all of you out here. Sincerely, Mrs. Ruth Swenson, 6529 43rd Ave. N.E., Seattle, 5, Washington.” It was real nice of you to send her picture and we will send it to her daughter Mildred.
---    The death list from Korea in the last week makes one shudder. Seems so foolish to waste the lives of so many young Americans when the cupboard is full of atomic bombs.
---    Parcel post rates have gone up 25 per cent in the last week. Can’t understand how the old time merchant ever overlooked this weapon against the mail order houses in the early days. Back in the early nineties and late ‘80’s it was a cardinal sin to send to “Monkey Ward” or “Sears.” The mail order house was ruining our small village, which would at last cease to exist. The folks were so scared of the business men that they would almost shiver every time they sent to the mail order houses. When a package came, the man would look over at the postmaster and say, “leave it there.” He wanted to get it home so no one would see it. Some men when they had a package would say, “That darned woman of mine is always sending for something. She’ll know better some day.” In some sections the feeling was so bitter that the other business men would have a celebration and they would pay $1.00 for every catalog brought in. Funny they never thought of getting the parcel post rates raised.
---    Had a tingle in our blood last Thursday when Bobby Thomson, only Scottish player in the big leagues, pushed the Giants back into the limelight with a home run when everything was black. He was the last hope and came through. The Roamer was born thirty miles from where the other Bobbie was born.
---    See where an angry woman seasoned her husband well with roach powder. Hailed before a justice she was fined the trifling sum of $10, for trying to poison her lord and master. She got mad because her husband’s shirt was smeared with lipstick that wasn’t hers: she ought to be glad she has a man that has halitosis.
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October 18, 1951

  Some of the folks were calling the fine weather last week “Indian Summer” days. In the early days we often had four or five days that were still and balmy. There was always a slight haze and the air was sometimes filled with floating web-like particles of the wild cotton weeds. These days were not always looked on with favor as they were often used by the Indians to make their raids on the settlements: hence the name “Indian Summer.”
---    The Stassen dynasty in Minnesota came to an end last week when hundreds of leading editors and citizens sent telegrams to Senator Taft asking him to file for president. Minnesota will have no favorite son at the next national republican convention.
---    See where a merchant in Storden is advertising to give away free twenty-five dollars worth of groceries on Saturday. Looks like a lottery but it isn’t, as you don’t have to buy anything to get your name put in the hat: that’s one method for small town merchants to try and hold Saturday afternoon business.
---    Cutest drunk story for some time. Two men were leaving or being thrown out of a Palace of Sin. Both had evidently been more than gazing on the wine when it was red. One of them had taken more than his share and his companion leaned him up against a parking meter, put a nickel in the meter and staggered down the street.
---    Time, the big national weekly news magazine, was big enough to admit it was wrong when it said that crooked Chinese raised money orders to $1,000. Time said last week, “Kiting was done on Treasury checks, not on money orders.”
---    Prominent indoor and outdoor pastime is to discuss and recuss the federal government for its showing in dealing with the law violators. We in Minnesota have but little to criticize. Serious charges were made against our prison at St. Cloud over a month ago. More investigation committees than you can shake a stick at went to work, but as far as the people are concerned they might have been working behind the Iron Curtain.
---    See where an Ohio man killed his wife with a steak knife: there has not been much use for it of late, so probably he figured he could get some good out of it.
---    Some farmers are complaining about the handling of the beef situation. There’s too big a spread between what they get and what the consumer pays. When the OPS took over, it shoved in a lot of green hands to do the beef grading, pushing out men who had been grading beeves for years, and the outcome has not been satisfactory: it’s a mess like everything else. You can’t put a round peg in a square hole.
---    “So What” of the Pioneer Press has a new Canasta champion. This guy claims a total of 6,025 points and “So What” queries can you beat it? Probably could with two pencils.
---    The new income tax is going to take an awful bite, come this January. You just can’t laugh off an additional 11 per cent. In addition, there will be a general increase along the line on autos, booze, electrical devices, cigarettes and cigars. In fact on almost everything that you’ve got to have. Two exceptions were made, one was to the distinguished state men from the south who chew tobacco and the other to the Norsks, Goths and Danes who live on snoose. Both these commodities so essential to human welfare were reduced. Gen. Sherman said war was “Hell.” What about taxes?
---    The Kensington Runestone, which some folks say is proof that Eric the Red was the man who discovered America, is in the limelight. Business and professional men of Alexandria are fighting among themselves as to who owns the darn thing. This stone, that Ed. Engebretson sets so much store by, gets fishier and fishier as the years go by. Bet the poor Norsk that carried the five pound hammer, the twenty pound anvil and a bunch of chisels in his hip pocket all the way from Hudson Bay to Kensington in Pope county wishes he’d left the hardware in Stavanger.
---    Folks often ask what is the difference between a pioneer and an early settler. In our humble opinion, pioneers came to Murray county before there was a railroad. The early settlers came after that time. We came here in 1883 and we do not consider ourselves pioneers. Of course, we saw a lot of hard times in the winter when the branch was blocked for months at a time, but we did not suffer like the pioneers in their sod shanties and log houses. Another thing, there were hard coal stoves when we came, and hard coal stoves and pioneering are incongruous.
---    Did you know: --that moles are doing a lot of damage in the fields and that George Sc..ing [?] wants the government to send an experienced trapper out here. George, by the way, was the champion flax raiser this year, getting 15 bushels. ..that Charley Aspeline has just bought his fiftieth hunting license: he used to hunt prairie chickens and ducks for the market...that Mrs. Howard Ottilie is the most versatile gardener in town: had every vegetable from broccoli, chives, celery, cauliflower down to beets.
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October 25, 1951

  Congratulations to Governor Anderson for his abrupt opening of St. Cloud and Stillwater prisons to the newspaper men and photographers. Go a little further, C. Elmer Anderson, and have the many investigating committees start making their reports: folks are beginning to believe they are cooking up a lot of whitewash.
---    Congress will adjourn soon and you’ll not know if Senator Joe McCarthy is fitten to be a member of that august body. No use denying the fact that Joe has done a lot of good for the country, but he goes hog wild at times, and some of his explorations into supposed Communism brings to mind the witch hunts of early New England, where innocent women were put to death.
---    Rain making, or rather the control of it, will come before several legislatures next year. There’s a lot of earnest discussion over this rain making experiment in several localities. It will be a ticklish proposition in some sections to decide when the majority of the farmers want rain, but most of us will agree the ability and the know-how to produce showers would have saved hundreds of lives and millions of acres of valuable timber in northern Minnesota.
---    A Gilbert, Minn. man shot his wife and killed her because she nagged him. Paw Corn Tassel said the other day, “If all nagging wives were shot, graveyards would have to put up a “Standing Room Only” sign.
---    More and more as the days go by you hear the query, “Why doesn’t the army use atomic bombs in Korea, why wait until a hundred thousand of our young men die in what appears to be a fruitless cause?”
---    Mr. Boyle, stage manager of the democrat party, made his exit last week. Now it’s up to Gabrielson of the republican to either get a purifying bath or hand in his resignation, the sooner the better.
---    The state of Minnesota lost $600,000 in northern Minnesota in an effort to find a method to utilize low grade ore. It just could not be done economically. If the state could invest that much money in the iron ore business, why not offer the same amount to the first man or company that would bring in a paying oil well in Minnesota.
---    The 11 per cent increase tax on spirituous liquors caused Pete Joehufuss who lives on Flatulent Ave. to remark, “Ed will soon be dispensing booze with an eye dropper.”
---    Writers about the pioneer days tell of the hard and heroic deeds of the pioneer women, but let’s not forget that the same spirit can be found in the women of 1951. Within the last month, noticed one Lake Wilson woman shoveling gravel and concrete into a concrete mixer and keeping up her end with a full-grown male, another woman in blue overalls was shoveling dirt around the cellar walls and throwing in as much dirt as her man, and then another woman up on a ladder painting her new home: the last two women each have four children, so you can see that the determination and spirit to own better homes did not die in the 1870’s.
---    Harold Stassen added another political scalp to his belt when the senate held up the nomination of Jessup to become a member of the UN. Harold was that main opposition to his appointment, and the action of the senate will not hamper Mr. Stassen’s ambitions.
---    See where a St. Paul man, allegedly belonging to some kind of a religious group, chastised two women members to erase their sins. He was so interested in his work that he did not know when to stop, and the woman died: maybe that’s where the old saying, “Beat the Hell out of Them” originated.
---    This is about the time of year when back in the early ‘80’s we were getting ready for winter. There were no basements in those days but most the farmers had outside root cellars. They had an outside entrance and there was a ladder that went down from the pantry into the cellar. Rutabagas were harvested about this time: the last of the vegetables. The cellar was full of potatoes, carrots, turnips, pumpkins, cabbage, onions, etc. There was a barrel of salt port and a half barrel of corned beef for the coming spring. There were no deep freezers, refrigerators or pressure cookers. when it looked like real winter had set in we killed two young beeves and a hog. The meat was cut into saltable chunks, a string run through each piece with a big needle and hung up on big spikes on the north side of the house where it remained until it was gone. When the spring thaw came early, there was hustling to get the meat cooked, and cold meat was on the menu for days. We went either to Currie or Pipestone with a load of wheat. Generally to Pipestone, although the Roamer liked Currie on account of the many ox teams out-spanned, waiting for their grist. We brought back flour, stored it in a bedroom upstairs and then there was the bran and shorts. Ice was hauled from a nearby lake or slough and piled north of the house to be used for washing purposes during the winter. The bard was piled full of hay. The coal was in the bin for the hard coal stove, whose heat was more mental than physical. Then we sat down and waited for winter. Some falls had clear cold sunshiny days until after New Year, but there were early winters when the snow came in October, and it was Good Night Irene until the next April. (As some of these items are set in type on Friday they are liable to be a little musty by Thursday.)
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November 1, 1951

  Both the legislature and the late governor will have to shoulder some of the blame for conditions at the St. Cloud prison. The place was not properly staffed. Had neither a resident doctor or trained nurse. The funds granted by the legislature were not enough to pay the guards a decent wage and the result was that the class of men needed for the work did not sign up. Of course there are abuses in the prison. A building filled with criminals must have some vicious ones and these always cause trouble, especially when confronted by officers who are often unfitted for the job. But now that it’s started let’s not have a whitewash. Let’s have all the dirt out in the open. If there’s enough dirt, someone might want to run for governor.
---    Skunks in North Dakota and Minnesota are causing a lot of damage and worry this fall. Many cases of rabies are being reported, and the word goes out to the hunters to shoot every four-footed skunk they see. In some towns in northern Minnesota, no dogs are allowed on the streets except they are muzzled.
---    Was a guest at the Cameron twp. Farm Bureau club last week. It is quite common for the town folks to say that the farmers are always grumbling about something, but we never heard any hard luck or bad luck stories. Had the opportunity to present the club with a copy of the birth certificate of the township. The township, 107-43, was surveyed back in 1866 and we happened to have a copy of the original survey report of the township, with notes.
---    Was in a local store the other day and counted over forty varieties of cookies. In the olden days we had “ginger snaps,” and that was all, with the exception of soda crackers. When they came out they were passed around the table as delicacies. This must be the cookie era.
---    What’s become of the woman who wore skirts to shield her ankles and big deep bonnet to cover the face, tightly tied on. Trying to kiss a woman when she was wearing a sun bonnet was almost an impossibility, but of some of the better informed told us that some young gals did not tie them on very tightly.
---    Been reading reports of football games in the neighboring papers of late, and we notice that some of the times only had about five players, at least that was all given in the account of the game. Few backs get very far without some help from the linemen, who take ninety per cent of the knocks with never a bit of glory. Baseball seems to be more democratic than football. In a baseball game every player gets his name in the line up and the errors they make stick out like a sore thumb.
---    Even if the conservatives did win in Great Britain, the going is pretty tough in that country. The war took everything they had and they have not been able to get back. Reminds us of Joe Louis, just trying to hold on by their finger tips, and it don’t look too good for them either. Their glory seems to be dimmed and tarnished.
---    Sixty-nine years ago, J.E. Wilson was looking over this vicinity with the intention of starting a town here. He was driving through the neighborhood, and he and Joe Bragdon stopped at the H.C. Stanley place south of town (where the electric substation is). Being near noon, Stanley invited the two men in to dinner. J.E. was a very devout Christian and was asked to give the blessing. After that was over the stewed mat was passed around and was enjoyed with relish. After they left, Joe asked, “Did you know what kind of meat you were eating?” J.E. said, “No, what was it?” Joe answered, “Stewed muskrat.” They drove along silently, deep in thought. Finally Mr. Wilson said, “And I said grace over muskrat.” All this came to mind when we read inside page 7 of the Pilot last week, in the article about the senate restaurant at Washington, D.C. Among the delicacies brought by congressmen was “Musk Rat” from Louisiana. Muskrats were often on the bill o’fare of the pioneers. The Skandinavians never seemed to fancy it, they ran to fish, but early American pioneers often partook of muskrat and coon.
---    C. Elmer Anderson seems to have clear sailing for the republican nomination for governor. Elmer is going to walk cautiously, carry a medium-sized stick and do his best to give the state clean honest and sincere service.
---    The city of St. Paul is trying to get the bus companies to improve their depot facilities. The present depot is a dark dismal looking sheep shed. If you take a bus on a winter morning you have to stand exposed to the weather. Spring time is just as bad when you have a new hat. We’re surprised that the Greyhound bus line, whose busses are neat and clean, service prompt and efficient, and whose drivers are courteous, could ever be a party to maintaining facilities that now exist in the capital of the state.
---    Mrs. E. Roosevelt arches her brows and sneers, “Will Mr. Taft accept the support of Senator McCarthy.” You should talk, Eleanor, when one remembers the support your late husband accepted. What a motley crew some of them were, and then Missus R. there was that youthful congress of young folks, bordering on the edges of socialism, that you sponsored at Washington, that you think has been forgotten: it’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
---    While the government is rounding up money-craving revenue officials in the east, what about those “patriotic” business men that assisted in defrauding the government. Isn’t it about time some of them get before a judge and jury?
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November 8, 1951

  When that canvasser comes for a little aid for the starving Koreans, turn your stony heart the other way and give what you can to the most worthy cause in the world today. The Korean people have been buffeted around in their homes leveled to the ground and hundreds of thousands carry their entire belongings on their backs. Ask any of the boys that have come back from Korea. the worst sight of all is the starving children. The Marshall plan is not going to reach them in time, so give whatever you can this needy cause.
---    The Korean war must be the most popular war in our history. In other wars there has always been an element that wanted to stop war, public meetings were held and prayers offered. Nowadays the only ones that are interested are those whose sons died, are missing or wounded. For them it is just as bitter a war as any we have had.
---    We’re not qualified to discuss the effects of television on sports, as to whether it will hurt the attendance or interest. We do know that fifteen years ago when the Mpls. Miller baseball games were broadcast, there was never a Miller game that was not discussed and argued over in most business places and homes that night. Nearly every baseball fan had their favorites and would see some games during the season. “On to Nicollet” trips were the order of the day for many towns during the season. Unless a “Willie Mays” comes along you never hear anyone say anything about the Millers.
---    Every once in a while a real sensible guy gets elected judge. Judge Kelly of Akron, Ohio dismissed a case recently against James S. Johnson. Jim had been real provoked about something and started cussing his wife. She had him arrested. The judge waved his hand and said, “That’s a man’s prerogative.” In case you wonder what that word means, the black book says, “Right, privilege, birthright.”
---    See where the folks of New England, N.D. voted to sell their light plant for $105,000 to the Montana-Dakota Utilities Co. We had a home-owned light plant here once, and the women folks could only iron on certain nights. Remember when men folks were out hunting for a “Peeping Tom.” They got him, but it was only the electric light plant man checking up on the number of irons being used.
---    The new national democrat chairman starts out with a blare of trumpets “That the method of selecting revenue collectors will be changed, and hereafter they will have to take a civil service examination.” Don’t make us laugh, Mac.
---    Hallowe’en passed us as peaceful as a summer brook. The kids were entertained royally by the community club and in return they kept their word or pledge by keeping hands off everything, at least up in our neighborhood. Thank you, boys. We both feel better.
---    The absence of young teachers in our schools puts a lot of folks to wondering what becomes of the young girls in this age. Well, for one thing there are 8,000 good looking lassies working in the beauty shops at the present time in Minnesota. Two generations ago, Minnesota women did not need as much fixing up as they do in 1951, and most of those who did go for prettying up were looked on with suspicion. By the way, one of the leading beauticians said the other day the profession could use 5,000 more young women in the shops. To use an old time-worn phrase, “Is all this beautifying absolutely necessary?”
---    Why spend so much money on beauty when personality and charm means so much more? Folks tell us that some women lose thousands of dollars a year on account of lack of personality.
---    That Minnesota-Iowa football game was surely the worst defeat the people have had for a long time: call a special session of the legislature, Elmer, and restrict a game of football to the first half.
---    See by the papers that Lake Shetek will be seined by the state this winter for rough fish. How come? Last spring we were told that all the fish had been winter killed. Where did this new mess of carp come from?
---    Biggest raise we’ve noted around here, and Mike DiSalle had nothing to do with it, was the one made by the First National Bank. This bank raised interest, no not to the borrower but to the depositors. The rates went up a hundred per cent last week.
---    The profits of the Tracy liquor store dropped $1,000 from a year ago. You can look for the same decline in a lot of other municipal liquor stores: money just ain’t as free as it was a year ago.
---    See where Gabrielson is telling the Democrats what an awful bunch of crooks they are. Boss, you just ain’t getting anywhere with that line of talk. Maybe the Dems are off color, but Gabe you just ain’t the one to do the telling. Brooms are pretty high, but the republican party can easily afford to get you a big one so you can sweep your own doorstep.
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November 15, 1951

  Quit worrying about the high price of eating. A nearby farmer is selling turkeys at 36 cents a pound. That’s his price on 20 lb. Toms. Smaller ones weighing between 9 and 15 pounds, 45 cents a pound. Everybody can have meat this Thanksgiving.
---    They’re a real polite bunch over in Great Britain when it comes to elections. One of the candidates at the election two weeks ago died the week before election. In this country it would have meant a wild scramble. Over there, the election in that district was postponed for two weeks.
---    You can ship a gallon of gasoline from Texas to New York cheaper than you can send a postal card.
---    An orchid to the ladies of the Lutheran church: they met last week, packed a box of home-made goodies and sent them to fourteen of our community lads who are in the armed forces overseas. These boxes were sent to every young man irrespective of his church affiliations. A fine gesture, ladies.
---    Truman had to turn down that meeting of the Big Four. The U.S. conference suit of clothes had only two pairs of pants: one pair vanished at Yalta and the other at Potsdam.
---    Hard to believe, but Japan is buying soy beans in this country: first thing you know, China will be sending over here for chop suey.
---    Members of the Methodist Church had a visitation period last week and groups of members paid visits to many homes in the village and community. The various committees felt well repaid for their time and efforts in urging people to attend a church of some denomination, if they could not feel clear to join their church. It was a worthwhile effort.
---    Congressman H. Carl Anderson made his report lasat week: a mighty good one, too. There may be a lot more brilliant orators in congress than Carl, but none of them beat him when it comes to giving service to his constituency.
---    To the mothers of the boys in the service. Won’t you please send the Pilot your son’s correct address. We want to print them next week so that the folks that know and remember them can send them Christmas greetings. Do it now, won’t you?
---    Been reading the testimony of a convict in the St. Cloud prison case, and one of the things that struck us as being peculiar is that two guards who allegedly murdered Sturdevant made Fogan cut up the underwear supposedly worn by Sturdevant and dispose of it. Would men who committed a murder be liable to let a prisoner know that they had done the deed?
---    After reading some of the local papers and the devilry by some kids on All Hallows Eve we feel that the Lake Wilson folks have a right to feel proud of their youngsters. In one nearby town it is reported that 40 kids were arrested and fined $4.00 each. Another little thing we have noticed: one of our hunters has had a bunch of pheasants hanging from a nail on the side of his house for over a week. In some towns this would not be permitted by certain elements. They could not resist the temptation.
---    Here’s another election angle. A regular republican said to us the other day, “I would like to see Taft get beat.” We asked, “Why?” He said, “This country is headed for its very worst depression. A pendulum goes just so high and then it has to come down. We’ve gone the highest of any country in the world and our drop will be the worst.”
---    See where they’re coing to make appliances worth without noise: might help if that same thing could be applied to humans.
---    Ike came and went and said nothing: acted as if the demand was great enough for him, he would consider the proposition. Some folks say maybe a military man is just what we need. Often wonder if the same conditions would be prevalent in the revenue collection dept. if he was president.
---    With due respect to our leaders, this disarmament proposition sounds like a bunch of hooey. We live in a country that war is the real breath of life at the present time.
---    Mighty glad the high school football team got the chance to see the Minn.-Ind. game: the boys deserved it.
---    The Sherburne grand jury brought in no indictments in the St. Cloud murder case in which several state officials and prison officials were on the verge of being hanged, according to Mrs. Iona Hunt, a woman politician. Ever since we read the testimony about the Sturdivant murder, the whole thing looked like a frame up and evidently the jury thought the same way. Of course here are conditions in the prison that should be changed and improved. There always is and always will be, where 1,100 criminals are kept.
---    There’s not much change in the corn situation. Corn, the worst of it, contains about 65% moisture and is bringing only about 50 cents, a third the price of the regular corn.
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November 22, 1951

  The Taft and Ike movements have stirred up politics in Minnesota. Even down in Murray county where interest is being shown in the coming representative election. Three names have been mentioned. Trig Knutson of Slayton, Dr. Suedkamp of Lake Wilson, and John Weber of Slayton. It’s a long time until the primary rolls around.
---    Do you ever read Virginia Safford’s column in the Mpls. Journal? It’s the eatinest column on the market today. Here’s a gal that has gnawed her way through America, South America and Europe, and from her drooling descriptions of the meals she has eaten one would think that by this time she was fitten for the circus side show, but somehow or other she still has that plumpish girlish figure. Some of the meals with her appetizing description makes one fairly pant. In her col. last week, just back from a trip to Paris, this gourmet wrote: “It took some years for the French to get back to bread making, now there’s nothing like it,” “The French can cook chicken better than anyone,” “I never tasted better frog legs,” “Who wants eggs as long as they can get omelets such as the French turn out,” etc. Cedric Adams said the other day that Virginia was going to get married: if she does, it will be to a French cook.
---    When the angel of mercy starts out with her basket of orchids she must nod to the town of Westbrook. We’ve lived in this section of Minnesota for nigh onto seventy years and never have we seen the community spirit exemplified as it has been in that little town. When the hospital project was started in that town, a Women’s Auxiliary was started and from that day the hospital has been first in the minds of 450 women who live in the Westbrook vicinity. We’ve read weekly of the amount of sewing done, the jams and jellies, the canned vegetables, bread, cookies and biscuits. The sales and the shows these women put on to put funds in their treasury, and it has been the finest effort we’ve seen in the history of southwestern Minnesota. At their annual meeting last week there was $2,600 in the treasury, and a motion was made that they pay the entire cost of the sterilizer, buy six bed screens and give $1,000 to the hospital fund. The Saga of Westbrook Women should be printed as an example of the American community spirit that still lives.
---    Las week dailies had the story of how 400 Scot soldiers held off 7,000 Chinese in Korea. Don Week of Slayton read it and did not believe it, until he saw where the Scots had been throwing “empty” beer bottles when their ammunition gave out.
---    Either Armistice Day should be a holiday or not. At the present time most of the towns are open that day. We notice that an Armistice Day dance was held on Sunday, Nov. 11th. Is this in keeping with the spirit that prompted Armistice Day? Are we living in an age that “doesn’t give a d___” for anything but pleasure and money.
---    Six thousand GI’s are asking permission to bring back Japanese wives. Men are getting scarcer, girls, and you should organize to stop this invasion of your rights. If a congressman can stop importation of Danish butter, he should be able to put Japanese brides in the tariff regulations.
---    Minneapolis is afraid that the racketeers will get hold of the streetcar system. Why? If the racketeers run the systems as well as they do their rackets, there would be an improvement in transportation in the twin cities.
---    The Lake Wilson folks as usual came through on the Korean drive. The study club ladies did a fine job.
---    The editorial columns of the Minneapolis Journal are trying to find out where the “gremlins” are in the Hennepin county tax system. Last Saturday it quoted the following paragraph from a letter from the county auditor. “Mr. Fitzsimmons the county auditor suggests a county assessor which would bring improvement over the present system, whereby each local assessor works pretty much in an independent role.” In the rural districts assessors do not work in an independent role. Rural assessors appraise and list taxable property, and these lists presented either to the village councils or township boards for review, after each taxpayer has been notified either through the papers or posted notices. These boards carefully scan these lists and make necessary changes. From there the lists go to the county auditor and for final review to the county commissioners. The most important part in assessment is the part taken by councils or town boards. These men know local conditions and are in a position to notice any unreasonable listing of property. The writer has been assessor here for a number of years and every council has made a careful scrutiny of the listing sheets. Besides presenting the listing sheets, it has been the custom of the assessor to prepare a list of comparative values of real estate, buildings, merchandise, etc., starting with the highest in the list. It is a difficult job for a council or board to scan two or three hundred listing sheets and keep each figure in mind. With the systems here the members can see at a glance the needed information. An improvement would be a file of real estate assessments with the village clerk. It would save many arguments and unnecessary trips to the county seat. There is nothing mysterious about assessing, and the taxpayer should have full and free access to all information. Murray county has a county assessor and like every new official, it will take time to show a lot of improvement. But he is steadily getting cooperation from the assessors and the public.
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November 29, 1951

  The potato support was taken off last spring. This fall potatoes are selling at a higher price than they were a year ago. Why support prices?
---    See where six WACs in Kentucky beat the liver out of a sister-in-arms last week, because she testified in a court martial in which the six were interested. Naturally they will get KP jobs, but what about the poor innocent young men near there. These brazen hussies should be compelled to wear badges saying “Beware.” Time was when women were called clinging vines.
---    The addresses of all the service men that we have been able to secure appear in this Pilot. You must have a relative or friend among them, why not send each of them a card. It means so little to you and so much to them. And when you send the card write a little line or two on the blank space on the card: in Christmas cards as in everything else, it’s the personal touch that lasts long after the beauty of the card is gone.
---    Time was when everyone wore cloth arctics come winter. Gals wore six buckle ones, and the gallant young swains when the party was over knelt down before the young ladies and helped them with the six buckles.
---    When you see a man driving downtown and his wife in the back seat, don’t get the idea that they just had another spat. Remember that seven deaths out of ten in every auto accident come to the one that sits next to the driver. The time will come when safety belts will be standard equipment on a lot of cars.
---    The Hormel company of Austin is a fast growing concern. See where an independent California packing company packed 400,000 cases of various canned foods for the Hormel company last year.
---    Why is it that brown sugar costs more than white sugar? It never was in the olden days. Any of you remember when you were kids how good a slice of buttered bread tasted when it was covered with brown sugar: better than cake and more plentiful.
---    More infectious deaths come from tuberculosis than any other disease, about 40,000 last year. A little attention at the start of the disease would have saved most of these lives.
---    The next time you hit your thumb with the hammer or someone steps on that favorite corn of your, and you have an impelling urge to say something real mean, say “Grand Coulee” real loud: that’s the biggest dam in the world.
---    Lake Benton citizens are trying to lure one or two doctors to the village by building a $25,000 clinic. They have already raised $16,000. Wish them success, but to small towns from 500 population down the probability of securing a doctor is very remote. In the old days it would have taken a half hour to hitch up the team and drive a mile to town. Now we can get to a hospital in fifteen minutes.
---    We wail much over the racketeers in the big cities, have congressional investigations, etc.: overlooking the fact that the universities and colleges are really seared with athletic corruption in some form or another. Ethics are thrown to the wind and prices paid for promising players, some of whom get in by faked examinations and some who still continue to play for the team with faked examination papers. The whole thing needs a cleaning up, and it should be done by the educational authorities that have charge of the moulding of our youth into clean alert honest citizens. Conditions have become so bad that some colleges with a soul and without a huge stadium have banned football altogether. The “Amateur” athletic slogan is to win, no matter what it costs.
---    Poor Jim Thorpe, the Indian, was deprived of all the Olympic trophies he won because he played baseball one year for $5 a game. Poor Jim, he just got through making a movie for the ghouls of Hollywood, and last week had to enter a charity hospital for an operation for cancer, while the jackals were reaping in the money on his picture.
---    The best news story of the year came from Korea Monday. Many a mother breathed a sigh of relief.
---    Now they’re teaching square dancing in schools: when we were lads, one of the best sellers was “From the Ball Room to Hell.”
---    Cameron twp. won more laurels in 4H circles when Joe Burreau succeeded Harvey Horn, another Cameron twp. member, as president of the Murray county 4H club. Gene DeGreselles, another Cameron lad, was placed on the executive board. Mighty proud of you youngsters. The Roamer lived on a farm in Cameron, coming there back in 1883. It was our first home in America.
---    See where Truman wants Taft election contributions examined. He says that big business poured in millions. First thing you know, Harry, they’ll want to know how much money tax-exempt men (friends of the eastern revenue men) contributed to your fund. Can the waters get any muddier?
---    Ed. Engebretson sends us a clipping from a Detroit paper, which tells that haircuts are going to be $1.75. The dig was that a Scotch woman, thrifty no doubt, is teaching mothers the hair cutting business. What difference would it make to Ed? With that bunch of fuzz on top of his head he could go six months longer and make money thereby.
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December 6, 1951

  “People Are Funny” is the title of a radio program. It is also true in every day life. Over in Tyler in the village election, polls closed at 5 p.m., at Currie they closed at 6 p.m., at Lake Wilson they closed at 7 p.m. The funny part of the whole thing is that in school elections in the three towns, the polls are open for one hour. Ten times as much tax money is involved in school elections as there is in village elections, yet the polls are open only between 8 and 9 p.m. “People Are Funny.”
---    The odor that emanates from mink coats in Washington, D.C. is worse than that of a skunk on the western prairies.
---    Congratulations to President Truman for his curt dismissal of 51 men who have been traitors to their country. Better late than never, but keep up the good work.
---    One of the most important measures up for consideration in Minnesota is amendment No. 5 which will come before the voters next fall. This measure provides for a change in the division of funds received by the highway dept. from the auto licenses, gasoline tax and federal aid. The total last year was $54,000,000. If the amendment carries, all funds received by the highway department will be apportioned as follows. Sixty-five per cent to the highway department, 25 per cent to the county and township roads and 10 per cent to the villages and cities. The rural districts are sorely in need of aid. Graveling and maintaining county roads in Murray county costs over $200 a mile each year. The auto, bus and truck bring added expense to the township and county, [missing text] kept free of snow and snow removal is a real problem. Amendment No. 5 will carry in ‘52 if you vote. Remember if you don’t vote on the amendment, you’ll vote against it.
---    Our guess is that Stassen will not be a candidate in ‘52. Harold came into Minnesota politics when the DFL was at its lowest ebb. He built a wonderful machine. He made Joe Ball senator, Ed. Thye governor and senator, and when Youngdahl moved to Washington it removed the Stassen anchor and the machine has been gradually disintegrating. Stassen is now a citizen of Pennsylvania: even George III had a hard time holding his colonies.
---    What became of the federal investigation into the sale of drugs at the St. Cloud prison? Right now is the time to get all the washing done.
---    Taxes on highways in Nebraska are getting so darned high that a movement has been started for toll roads. Toll roads six cars wide have proved both practical and popular in the eastern states, but we doubt if travel will be heavy enough in the western states that border the “plain” region in the central west.
---    People are apt to be carried away sometimes by startling developments. We lay a lot of stress these days on crooks in the revenue dept. at Washington, forgetting that they consist of only a tiny fraction of the men who serve in that department and who are giving their country splendid and faithful service. A rotten apple in a big barrel of good apples is not unusual, but it does not always spoil the whole barrel.
---    Some speculators with brains and inside information handled much needed steel between them without moving the steel, and became millionaires. When the cry to the country districts comes for scrap iron, the government should maintain county depots and buy direct from the farmers.
---    Senator Taft is quoted as saying he could “lick any democrat in the next election.” Poor way to campaign. Better put on your old clothes and meet the men and women of the small villages and rural districts.
---    Odd thing, isn’t it, Stassen’s first appointment went over and voted with the democrats on a crucial measure, and Youngdahl was taken to Washington by the democrats.
---    Had a note from Ann Fiest last week. She has charge of the bureau of rough fish in Minnesota. Ann said, “Lake Shetek does appear on our listing of waters to be fished by our crew stationed at Currie, but only for the purpose of a few test hauls. We intend to keep a close check on this lake and the only way is to keep making test hauls.” Ann is the only woman in the U.S. that has charge of a dept. of this sort, and she is doing a good job.
---    The high school basketball team came through in a squeak when the boys beat Beaver Creek by two points. Ruthton also had a narrow squeak, it lost its first game by 1 point.
---    Popular radio stations in this vicinity are WCCO and Worthington. At least that is what the pupils in the school said when asked, “Where do you want the news to be broadcast from in case of a storm?”
---    Cheer up! In two weeks the sun will start on its northwest journey.
---    The weather is still against the farmer. Last week the sun was so hot that corn began heating and on Sunday night rains started soaking the corn again: the value of the corn crop is decreasing each day.
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December 13, 1951

  An Ohio man left $70,000 to be given to “Christian Influences.” Ten clergymen were called by the judge to define the meaning of the word “Christian.” Like lawyers the preachers all disagreed. A man does not need to wear the badge, “Christian.” He lives it.
---    Was down to the Murray County Memorial hospital last week. What a busy place it was. Besides having thirty-eight patients, there were seven lusty youngsters getting their first touch of Minnesota weather. There’s an atmosphere about the hospital now, of cheerfulness, friendliness and cooperation among the executive heads, the doctors, the nurses and the rest of the help that bodes well for the future. Dreams do come true, sometimes.
---    See where a Scotsman by the name of Gregg got in the papers because he had six bagpipers play at his funeral. Nothing new about that. We can remember when the Lake Wilson Silver Cornet Band, V. H. Smead, leader, marched to the north end of Main St., met a funeral procession and marched at the head of it to the church on the south side of the track, and they played dirges and marches while they marched.
---    Looks like providence took a hand in the Cedric Adams mishap. That boy has no low gear, he’s always in high. The amount of energy he expends each week is enormous, and a week’s rest will be good for both the frame and the engine. So Cheer Up Cedric!
---    The constant fight, both oral and written, is having its effect on drunken driving. Fatal accidents in Minnesota in 1950 caused by drunken drivers amounted to thirty-six, while there were 126 deaths from speeding. There were only two more deaths by drunken drivers than there were from obscured windshields. Let’s keep up the work on drunken driving, and this year include dirty windshields.
---    If you have not sent that Christmas package, do it this week. The post office is as anxious as you to see that friend of yours gets his present. Get your Christmas cards all ready to go, then tie them up in a package and give them to the clerk. You can mail a sealed Christmas card in the village for one cent. On the route, unsealed for two cents, sealed three cents. If you want to be sure that pal of yours gets that card put a three cent stamp on it. If he or she does not get it, it will be returned to you.
---    Radio fans will be glad to know that they can get all the top radio stuff on CBS over Yankton, Sunday afternoon and evening. You can hear My Friend Irma, Miss Brooks, Jack Benny, Amos and Andy, Bergen and Chas. McCarthy, also “Gloomy Old Day Tomorrow” Whitey Larson.
---    Any tavern keeper or anyone else that harbors a punch board, no matter how small it may be, had better burn them, unless you get a U.S. gambling stamp, and when you get that they nab you for being a gambler. Remember it’s Uncle Sam, the man with the long whiskers, that you are monkeying with.
---    From what we hear, Amendment No. 5 will have clear sailing in this section. Two poor corn crops make that much assistance to roads very acceptable.
---    Here’s an item taken from the Tracy Headlight of forty years ago that should be real interesting reading to sports fans. “An exchange says there is as much loud talk and charge of fraud over a football game as there is over a prize fight, about the same amount of betting and more danger in the game. Still, the gridiron is a great moral uplift, while boxing is under the ban.” Looks as if there’s nothing new under the sun.
---    The city of St. James is calling off its winter carnival: beginning to feel the pinch.
---    See were a hired hand ran off with the farmer’s wife and six children: who can say that the spirit of heroism is dead.
---    The Hush Hush is still on at the radar plant south of Chandler, but we hear that contracts have been let for nine fine new residences, terraced, sidewalked, sewered and everything. A radar school is being conducted there. The USO puts on shows for the boys. It will be after midsummer before the plant is completed, and wise ones say the total cost will be close to $10,000,000.
---    Seven nurses in Tyler hospital went on a strike early last week: want a little more money. Don’t we all. Twenty years ago a strike among nurses would have been shocking to the nation. We live in a day where ethics fly out of the window.
---    Those gals and elders who think that they started something wearing slacks and breeches are way behind time. Two hundred years ago, Chippewa Indian squaws in Minnesota donned the trousers of their men when they went into sloughs seeking psincha roots. Fashion notes of that time do not disclose whether the shirt was worn inside or outside.
---    Here’s a $64 question. One state came into the union without first becoming a territory. What is its name? It is not included in the original thirteen.
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December 20, 1951

  Our mail service continues to get worse as the days go by. The galloping goose on the Great Northern that brings our mail into Pipestone just don’t function and gets in all the way from one to four hours late, so don’t cuss the mail man.
---    Dudley Ericson, the liquor enforcement man in Minnesota, is afraid that if whisky gets much higher it will start the boys to making moonshine again: heck, Dud, there ain’t enough good cawn in western Minnesota to make moonshine enough for a tolerable sized party.
---    Nearly every house has one or more extra size windows, picture windows they’re called by the bourgoisie (that’s the upper ten). They look nice with drapes, etc., but they are mighty expensive. In the summer time they keep your front room just a trifle hot and in the winter time these fashionable windows are expensive. Window glass is three times harder to heat than plastered surfaces. It will pay you to pull the shades down on a cold day, if you want to save on heating expense: but who wants to save money in these hectic times, and what would the neighbors say if we pulled our window curtains clear to the bottom.
---    Boy, doesn’t time bring some changes. Saw some lutefisk in a deep freezer the other day, all dressed up in a fancy carton, trimmed in blue and cut all ready to cook. Our mind wandered back to the early days when Engebretson and Strome Bruner & Young had the dried lutefisk tied in bunches with wire, hard as flint, stacked up in front of their stores, for people to sniff and dogs ... look at. It’s really wonderful what man can do.
---   Why all this pother about who’s going to run for president. If Stassen runs he’ll probably get the Minnesota votes on the first ballot, after that they’ll swing to Taft. If Truman runs, he’ll get the DFL votes. If he doesn’t run, the man he’ll pick will get them, and if Ike runs on an independent ticket he’ll get more votes than either of the old party favorites.
---   President Truman made two mistakes that he is vainly trying to live down. He called the RFC investigation “asinine” and the Communist investigation a “red herring.” These statements only encouraged the vultures and now he’s reaping the whirlwind.
---   Heine Nett, a local boy, is certainly making good as a coach in the local high school. His football team never lost a game, and up to date they have not lost a basketball game: of course we will have to admit that he has got a mighty fine bunch of boys to work with.
---   A high school girl asked us, “What is a psincha?” The psincha is the root of an aquatic plant that grows in sloughs. Indians lived mostly on meat and fish, and they varied their diet by using the roots, not only of aquatic plants, but with such vegetables as the wild turnip and wild rice. The psincha root sometimes was hard to get as it did not rise to the surface as the psincha did. The squaws had to break the psincha root loose and then lift it to the surface with their toes, hence the wearing of pants.
---   The mink is going to cause as much trouble for the Truman administration as the muskrat did to the Ted Christenson administration in Minnesota years ago. The DFL harped on that continually, and while Ted had never issued a license to the Ten Thousand Lakes outfit he went down to defeat.
---   President Truman should do no part time job in cleaning house. Get the best men obtainable, whether they are democrats, republicans or prohibitionists. Of course it is impossible to uncover all the graft in one operation, but the revenue department seems to be where the biggest money is.
---   One government employee down south sent in his resignation. Was asked the reason for resigning, answered, “They’re getting too close to my price.”
---   For years and years women fought to get on the jury. Down in Iowa last year a woman was “drawn” on the jury. She refused to serve. Her husband and her attorney both urged her to serve, she said she had two boys to take care of. Judge said it’s six months in jail if you don’t. She appealed the case to the supreme court. A timid female-ridden old bunch of judges set aside the six months’ sentence, adding, “The judge did not give the lady time enough to make up her mind.” One old guy said, “It don’t take my old woman that long to make up her mind, when she wants to say something on the negative side.”
---   The New Testament spoke truly in one line that applies to conditions today: “The love of money is the root of all evil.”
---   The internal revenue scandals bumped McCarthy from the first pages of the dailies, but he certainly bounced back last week when the State department Servire was fired. This is really the biggest political scalp Mac has on his belt.
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December 27, 1951

  Another Christmas has come and gone, and our memories go back to the first Christmas in western Murray county. There were no evergreen trees with tinsel and candles, no gaudily painted banners heralded the coming of Christ, and there was no ringing of church bells. The settlers met at the home of a neighbor. It was a plain home with hand made furniture and walls of sod. Yet some of the neighbors walked four miles over the snow to do honor to their Saviour. Those early settlers sang the hymns and the songs of their homeland, told of its romance and traditions, then dropped to their knees on this Holy Christmas night to offer prayers to Him. A meager lunch was served. Then over the snowdrifts back to their modest homes, their faith renewed in Him and in their adopted land. Today we look at our Christmas with its colorful commercial atmosphere and wonder if the early pioneers did not sense the true meaning of Christmas more than we, with our culture, education, and boasted civilization.
---   What South Dakota needs are county boards that will look after the farmers in those counties that have those “harrowing” experiences each winter, that will see to it that they have sufficient feed on hand for their stock and food for the humans. In the early days we would go to Currie to “mill” and bring enough flour kill a critter or two, get enough groceries for three or four weeks, fill the barns full of hay: we had to, there was no army or planes to aid and succor us. The settlers knew what to expect and were prepared for it.
---   When you are getting close to the octogenarian line you seldom get up in the morning but what there is an ache here and a pain there. Your bones get harder to manipulate, your nerves just a little more fluttery. You go down town and it kind of irks you when they say, “Gosh, you look good,” “You don’t look a day over sixty,” etc. While that irks a little we can stand it better than when folks say, “Say, you look sick this morning,” “Have you been in bed?” “You’re losing weight,” etc. That’s what gets old folks down. After all, better lie to old folks about how well they look, never tell them that they are fading (even if they do know it).
---   An Ottertail man kicked his pregnant wife to death, received his sentence last week, seven years in the penitentiary: human life is the only thing that seems to have gone down in value.
---   We may be having a touch of winter here, but it could be a lot worse. At Watertown, N.Y. they had four feet of snow in one day, and at Embarass, Alberta, Canada it was really cold, the thermometer registered 54 below zero.
---   The village council of Wilmont is death against snow. It passed an ordinance recently which provides that all snow must be removed from the sidewalks within 12 hours, after the snow storm is over. The fine goes as high as a hundred bucks. If you don’t keep the walks clean the village will, and it will charged up against the lot. Just wonder if they will go through with it: time will tell.
---   See where a wife had her husband arrested because he spanked her with a skillet or frying pan. He was chided by the judge and set free. It could not have been a skillet he used, that’s real heavy, and an application of a skillet in a spanking operation would mean that the little lady would have to eat her meals standing up. But it should bring results.
---   Wonder how much per cent of Christ was in the Christmas of 1951.
---   Lakefield business men and citizens subscribed over $1700 to be used for Christmas decorations and treats for the kids. With that amount of money Lakefield must be a joy to behold.
---   Cheer up, the days are getting longer.
---   A Happy New Year to all the folks that read this column. An extra one goes to the farmers for a good corn crop next year.
---   The mail service is the worst ever. Four hours late last week, a record. Of course we must remember that some families receive more letters and cards at Christmas than they do in an entire year.
---   If you love good music, you should have listened to WCCO at 11:30 last week. Every Minneapolis institution that had a choral chorus strutted their stuff before the mike. These concerts were worth while. We listed to several of them and our wee bit of blue ribbon goes to the choral organization of the Pillsbury Mills. What a wonderful bunch of well trained singers they were. There was no fluttering soprano trying to each Excelsior, and no tenor singing through his nasal chords to shatter the atmosphere. Just a grand bunch of voices working in harmony and one could just feel the spirit of cooperation. They sang the old hymns and old songs, simple airs, but they had that depth of tonal effect and lift that belongs to Christmas.
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