1952 Columns, January - June
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Roaming in the Gloaming

With Bob Forrest

Things Material and Immaterial

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January 3, 1952
  We hear about rabies in dogs and skunks, yet there has not been a death in Minnesota from rabies in the last 14 years. That does not mean that you should not see a doctor if you get bitten by either a dog or skunk. Symptoms do not develop until after three weeks after you’re bitten. Then it’s too late! ---   Mrs. John Riley of Los Angeles, Calif. was caught being embraced by her neighbor, Sasselli. Her husband started a suit for $23,570 for damages, etc. The OPA seems to have raised the price on affections. Most men don’t realize what a potential amount of wealth they have in their home. At these prices every able-bodied bachelor should be hunting himself a woman. ---   Didn’t we get all het up over the four American fliers in Hungary? They were in no immediate danger. We would have done the same thing if four Russian fliers had been nosing around Detroit or any other large city. ‘Twould have been better to let the boys stay in jail for three months, and when they got out give them $30,000 each: bet both the boys and their families would have voted for that. ---   In spite of icy pavements blocked with snow, the journals came through on time Monday night. Thanks to the driver and more thanks to the paper boys who waded through two feet of snow to get them delivered. It certainly was appreciated. ---   An automobile in a closed garage throws off 4 per cent fumes in three minutes. That can be fatal. Keep that garage door open when you’re in it and the engine is running. ---   See where a woman refused to speak to her man for 222 days. Instead of giving her a gold medal, the poor sap divorced her: some men never know when they are well off. ---   Did you notice: from every part of the nation came offers of funds to help free the four airmen in Hungary. One hundred and nineteen homes were made fatherless by a mine explosion in Illinois. How many offers of funds and aid did you see in the papers for the miners’ families? Queer lot, ain’t we? ---   The $400,000 school bond election was defeated at Lynd last week. The vote was 265 against, 163 for. Bonds are not going to be as popular as they were: two crop failures in a row really hurt. ---   Stassen threw in his hat last week. Could be that he will get the votes of Minnesota, but we wonder how many of his backers really expect he’ll make the grade. Perfectly capable and efficient, but we’re a long ways from the center of population. Some of his friends say that he will take the job of vice president, others say secy. of state: best job in Washington, D.C. appears to be head man in the RFC. ---   In this issue of the Pilot is the second of a series of messages from the First National Bank. This series will continue for several months, and they are for the purpose of getting the bank and the territory in closer cooperation. As the series unfolds, you will gain a lot of information relative to banks and how closely they are knit to the community. ---   See where there is a new drug that will stop nervousness. Something that has been needed for years. We are a nervous, excitable lot: one preacher said that folks are so nervous nowadays that he never sees a listener go to sleep during his sermons. ---   Years ago “Paul Light” started a column, “So What,” in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. It was devoted almost entirely to St. Paul and was a homey kind of a column that folks liked. Paul died last year, but his column “So What” still comes each morning in the Press: a finer monument to Paul than a shaft of granite 100 feet high. One of Paul’s pet projects was the crippled children at the Gillette hospital at Yule; his column seldom went less than the $5,000 mark. We were pleased to see among the donors to Paul’s project, the Union Ladies Aid Society of Lake Wilson. ---   Nineteen hundred and fifty one died last Monday night as it had lived. The weather was dark and gloomy, following the pattern of the entire year. This year will go down in history as the year without a summer or a ripening season. ---   Friends of Louis Kaplan will be glad to know that his is fighting his way back to health, but it’s going to take some time. Louie and Sylvia started business here in the battered old Bee Hive, soon moved to the north side of the track and started on the way to success. A little incident will give you an idea of the type of man he was. Getting ready for our annual Farmers Day celebration, Nels Christensen was doing his usual job of getting subscriptions. He came into the post office and we asked him how he was getting along. “O.K.,” he said, “All except Louie. He told me to put his name down for what was right.” Nels added if he’d signed the list himself, he’d have given more. Men start their way upward in a small village, too often to forget. Not Louie: every year since he left they have set their best greetings through a message in the Pilot to their friends of the days gone by. ==============================

January 10, 1952
  Listened to the tail end of a fight over the radio the other night, and it brought back memories of days gone by, when Lake Wilson was young and fights were as common as canasta is now. Fights would take place at dances, elections, gatherings, school meetings and sometimes in the Palace of Sin. Best fight we ever saw was between Al Lavelle and Joe Hoye. Al was the village marshall. He was a stocky built Frenchman who did not know that fear was. Joe was the son of old Pete Hoye, a civil war veteran. Long, lithe and sinewy was Joe, had a long reach and a strong heart. They were both very good friends. Joe had cut his hand on the edge of a whisky glass and Al was taking him to Joe Brekke’s restaurant (where the Ruppert restaurant is not) to get cleaned up. Something went wrong, it did not take much in those days, and what a beautiful fight it was, if you can ever call a fight “beautiful.” Joe was whipping in his long lefts into Al’s face. Al kept boring in all the time. There was no kicking, no biting, no clinching. They just stood up, gave and took it. The place became a shambles, tables and chairs were shunted around. Blood spattered the walls. We saw the fight from a corner, had on a tan colored overcoat and in a few minutes it was polka dot. Making a tremendous swing Joe slipped and fell, and Al got him down between two booths, but Joe would not give up, so Al thrust his fingers in Joe’s hair and started banging his head against the floor: Joe capitulated. Saw a lot of scraps in those days. Once the marshall was hit on the jaw and the man that hit him “drug” him across the street and threw him in the jail, and then there was the time...but that is another story. The Al-Joe fight was tops, and in keeping with the spirit of the times they were good friends afterward. Those early days were certainly free and easy. ---   There’s a little bit of sentiment in the Corbin Packard farm on the south end of the lake that still lingers in our memory. J.E. Wilson, the starter of the town, had sheds and barns there and herds of Herefords. When Wilson pulled out, Henry Uebersetzig, a grand old German, moved in and besides being the best sausage maker in the county he liked to sing. The Roamer worked there off and on in his teens and Henry taught us to sing German songs. Two of them, “Fischer in du Kline” and “Morgen Rode” still linger with us, and back in the late ‘80’s we used to sing them when we should have been pitching hay. Henry used to have a yoke of oxen when he lived in the west part of the township, but sold them. But he still liked cattle. He had a couple of fine red and white steers that he broke harness. No yoke, but a regular harness: collars, breeching and bridles, as we drove the team with lines. They never knew the meaning of the “Gee” or “Haw” or hear any harsh words, either from Henry or the Roamer. He used them for all kinds of farm work. We remember hauling a load of hay to Lake Wilson with them. Could be wrong, but we honestly believe that this was the last team of oxen in western Murray county. ---   We live in a fast moving age. It won’t be long before there will be no such thing as a passenger train. They will soon join the ox cart as a method of transportation. Busses and planes are pushing them out faster than you can imagine. Here’s an example: the Great Northern asked the railroad and warehouse commission last week, through the Spellacy Motor Cargo of Minneapolis, to transport express and less than carloads of freight along 730 miles of their road in Minnesota. One line that interests us is the permit from Askov through St. Cloud and Willmar to Jasper. Which means that the present passenger and mail service will eventually be discontinued. The day seems to be close at hand when all mail will be transported by truck. ---   What to do with the Indian school at Pipestone is a burning question now. The federal dept. wants it closed. It should have been turned into a school for agriculture under the Morris, Crookston and Grand Rapids plan long ago. There are no Indians in this county now, just Americans. ---   Heard a couple of guys discussing the goings on in Washington, D.C. and one of them blurted out, “They are not worse than they were under Harding.” No one, whatever the politics might be, could condone the Tea Pot Dome case. But let’s get things straight. Albert R. Fall was secretary of the interior in 1924. The Tea Pot Dome oil reserves in Wyoming were supposed to have been transferred to the navy. Fall, however, sold the reserves to the Sinclair Oil company and got $100,000. Officers caught up with Fall, got the money, and put Fall in the pen where remained until several months before he died, a busted, broken hearted man. Best of all is that the navy got the Tea Pot Dome oil reserves back in 1927. ---   President Truman wants to inject priority into the internal revenue dept. by putting all the officials under the civil service act. That’s pure unadulterated bunk, and everyone connected with government affairs knows it. If the president wants to get good business administrators he should ask the democratic national committee to select 25 men or women, and the republican national committee to select the same number. In that way you would get officials far above the general run of those selected or liked by local politicians. Putting any office into civil service does not mean a thing. When a postmastership or any other office is up that is under civil service, the sign may not be there but it reads, “Only Democrats Need Apply,” and the republicans used exactly the same thing when they were in power. Under the present civil service law the best qualified man does not always land the job, he is picked by the local committee, generally the fellow with the biggest heart gets the job. ==============================

January 17, 1952
   Was at St. Paul last week. Attended the annual state fair meeting, and the meeting of the Federation of County Fairs. There’s a lot of hard work about these meetings, far more than you realize. First of all, every county wants to have their fair either in August or in the first part of September, and to add to our troubles the state fair gets in there and hogs two weeks in the latter part of August, the days that are most sought after. There are so few amusement companies in the business and the scramble to get them is intense. ---   Murray county was forced, you can almost say, to take the days of 14, 15, 16 and 17 of August: ‘twas either that or go up earlier in the month or late September. When you realize that there are over 99 fairs in the state, you can see it is a job. ---   There will be a stronger show in front of the grandstand this coming August, and part of the program will be auto stock races: they are pretty popular. A horse race man--harness racers--wanted to supply the entire race with eight or ten horses and drivers for one afternoon. ---   Buying acts is also a real problem. There are sixty outfits there, every one has the best act in the business and they have mighty good salesmen. ---   In company with President Engebretson and Secretary Leebens we went up to the capitol and extended an invitation to Gov. Anderson to speak either on the 15th or 16th, and the governor kindly assented: by the way, Murray county was the first county to extend him an invitation. He may lack the forensic ability and gestures, stock in trade of many a politician, but he does impress you with being honest and sincere, and he leaves with you the impression that he is going to give the people of the state a clean and worthwhile administration. ---   Met young Valdimar Bjornson, the state treasurer, in the corridor. A fine outstanding lad he is, and of big league stuff. The Roamer has known the family for thirty years, it’s an outstanding one. Gunnar, his dad, was a leader for years, but it is from his mother that he gets that fine depth of character, the simplicity of ways and charm. Some folks are pushing him to be a candidate for governor. Hope he does not fall for it. There’s plenty of time for him, and lots of people would like and are going to vote for C. Elmer this fall. ---   Called on Mike Holm, never miss that. Mike and the Roamer came to Minnesota the same year (1883). He came from Sweden and we from Scotland. Mike settled up in Roseau county, became a barber, ran a country orchestra, elected judge of probate, started in county fair work, became president of the state fair, fact is he is the oldest member of that organization alive. Then Mike became a trustworthy servant of the state as secretary of state. Been a little sick of late, but just could not miss the state fair meeting. ---   Never go to the capitol except we visit Billy Williams. Back in 1905 when the capitol was occupied for the first time, the Roamer was a committee clerk in the lower house. Billy also started working there that winter. Billy went to the governor’s office and he has been there ever since, a sincere and trusted confidant of every governor. A remarkable record. Bill has done more to add to the stature of his race than Booker Washington. ---   Saw Jimmy Fabel. We worked together on the senate side six years ago. Jim is now secretary to Governor Anderson. ---   Took Ed. and Bill over to the Game and Fish Department where we toiled for two years, introduced them to Frank Blair, department head. They talked game and fish from the hunters’ and farmers’ viewpoint. It was twenty minutes well spent for all of them: heard Bill say while waiting for a car, “You know, that Blair is a keener and competent man than I ever thought he was.” Between meeting friends from many parts of the state, and our brief visit to the capitol, it was a sort of an old home week for the Roamer. But many of the old faces were missing. ---   Best news we heard up there is that the federal government is going to remove the 20% admission tax on county fairs. This tax has been an awful burden on some fairs, and many a fair will be in the black this fall. Last year the Murray county fair paid $869.33. ---   Of course there was plenty of politics. Delegates were there from every county. “Truman’s war” came in for a scorching and a lot wanted to know what we got out of the war. Most of them seemed to think we lost out. ---   The republicans also have their troubles, with Stassen--favorite son, Taft with a smooth running organization, and Ike, there is going to be some sparks a flying soon. MacArthur’s name was never mentioned. ---   The mink coat and the deep freezers are going to be heard of quite often as the campaign gets hotter. ---   The Tracy J.C.’s have a sure fire plan to get new members. The organization bought a goose. The name of each member was put in a hat. The first name pulled out was awarded the goose. It was his to hold, keep and nurture until he secured a new member. Then it goes to another guy. Where the goose is to be kept, the Herald did not state. But it’s a good idea. ==============================

January 24, 1952
The Story of Two Stalled Trains
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  The stalling of a railroad train in the snow at Donner’s Pass in California last week and the “tragic” stories in radios and in the press brought back to the minds of students of western history another train, the Donner wagon train, that was stranded in the snow close by where the luxury train remained for three days. The Donner wagon train like many others at that period was headed towards the west. These immigrants were looking for new homes in the west. The Donners lived at Springfield, Illinois and started west in three big covered wagons in 1846, drawn by oxen. As they traveled west, naturally the train grew in size (we’ll have to condense this story as much as possible) until it reached the Sierras. This story is not written for its sheer brutality or bestiality but to try and bring to your mind the hardships and tragedy of winning the west. The Donner story is the most gruesome in the history of the United States. One that thousands of people have never heard of. If you have a weak stomach, just skip it. There were 82 people in the Donner wagon train when it was bogged down in one of the valleys of the Sierras, in from fifteen to twenty feet of snow. The snow was so deep that travel was impossible, the making of log houses could not be accomplished. Shelters were made of branches hastily thrown together. Provisions ran out, the oxen that were above the snow were killed first, then the mules, then the harness and then human flesh. Existence was beyond description. Excerpts from diaries, survivors and rescue parties read, “They crawled out on a mound, got a dead pine tree to burn. They cut strips from Dolan’s arms and legs and roasted them.” The next day they butchered the bodies of Dolan, Graves, Antonine and Lemuel Murphy and dried them before the fire. They went down to the Fosdicks to get some meat from their bodies. The got Jay’s heart and roasted that instead. Other excerpts tell about how the starving pioneers butchered two Indians, how human breasts and brains made good soup, how one rescue party found children in bed where they had lain for two weeks gnawing the arms of their dead parents. Another rescue party told of finding an iron kettle filled with pieces of meat from George Donner’s body. Some of the stronger members of the train were able to escape and did get rescue parties started from the valley. One out of Yerba Buena had human ghouls in its members. They robbed the dead and dying. In all, 37 persons either died or were butchered. What a bitter contrast to that of the luxury streamliner of last week, when helicopters, snow plows, and tractors worked feverishly to get the train out. There were 222 passengers on board the train--saved were 222. On the Donner wagon train of 82 people who rode into the valley of snow and death, 37 did not come back. Truly the winning of the Golden West took a tragic toll on brave and gallant pioneers. ---   What’s the matter with this country, have we all gone nuts? All the halos being cast at a seaman by the name of Carlsen is a travesty on good common horse sense. Did he stay there to save human lives or to save insurance? It couldn’t have been so awful bad or that Englishman would not have been able to stay with him. Bells are ringing, bands are playing and whistles blowing in New York today. What for? Because he tried to save property. What about those fine young Americans in the service who voluntarily threw themselves on bursting hand grenades to save their buddies. Where are their parades. No whistles blow for them, no ticker tape clogs the streets of New York, but they live forever in the hearts of their relatives and friends. Radios and daily newspapers play upon human nerves today as if we were violins or guitars, and they know what tune to play to get us excited. Don’t forget our own fishermen along the North Shore of Lake Superior. Those sturdy men go out into the lake for miles in small boats to set their nets. Should a sudden change in the wind hit them, and something goes wrong with the motor they are on their own. No tugs are standing by, not lifelines or belts. Waves on Lake Superior get mountainous at times. No bands are playing. “Finis” is often heard in the soft notes of the organ in one of the little churches in Grand Marias and Hovland. ---   You hear a lot these days about the depreciating dollar. This is not true of the dollars in the First National Bank here. They now draw 2 1/2 per cent interest: last year the rate was one per cent. ---   The republicans are certainly doing their best to lose the race even before it starts. That meeting in San Francisco last week was nothing but a smearing affair. Everyone did their best to outsmear the rest. That remark of Stassen’s that Eisenhower is “hiding behind a curtain of khaki” was rather undignified and may plague him in days to come. ---   See where the OPS is not going to raise the price of canned fried angle worms. This will be good news: to who. Worms bring back to the Roamer about the time we had in selling the product of the Minnesota State Angle Worm hatchery which was located at Lake Wilson. It brought nationwide publicity as well as a letter from a president that seldom smiled. We sent Cal Coolidge a can of our worms when he was vacationing in the Black Hills and right away he said he “did not choose to run for president,” would rather fish with Lake Wilson angle worms. Some day we might tell you the story and some of you will really get a bang out of it. ==============================

January 31, 1952
   There has never been a time when the gulf between youth and old age and between middle age and old age has been as wide as it is today. People that are aged have really no business to be alive this day and age. While medical men and scientists are lengthening the span of life, the government and business has decreed that you are dead at 65. That is the time your usefulness ends. You must quit the line of endeavor in which you worked for years and become a sort of a human box-elder bug. ---   You’ve heard that buffaloes lived on it the year round. Well, you can get buffalo grass from Oscar H. Will of Bismarck, N.D. It comes in tufts and is planted 5 to 12 inches apart. One season fills up the space between the tufts and the best thing about it is that it does not need to be mowed. All we need now is a snow that doesn’t need to be shoveled. ---   Politics are fermenting in Lincoln county. Brother Bill Neale of the Ivanhoe Times recently suggested the name of Bill Johnson, former editor of the Times, as a candidate for the legislature, hoping that the newspaper men would give him their support. Last week editor Seip of Tyler Herald said they were pretty well satisfied with Bill Holm. Both Bills are pretty good men and have done their share in the development of Lincoln county. ---   Speaking about watches. Time was when we had the Hamilton, South Bend, Elgin, Waltham and 95 other kinds of American watches. Today there are only three kinds of American watches manufactured: a benevolent tariff and a lack of loyalty of the American people has wiped out what was once one of the industries of which we were proud. ---   Lots of criticism over fishing through the ice. Some sportsmen say most of the big ones are snagged through the winter months. Why not have as long a season on game fish as there is on game birds and migratory waterfowl? ---   This man Kefauver would get a lot of votes for president if there was a nationwide primary. In the minds of a lot of folks he’s the guy that started all the disclosures in Washington. ---   Here’s one real change in the last fifty years that is worthy of your thought. A lady at Cedric Adams’ dinner party the other night, talking about family affairs, dinners, etc. said, “Our children are never at home for diner any more: one of them has to practice basketball, another goes to a ski party and another has a date.” Years ago, meal time was the time when the family got together, and woe betide you if you happened to be tardy. It was the place where your childish lips learned to say grace and where the affairs of the day were discussed. All that has passed. If you have money you can buy grace, and perhaps ma wants to go to her club and pa has to go to lodge, so there’s really not much use of having dinner at home, anyway. Only one person at the table that night, a man, admitted that he believed in the family being at home during the dinner time. The rest discreetly kept still. We are living in a changing world. ---   How we blanch with horror sometimes when something happens that is atrocious in another country. Remember Lidice. What happened to it in World War II. The Heinies were only taking a page from American history and going us one better. Back in 1857 an immigrant train of 140 men, women and children was halted at Mountain Meadows, Utah. They were surrounded by Mormons painted as Indians. John D. Lee, a bishop of the Mormon church, promised the new settlers protection if they would surrender. They did and were disarmed. The Mormons then fell on them and brutally massacred every man, woman and child over seven, a total of 133. Seventeen tots were saved and distributed among Mormon families. John D. Lee was hanged twenty years afterwards for his part in the crime. This veneer of civilization runs just as thin in the new world as it did in the old. ---   Some folks still contended that the storm last Wednesday was a “blizzard.” There was a blizzard out in South Dakota, but the wind was blowing fifty and the thermometer down to 25 below. A blizzard must be accompanied by bitter cold, and zero weather in Minnesota is not even cold. ---   Of all the dumb acts in the world, the sending of $500,000 in federal funds to the big cattle men in South Dakota takes the cake. If it had been for a tornado or some unforeseen occurrence it would have been different, but to provide feed and shelter for cattle that these stock men through indifference and carelessness refused to provide seems silly. Better had they given that money to the farmers in this section that through neither carelessness nor indifference or lack of labor lost the two last crops of corn. ---   Back in Bonnie Scotland, the winter sport is curling. A game played with round stones and patterned after the old game of bowls on the greens. An old friend, Chas. Hart of Pipestone, last week sent us a picture of Winona Curling Club. Glad to get it. Last time we saw it was back in Stirling, Scotland, when old long-whiskered men were chasing the “stanes” with a besom (broom), stopping once in a while for a “wee doch and doris.” ==============================

February 7, 1952
   We are printing this little story so newcomers can read of the greatest catastrophe that has happened to Lake Wilson. The tragedy at Avoca last Tuesday night brought back memories of the fire in Lake Wilson forty-one years ago. Few towns sustained a blow of this type and survived. On the 11day of May, 1911, fire started at the rear of the McGuire Grier store (where the Johnsons store is now located) and spread rapidly. It was one of those hard driving winds of a dry spring, and there was no stopping the blaze, and before it had burned itself out 29 buildings were in ashes and with them box cars, the water tank, etc. The whole north side was practically wiped out. There was not a building left on the west side of Main Street. The big store across the track also went and boats at the lake were set on fire. Elevators, two big lumber yards, a funeral establishment and banks. In fact, everything but the two elevators in the west part of town. On the east side, the old hotel building was spared, but a small building just south of it started to smoke. In this building was the post office and in the rear was the Lake Wilson Pilot. We were busy like every other man in town carrying goods out of their buildings before the flames arrived. Mail was sacked up and type scattered over the prairie at the back. Women who were watching the fire were pressed into service by Dr. Simpson, the oculist who was here that day. He found enough pails and the women started a bucket brigade from the big horse watering trough near the council room. The heat from across the street was getting hotter and more and more women were pressed into service. Simpson put on a rain coat, and every once in a while came away from the building and the bucket outfit soused him, and between them they saved the little building. Gloom naturally settled over the community and the future looked black. Money was not plentiful. The spring that year was the driest in history and Lake Wilson hung in the balance. Nels Christensen was the first to start. His ice house had burned; the ice stood out in the sun so he covered that with flax straw and got some contractors here and put them to work. Then came N. O. Jensen, then the bank. The president of the bank was B. I. Weld of Slayton, who gave his aid in more ways than one, and while the members of the bank board were almost unanimously against it, Bert finally won them over to a 2 story building. Over on the south side of the track, Pete Engebretson had men and women carrying out shoes, dry goods, etc. and placing them on the school house grounds. Naturally there was intense excitement, everybody was carrying something out and leaving a store which in a short time went up. The records of Chanarambie township were lost. The Woodmen and Masons were put out of business. It was a dreadful day, the wind blowing a gale and the intense heat and smoke from the wooden buildings seemed to electrify the elements. Hard to believe by you folks who were not on earth at that time, but charred papers from the Porter Lumber Co. were found in a field near Westbrook. The Pipestone fire department came down, but the R.R. water tank had burned down and their hose would not reach the lake. Coming back was harder than you think today. It was uphill work and one of the things that has long been forgotten is the part the Pilot took in the rebuilding of the town. Looking back, it was the finest effort in the history of papers. It was really grand exhorting, encouraging and painting word pictures of the new town being born. Those business men had real pioneer spirit. They were builders. It was their home and they meant to stay and die here. The fire department, we remember that we were Chief at that time, had two bright shiny chemicals with good trimmings. We had a hard time saving them. Chemicals had no more effect that day than spitting against a heavy wind. ---   Back in 1884, the branch was blocked tight with snow: no trains for a month. Chas. Sargeant of Chanarambie township, a civil war veteran who “fit” with Sherman, started out with a hand sled for Heron Lake to get the letter mail for the towns along the branch. Charley walked over the drifts 44 miles and back with the letter pouch, leaving letters for the various towns along the branch. If he’d done that in this day and age there would have been movie cameras, radio commentators, “Weasles,” etc. Today he would have been a hero--with Charley it was all in a day’s work, but it did take four plugs of tobacco, he said. ---   Have you any idea what a billion means? We didn’t until last week when we got some idea. The president is asking for 84 billion. There is not enough tax money and we will have a deficit of 15 billion. You get some idea of a billion when you discover that 15 billion is more than the total amount paid in taxes in the 48 states for the support of all state, county, and village schools, and township governments. ==============================

February 14, 1952
   Scientists have invented a means of getting rain: they should go just a little farther and find means to stop those heavy snow falls. ---   Don Portman of the Currie Independent Pioneer does not see eye to eye with us on what a blizzard really is. All we know is from reading and experience. Dictionaries say: “Blizzard--A furious hurricane of wind with fine blinding snow and characterized by intense cold.” “A biting cold snow storm.” For experience, we were out over three hours in that fateful blizzard of January 12th, 1888. That one was the worst in history. We were on the way to Lake Wilson from the farm north of town when the blizzard struck. There was no warning. The prairies were covered with a lot of light snow. It struck as sudden as a thunder clap when we were a half mile from home. In a minute everything was a seething moving mass of snow. Tried to turn the horse around, but he would not face it, got off and tried to lead him but the snow weaved into the tracks and they were obliterated. Got on the horse again--or rather mare, Nelly was her name--and if it had not been for her there would have been no Roamer column. Down went Nelly and the Roamer, drifting with the wind and the seeping snow, to where we did not know, but the old mare kept plodding, sensing perhaps more than we did the danger we were in. How we crossed the creek (the upper Des Moines river) is just one of those things. We traveled in a room of snow, keeping our backs to the wind. Not a pleasant feeling. The fine snow drifting and getting into your face. Large globs of ice formed on your eyelids. The face covered with a shield of snow, but on we went, where to? About 4:30 we noticed a wire fence and we knew we were at the railroad track: that was the only fence between our farm and town. We managed to get on the road and how we ever slid the old mare down into the lake is just another thing you can’t explain. Hitting the lake bottom we struck less blinding snow on account of the grade. We made the Engebretson Store (the Bee Hive); dusk was falling then, and then we started to sweat. We stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Ivan Engebretson for the next two nights. By the way, the thermometer was 42 below the morning we took our ride. Yep, we have some idea what a blizzard is. ---   Pett, the young man who stabbed his foster mother 17 times, killing her, ended up his career Friday by getting a life term at Stillwater. Thanks be to a sane Minnesota jury and a Murray county born judge. ---   Dr. West, a vice president of the state republican organization, asks Lindquist, R & W warehouse commissioner, to resign from office because he was “hobnobbing” with the “rascals” on the other side. Hasn’t Doc West been in Minnesota long enough to know that we elect governors by name, not by party? ---   We’re never too old to learn. Concrete properly made with sharp washed sand lives forever and grows in strength each year. A new highway bridge will show a pressure of 28,000 pounds to the inch. Next year it will reach 30,000 pounds and continues to grow each year in strength. ---   Anent this new nationwide cleanup of crime by this New York attorney, reminds us of a hired girl we had that swept the dirt under the rug. ---   Two hundred thousand men are out of work and bread lines are being formed, all of which sounds strange in these days when every available plant is busy making war material and millions of men in service. What will be when peace is declared? Was down at the Memorial hospital at Slayton Friday. Administrator Joy took us into the office and showed us the books for the past month. They were in the black again to the tune of $1,500. But better than that, even, was the pleased and contented looks on some of the patients. We visited two old friends: known them half a century. The first was Mame Weber, one of the mainstays of Murray County Herald for years. She really beamed happiness and said: “Bob, there can be no finer place in America. It’s just grand here. Everyone gets splendid treatment, even the nurses radiate sunshine,” and Mame is not given to effusive talk. Also visited Mrs. John Lang of Chandler and it was the same story. Bright, clean, shiny rooms with kindly nurses add a lot to the contentment of the patients. We also visited Albert Amundson of Lake Wilson. Albert who has been an invalid for two years does not seem to improve much. ---   The above item was given to the Pilot last week, but did not arrive in time to get in the column. On Tuesday afternoon the Roamer was stricken with acute abdominal pain and taken to the Murray County Memorial Hospital in Slayton. An operation had been decided upon, but conditions were such as to deem it advisable to wait and see if it could be avoided. Since that time we have been living on air and are still in the hospital. We hope we may be able to get back in the column next week and also hope we will not have “my operation” to discuss. This is the first time I’ve been a patient in a hospital in 80 years and I want to thank my many friends for their kindness ant interest in my welfare. ==============================

February 21, 1952
   Now I Should Get A Chance   Sixty years ago we listened to women telling about their “operations.” It was the topic of the day. This time we would like to tell you of our experience. Won’t you listen? Two weeks ago, the Roamer was stricken with abdominal pain and was taken to the Murray County Memorial Hospital at Slayton. It was our first trip to the hospital for ourself in eighty years and naturally we were shy as to what was expected. We thought we’d be on a cot until somebody dragged us into some place, but the administrator, Mr. Joy, was there with a couple of nurses. They took us into a bedroom. The nurse started taking off our shoes, undressing me and the first thing I knew I was holding my pants with one finger and a thumb. She handed me something and said, “This is your nightgown.” I said, “No, that isn’t a nightgown, that’s only half a nightgown, there’s no back to it.” She said that’s the kind you have to wear if you’re going to be in here. So I bowed my head to the yoke and from then on I never questioned any orders. The doctors came and made a cursory examination. I was examined two or three times during the afternoon for the terrible and awful pain which I was experiencing still, and started my acquaintance with the red dragon. The red dragon is a rubber tube which you stick down through your nostrils into your stomach for a distance of about--well, I’ll tell you more about that later. Along towards night, another examination was taken of me and they were deciding whether to operate or not. My folks had already gone home. I could hear the doctors muttering above me something about my condition. My mind went back like a flash to a cartoon of forty years ago. The cartoon was that of a big, fat, corpulent woman on an operating table and one doctor saying to the other, “Shall we bore or blast?” Funny how those things come to your mind in time of stress. I was getting weaker and weaker, just about to the end of my ropes. They had taken X-Rays from feet to head, from the northeast corner to the southwest corner, and I was almost exhausted. I lay there almost frantic, when I felt the soft touch of a woman’s hand stroking my hand and stroking my forehead, and then came the thought of that old verse, “After all, it’s the touch of a hand that counts
The touch of your hand and mine
That means far more to the sinking heart
Than bread, water, or wine.
For shelter is gone when the day is over
And bread lasts for a day
But the friendly touch of your hand and mine
Lasts in my life all the way.”
I had one friend, John David Weber, in my corner. He was holding a sponge for me and I thought sure he was going to throw it in a couple of times but he didn’t, and finally the doctors decided to try and get along without an operation. I was taken back to my room, and after two days of precarious condition I began to steadily improve. I expect to be back in Lake Wilson by Sunday. I am giving you this of Friday afternoon. On Tuesday night when we got back to your room we were a weary, worn out old man. It is an awful quiet place, a hospital room at night, quieter than you ever had any idea of. There isn’t a sound and as you lie there and think, you get smaller and smaller. You seem to be in a great large space and all at once as you get smaller and the space gets larger, you feel that there is someone near you. Someone that is listening to you. Someone that is trying to help you. From your lips you hear the prayers that you learned at your mother’s knee back in Scotland and as you prayed louder, the words grew clearer, grew stronger, and they seemed to find some unison somewhere, and when you had finished your prayer, there was a sense of satisfaction and a feeling of joy that came out of you that you couldn’t understand or you couldn’t explain. Now boys, please don’t laugh at me for making this confession of prayer. No man should be ashamed of prayer. Some day you’re going to stand alone before the great white throne. You’re not going to have many friends there. All you money, all your power will not help you. You’re going to be on your own, and take a tip from an old man, you’d better have a speaking acquaintance with the powers that be before the last race is run. Now please don’t think that we are going to be a Billy Sunday or a Billy Graham, nor one of those revivalists. We are not, but we do believe that the experience that we have gone through since we have been here in the hospital has been richly worth all the time and money. Heard some complaints during the last months about the condition of the hospital. How it was coming apart at the seams, how there were holes in the floor. We asked the janitor, and the janitor said, “Yes, there was one place that not enough mortar and cement had been put in to put up the floor, but everything is O.K. now.” There used to be in the early days a lot of criticism over the shape of the present building. People went on record as for or against it. We were against the shape of the building. We thought perhaps a square upright structure would be cheaper, easier to maintain. But again we find out we were wrong. Don Week was the one who insisted on this type of building. We found out through experience in the hospital, and what we’re telling you about the hospital is through experience, that your bed is answered just as quickly here as if the hospital had been in three full floors. Sometimes, perhaps they are a little tardy, on the other hand you might need three of the nurses to straighten you up and get you fixed comfortable in bed. That is one reason why there is a delay and those things never can be avoided. I take credit for being the first one in Murray county to give you the real argument for the present type of hospital you have. That is the one story type. The first night I lay here, I was jittery. I heard a sound like a fire siren and my mind jumped back to two years ago to the horrors of the Illinois convent and hospital where fifty or sixty were burned to death. Then I looked out the window with a lot of contentment to realize that no fire could ever damage any patient that was at the Murray County Memorial Hospital. We are all on the ground floor. The windows open out and you could be removed immediately. The hospital got away to a poor start after the dedication. It seemed to fall apart and kept getting deeper and deeper into debt. A change was made several months ago and Mr. Joy placed in charge as administrator, and now the hospital instead of losing money for the tax people of Murray County is making money. In case we forget it, we suffered from “Paralysis of the Intestinal Tract.” By the way, we are the cleanest now we have been in 80 years. Even our toes sparkle like diamonds. Our thanks to everyone in the hospital. Especially to Mrs. Arlene Davis and Mrs. Lucile Lindsley. They did the main part in bringing this old derelict from the Slough of Despond to the Harbor of Better Health. Arlene is the wife of the Fulda basketball coach. This column comes to you this week by dictaphone, assisted by Marlene Larson, and the typing was done by Bette Jean Thompson, granddaughter of the late A. R. Johnson. ==============================

February 28, 1952
  (The Roamer is recuperating in the Murray County Memorial Hospital from an operation performed last Friday and was unable to get a column out for this edition. We hope to hear all about it next week.) ==============================

March 13, 1952
   We left the “Forrest Wing” of the Murray County Hospital on Monday, March 3, with a heart full of gratitude to the hospital itself, to Superintendent Joy and all the staff, and to Ewald Kerger, the janitor. They were all splendid to me. We got a little mixed up in our predictions two weeks ago as to when we were to be home. The day before we were to come home the doctors decided to comb us over with X-Ray machines and found out the source of the trouble, a tumor in the intestines, and there was only one thing to do--to get it out at once. No champion prize fighter nor any racing horse was ever so well prepared for the big event as we were by the doctors. They took everything inside of us out and fed us through the veins for five days. In fact, there wasn’t anything but the inside of us that belonged to us. Owing to the blizzard the surgeon’s arrival was delayed as his plane was grounded by bad flying weather. But we finally heard the drone of his plane on Friday morning and within half an hour we were on our way to the operating room. (Planned on giving a blow-by-blow account but was surprised, as when we opened our eyes we were back in our room again.) The operation took over two hours, but as far as we were concerned it only lasted a minute. Our special nurses Jane Donovan and Mrs. Vi Frerk did a fine job and we are now slowly regaining our strength due to the wonderful care by the doctors and prayers of our many kind friends. We returned to Lake Wilson Monday. That drive home was one of the grandest drives we can remember. After being away 30 days, part of it being in the twilight, Lake Wilson never looked nicer than it did that Monday morning when we hit the hill between here and Hadley. After all, “Be it ever so humble, there is no place like home.” The first get-well card we received at the hospital was from Herman Yeager, who is 86 years of age; the first valentine was from Penny Brummer, 7 years old. How can one help but get well when the old and young are pulling for you. After all, there is nothing in the world that can ever equal true friends. We have learned a lot these last weeks. We’ve learned this much: that the kindest thing you can do to your friend when he is sick or ill is to send him or her flowers. Flowers bring a message with them. They bring a message of love, tenderness, and one of hope. Even if they are half-way withered they never grow old. The first bouquet of flowers we got were wired here by he son of an old friend of ours that we had known and been associated in Slayton with for many years. They were placed in front of me. I gazed at those flowers: you’d be surprised that tears came to an old man’s eyes. Tears to think that he was living, tears to think that one petal, one little flower meant more to us that day than a ton of American Beauty roses would have meant tomorrow. These are just some of the things that you pick up when you pass through your experience in the hospitals, and to those that sent flowers many thanks. One of the nurses whose name was omitted in the story on nurses was Miss Kennard. She is a grand girl--her grandparents lived in Lake Wilson 60 years ago. She lives at Woodstock, as does her pal Miss Klosterman. They have a night shift at the hospital and drive home every night after midnight. They have made it home every night except four: plucky youngsters. The Roamer is glad to be able to sit up and write these lines. The road back is going to be long and it will be several weeks before we are able to be down town. Snapping back at eighty is a slow process. We’re like an old engine: we’ve lost our “pickup.” Heard Administrator Joy tell a man out in the hall one day that this hospital “had no favorites, and everybody was treated the same.” That’s pure bunk. Don’t you believe him. Every time we heard the wail of a newly born and there was a nurse in the room, her ear would come to alert and there was a new light in her eyes. Shortly a nurse would carry the newborn proudly down the hall, sometimes into my room. In the 30 days we can’t remember any nurses ever carrying us around, proudly or otherwise: our Civil Rights were trampled on. ---   Two months ago most folks had Truman on the ropes, and it looked like three more mink coats would knock him out. Conditions have changed: last week the paper brought alarming reports of shrinkage in prices on farm products throughout the middle west, followed by demands for higher parities by some farm organizations. This is playing into the hands of the old master politician. And it looks as if it would take more than mink coats to do the job. ---   You’d be surprised to know how many women are really in the newspaper business in Murray County. Over at Currie, Mrs. Don Portman is the mainstay of the Independent. At Fulda, Mrs. Al Johnson digs up news items each week for the Free Press. And at Slayton there is the reliable “Mame” at the Herald. The newest (editor’s note: Greenest) lady in the business is Mrs. Harriet Suedkamp, new editor of the Lake Wilson Pilot. Harriet has a family of seven, sees that it is kept going, is adding vim, vigor and news to the Pilot each week. ---   Why all the bother about holding a separate session of the legislature to repeal the new presidential primary law? Suppose Gov. Anderson called the legislature into special session and it refused to repeal the law? In the final analysis, why didn’t those wild-eyed weepers see that when the law was passed, that a simple clause was inserted to take care of just such conditions as we have this year. ==============================

March 20, 1952
   Why all this hooey about civil service and the appointing of revenue tax collectors. The civil service does not make appointments. It holds examinations and submits the names of the three highest men to the powers that be. But the result is always the same. Take the postmasters for example, they have been under civil service for years; you never hear of a Republican getting appointed during a Democratic administration: (now don’t get het-up) when the Republicans were in power they used the same tactics. Under the new law the civil service commission will present to the President the names of the three highest or best-qualified applicants. So the same man who named the outgoing collector will also name the new ones. ---   We’re just the most loyal people on earth--when the band plays “The Star Spangled Banner” we rise to our feet and sing about three lines then hum the rest of the time. We love our land and our liberty that gives us a right to select our officials. Over in India last month they had their first general election in history. They did not have much to be proud of, yet a large percentage of Indians went to the polls and voted. In fact, it was a larger percentage than went to the polls in our last national election. “And the star spangled banner in Triumph shall wave o’er the land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.” ---   The Roamer seems to be improving in strength each day, but there’s a touch of nervousness and weakness that grabs us often that is really annoying: but after all why should we kick, we’ve a lot to be thankful for. ---   In our mail Thursday came a letter from Tampa, Fla., from Mrs. Frank Reaney. The Reaneys lived in Murray County for years in early days. The late Mr. Reaney was in the real estate business for a number of years in Lake Wilson and served as mayor for two terms. Mrs. Reaney has been living in Florida for a long time and frankly admits she is getting old. “Years ago,” she writes, “I envied people who lived in the large cities, but as I grow older I often have a longing to live in a small town again, where you really know people and they share your joys and sorrows.” She also mentioned that her daughter Ihla had been visiting with the former Eva Jensen; Eva’s father was a harness maker here, and a good one, too: built the brick block occupied by Ken Orr. The Jensens later moved to Raymondville, Texas. Eva’s husband was in the vegetable business, but along came a man with a driller and found oil on the land: naturally they are not now in the vegetable business. ---   Morris, the New York lawyer who is going to bring lawlessness to a standstill in the U.S. government, don’t quite live up to his job. He seems as mild-mannered as a divinity student. He acts and talks like he is worried about there not being enough whitewash to go around. ---   The U.S. is not going to run out of oil for some time. More oil fields are being discovered and more oil wells are being capped. Besides there are the Arabian and the Iran fields to lean on--by the way, what has happened to Iran, never hear anything out of it any more. ---   The men in charge of NATO should make a deal with West Germany as soon as possible, give them every concession possible: there are no better soldiers in the world. By the way the French are acting one would think they are more interested in American tourists than in assisting in the defense of Europe. ---   Some folks are worrying about Truman getting such a walloping in New Hampshire. Don’t do it: when he needs aid from the big population centers, watch the Old Guard go into action. ---   THANKS   Last year the good citizens of Chandler and vicinity, Lake Wilson and vicinity, donated nearly 300 pints of blood during the Red Cross Mobile visit to western Murray County. We are indebted to those donors for two pints of blood which was used during our recent operation. Of the blood that was obtained last year, most went to the boys in the armed forces. The remainder was placed in a blood bank in Minneapolis, where it is obtainable as long as it lasts, to anyone in Murray County. By the way, this is Red Cross week and everyone is urged to do his best. In the early days the Red Cross was so wound up with red tape that folks almost starved before they could obtain relief. Look at the difference today. In the last two Minneapolis tenement house fires, the Red Cross workers were at the scene of the fire a half hour after it started and took the homeless and needy to warm quarters where they were fed and clothed. Don’t forget them this week, will you? ---   Looking ahead, it looks as if the U.S. will be the most colossal war power the world has ever known, in 10 years. Garrisons of America troops will be stationed at every strategic point on the globe. Machine power is piling up manpower, and there is no place for manpower to go except into the army or ammunition plants. ---   Cigarette smoking received a severe jolt last week, one that is going to take a lot of explaining and some changes in cigarette making. A board of scientists last week bluntly informed the public that cigarette smoking was responsible for a 30% increase in lung cancer. All of which will make but little difference to the average American cigarette maker: he and she want the “kick” and are going to get it, statistics or no statistics. ==============================

March 27, 1952
   The Bloodmobile bank will soon be here and if you have any blood to spare, give. It may come back to you or yours sooner than you think. The transfusion of human blood is as old as the hills. France passed the law in 1600 A.D. forbidding the transfusion of blood. In those days it was given directly from donor to patient; in many cases disease was spread the wrong type of blood injected. Science however changed all that. Blood is analyzed and a record kept so that the same type of blood is used in the transfusion. Blood plasma is now stored in central plants in the state and released to hospitals when needed. ---   This month of March and the March of last year have been about the most miserable of any months during the entire years. Dull and leaden skies have been our lot, with plenty of snow and blocked roads. It is easily the longest month of the year. ---   Kind of early to talk about it, but Charley Smith, the old Hoosier Yankee from Cameron twp., is already planning Trail Rides for next summer. Charley does not love horses as a passing fancy, but has always loved them ever since his dad took him off the ox team. He got to saying “Please” before he said “Gee” or “Haw” and that irked Grandpa. Next summer horsemen will gather at Lake Wilson for a Trail Ride to the Smith home, where there will be games and plenty of barbecued wieners. Start looking for that curry comb now. ---   Spring ushered in “One of the worst storms of the winter.” Snow began falling about midnight Friday and continue to fall until Sunday morning. Sidewalks and streets were drifted full by the fine sifting snow from the northeast. Very depressing day for shut-ins (and who wasn’t?) But remember it could have been worse. Tornadoes took 137 lives that same night in three southern states. That’s more lives than we have lost by the “severe” winter storms in the past fifty years. So cheer up. (What a liar that robin was Friday morning.) ---   Twenty-one years ago, among the new teachers that came to the village that fall was Lucile Boyer. She came from northern Minnesota and fitted in with the town and the people like the thumb in a glove. A talented musician, she gave of her talent in every civic gathering, and if you were in need Lucile could get down on her hands and knees and scrub your floor with the same vim and pep that she played the piano. She left here for the university and from there to Washington, D.C., where she married L. Lushine. They live in Greenbelt, Md. Seeking to sympathize with the Roamer, she wrote last week, “I’ve never had an operation but I’ve had two babies and that was no fun.” She liked the town and the people in Lake Wilson so well that she has been a loyal subscriber to the Pilot for twenty years. ---   This man McKinney seems to be a drag on the president instead of an aid. Every time he opens his mouth he gets both feet in. The Roamer still believes that Truman can be nominated if he wants it. There’s enough of the old machine left to push him over. He’s not worrying about the republicans half as much as he does about the South. Those birds down there are agin him and he can’t run the risk of losing those 170 electoral votes. ---   After all, the political hustings of the spring do not cut much figure when it comes to an election. Then it’s the party that offers to keep the stomach the fullest that will win. No party or sector of voters will ever vote for lower prices. We may have high and lofty ideals but when it comes to lowering prices our ideals vanish. ---   Just why Ike or in fact anyone else wants to be president is really hard to understand: the hard years are ahead and no matter how clean and decent a man may be, he would not be in the race ten days before he would be so covered with mud that it would take a bull dozer to dig him out. ---   Mrs. Nick Galles passed away at her home in Slayton last week at the advanced age of 92 years. Early settlers in the Poverty Hill district, she knew the privations of a pioneer. Few women we have known have carried as much sunshine to the lives of others. ---   Well, we ain’t what you call and ignorant people in Minnesota, judging from the number of voters that exercised their right to do their own thinking and their own writing last Tuesday. It was the most interesting election in the history of Minnesota and Gov. Anderson is to be congratulated on not calling a special session of the legislature to repeal the presidential primary law: the people do want just such a law. ---   The going has been anything but good for Taft since New Hampshire spoke. The climax came with New Jersey. He boiled over then. He seems to make awful hard work of everything he does. Trouble with Taft is that he still believes that people think. One of the big shots that has dropped out of sight lately is Vice President Barkley. A year ago he and his youthful wife were always in the news. ---   See where a republican senator from North Dakota got hard up at his primary election and accepted $5,000 from one of the shady characters of Washington, D.C. The capital city begins to remind us of one of Lot’s sayings, “If there is one decent man left in Sodom and Gomorrah, “ etc. ==============================

April 3, 1952
   Had a card from Dr. W. E. and Mrs. Richardson (formerly Tina Whitney) a couple of weeks ago. Both are old time residents, spending the winter in Florida. The time was when the doctor knew every man in the county, but times have changed. By the way, the doctor was the first to start hospitalization in the county. He fitted up a couple of rooms in his residence to care for patients in acute cases. Remember, there were no autos those days, no phones, no R.F.D. and no snow plows. What a flood of memories that card recalled. Way back as far as the “Gay Nineties” when life was young and the county was enjoying a short era of contentment and happiness. Can recall driving to Slayton with a horse and buggy to dancing parties in the old Woodgate hall. Things were so different in those days. There were no foundation garments that stretched three or four ways. When the females were fastened into their armor, they were there to stay. The waist was wasp shaped, petticoats were plentiful, sometimes five or six, and they wore about six inches of lace on their pantaloons, with just a hint of a bustle. Cheek to cheek dancing was very formal and stately. The Cake Walk was in vogue then and the Roamer and doctor’s wife carried off the Cake one night. Going home, we sang “After the Ball is Over,” “Good Bye, My Blue Bell,” “She’s Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage,” “Ben Bolt,” “She was Happy Till She Met You,” “There’ll be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.” Bet a lot of you folks have never heard of them. ---   If you are a fisherman and have not read the last number of the Conservation Volunteer, try to get a copy. It is the most interesting issue of that magazine that has been published in many a year. It also has a splendid biography of the late Dr. Surber, the father of fish life and its development in Minnesota. The Roamer knew him well, as he spent many seasons in this section of the state. He knew nothing about politics but a lot about outdoor life. ---   See where some columnist accuses Bob Kerr, senator from Okla., of being a “stand-in” for Mr. Truman. Nothing to that. Bob Kerr is worth a hundred million, and when he stands for anything it is for more oil: now he wants the tidewater oil. He reminds us of the late Alexander McKenzie of North Dakota: a sort of a political buccaneer. ---   Seldom has the snow moved so slowly in March as it has this year. We’ve got to have a lot of warm weather soon or some of the land will be pretty wet come seeding time. ---   Some folks are worrying about a coming depression. They think no matter who get in, the country is going to the dogs. Cheer up, this country will never see a major depression again. Most of the real depression in 1929 came when the banks went under. That hit everybody. Youngsters with their savings accounts and the old folks with a couple of thousand laid up for a rainy day went through the agonies of hell. Some were caught without a dollar. That can never come again. The guaranty of bank deposits up to $10,000 has settled that problem. For work for the laboring man, the government has future orders for eighty-four billion worth of material. Big business has everything to lose by a depression. And get this firmly fixed in your mind, if we ever have another major depression that will be the end: Joe Stalin will take over the world then. ---   Mrs. Cedric Adams had a “piece” in last week’s Colliers describing her husband and his work, and we would recommend that 98 per cent of the married women use it as a pattern hereafter when discussing their men: could save a lot of, say, embarrassment. She gave a sincere account of the story of her husband’s life, which has really been interesting. Cedric always knew as a young man that he had something in his head, and after trying virtually everything in the paper line finally hit and has made himself the best known man in the midwest. Mrs. Adams did well as long as she stuck to her story, but when she reached back fifty years she got a little awry. She said, “The $25 that Cedric’s father earned each week was nothing but ‘small potatoes.’” Twenty-five, my dear, was tops in those days. Beef steak was 4 pounds for a quarter, coffee was 10 cents the pound, flour $1 the sack, sugar 20 lbs. for a dollar, etc. There was no gas or tires to buy, a load of hay for the driving horse could be got for $1.50. There were no movies or Ice Follies to go to and the twenty-five bucks a week covered more ground than a hundred would today. ---   John S. Randolph, Sr., another of the old time newspaper men in this section, died in California last week. Funeral services were held at Edgerton, Monday. John came to Edgerton in 1913 and was one of the best newspaper men in the history of that village. Peace to his ashes. ---   The tornadoes in the south last week reminded us of the tornadoes north of Lake Wilson in the early days. For two or three years they came over the Ridge regularly. One time a barn on what is now the Dale Ohme farm was taken slick and clean. The next year a church on the same section went. Most of the farmers started constructing “cyclone cellars.” There was one in front of our house on the farm. ‘Twas about 8x10 and had an almost flat roof with a couple of seats on the floor. There was also a ventilator. In a few years both the “cyclones” and the cellars were gone. ==============================

April 10, 1952
   While the cold chilly winds during the latter part of the week held up the hopes of the farmers getting into the fields soon, it lessened the flood danger along the Minnesota valley: it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good. ---   It’s not to be surprised that Gov. Anderson has joined up with the Eisenhower forces. The Old Guard and the Stassenites have never been very cordial to C. Elmer. At the last election they ganged up on him with state senator Ancher Nelsen, one of the strong men of the state, but Anderson came through victorious. By the way, Ancher is now supporting the governor. ---   The Taft victories in Wisconsin and Nebraska only brought out the plain fact that the old organization forces failed to draw as many votes as the liberals, and it’s the independent voter that will settle the election next fall, not the rabid rank and file of the old political parties. ---   Twenty years ago there used to be a comedy team on the vaudeville stage called the “Merrimacs.” Their spot on the political program was filled in Washington by McKinney and McGrath. McKinney is waiting for a new partner or a new job. ---   Cedric Adams in his column tried to peer behind the iron curtain of district judgeship procedure and got his knuckles rapped hard. He asked a question, one that a lot of citizens have been wondering about for some time, and was bluntly informed by a committee that he would not understand if it told him. All Cedric wanted to know was why 10 prisoners were paroled on the same day, and what crimes they had committed. If the committee had been cooperative, it would have presented a set of figures showing just how few men that got suspended sentences were ever re-arrested. Instead, the committee childishly said, “That it costs more to send a boy to jail than it does to send him to college.” Have seen the time when the legislature was in session, when the judge’s committee wasn’t so interested in economy. ---   One of the finest features to appear in a daily paper are the articles appearing in the Minneapolis Journal entitled, “What My Religion Means To Me.” They are written by business men and give the reader a clearer idea of the benefits derived from living a Christian life. ---   See where the income tax investigation has reached Minnesota. One of the largest business firms is being smeared. Investigators say that a tax collector, Joe Nunan, received $25,000 in Brown & Bigelow stock while he was working for the government. Of course the story did not reach the front pages of the dailies: too close to home. ---   All New Yorkers are not cowed by the mobs: two juries brought in verdicts of “guilty” last week against Sutton and Costello, two top mobsters. ---   You may not believe in President Truman, but you can’t help feeling sorry for him. No president has ever appointed as many traitors. Where Harding has his “tens” Truman has his “hundreds.” ---   Newbold Morris did not have enough whitewash to go around, so McGrath took over the office of the president for a day and sent him back to New York. When Truman heard of it he put the boot to McGrath. This new ma McGranery starts out with a couple of strikes on him. A former F.B.I. man said he did some shady work on the Amerasia case back in 1945. Seems as if every political closet has a skeleton. ---   An item in the dailies last week said that Senator Humphrey has introduced a bill to put all postmasters under civil service. If our memory is not faulty, that has been a law for over twenty years, or does the senator contemplate a new law? ---   Do you ever get a lump in your throat? While we were in the hospital we got a letter from Bob Refsel. We used to know Bob when he was in the newspaper business in Worthington with his dad and brother Floyd. When the paper changed hands, Bob continued in the printing art. He worked for many years for the Murray County Herald and was working for the Jackson County Pilot until two weeks ago. Here are just a few excerpts: “Read your column last week and decided I’d have to write if it was the last thing I did. Have been living on corn flakes for two months, a funny kind of flu bug bit me--have lost 15 pounds--concentrate on getting well and when I get up to Murray county will come and see you, hoping to see you soon--Bob.” He was taken to the Vets hospital at Minneapolis ten days ago and Saturday he was laid to rest in the old family burying ground at Emmetsburg, Iowa. Things like this are what makes lumps in throats. Bob had a host of friends, clean, honest and sincere, he leaves many friends especially in the newspaper fraternity who regret his untimely death. We never know when our number is coming up. ---   Down in Milwaukee, Wis., every apartment must have its own bathroom: times have changed since the old days on the farm. We used the washtub on Saturday night. The Roamer was the youngest of three boys and naturally the water was not always boiling when it came our turn to get wet and stand up before the oven door to get dry. ---   See where Vice President Barkley wants to run for Truman’s job. Don’t let him do it, maw, you know there are limitations even to a V.P. when he gets old. ==============================

April 17, 1952
   Congratulations, Mr. President   President Truman Saturday authorized the Chel committee to inspect the income tax returns of justice department employees. ---   See where there’s going to be another meeting on school re-organization. Something will be done sometime, and it’s coming just as sure as fate: progress can be stopped for a little while, but the delay may be expensive. ---   Up in Minnesota we would not know a Communist if we met him on the street, yet Minnesota has more Commies than 11 of the southern states. Ala. has 96; Ark. 155; Ga. 51; La. 50; Miss. 1; N. Car. 95; So. Car. 15; Tenn. 21; Va. 52; W. Va. 96 and Minnesota has 701 members. The 14 states above have 633, at least what the FBI reports. Half of the membership of the Communist party can be found in the state of New York. ---   See where the Pilot is going to publish the names of all violators, which will no doubt have a wholesome effect on some of the youngsters. Every country newspaper has a bunch of readers who are always complaining that there is no news in the paper; this week and the next week they rush in and say, “Please don’t put the name of my boy or girl in the paper, they were not to blame.” We can remember some females who would come in and say, “We had a party at our house last night, but don’t put in the names of the folks that were there because those left out will be mad.” In fact, some of the snappiest items are often omitted upon request of the same people who say, “There’s nothing in the paper this week.” ---   There’s two ways of looking at President Truman’s action in the steel strike. If we are at war, steel is our most vital industry and mills must be kept running at all cost, no matter whose toes are stepped on. On the other hand, seizure by the government leans toward socialism. Government control of the railroads does not seem to have hampered the service. In the long run, labor will get its raise and the steel industry will be allowed a fair profit. ---   Congress voted a $46 billion defense fund last week, so our credit must be good somewhere. ---   Some artists work with paint and brush, some with piano keys, others work with words. Here’s an example of a subtle use of words. At the close of a church luncheon a short time ago which was held in a town not a hundred miles from Lake Wilson, several speakers were called on at the after lunch program. One of the speakers told about a young clergyman who had worked hard in his first charge and had a good sized class for confirmation. He called on the bishop to aid in the confirmation services. The young man naturally expected the bishop to say something nice about the good sized class, etc., but when the bishop got up he called attention to the cobwebs on the ceiling and dirt and grime on the wall and ceiling and sat down. The young clergyman was naturally chagrined. He told his new class to stand and then gave some advice, finishing with “Just because you are confirmed does not mean that cannot go to hell. You can go to hell, I can go to hell and the bishop can go to hell.” Who told the story? The bishop. ---   Bobbie Burns years ago wrote, “O Would the Power the Giftie Gie us to see Oursels as Ithers See Us.” We are running up and down over the face of the earth preaching better government, while half our citizens never take the time to vote. We preach good government when our land is full of strikes and some of the federal departments are full of corruption. We’re in the same spot Great Britain was fifty years ago. We boss the world and are hated as bad as Britain was. Nations are just like people: some folks wouldn’t even spit at them if they did not have money. ---   A Washington correspondent is suggesting Senator Humphrey for the presidency. Now don’t get all het up and bothered, folks. The South hates Hubert as bad as it does Truman. Wasn’t it Humphrey that pushed the FEPC plank into the Democrat platform at the last convention, and wasn’t he the only man that Truman asked to file in a primary election? ---   What has become of the Boy Scout movement in the village? This is a “Must” and surely someone can be secured that will take charge. The fathers and mothers of the boys eligible who live in Lake Wilson and vicinity should hold a public meeting and proceed to get the movement underway. Remember it takes some effort to get anything started, and a movement as vital as this should not be left to two or three. We’ve got a fine bunch of youngsters here and they are entitled to your assistance. ---   The Roamer has crabbed several times this winter about the poor mail service given us by the Great Northern railroad, but we now humbly say, “We’re sorry.” The G.N. has fitted up a “Blood Car” that will go all over its system, gathering blood for the boys in Korea, and for those who need it at home. A mighty fine gesture by the Great Northern for the benefit of humanity. The “Blood Car” is named “Richard V. Whalen:” he was the first employee of the road to be killed in action in Korea. Mr. Whalen lived at Florence, a village twenty-five miles north of here. ---   Flood conditions the past two weeks brought the middle west its worst tragedy since the dust bowl days. Cities and villages have been wiped out almost as bad as they would have been had they been hit by a tornado. ==============================

April 24, 1952
   While few people talk about it and fewer writers have anything to say about it, divorce had its first real brush with American politics recently. At least one candidate withdrew his name from the list of prospects. Whether it was on religious scruples or a dislike to have the family skeletons paraded by vicious politicians, anyway that’s one problem out of the way and many a politician sleeps a little more peacefully. ---   Progress was made at the school meeting the other night. In problems of this kind the fullest publicity should be given every question thoroughly explained. Too often the most simple question unless fully explained grows in weight with some people. You can’t have too much publicity. ---   Perhaps it’s us. but somehow or other oysters don’t seem to have the same flavor as they did sixty years ago. That was in the days before “Butcher Shops” and the oysters were handled by the stores. They were shipped in huge wooden pails containing over five gallons of oysters, with a chunk of ice in them about as big as your head. Can taste the flavor of those oysters yet. When there was a dance or a party the storekeeper would order a pail, sell three gallons and then have two gallons left. We remember one time Herman Peters had a store in the building now occupied by Det Reese (by the way, this was the first store in Lake Wilson). Peters got the oysters, sold three gallons to private customers and then shoved the pail with the two gallons back of the counter. His daughter Bunny, in a hurry to reach for a box of [illegible]es, stepped on the pail. The cover tipped over, and Bunny went in the oysters. A good time was [illegible]re and the oyster stew was the best ever that night. Little things like that did not bother in those days, especially if you did not know it. ---   While we are all talking progress and economy, it’s about time that the main business block is paved. It will be expensive, but once done it should last for years. The traffic seems to be too heavy on that black top or gravel. ---   The Korean fiasco is about the most unpopular war in the history of the U.S. People in general feel that we’ve lost more face than we’ve gained prestige. In fact here we are, the greatest nation in the world, being held for downs by a bunch of Chinamen: it don’t set well. ---   Now the congress is going to be flooded with flood control projects, should be taken from the army and put in the charge of the reclamation dept. The army claims dams would control the floods. Intelligent men in the forestry dept. claim the first thing to do would be to plant trees. Trees halt the rapid melting of snow, they say: sounds sensible. ---   Finally got the lowdown on that civil service discussion. Here’s what the record says. Nineteen hundred fourth class postmasters were placed in the civil service exactly forty years ago. In 1938 21,500 first, second and third class postmasters were placed under civil service, and they are all in the civil service of today. When a vacancy occurs, a Civil Service examination is held. The three highest candidates are certified by the commission. The political party in power selects the favored one. If a change is made in the selection of postmasters when a vacancy occurs, as often as possible these jobs should go to veterans who lost limbs in battle: most of these men are capable and would be glad to get into some worthwhile job. ---   A judge in Minneapolis recently decided that Mike Kelley and the dame he wed were quite sane when they were married. Bill Shafer, staid old bachelor, sagely remarked “That don’t happen often.” This same Mike Kelley was tops in Minneapolis baseball for over a decade. He managed both the Saints and the Millers, when every game between the two teams wasn’t any tea party. You’d never have heard about the wedding if Mike did not have a bank roll of 250 grand. ---- Golling, the public examiner, is on the loose again. He has changed from county commissioner to school officials. Stealing was discovered in two school districts. Some are in jail waiting for bonds, another hanged himself. ---   Roy Dunn, who had bossed the republican party in Minnesota, is in danger of losing his job as national committeeman. They can push him out if they have enough votes, but if Taft gets in Roy will still wield the scepter, behind the curtain. ---   Now comes Mayor Cheney of Lake City who blames army engineers for keeping the water in the Mississippi several feet higher than it should have been: could be something to it. ---   Sorry to hear that one of our old time friends, B. O. Clauson of Hadley, is a patient at the Murray County Memorial hospital, suffering from heart trouble. Bernard’s folks came to Leeds twp. 80 years ago. ---   The Murray County Memorial hospital stayed in the black last month. While there is not great rejoicing because folks are injured or sick, it’s a fine thing to know there’s such an efficient hospital force and modern building, and that it is paying its own way. ==============================

May 1, 1952
   One of the laws that the coming legislature should change is the one changing the election procedure of the county superintendent of schools. At the present time as you know well, villages and towns vote for candidates for this office. The county supt. has no jurisdiction over the schools in the villages and towns, hence the voting should be left to the voters in the rural districts. ---   Another law that should be given a going over is the law relating to school elections. The time for electing school officials that handle seven times as much tax money as the village council is limited to one hour. In the election of village officers, the polls are open eight until eight. It takes one hour for the officials to handle more voters than it takes the village in 10 hours. Either the time for holding the polls open in the school election should be lengthened, or the hours for the village election be shortened. In school elections three officials are used, in the village five. ---   Over in darkest and mystic India, in some provinces cows are sacred, and they roam all over the streets stopping busses, autos, etc. In other provinces monkeys are sacred. They do all sorts of damage and mischief. How we do pity our heathen brethren. Senator Hans Pedersen of Ruthton, big game hunter, points out in a letter that in Yellowstone Park bears roam at will, damaging the tourists’ tents, etc. They have been roaming at will for years, sort of a tourist attraction. Last year he says over seventy had to be shot for attacks on tourists: yet we pity darkest India. ---   Don’t drive to a neighboring town on a Saturday afternoon to do your shopping: it is positively dangerous. The Travelers Ins. Co. says that the most dangerous time to drive in the United States is on a Saturday afternoon. The peak hours--more deaths--come between six and seven in the afternoon. Last year there were over 39,000 deaths in auto traffic accidents. Most injuries came on Saturday afternoon between four and five in the afternoon and the worst day to drive is on a Saturday. The number of deaths in auto traffic is shuddering: war seems to be only a minor factor. ---   From now on you’ll be reading an increase in “Public Opinion” polls. The first one that should be taken should be, “Has the public any faith in election polls?” ---   Magazines and newspapers are full of reducing programs. After reading a lot of them we came to the conclusion that you can eat anything you want to, only not as much. Of course there are methods of reducing up to 18 pounds, but the Roamer is not going into that again. ---   After the recent “conventions” in New Jersey and Michigan prisons, seems as if the convicts are eligible for a post graduate course at Alcatraz. ---   Was down to the Pilot office last Wednesday for the first time in weeks. Found Mrs. G. R. Suedkamp, the new editor, up to her elbows in work. There’s a lot more work to do in small country newspapers than there has ever been. For years all the country man had to was to get out four pages. Now many are getting out eight. And it makes an added burden to fill them with news items and ads. Mrs. Suedkamp is interested in her work and is filling the Pilot with news, but could use a few more ads. ---   The Dakotas are what one would call versatile states. When the people of the eastern part of the state were raising money for flood victims, residents in the western parts of the two states had subscribed over $40,000 to a company to furnish those sections with rain during the coming summer. ---   The way the republican candidates have conducted the primary campaign for delegates has not been very edifying: they’ve done more knocking, snarling and biting among themselves than they ever have before. They should not shake the family skeleton so loud. Your opponents will do a better job later on. ---   Took just a passing glance at the 1952 bathing suits the other day: some change in fifty years. Bathing girls in those days wore more clothes to go in bathing than they do to bridge or study clubs in 1952. ---   Our state department is openly following in the footsteps of Joe Stalin. It is advocating the appointment of political advisors to army units. Mrs. Rosenberg, assistant secy. of state, is all out for this idea: perhaps Hiss will get out in time to take over a division. ---   The Lord willing, come July will see a quartet of our people reach the age of four score. They are Mrs. N. C. Christensen, Lee Hosmer, Mrs. Marshall Low and the Roamer. If you know of others that “come of age” send in their names please, we would like to organize a July 1952 “Gay Nineties” club if the gals would only get a little more pep. ---   Ike Eisenhower is going to know a lot more about human nature in a few months. When any man runs for office in the U.S. his whole past is opened up: nothing is spared, not even family affairs. There’s nothing left to imagination and men and women digging in the mud say things in the heat of politics that they often sincerely regret. It is really a crime against public decency. ---   May 8, 1952
   Both the Slayton folks and the folks from the outside who attended “The Days of ‘87” at Slayton are pretty well satisfied. Those who took part in the affair are especially to be commended as they did more in a community way for their town than all the carnivals in the last twenty years. There was a time when every town in the county had its Gala Day and every other town in the county was there to see and aid in the fun. At the Slayton celebrations there was always a big parade. Cap Nelson with his long black hair, red sash around him, mounted on a prancing steed, was always Marshal of the Day. He was half the show. Floats followed. In the first float was always Uncle Sam and Columbia. A home program followed, lasted from after the parade until dusk. Then came the Bowery dance. The bowery was on the lots north of the Elias Fish saloon. The bowery was covered with branches from along the Beaver Creek. In the evening you could hear the dulcet tones of the quartet: Bob Grass, Frank Week, Pete Dampman and Ed Holmen. They sang “My Gal’s a Highborn Lady,” “Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight,” The Bowery,” etc. When Lake Wilson had its Farmer Days, Slayton always reciprocated. A little later we remember Vin Weber promising us there would be fifty autos at Lake Wilson for the Farmers Day. They came, and more than that closed up for the afternoon. It’s hard to believe in this commercial day and age that not one of the Lake Wilson Farmers Days was billed as a Bargain Day. We hope that Slayton will spur the ambitions of the other towns in the county. (This item should have been in last week--but remember we are still in “intermediate.”) ---   The warm weather last week, while acceptable, was unseasonable: Mel Harman said, “We had more hot days this week than we had all last summer.” ---   Reuben and Mae Rogde of Princeton visited us last week. The Rogdes were residents here when Reuben was cashier of the bank, and they were grand neighbors of ours. They moved from here to Ruthton and from there to Princeton, where he is president of the bank. They have a son Russell. We can remember pushing him in a baby buggy one night, and he bawled loudly all the way home. Russell takes over the Princeton bank in July: so you can see a little pushing helps. Reuben is retiring and he and Mae will move to Anaheim, Calif. in July, where they will make their home. He says there is grand fishing out there, and if he has a bench under a shady tree we might try it next winter. ---   Talking about newspapers, we are one of the many downtrodden men who lifts his voice in protest against the size of the Mpls. Star Journal. There’s too many page ads of women’s dresses and other things. Too many lantern-jawed men modeling everything from suits to shorts. You’ve got to hunt for the news. There should be a way to separate the sheep from the goats. ---   Margaret Truman should stand up for her rights under the Constitution. How would you have liked it if you had four Secret Service men dogging you around when you wanted to do some sparking. There’s a law against cruelty to animals. ---   Capt. Mark Fowser and wife Dorothy called last week. Mark is on his way to Bremerhaven, Germany, where he will be stationed for some time. He leaves for Germany this week and will take his auto with him. Mrs. Fowser and daughter left for Texas Sunday, where they will remain until Mark is settled. Mark is one of the few Lake Wilson boys that is making the army his career, and is attached to the 4th Army Corps. He is one of the finest young men to go out of Lake Wilson and we wish him promotions. He has been in the army for 11 years. ---   Some of the republican leaders in the east remind us of the “First Families” in the south. After the beating they received in the civil war they still failed to realize that there were some folks left with good horse sense. ---   Truman in a speech Friday night said that the stealing was no worse than it was under the republicans forty years ago. Why go back that far, you could just as well gone back to Cain. We are living in a “Now” age. Lots of folks can’t understand why you, with all the authority you claim you have, did not start this investigation last year. All you had to do was to push a button. Why did you leave it to Congress, and a Democrat congress at that, and they did and are doing a fine job. No credit to you. And say, Harry, when you get fighting mad as you did last Saturday while talking to the steel brigands, think of the truce committee and give them a jab or two. ---   The beautiful pictures of the Golden Gate bridge in the monthly issue of the Ford Times brought back memories of our hospital days when we received a “Get Well” card from Mrs. Strauss, the widow of the designer and engineer of the bridge. She is a sister of our brother Bill’s wife. They live in Berkeley, Calif. In the same mail was a card from the Church of St. Francis of Assisi in New York, saying that special masses through friends of Nola’s were to be offered for me that day. Both seem to help. Folks get around more when they are sick than when they’re healthy. ---   The warm and acceptable weather of late has been unusual. Mrs. J. F. Nepp who has lived here since the ‘80’s said she had never seen anything like it. The Roamer is just pessimistic enough to think that will have some snow before July. ==============================

May 15, 1952
   The Roamer has no desire to enter the present discussion over the local school situation at this time, but we do want to present our orchid this week to Cy Koob who has headed the movement for the past year. This is the first time in the history of Lake Wilson that the highest individual tax payer has ever sponsored any move for the development of our schools, waterworks or sewers, or in fact any other civic improvement. ---   The Lake Wilson folks are having a reception on Thursday night for Dr. Harada and wife. This reception is a sort of a get-acquainted meeting, and special invitation is extended to farmers and their wives. There will be a short program and then there will be coffee, etc., and a cordial invitation is extended. ---   This is the time of the year the Minnesota assessor makes his rounds. For generations the assessor has always been held up as sort of a boogy man, when he really plays the opposite role. The poor guy is not at the top, but at the bottom of the pile. He comes round and takes your listings. You sign the sheet. He gets them all together and presents them either to the town board or village council. These men have full authority to change every figure in the book. From the village council or board it goes to the county auditor and to Sarah Johnson, who is in charge of the county assessments. They review the books and from there they go to the county board, who also have full authority as to making changes, and from there the books go to the state tax department, where they get their final review. Taxes are high and always will be high, as long as these conditions are with us. Everything is going up, why not taxes? One incident came to mind the other day while assessing, out in the western part of the township in the real early days before Lake Wilson was a village and we were the assessor. There was a farmer out there that would always list his property but would never sign the sheet. Like many men in Washington today he evidently declined to incriminate himself. Few people realize, or do they, that they make oath that they have listed their personal property complete and true. ---   Our unseasonable weather took a turn as expected, frost coated the tops of the autos Friday night, and the ground was white in the low places Saturday morning. ---   A Minnesota editor is out with a letter asking Eisenhower to answer twenty questions. Have not seen it yet, but we’ll bet the first question is, “Have you stopped beating your wife?” Those so-called political questionnaires have a sort of dagger-in-the-back tint. ---   Communists must read American newspapers. It did not take them long to imitate the riots in our prisons. In this country, however, we paid the captors off in beefsteak. The Korean P.O.W. had to be satisfied with paper for a full fledged American general. ---   The mystery surrounding the disappearance of single schoolteachers here has at last been solved. A recent survey taken on a girl’s chances to snare a husband shows that stenographers and office girls have the best chance with a score of 32. Nurses come next with 14. Down near the bottom of the list are school ma’ams. They rate a measly 3. Gals will be gals. ---   Last Sunday was the anniversary of the day the fire swept north Lake Wilson clean. A terrific wind was blowing that forenoon on May 11th, 1911. Some kids started a fire in a barn just west of where the Johnson store now stands. It was an extremely dry year, and everything burned like tinder. Before the middle of the afternoon the flames had destroyed 29 buildings on the north side and one on the south side. Besides business places, the water tank, the depot, box cars and one of the elevators went. There was no water fire protection, the chemicals were of no avail and there was nothing that could be done to stop the flames. Nothing could look gloomier than it did that night. Some folks started writing the town off, but it’s still here. ---   If Harry Truman has no responsibility over the appointment of O’Dwyer as ambassador to Mexico, Mr. Acheson should take over and send him on an investigation of moral affairs in Timbucktoo. It must be irritating to the good people of Mexico to have him stay there. They read plenty of American magazines and newspapers. ---   It certainly costs money to raise a family in this day and age. One, and perhaps more families in this village, have a monthly milk bill of $34. Time was when that amount would keep a family in groceries and meat for six weeks. ---   See where a man stabbed and killed his wife with a butcher knife in an argument at the dinner table. Meal times are the battlegrounds in too many American families. Arguments start over nothing and the kids bustling in for meals sometimes add fuel to the flame. These tiffs irritate the digestive tract, awaken sleeping butterflies starting stomach trouble. Sixty per cent of the remedies sold in drug stores are something for “soothing the stomach.” ---   George D. Cravens of Milaca, Minn. was arrested last week, charged with taking a bribe when working for the federal dept. of agriculture. The indictment he received says, “Three storm coats, 6 pieces of luggage, a television set and $1,300 in cash.” Looks as if he’ll need the storm coats. ==============================

May 22, 1952
   What family in Western Murray county has lived on the same farm the longest? One of the oldest is the Jones family in Lowville twp. Oran lives on the farm that was bought by his grandfather in 1879. ---   Few folks have received a more cordial welcome to Lake Wilson than Dr. and Mrs. Harada did last Thursday evening. The school auditorium was jammed with folks who came there to extend friendly greetings to the newcomers. The program was not too long and every talk and number was thoroughly enjoyed. The audience waited for the lunch after the program to greet Dr. and Mrs. Harada. It was one of those meetings we should have more often. Most of the arrangements fell on the shoulders of Marshall Fowser. He put in a lot of work and did a fine job. ---   “Progress” is not always stable or economical. Several years ago three of our business men heard tall tales about what Diesel engines would do in supplying light and power at low cost. Last month the last of the three was stilled. When they were new, everything worked like a charm, but when trouble came as it does to engines as well as humans, we are just too far from expert service. The cost of having your private plant closed up for two or three days came high at times. Anyway, it’s hard to beat the service given us by the Northern States power company. We remember what a lift they gave the village when they took over the privately owned antiquated plant. That was when it was a penal offense for the women to iron or wash at night. Every bit of juice was needed for light. Ever since the Northern States took over, they have improved the service, both personal and electric. ---   Had a visit the other day with the oldest man in the village. His name is John Mostrom, born in Norway and lives with his brother Knute on Central ave. John came out to Cameron twp. in 1892. He is still spry, flirts with My Lady Nicotine in the moist form, is able to read and will be ninety next September. ---   The early settlers must have been an awful dumb lot or had a lack of vision. Close by every farmyard in those days was a gravel knoll where we got sand for rough plastering, yet we never remember any farmer ever hauling a load of gravel to the yard to fill up a mud hole, or make a walk to the barn and other important outbuildings. We just waded through the mud. Road work, you old timers will remember, was done with a team and scraper, but never a shovel of gravel, although the little pit was just along side the road. This same gravel that was spurned in the early days is golden in value today. Where would the farm in this section be in value if it were not for gravel roads. How could we be so darned dumb? ---   Talking to Stanley Strand just back from the front in Korea, we found that it gets mighty cold up in the hills. The Koreans build houses or huts of wood, sheet them with woven twigs and straw, then plaster with mud. The stoves are in one end of the room and the stovepipe runs beneath the floor, and there’s always some warmth in the room. Some of the richest families in this country are now imitating the Korean style of heating. We can learn. ---   Smartest thing said at the General Federation Women’s club meeting at Minneapolis last week was made by the president, and it should be made the eleventh commandment. She said that her father told her after she was elected state president: “No matter how many honors come to you in your life, if you lose one friend along the way it’s not worth it.” ---   One of the real freaks in official circles in Minnesota is the rate paid in mileage fees for public officials. There are more different rates in mileage than there are hues in the rainbow. This is another job for the legislature to straighten out. The list was obtained through the assistance of Claire and Dorothy in the county auditor’s office. These rates apply both ways, except where noted. As usual the assessors are at the bottom of the pile:   Board of Audit--10¢ per mile   Board of Equalization--10¢ per mile, one trip   Forfeited Land--10¢ per mile   Canvassing Board--5¢ per mile, one trip   Ditch--7 1/2 ¢ per mile   Welfare--7 1/2¢ per mile Assessor’s meeting at Court House--5¢ per mile Jurors--10¢ per mile Committee work under direction of County--10¢ per mile County Employee--7 1/2¢ per mile. ---   A new “Underworld has sprung up this spring. Female colleges throughout this cultured land of ours are now treated to midnight raids by imitation Paul Reveres. These bold young male students forcibly enter the girls’ dormitories, grab all the underwear they can find and prance down the street with their trophies, with all the gusto of a Sioux Indian of old with his scalps. Just how many credits the boys get for their bravery has not yet been disclosed. Saw a picture, a good sized one, with the college boys proudfully exhibiting their “take.” Reminded us of the Dayton’s underwear ad in the Minneapolis Journal. Wonder what the mommas of the boys thought. How proud they must have been of their darlings. Just how high can higher education get? ---   The sooner the United Nations can draw Germany into membership the better it will be for the world. They are about the only fighting element left in Europe. ==============================

May 29, 1952
   Got through planting the garden last week. Was shocked by the small amount of seed in each package. If the amount on seed continues to decrease, the growers won’t need a package in a couple of years. ---   Potatoes are ten cents a pound here, the highest price in history. Not a very good endorsement of the OPS. ---   While the boys in Korea are being rationed for ammunition, we over here seem to be more interested in the rationing of potatoes. Some day we’ll start to wake up. A Stalin atomic bomb might be just the tonic we need. ---   Either business is dropping badly or the Omaha railroad is economizing: must be little of both. Years ago we had two passenger trains and two freight trains daily, now we’ve dropped to about the eight spot. The road runs a train up the branch when it feels like it, and the freight and express service is demoralized. The Omaha R.R. had the worst year for several decades. The floods caused millions of dollars in damages, and it’s going to take time for it to get back. In the meantime “Economy” is the watchword. ---   General MacArthur in a recent speech said, “Military men do not make good presidents.” He could have gone farther and said that over in Korea, army men do not make good generals. ---   Folks of this generation will hardly believe it, but Lake Wilson had the first “White Way” in Murray county. The posts were 12 foot cement posts surmounted by a big white globe: looked pretty but did not give much light. Another first we had was the first airplane flight in the county. The flight took place in a field just across the alley from where the Roamer now lives. Otto Timm was the pilot. It was one of the attractions for our Farmer Days of the early 1900s. ---   No wonder so many women folks claim to be all fagged out: they are taking their naps at the wrong time, according to an article in Reader’s Digest, which says that the after-dinner nap should be taken a half hour before dinner.” What wonderful things those scientists do discover. ---   Johnny McCauley of Kalispell, Mont. called last Friday. John is a son of the late Alex McCauley, gruff but big-hearted old Scotch-Irishman, who was engaged in business here for years. John is with the G.N. and so is Walt Sabin, another Lake Wilson resident. Walt’s father Bill dug the first cellar in Lake Wilson, back in 1883. Walt is a brother of Mrs. Walt Nash. Both these men are eligible for retirement soon, and will spend it with the trout. ---   Two of the daring raiders of the Night Underwear raids have been dismissed from the Minnesota “U” and are now eligible for the army, where they can now display their talents raiding in the hills of Korea instead of in the Halls of Learning: there won’t be any more raids this year of this type in the state university. ---   Two men in the plate glass business in Chicago found things a little tight so they took a couple of bricks one night, sauntered around the corner and smashed a plate glass window. Bright and early the next morning they were hired to put in a new one: that’s close to perpetual motion. ---   You’ve heard the old adage, “The Pen is Mightier than the Sword.” Could be, but we live in a day when the spoken word is mightier than both of them. Cedric Adams, the broadcaster, upset the financial world in Minnesota last winter. Cedric started broadcasting for a Minneapolis bank. No one paid much attention at first. He kept at it. Folks began to sit up and listen. Maw said to Paw, “How much interest do you get?” and things started moving. Big city banks had page ads trying to stop the flood, but to no avail. They capitulated. The spoken words had produced and the interest on bank deposits was boosted. ---   Newest organization in this section will be a riding club. This decision was made at the Charlie Smith barbecue on a recent Sunday. There were over twenty local horsemen and women present and more local folks are in the market for horses. ---   A recent Gallup poll discloses that the American voter has no objection to a man that has been divorced being elected to the office of president. Those folks are only following in the footsteps of their forebears. The wife of Andrew Jackson, hero of the Battle of New Orleans, was branded as an “adulteress” by the newspapers while he was a candidate for president. He was elected but his wife, harassed and disgraced by the political campaign, did not live to go to Washington. In “our” time, Grover Cleveland, a candidate for the presidency, admitted he was the father of an illegitimate child. During the campaign, republican glee clubs sang, “Maw, Maw, Where’s My Paw” and other ballads. Grover was elected. Two potential presidential candidates this year, Harriman and Stevenson, are divorced men. ---   Dunn got his walking papers at the republican convention last week. There was quite a scrap and hopes are entertained that it will fester into the campaign. Democrats can fight and do at every convention, but they kiss and make up. Republicans sometimes are dour and obstinate. We remember one convention, we were there, when the Dunn and Collins forces fought and the Collins delegation from Minneapolis marched out of the convention. They were mad and stayed mad until they beat Dunn in November. That’s the year that John A. Johnson was elected governor, one of the most human men that has sat in the governor’s chair. ==============================

June 5, 1952
   You’ve read or heard of the glamour, stories, songs and romance of the Rio Grande river, but it’s all over now. The river has only a trickle of water in it and there are places where you can walk from bank to bank. Clarence Oberg who grew to young manhood here was telling us last week that the Magic Valley is in bad shape. A year ago last winter the frost not only took the fruit but the trees as well. This spring, and in fact for 18 months, there’s been no rain. Dust storms are starting. That section was in the irrigation belt. But that’s all over: no water. Just enough water trickles down the Rio Grande to maintain the city of Brownsville. We’re not the only section that is in the trouble zone. Clarence lives in Raymondsville. ---   In spite of the rather unfavorable weather on Friday forenoon a good sized crowd attended the Memorial Day services at the cemetery and at the schoolhouse. While there is a decided change in the programs of the days that are gone, the underlying thought, that the day is one that is sacred to the memory of our dead heroes, still maintains. In the early days on Decoration Day, or rather Memorial Day, the speaker wore a long black Prince Albert, generally had flowing locks and spoke often with more vigor than logic. Back of him on the stage were veterans of the Civil War. Long-whiskered men who wore big black hats with a gilt cord around them. Gen. Logan’s order was read. It started Memorial Day back in 1868, making it almost a command to decorate the graves. After the stirring oration some bright youngsters, sometimes a sort of a bashful school ma’am, would give Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. The quartet would sing “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of The Lord,” and almost always “The Blue and the Gray,”
These in the robings of glory,
These in the gloom of defeat,
All the battle--blood gory,
In the dusk of eternity meet:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgement day,
Under the laurel the Blue,
Under the willow, the Gray.” There was always music throughout the day by the Silver Cornet Band. There were no baseball games on Decoration Day and going fishing was a sacrilege. These Decoration or rather Memorial Days are really sponsored by the taxpayers. The Roamer well remembers appearing before the county board for the first donation for the local post, that was in the lang ago, and we got $25. Now like everything else it is upped to $50. But back of all those gatherings are the unselfish spirit of some members of the community who are willing to sacrifice their time and efforts to lay this local wreath at the feet of the war dead. ---   Heard a man make a scathing remark the other day about old age assistance, coupling it with the national debt. Could be. There are not many people in Murray County that have not been aided, either directly or indirectly, by the billions of dollars of deficit. You’ll only need one hand to count them in Murray County. ---   “Allies Make Germany a Defense Partner” says a headline. What the Allies need is Germany as an ‘offense’ partner. Germany holds the future of Europe in her grasp. We should pull out of Germany, though it will grieve a lot of Americans over there who have been living on Gravy Street for several years, and let the Heinies run their own country. What are we accomplishing over there anyway? Give them guns, ammunition, etc.: they’ll take care of themselves. ---   Carl Wegner, chairman of the Minnesota lower house game and fish committee, is or rather has been under arrest for some time. The federal game wardens picked him up for violating the game laws on Big Stone a year ago, but Mr. Wegner says he is not ready for trial yet. Just another of those whiny conservationists who talk loud for wildlife and then go out and violate the law. There’s too many of them. ---   Women are funny. Over in England a bridegroom took over all the house work, cooking, and everything. His wife stood it for two years. Asked for a divorce and got it. The judge said, “It’s the wife’s privilege to run the house.” On this side of the water a lot of women get divorces because the husbands don’t aid enough. They’re darned hard to please, saith Timothy Corn Tassel. ---   May was a raw cold month, hardly a day that a little fire not needed, yet in spite of the weather the crops look good. Saw some farmers planting corn last week. Alfalfa is ready to cut. That hot week in April gave us a real shot in the arm. But May cooled it off. Frost was reported three mornings last week. ---   Potatoes in spite of the weather have done well, must know what the price is. Top gardener this year is a female, Mrs. Nina Christensen, who has potatoes in bloom, beating all the old time gardeners. ---   The Omaha railroad is bravely trying to get back after its loss from the floods. Today we have intermittent service of the branch: trains run at will but Harvey Butterfield, the agent, says it is only temporary and in several weeks it will be back to a regular service. Rumor had it that the company was trying to get rid of the branch. Harvey said it was only a rumor. Train passenger service took an awful licking in the United States last year. The roads lost over a billion dollars. Folks say the planes are taking all the passenger business. Could be, but we noticed an empty bus going through the other day and Bill Shafer said it was nothing unusual. Folks just ain’t traveling as much as they used to. ==============================

June 12, 1952
   The members of the Slayton band graciously dedicated a concert last Friday night to the Roamer, and in keeping with the half-century old traditions of that organization, it “satisfied.” Every number on the program was thoroughly enjoyed. The Roamer has been acquainted with the Slayton band a long time. It was organized the year we were appointed postmaster: that was back in 1896. While sec. of the county fair we were associated with the band for a long time. It is the best civic organization in Slayton and has done more to bring good will and the community spirit than all the baseball teams in history. The band has played in every good sized town within a radius of 100 miles. One of their trips was out in Flandreau, So. Dak. back in the long ago. The boys played for the G.A.R. encampment. It was the last gathering of the Civil War vets in this section. The boys always had good times. Flandreau was no exception. Lloyd Fowser played the bass drum, he could hardly see over the top. Ed Engebretson the alto, fell in the creek and had to get an Indian to pull him out. The boys said Jim Davey Lowe must have been on picket duty for the vets, as he did not get back to the tent till after or about daylight. Jim said it wasn’t so, the days were longer. Another old timer who was on that trip and who has been the real “heart” of the band for half a century was George Newell. ---   Sometimes when you hear a fine sermon in which the truth about conditions is discussed a little plainer than usual, some of the men come out muttering, “He certainly told them off today.” Just insert the word “us” for “them” and you’ll be hitting the nail on the head. ---   This is the time when Americans go nuts over politics. If one tenth of the energy and interest had been taken in the Korean situation as we spend in politics, the truce talks would have been over a year ago. Now it seems that Mr. Rhee, president of the South Korean republic, the country that is taking our blood and money, is trying to break the rules of the game and he now wants to forbid his people the right to vote. Seems like everything connected with Korea goes wrong. It’s been a mess since the start. ---   A story is out that Roy Dunn is grooming a candidate for governor in the primaries. Don’t do it, Roy. You beat Anderson fair and square and he beat you at the last convention. Better call it quits. The new voter just don’t seem to follow the old leaders any more, and if Taft happens to win the nomination, you’re going to have your hands full as the going is going to be tough. Remember what happened to Ancher Nelson at the last primary. ---   To Ann Fiest: Dear Ann--Wish you would see that the lake gets a couple of tanks of bullheads before it gets too late in the year. The lake has never been higher or looked prettier, but there’s one thing lacking and that is fish. We’re not asking for walleyed pike or bass, the young men can go north for them, but there’s a nice bunch of boys here and a few congenial old gentlemen that would gladly go down to the lake if there was any fishing. We got a few last year, that is bullheads, but not enough. Once in a while you hear, “Why does the game and fish dept. send live bullheads to Iowa and Nebraska lakes while we starve.” Write and tell us the whole story, won’t you?” Ann Fiest is in charge of the rough fish dept. in Minnesota game and fish dept. ---   An Ohioan strawberry raiser has found a way to keep the weeds out of the strawberry patch which should be good news to the strawberry raisers here that have to change beds every year. This guy has a big flock of geese; they pick everything out of the patch that looks like a weed and patrol the bed daily. Could be a good idea, but we can’t imagine our men and women pickers wallowing through a strawberry bed on their hands and knees in a patch that had been the rendezvous of big ganders and their buxom mates for several weeks. Seems as if he ought to sell a plastic suit, a washer and a nose closer with the new plan. ---   It’s quite a jump from the goose-atmosphere laden patch to “Here Comes the Bride,” but some folks wonder why churches allow this torrid song during the wedding ceremonies. The story of the song does not harmonize with the ideals of any church. Bride after bride has walked down the aisle, proud as a young peacock, to the strains of this really beautiful number, and will continue to do as the days go by. Contrary to common belief, it is not a wedding march but a bawdy bedroom ballad, taken from the third act of the opera. At Lohengrin’s wedding festivities, a former suitor of Mrs. Lohengrin entered the nuptual chamber on the night of the wedding. Frederick the claim jumper was killed by the groom and just at this point the orchestra strikes up, “Her Comes the Bride.” A sort of a gruesome setting for as inspiring and harmonious a song as “Here Comes the Bride.” ---   A fine rain last week meant a lot to the crops. An ad in the Pilot will do the same for you in business. ---   The Old Guard in politics, especially in the Taft and Truman campaign, is running true to form. When you get old you hate to relinquish the power you had in your younger days. We fail to recognize changing conditions, failing to remember the days when we were getting rid of the old “fogies.” We are living in a new era, and if you’re over sixty, just bow your head and take it. Youth must and will be served first. ==============================

June 19, 1952
   Vince Harmsen says we were wrong in raising the price of the Legion appropriation to the local post. It is still $25. He ought to know. He’s the commander. ---   A minister up in North Dakota is wondering if the accumulation of oil money in that section will not be detrimental to the churches. Don’t worry about that, brother, churches always have a better attendance in good times than they do when the going is tough. In Lake Wilson the three churches are filled to capacity every Sunday. Back in the dark days, and we’ve noticed several in our lifetime, church attendance was pretty slim. There were several reasons. When things go wrong and you are unable to get what the family eats and wears, depression sets in. There’s no money for the church or aid. The old double surrey looked shabby, there was no gas for the Model T, and then mother and the girls felt just a little backward about walking into a church with the clothes they had. The churches have never been in a healthier condition than they are today. ---   The use of chemicals on the fields is causing a lot of speculation among many interested in wild life. Is the chemical that is spread on nearby fields and trees responsible for the stunting of the growth of fish, being studied by research workers in northern Minnesota lakes? High powered drugs for livestock are also under scrutiny. One man was telling us last week that the spring chicken of today is not like it was twenty years ago. Another business man was telling us that he believed the serums of some kinds are bringing more fat sows to market than ever before. Pellets and syringes are spoiling the flavor of that spring chicken. Wonder it it’s true? ---   Baseball is in a bad way, starting with the majors and on down to the Gopher League. The American Association is wobbly and some teams will not finish the season. It is easy to see what is killing the game in the American Association. Americans, wherever they are, want to keep their team the whole season. They pick out their favorite and go see him play as much as they do the game. This ain’t being done in the Association. The two big leagues with their farm plan just reach out and pull in any player they want at any time. That’s a good argument for the Association, but what about out here in the sticks, the place we just love to see our home boys play? Attendance has dropped tremendously. The interest in baseball is on the wane. ---   Minnesota cream will probably take part in a new experiment in the near future. A new kind of butter is going to be produced in Minnesota soon that will be composed of a mixture of cream and cotton seed oil or other ingredients. John Brandt, president of the Land O’ Lakes Cry. Co. and king pin for years said last week the making of butter in the future will shock the dairyman. In his talk he made this significant remark: “It is hardly consistent with good business principles for anyone in the production and marketing of food products to try to limit the opportunity of a competitive food product through legislative action designed to compromise the competitor in the manufacture and sales of a food item.” A complete reversal of the front presented to the dairy interests for the last thirty years. ---   Got another leather medal for General MacArthur. He modestly admits that he is the only army man “fitten” to hold a political office. “Consistency Thou Art a Jewel.” ---   Looks as if we are engaged in two wars in the east: one in Korea and the other in Koje Island. ---   Could be wrong but we’d like to predict that Gov. Anderson will win in both primary and the general elections this year. Staff King is a mighty good guy, but you’ve got to be more than that in Minnesota to beat a man by the name of “Anderson.” ---   The Republican national committee has deliberately thrown away another chance to get the party back in power. When the Old Guard appointed Taft men to all the key positions in the coming national convention, it was “Good Night Irene.” The independent voter is thoroughly disgusted, and that’s the guy that is going to win the coming election. “The Old Guard Dies, but Never Surrenders.” ---   President Truman will not interfere with MacArthur acting as chairman of the republican national convention, even if it is against army regulations. Harry, the shrewd politician, knows it will mean more votes for the democrats next fall. He also realizes that MacArthur fell into a trap. Truman fired him for doing the same thing he is doing now, which was protested vigorously by Mac’s friends. Time brings out the truth. ---   Those two blistering hot days last week that just seared the life out of everything brought with them forebodings of hail storms. This is the year when hail insurance is a must with most of the farmers. They’ve lost two crops in a row and they can’t afford to lose this one. In the early days storms came over the ridge and wiped out fifty farms. The hail insurance was of the wildcat variety, and if you had a loss you generally did not have to pay any “assessments.” In this day and age, hail insurance companies are just as reliable as fire and life insurance companies. Don’t wait ‘til the morning after to get that hail insurance policy. ==============================

June 26, 1952
   See where a schoolhouse that has been used in Lyon county for the last 69 years has closed for good. Just a trend of the times. By the way, for years we listened to and read of the Little Red schoolhouse. It was the real bulwark of democracy, but to tell the truth we have never seen one, in Minnesota or anywhere else. ---   Buck Raunhorst of the Murray Theater was telling us the other day that he is having a three-mile show soon. That is, there are three miles of reel in the show. The show is Quo Vadis and is the biggest, most spectacular and most gorgeous of all time. Could be, but we can’t forget the “Birth of a Nation.” If you plan on going to see Quo Vadis you will get more out of if you read the book. ---   When we get to be president we are going to get a law passed compelling the garden seed distributors to give the germination test on each package. We planted seeds this year that came up in relays. Looks as if they mixed a lot of 1944 seed in with the new crop. It’s really heck when you get so darned few seeds in a package and then half of them need crutches. ---   We’ve been telling you all along what a joke the so-called bill was that would take postmasters, revenue men and U.S. marshals out of politics. It sailed along pretty well for a while and some folks thought the political millenium was at hand, but the senate butted the bill last week. Fancy a man like the late deposed McGrath having the power to appoint all the district attorneys in the United States. ---   MacGranery, the new attorney general who was going to push corruption out of the picture, evidently is not a self starter. ---   The hitch hiker got in his work last week, and a bright young Minnesota man paid his life for being too kind hearted. When will people ever learn? ---   George Miller of Lowville twp. tells us that there is a bug on his farm that is taking a liking to the Canadian thistle, the worst weed of the farmer, and it is doing a good job in cleaning them out. The catch about it is the bugs are going as much damage to the crops. If it’s not one thing, its’ just another. ---   The people in their eagerness to upbraid and jibe President Truman just before election time failed to give him credit for his stand on two important measures: the tidewater oil bill which is the dream of oil barons, and the St. Lawrence waterway. He vetoed the first, but got beat off the waterway bill, which brought joy to the South. Great-grandpa Connally of Texas told Senator Thye in the senate chamber the other day, that if not for Houston and Galveston the Minnesota farmers would have to feed their wheat to the hawgs. Fine chivalrous spirit from a leader who lives in the “United” States. ---   Those old guys who will attend national conventions next month on crutches and in wheel chairs don’t seem to realize they have had their day and what was manna years ago has turned to ashes. We’re living in a new world, a young people’s world who want to do and think for themselves. Those old duffers will be dead soon and the burden will be on this and the next generations. The new generation wants to run the show and why shouldn’t they? ---   Mrs. Herman Helmke brought us a bunch of strawberries last week. They were ripe and full of flavor and in addition they brought back memories to us of the long ago. They were raised on the farm we settled on 69 years ago, and on the field where we as youngsters used to walk behind the two horse drag in the springtime and plowed in the fall. Life is peculiar: who would think in those days that seventy years later we would be getting strawberries from that same field? Yep, life is strange and has many quirks and turns. ---   Minnesota sportsmen are beginning to feel blue over the game fish outlook. They feel that it is slipping as the years go by, which is natural due to the increase in fishermen. Was thinking, why not raise the fish, especially walleyes, commercially? Let the state set aside a good pike lake and put a company to work raising the fish. Artificial food could be put into the lake to keep the increase in good shape. Let the company sell fingerlings, one pounders or even two pounders to the state or private individuals who want to restore fishing in Minnesota. Young pigs are being raised commercially. Why not fish? ---   Lake Wilson should get busy right now and start planning a celebration for next year. The village will be 70 years old then, and it is but fitting that there should be some recognition of the birth of the place where we live. Advertising could start out with, “Three score and ten years ago our forefathers founded a new town,” etc. ---   A banker at Bemidji stole $140,000 from his own bank, was let loose by the judge on two years’ probation. Outside of killing a pheasant out of season or killing a six month old baby with a sledge hammer, just how can a Minnesota man get put into jail? ---   Had a letter from Ann Fiest last week about the bullhead situation and she’s started working on it, and there should be some along soon. Am asking that a tank of 8-inch perch be placed in the lake. ---   A lady asks, “Why is it that church attendance drops off when Sunday Schools take a short vacation?” Honestly, sister, we can’t answer that question, not having taken a course in psychology. It could be that the parents are anxious to see their children receive a Christian training, or it could be that the youngsters are interested in Sunday school work, or it could be because this is summer. ==============================

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