1961 Columns, January - April
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Roaming in the Gloaming

With Bob Forrest

Things Material and Immaterial

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January 5, 1961
   We spent Christmas this year in a hospital room consequently the column will be weaker. An infection that needed penicillin took us over to the infirmary (hospital) where we were tied up for four days. ---    Not only did we miss Christmas Day and the annual family dinner at the Elias home but the night before Christmas program with its hallowed and joyous giving and taking. The opening of the gift boxes, the piles of wrapping paper, etc.--we missed them all even to its smallest detail. One can never be more alone than on Christmas Day. ---    We remember our first bath in Murray County. It was on a Saturday night on a farm in Cameron township in a wooden tub in 1883. We were the third of three boys and got the tub with the same water last. Don’t raise your eyebrows. Soft water was scarce, there were no “Culligans” or cisterns. We got to the other end of the beam last week when Jack Wolfe, our male nurse, said “You’re going to get a bath.” He took us to a short tank in the middle of the floor. The water looked turbulent; he put me on a chair and lowered me. That water came at me in chunks and pounded me on all sides like a bullet, but when one got through he felt radiant and rosy. Never got such a pounding or felt better. ---    No town in the state equals St. Peter for school trouble. It keeps the place in a ferment. The latest investigating commission said, “Some members of the professional staff should resign right now.” ---    While we were sick a voice whispered in my ear, “Do you want an eye to eye account of the Rose Bowl game, if you do I’ll wire it to you.” It was my youngest granddaughter Peggy Jean, who is now at Los Angeles. Went with 800 loyal Minnesota rooters to do their duty for Minnesota. Wonderful thing is youth--it is the only thing on earth you can’t buy. ---    Drunkenness in driving is on the increase in Minneapolis and in cases, close cases where the prisoner has asked for a jury trial, he or she has been getting free. Judge said the average juror drinks and he reasons to himself, “But for the Grace of God it might have been me.” ---    If this had happened in the early days it would have made a big difference. Now it does not make much difference if the lemon crop is 500,000 tons short. Time was when the only soft drink we had was lemonade. ---    The New York Shipbuilding Corp. will launch the first atom merchant ship in history next month. It cost $45 million and is shaped like a whale back. It will take its first charge of atomic fuel next month that will last for two and a half years, and will test the feasibility of nuclear power as a rival to gas and oil. ---    The Chevy folks say complaint letters from new car owners have dropped from 40 daily to 4 weekly. Reason: the Chevy people held luncheons throughout the U.S. allowing complainants to unload their woes into tape recorders. These recordings even get to the factory and in the interchange some rough spots are ironed out. ---    The state employees at the mental hospital at St. Peter will never be shot on account of being over modest. They have just asked for a 46 percent increase in salaries. A writer points out that if this increase was granted it would be the same as adding a 274 employee industry in the town. Looks like taxes are going sky high. ---    If you want to buy a share in the Volkswagenwerk C. M. B’il [sic], you can buy one or more on Jan. 16th. The above company is the 4th largest auto company in the world. The price has been set at $83.00 a share. ---    If you are planning on attending the inauguration you can get a seat from $4.00 up to $25.00 but if you’re not stopping with friends and if you stop at a good hotel you have to take a room for 4 days, starting Jan. 17th. ---    It went to the New Jersey Supreme Court and the woman had to pay the $200.00 fine for refusing to give up the party phone line for a sick calf. Some folks get awfully hard boiled on a party line and a $200.00 jolt will do them good. ---    Bobbie Burns wrote years ago that his love was like a Red Red Rose. The U.S. government is looking for a Red Red No. 1 dye. The present Red Red No. 1 is outlawed by the U.S. government because it caused liver damage and death in test animals. The red is used in cakes, colors, candy, so the makers have another worry on their hands. ---    That U.S. plane carrier fire is causing a little flurry in the insurance circles. Group insurance amounting to $500,000 is being paid to relatives. One hundred and ninety insurance companies are allied in paying this insurance.
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January 12, 1961
   The Standard Oil Co. wanted to develop the use of kerosene. So they told their agents the world over to be on the lookout for a cheap stove. They found it in a little factory in Hong Kong and now a new stove is on the market that sells for a dollar and burns kerosene. Who’d ever think we would have to travel to Hong Kong for clever mechanics? ---    The Studebaker auto company is having trouble. Its sales are way below the 1959 sales and there is a general shakeup among the management. Shares in the Studebaker-Packard company are selling at $7.50 a share. The shares hit $24.50 in 1960 and $29.00 in 1959. The unwritten law in business is either make good or get out. ---    The final meeting of the Ladies Auxiliary of the local V.F.W. post at Fertile was held last week. They disbanded because they can’t continue when there is no post operating in the town. ---    Men who follow the races and bet don’t always make money, but the State of New York does. It cleaned up $100 million as its share on pari-mutuel bettings in 1960. What would this country do without its bettors, drinkers and smokers? ---    The old phrase “Two by Four” which has been used for generations is on its way out. The National Retail Lumbermens Assn. does not like it, as it does not reflect their true measurements. They want them to be known as “1 1/2 by 2 5/8.” They also want to stop selling lumber by the board foot. ---    We’ve been using nothing but ball point pens and thought everybody else was doing the same thing. Truth is, Americans of today use nine pencils yearly, two more than they did 10 years ago. ---    Compact cars also use a smaller sized battery. Ford says a Falcon battery costs over a third less than a battery for the Fairlane. ---    Swift & Co. has a new way to make that meat you eat a little more tender. Unlike most tenderizers that you fry your meat in or soak it in for several hours, you feed Swift’s Proten to the animal just before it is killed. It is now being sold in 20 states. Merchants selling the Proten meat use special labels stating that it is the Swift product and has conformed to all rules and regulations. ---    The 4-H is getting into the county fair game! At the annual Waseca county fair meeting President Knauth proposed the addition of two ex-officio members of the board, these to be selected by the 4-H leaders council from either their junior or senior groups, or from both. It was approved by a unanimous vote. ---    A real nifty paper was the Herald last week. It had 22 pages and was full of ads that make good reading matter with type that really talks, compared with any paper in a town twice its size. ---    Over in Nicollet county a two year old child was found playing with matches. The father in order to impress the danger of matches held the kid on his knees and applied burning matches to the little one’s fingers. He got a sentence of 60 days in jail. What about the mother. Any mother that would stand idly by and look on should get 100 days in jail. ---    This is the time of the year when folks that heat their homes with hot air look at the thermostat every time they pass it. Your home should be kept at 70 during ordinary winter weather. If you want it warmer push up the thermostat. Remember though that for every degree above 70 it will cost you 3 per cent more. ---    The Minnesota legislature is now open for business and if there is any new law you want passed or any old law you want repealed, write your house member or Senator. They’ll be glad to answer your queries. ---    The new chicken makers of today are doing wonders. He brings his birds to market in eight weeks. He also gets a pound of meat from two pounds of feed. It took five pound 30 years ago. The day never ends for the modern chicken raiser. ---    Iowa had the state park craze years ago. Kept making state parks until it had 71, too many. Now the state is trying to sell or give away thirty of them to counties. The park commissioner asked for an increase of 66 per cent to help care for the parks. Minnesota has only 20 state parks and Murray county has one of them. ---    One of the issues before the legislature is upping the gas tax. In order for you to get some idea of what neighboring states are paying we give you their taxes: Nebraska 7 cents, North and South Dakota, Iowa and Wisconsin six cents. Minnesota is only paying five cents, so look for an increase. ---    Buckwheat pancakes, once a delicacy in this country, are not doing so well. Farmers harvested only a million bushels in 1960, the lowest yield in 74 years. ---    Today, January 12th, is the anniversary of the worst blizzard in the state of Minnesota. On January 12, 1888, one hundred and nine lives were lost in the storm. It was tough, we were out in it for two hours. ---    A movement is sweeping the nation to put prisoners to work. Here’s an idea how it works. A man gets 90 days in a rural county jail. The county board can rent him for a month or two months to a farmer. Twenty dollars a week goes to his family, $5.00 for expenses, so much for board and the prisoner gets the balance. One thing he must do is to stay in the prison weekends. ---    There must be a juvenile crime kindergarten at Crookston. Officials in that city are holding a girl and boy, ages 10 and 11 years old, on burglary and shoplifting charges. A third juvenile 15 years old, a boy, is being held for issuing bad checks. The young pair, Chief Dillabout said, was accused of burglarizing the Farmers Union Co., other loot recovered from the two kids were 3 radios, 2 guns, 10 pocket knives and 30 cents in pennies. ---    It was not a Happy New Year for some of the airplane lines. The collision of the two planes in New York has put a damper on a lot of travel and bad weather months ahead make things look bleak. An accident in New York makes a difference to air travelers more than one in Minnesota or the Dakotas. The insurance on the passengers on the New York accidents will be over twenty million dollars. ---    Our oldest daughter, Col. Forrest, Rtd., who has been spending the holidays at the home of her sister, Mrs. Ray D. Elias, returned to her home in San Francisco, Tuesday. She spent several enjoyable days at the Home with her parents. ---    The safest color for deer hunters to wear is blaze orange, as you can see that color the farthest. Soon there will be a movement to change the color red which has been used for decades to blaze orange, but it will take time. ---    The strongest county historical society in the state is at Ada. The Norman county historical society has in addition to its own body, secretaries in every village and township, someone who is interested in the history and to whom you can give items for the museum. It all helps. The society is securing one of the smaller rural schools of late years before they are all gone. ========================

January 19, 1961
   Every bottle that contains distilled liquor must have the O.K. of Uncle Sam. Distillers want bottles a trifle smaller so they can make a little money. Here’s a strange thing about liquor: in the year 1946 two hundred thirty-one million gallons of liquor were sold, the largest amount in history. Even the huge growth of population since 1946 could not beat it: only 221 million gallons were sold in 1960. Any of you remember 1946? ---    Big sized cigarets led the sales in 1960. Pall Mall being in the lead and Camels was second. Again more than half the cigarets were filtered. The rest of the old regular brands, such as Lucky Strike, Chesterfield, Old Gold and Philip Morris are slowly but surely losing ground. ---    Senator Kefauver continues to say drug makers make too much money. They have to. Parke-Davis, one of the biggest manufacturers, has two law suits against it for $250,000 each. The last one was from California. Plaintiff claims that a Parke-Davis antibiotic caused the death of their 20 year old son Ben R. Aitken. ---    Lots of things we haven’t seen. Here’s one of them. A local in an Otter Tail county paper: “Want to buy 2 or 4 day old calves. Also want to buy first four milkings from fresh cows: F. Peterson, Fargo.” ---    There is still a shortage of doctors in Minnesota and will be for years in the rural districts. At the present time the cities have a doctor for every one thousand people. ---    See where a 20 year old youth got a five year sentence at Stillwater for “negligence.” He was driving a car which got on the wrong side of the road, causing the death of Mrs. Alice Malmquist and Eva Sinclair of St. Paul. This is a good omen. Too often it just goes down in the book as an accident. ---    The trial which has been held up for months, in hope that the people would forget, started last week. It is the case against Marvin Kline, former mayor of Minneapolis and general big shot. He is the big figure in the Sister Kenny case. He’s the one that increased his own salary from $25,000 to $40,000, among other items. ---    “Youngsters turn highwaymen in Mahnomen county.” Eight of them from White Earth, four of them girls, went on the prowl one night last week holding up autos, robbing and attacking passengers. Cars would not always stop so one of the gang stretched himself across the road so the cars had to stop. It’s downright cold up there: on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of January it was 20, 22 and 24 below zero. ---    The American Cancer Society took a poll of 487 doctors on the question, “Is cigaret smoking a major cause of cancer?” Thirty-three per cent said, “Definitely,” thirty-one per cent answered, “Probably,” 13 per cent answered “Probably not.” Nine per cent said “Definitely not.” The remaining 14 per cent said “Don’t know.” ---    Compact cars are still in the news. The Sun Oil company of Philadelphia predicts they will cause a loss of 330 million dollars a year in tax revenues in 3 years. From all accounts the sale of compacts is going to increase this year. ---    Visited with Mr. and Mrs. John Harmsen Saturday. John said he attended the Conservation meeting, but it was more like a conservation gathering. ---    When a doctor in New York reports the birth of a child he reports the sex but not the color or race. Come this fall the color and race designation will be omitted from the death certificate. ---    This is the social time of the year for the north lake folks. They put on fishing derbies, give prizes amounting to $3,000. A section of the ice is marked off. You pay $1.00 to get into it and are supplied with a free hole and free bait. The money either goes to charity or to some lake improvement. The ice on the lakes was 18 inches thick on Jan. 2nd. One of the prizes at the Cass Lake Derby was a load of logs valued at $100. ---    If you have a rocking chair and like to rock you’ll be glad to read this. The British have now decided that the rocking chair is the cure of all ills of old age. Dr. R. C. Swan writes to the London Lancet that “The greatest problem of the aged is the stopping of blood circulation. Rocking chairs enable the most feeble to take exercise, encourages circulation, provides respiration, stimulates movements of the joints and encourages sleep.” This should sell rocking chairs. ---    Out of 35,551 fox killed in the state in 1960, 2,129 were killed in Winona county, and Stearns county had 1,136. Not all the counties in the state pay fox bounties. Twenty-seven counties pay no bounty. ---    Oil must be scarce. An old oil well near Bradford, Penn. was said to have 150 million barrels of petroleum, but it could not get started moving. Last week 27,000 barrels of alcohol were poured into it. This is what is known as secondary recovery. If this treatment works there are 2,700 such wells waiting. ---    People are going daft over those diet drinks and more liquid “meals” are on the market. Top restaurants in Chicago are pushing them while the iron is hot. Hotels like the Palmer House will give you a swell liquid lunch for $1.50, this one has a shot of Jamaica Rum: should be a good drink for old people. ---    If you are going to Africa on business be sure and get to the markets before you leave. Prices on calves were $85.00 at Timbuka while mules were selling at $45.00. ---    St. Peter reached the high point in its festering school system last week. The board asked the officials of the Minnesota Educational Association to come down and look things over. It did and its report recommended that two teachers be dismissed. The teachers did not like it and brought suit against the officials of the M.E.A. for $700,000. The two teachers were charged with violating the ethics of the M.E.A. The American Legion Post at St. Peter got into the fray last week and unanimously approved of the movement to retain the two teachers, who are members of the post. ---    When anyone drives into the middle section of your railroad train with an automobile they should be arrested, fined and jailed for negligence. ---    Read about 3 boys fixing up a beer parlor in their auto. Beer came from a 16 gallon keg of beer in the trunk. The boys who came from St. Peter did a good business for a short time. Isn’t a 16 gallon keg of beer a little too big for the average trunk, and isn’t there a law against open kegs? ---    Here’s good news for the farmer who rides the combine through the glare, heat and dust under a sweltering harvest sun. Dunham Bush has an air conditioner for combines that will make harvesting a real pleasure. ---    Will C. Turnblad, who suspended Warden Riggs from the State Prison at Stillwater for having too many groceries, is on the prowl again. He was going to have a hearing on the case before Judge Brand, but he declined; does this mean that Turnblad is going to open up all the grocery cases of 1960? Riggs was suspended last August.
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January 26, 1961
   A South International Falls saloon keeper sold 3 minors whiskey. They criminally assaulted two young girls. The three youths got sentences up to thirty years. Last week the father of the two girls sued the saloon keeper for $80,000 damages: the jury gave him $40,000. A real warning to those who sell to minors. How long will it be before the parents of the three youths will bring suit against the saloon keeper? ---    Joe L. Kastner of Sanborn met a strange and unusual death. When he failed for work, friends investigated and found him dead of suffocation, apparently from a smoldering cigaret. He had been dead two days when found. Is it possible to suffocate from the smoke of one cigaret? ---    Natural gas, one of the most important fuels, has never been taxed. Last week the state of Michigan imposed a tax on the stored gas. Assessors say there is nothing in the law that will bar it from being taxed. ---    The first state to impose a tax on gasoline was Oregon. Back in 1919 it voted a tax of one cent a gallon. ---    The Board of County Commissioners of Nicollet county granted the fair board an additional half mill levy, the regular annual $1,000 appropriation and a five cent per capita on the 1960 population of the county, for premiums and expenses in conjunction with the 4-H club exhibits at the county fair. ---    The fishing season was not open--at least four students at the Mankato State college found that out. They were busy fishing packs of cigarets out of a vending machine when John Law caught up with them. At that time the boys had gotten five packs with the aid of a coat hanger. The judge fined them $25.00 each. Pretty expensive cigarets. ---    Take a good look at the next mule you see as it will probably be the last. There will always be some buffalo in parks and horses will always be with us, but when the mule goes, he’s gone. The last mule market closed last week in Memphis, Tenn. As late as 1945 it was handling 10,000 mules a month. Last Thursday there were only 6 mules in the big barn and 3 of them were going for dog food. ---    A civil war was averted at St. James one night last week when 29 youths between 16 and 18 found themselves in jail; some of them came from Iona. Four 18 year old youths were kept in jail. It’s about time those roving bandits get their names in the papers--pitiless publicity hurts the parents as well as the boys. ---    The annual Hassle of the Woodmen of the World of Omaha is now on. The governor has ordered the atty. general to dig in. The governor also turned over the file in the case to the Nebraska Bar Assn. Several attorneys are under a cloud. The Woodmen officials have paid over $65,000 to two lawyers. There are a number of members of the order in Murray county. Last year the society, the Woodmen of the World, wanted to move to a southern state, but Nebraska would not let it. ---    Color means as much to some animals as it does to humans. A lavender mink stole retails for $2,400 while the common every day brown mink stole can be had for $1,100. ---    The dental group that endorses “Crest” is being told they took too much on themselves. “Crest” came out with page ads last August with an ad, “Tooth Paste Brand Wins Dental Approval.” Organizations of this kind should have a committee with authority to make these announcements. ---    An article says next to a common cold the nation’s most common plague is the decay of teeth, and surprisingly the germ that causes it has never been isolated. What we are looking for a germicide agent that can be put in the mouth and then prevents cavities, and get it in some kinds of candy so the school kids can doctor themselves and prevent cavities. ---    They are pretty particular in Wisconsin. The attorney general has started action against lake lot owners who have been filling in their lots on the water’s edge with black dirt, and he has asked for a fine of $50 a day for each day until the black earth is removed. ---    There’s a new plan to stifle the trading stamps. In the new plan shoppers will be given points for purchases. When you get enough points for purchases they can be used to purchase merchandise in the store. ---    Ocean going steamships are not doing so well. They carried the smallest amount of passengers in eight years in 1960. The ships carried 884,000 passengers in 1959. ---    Had a visit with Mrs. Joe Campbell last week. Winnie ably filled this column for over a decade. ---    Uncle Sam is going to have some extra help with the income tax this spring. Over 62 million personal income taxes will be filed and it is hoped by the Income Revenue dept. that it will be able to audit 3,500,000 of them. Your returns have a small chance of getting read. ---    Law enforcement officials at Mankato and 20 farmers interviewed on the many traffic fatalities unanimously give this one reason--laws are not strong enough, there should be no warning given--nick them the first time. ---    Remember the boys with the beer barrel in the back of the car: the state did not fare so badly after all. The saloon keeper who sold them the keg was fined $100 and the boys paid $135--for getting into a wrong line of business. ---    See where a Sheldon, Iowa woman robbed a bank (inside) of two million. If that had happened in some Northern Minnesota towns some of the depositors would have had the bank examiners sued long before this. ---    Woodsmen near Ranier were surprised the other day when they saw a year-old black bear and the loggers wondered if it was not a sign of an early spring. A logger said some workers might have disturbed it. The game warden said a thaw that will wet the fur of the bear often starts them outdoors. ---    The Wahtonwan Memorial Hospital at St. James is in the red again and the city council advanced $3,000 to pay emergency bills. There has not been enough sick folks since 1957 to get it into the black. Hospital officials stated the $24,000 accounts receivable were causing them some worry. ---    It’s a shocking disgrace the way the Elizabeth Kenny foundation was formerly run. Kline, the former director, was tried last week for grand larceny for raising his pay from $25,000 to $40,000. In the trial the stenographer said he sent notices of the monthly meetings to the members. Robt. Onan, big Minneapolis business man, said he never got one, nor did he authorize Kline’s increase, although there’s a letter from him. He said he never wrote it, and although his name is signed he says he does not remember signing it and if he did sign it he did not know what was in it, and so it goes on. An unsavory mess. The Kenny foundation should be moved out in the country.
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February 2, 1961
   Some towns are passing ordinances, if they will hold, to put bad check passers in the county jail for 90 days. Trouble is, it will be pretty expensive for a $10 check. Must cost at least $3 a day to keep a man in jail. Of course the village could rent him out and have him stay in the jail nights, or get a buck saw and a cord of wood. ---    In spite of all the new fangled medicine being made in modern shining laboratories, medicine herbs continue to rise in price. Medicine gatherers that used to go out in the woods and dig herbs and pick medical plant leaves have disappeared and so the price on witch hazel leaves goes soaring. They were 60 cents, now up to 80 cents. Remember when witch hazel was about the only thing Shorty would slap on your face when he got through shaving you. ---    Marshall county stopped paying bounty on foxes but they will have to restore it as turkey growers in the county have been suffering serious losses. Carlton stopped the fox bounty for a couple of years. It was paying $4.00, now $3. There seems to be more juggling about fox bounties than anything else. ---    Were you ever in a Pancake House? Come on, this is one of a national organization. Snappy looking place. Has 18 different kinds of pancakes running all the way from Blueberry, Buttermilk to Coconut, made with fresh coconut milk--among others were Palestine pancakes made with unleavened unbleached flour, then there were Corn, Banana, French, Potato, etc. If you like pancakes you’ll be filled full for 55 cents. There were also eleven kinds of waffles, from Hot Peach topped with whipped cream to Swedish pancakes with imported lingonberries. Of course there were side dishes such as sausage, but no bread and no potatoes. One egg costs 25 cents. It opens at 6 a.m. You can get an extra fill of pancakes for 90 cents: that is the price of 15 pancakes. ---    They must be having a real hassle over in Redwood and Brown counties. Notice 125 farmers have filed an appeal against a judicial ditch order. County engineer says if it goes through, seven county bridges will have to be changed. As planned, the ditch will cost over a million dollars. ---    We’re not going to break our leg on purpose, but here’s a doctor with a brand new thought. Dr. Peterson at a meeting said, “A highball may be just what you need when you are recovering from a bone fracture.” They tend to prevent clotting of the blood. He urged an ounce of whiskey every four hours for five days. Something new again. ---    They have some strange laws in Mississippi. You can buy beer on a Sunday but not cat food. ---    You’ve heard of some men being called big hearted. Authorities say that your heart is shaped like an oversized ripe fig and is about 4 1/2 inches at its widest point in a small woman and six inches in a large man. ---    A supermarket in Mankato in a page ad tells how it had given up trading stamps. “How much do trading stamps cost you?” it asks, and answers 15 cents on a carton of cigarets, 10 cents on a gallon of bleach, 11 cents on 6 cans of soup, 13 cents on 10 lbs. of sugar, 6 cents on a can of tuna. Where’s the catch? Who gets the trading stamp money? Or is this real good advertising? ---    Johnson & Johnson will have a gauze on the market soon that will stop bleeding in two minutes. The dressing forms a clot in wounds or cuts. The wound can be closed, leaving the dressing to be absorbed by the tissues. It can be used on small wounds if it does not cost too much. It’s high priced stuff. ---    People do love to get in the spotlight. More than 200 persons have confessed to the Black Dahlia murder in California and it still remains unsolved. ---    Ice is never safe, says Shorty Joyce of Greenbush who trapped in the Lake of the Woods country. He has been driving his car over the ice where it was 3 and 4 feet thick, struck a weak spot in twenty feet of water and went down nose first. He got out after busting a window and gives this advice: never try to swim, if you do, you’ll drown. Let your body rise to the surface and it will strike the hole. ---    Wisconsin ministers and priests will meet in conference with the farmers on Feb. 1st and 2nd to discuss their problems. This was the second annual clergy-farmer conference, a splendid idea from the Wisconsin Farm Bureau. ---    In 1924 there were 65,000 steam locomotives. Who ever dreamed that we would live to see the day when there would not be one left. The locomotives meant much to us who lived in the prairie section, with no rivers. How we liked to see them in the winter on a cold still day, their smoke going up for yards. What wonderful changes we have seen and we presume the coming generation will see as many more. ---    Two of the young Piety boys were walking on Moose Lake and did not notice a thin spot. The younger slipped through the ice. Did his older brother get scared and run for help? No, he plumped down on his tummy, wriggled his way towards the hold, stretched out his arm and the younger one grabbed it and safety. The older boy should get a Carnegie medal. When the younger boy got home his clothes were frozen stiff. His mother thawed him out inch by inch. The thermometer was below zero. ---    What can we do with our old Christmas cards? One lady in Carlton gathers up all she can get, boxes them up and sends them to a foreign mission; children of the natives hunger for them. ---    Hard to believe, but one of the real assets of many a firm is a bunch of old letters. Take the Singer Sewing Machine Co. It is over 100 years since they started doing business and during that time received thousands of letters from “mostly satisfied customers.” These letters were carefully filed away and separated into different classes, so the company knows just who they are writing to. The Singer company wants to spread out. It made a list of 20 gadgets and made out a mailing list. Did it pay? Well, it sold $600,000 worth of $140 Bell & Howell Camera projectors. And the odd thing about it is that you can’t buy a Singer Sewing machine by mail. The dealer must deliver it. ---    Cigarets are a long ways from tobacco. Here’s some of the flavors used to make them palatable: prunes, menthol, licorice, cocoa, tonka beans, dates, geraniums, honey, maple, peach, and imitation rum. No matter what you put in them or if they give you lung cancer, all is forgotten for they bring you “Thought in the early morning, solace in times of woes, peace in the hush of twilight, balm ere my eyelids close.” ---    Had a pleasant visit from Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Dahlquist last week. The Dahlquists came to Chanarambie township in 1889 and Peter the head of the family and we were pretty good friends in the early days. Oscar for years was interested in Farm Bureau and 4-H work and he is one of the most active factors they have. Oscar is president of the county fair and we asked him to extend our sympathy to the board at the next meeting.
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February 9, 1961
   “Chinese Auction: Have been given power to sell the Kankala farm 3 miles from Kettle River. Price starts at $3,500 and goes down $100 a week until sold. State Bank of Barnum.” ---    Was a guest at a pleasing birthday dinner at the home of Mr. and Mrs. R. D. Elias last Sunday--the day being Grandma’s anniversary. ---    It’s really marvelous that we don’t have more plane accidents on the Atlantic Ocean. Today planes carry two thirds of the passengers. You can get to Europe from New York in 6 1/2 hours. the days of the Queen Mary and all plush passenger steamships are coming to an end. The owners realize that and some of the big boats will be carrying more cargo. The airplane is doing to the liners what the autos did to our railroads. ---    What kind of a canned soup do you like best? In Hong Kong and Singapore they crave chicken noodle. In Lima and Rio de Janeiro they like cream of asparagus. Norway and Sweden like mushroom and the English like the oxtail variety, at least that’s what the Campbell company say, and they make ‘em. If the U.S. had been included no doubt it would have been “tomato.” ---    How old is your TV? Here’s the estimated life span. TV sets 9 years and your electric washing machine is good for 9 years, your vacuum cleaner 11 years and your refrigerator and gas range 15 years. ---    Did you know that the recent cold spell was just what a group of men was looking for at Bemidji. They are testing new autos. Makers want the lowdown first. It was 31 below one morning when they put the cars through the obstacle course at the testing grounds. ---    Churches will not be exempt from taxation in Massachusetts unless they make arrangements for “off street” parking. ---    Auto insuring companies are beginning to squirm and one of the first things they want is to raise the rates to those under 25 and over 65 years, and if you have not had an accident it’s going to lower your rates. Over 65 and under 25 may look for higher rates. ---    There were not enough sick in Waseca and the Memorial hospital had a $3,009 loss in December. Total earnings for the year past were $129,797, the expenses during the same period $140,335. ---    Trouble is a brewing at New Ulm. Three hundred and ninety- eight citizens want the state to audit the city books, going back seven years. They checked over the names for 3 1/2 days. Under the new law it takes 4 signatures for every 100 inhabitants, so 444 are required, and another feature is that the city bear the cost of the audit. ---    The oddest auto in the world is the Volkswagen, manufactured by the West German Government. The government will sell you stock in the company providing your income does not exceed $3,810. Individuals with small incomes or large families can get cars at as much as a 25 percent discount, from the offered price of $83 a share. ---    Big business is not expecting the satellites to bring the world to an end. The Prudential Insurance Co. has $250 million of Chrysler 3 3/4 percent notes due in 2054. ---    We don’t know what the topical fluoride treatments are, but we notice you can get them at the Le Center school. The two treatments will cost you $4.00. ---    One official of a Mankato bank in discussing the $2 million embezzlement at Sheldon, Iowa said, “It couldn’t happen here,” then added, “This bank carries insurance up to $2 million.” Why? ---    Taxes are so high in some parts of California that the Santa Fe burned the old roundhouse at Needles to move it from the tax list, and the Hearst family gave the Simeon Castle with its priceless fittings and 127 acres of land to the state to escape confiscation. All is not gold that glitters in California. Burning the castle would have been a national disgrace. ---    A New York paper wonders how they could sell coffee for a cent a cup in 1834. We remember when we used to buy Arbuckles coffee in Engebretson’s store at Lake Wilson for 10 cents a pound, and if you paid cash you got eleven pounds for a dollar, so you could easy sell it for 1 cent a cup--the kind of coffee they had those days. ---    Saw where the preachers of Carlton County are asking a prison sentence for anyone that sells or buys liquor for a minor: there should have been room somewhere for the word “give.” ---    Swan Lake between New Ulm and Mankato is going dry. It is one of the best duck lakes in the state and efforts are being started to bring it back. Cheapest way would be to pump water in from the Minnesota river or bore wells. Wells is the best solution, but they will cost $100,000 and the state don’t know where to get the money. If you start pumping into one lake, the state will need to buy a lot of pumps. ---    Have tried from several sources to find out just what it costs to keep a man or woman in the average jail. Did find out that it costs the U.S. government $1,000 a year at the average federal prison. At the plush Alcatraz off the California cost, rates are somewhat higher. ---    Ruth Hanson writing about the weather in her column in the Moose Lake Star says, “Tuesday some of the thermometers hit 40 below. This morning we have a heat wave--it is only 13 below.” ---    The scrubbing and rubbing classes at the Iowa University says that housewives spend more time in keeping bare floors clean than they don on the carpets. ---    You can stop the car you drive on a dry road going 20 miles an hour in 21 feet. At the same speed on glare ice it will take 195 feet with snow tires. On loosely packed snow, regular tires would take 60 feet and snow tires 52 feet. ---    Not so bad now, but you can remember when interference almost put your radio out of business, and later some T.V.’s. You don’t have to take it now. Just notify the Federal Communications Commission, it will clear the air for you. ---    St. Peter schools were in the lime light again this week. The Minnesota Education Association wants or is telling St. Peter officials how to run their schools and the M.E.A. does not seem to be getting much support. ---    A Minnesota woman could embezzle $2,000,000 from a bank, be found guilty, and some judge would be glad if she left the state. There is no real punishment for women in Minnesota. They never get behind bars or stone walls, never wear stripes or numbers, only one thing they cannot do is go to Shakopee. ---    Here’s one phase of farming that is on the move. They are the oyster farmers. Adverse weather has almost ruined the northeast beds and some farmers are moving to Florida where they have good luck and from the looks of things the good old oyster stew is on the way back. Florida growers increased their crop 50 per cent over last year. ---    The Riggs case opened up again last week. He was laid off as warden on the grocery supplies. It’s about time these grocery cases get out of our hair. Right now the case does not look any too bright for Riggs, but if he goes--it’s going to cause a lot of aching hearts: you can’t make fish out of one and fowl out of the other. ---    The legislature must do something to reduce the highway death toll. More people demand a law of this type than there are asking for lower taxes. ---    Here’s how they collect taxes in North Dakota. “The county commissioners have further ordered the sheriff of Pembina county to attach and levy, garnishee wages or salary and sell all attached property to satisfy delinquent personal property taxes,” also to accept payment for taxes by the week or the month.
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February 16, 1961
   One of the sights when we used to go to St. Paul in the railroad days was the depot at Mountain Lake. There was always a group of whiskered Mennonites with their mouths full of sunflower seeds which they could husk in their mouths, and there was a constant stream of husks coming out of the lower right. They knew more than the ones grinning at them. Sunflower seeds are the richest in food value of all seeds. the seed sells in New York today for $1.25 a pound. They don’t cure anything but they have more vitamins than the body needs. Plant a row of them this year and try eating them. Sunflower candy sells for $1.95 a pound: more than the best chocolate. ---    The compact car started a lot of new ideas. Now you can get portable compact refrigerators that are only three feet high. The new Manhattan Hotel has one in every room. There’s a new compact dishwasher--that’s what interests us. At home in the old days we always did the washing, that gave the women in the family a chance to hold the fork up to the window to see if we left any of the egg on it: if there was it came back with disdain and a bang. ---    A part time bartender at Mankato was given 10 days in jail for selling beer to two girls: minors. ‘Twarn’t enough, it should have been 90 days. You’ll never stop folks from breaking the law by a pat on the wrist. Give them something they can feel. ---    Blue Earth county district court will have an unusual case. If you dance, read this. He attended a dance. He asked a lady to dance with him. She got up--e started to jitterbug, she said “Stop.” He only increased the tempo, the lady slipped, fell and broke a leg and the bill against him is $4,500. The dance was at the Saulspaugh Hotel. ---    This was not on the front page, it did not even have a head: “Hallock has been battling the snow this week. Two falls, one 8 inches and another 9 inches has filled the streets. Claims are made that it is the heaviest since the winter of 1881-1882.” That’s a long time--must have had some snow in December. ---    Exploding barrels are bad things to be near. Donald Brow of Barnesville was welding one in 1959 when it exploded. He has just undergone his 30th operation to ease his condition. ---    This has been a bad year on the moose: a real tourist attraction. Twenty-one died in the Grand Marais area along the North Shore. Some tourists would rather see a moose than catch a 10 lb. lake trout. ---    Georgia has gone to the seat of the matter. Dahlonega, the county seat of Zupkin county, is levying a monthly fee of a dollar on each toilet in the community to help retire sewerage system bonds. ---    Richard Hardy is in jail at Grand Rapids in connection with the death of his sister-in-law. When he got home on Monday night she was not in the car. She had fallen out and frozen to death and he never knew it. Any official that renews his drivers license for at least 50 years should lose his job. ---    Watch that sidewalk of yours. In Mpls. Geo. Hall fell over something on the sidewalk. He got a verdict of $1,000. The city appealed but the Minnesota Supreme Court said cities should keep their sidewalks free from all obstacles, cracks or bumps, so you know how the court stands when you have sidewalk trouble. ---    A Swedish scientist says he has a drug that will alter the emotions of the human brain. Kind of a dangerous drug to have around. One who knows how to administer it could drive a person crazy, slowly but surely. ---    Here’s an odd damage suit for the farmers. A farmer in Blue Earth county claimed his tractor was damaged $350.00 when it hit a stone while picking corn on the Hildebrand farm and the jury agreed with him. ---    A gas war in Tracy came to a sudden end when a newcomer offered a bargain. All you had to do was to pay the 9 cent gas tax, and the war was over. ---    Best news story of the week was Judge Ganey sending 7 top electric officials to jail, even if only for 30 days. They belonged to a group that has been rigging prices for years, was glad to see Bob Kennedy in there working like a terrier. ---    You should read “Business Week” of last week: stretched across the face of it was “U.S. Steel Goes North for Ore” (leaves Minnesota for Canada). Minnesota legislatures are blamed for the Steel Trust leaving. Steel people say weight in favor of Canada was because the companies feel that Minnesota taxes on iron ore are excessive and unfair!!. ---    Put the name of Judge Elmer Johnson of Fridley on your list of VI judges. He had one of these guys before him that kept on breaking every driving law, and after fining him $150 he revoked his drivers and chauffeurs license for a year, and for good measure impounded his license plates. Here’s a sentence that’s going to keep some of them in line. ---    A change in their lunch hour started the students of Roosevelt High on a boycott of their cafeteria. Some of these adventures against rules and regulations end in juvenile delinquency. ---    Here’s the way it works in Minnesota. A North Dakota woman in Blue Earth county district court was found guilty of second degree forgery. She was given an 0-10 year sentence at the Shakopee reformatory which was suspended if she would quit drinking. What Minnesota needs is a woman’s prison. ---    You’re going to see the day when belts will be a must on every auto. They have proved it in many states to reduce fatalities, yet only a very small number are sold. Colbert of the Chrysler Co. is so much impressed with the record that he will sell belts to dealers at $6.25 each: the regular price is $12.00. ---    Saw three men all bundled up as if they were going to the North Pole in a picture on the front page of the International Falls Journal. They were Pontiac engineers up there with five Tempests giving them winter tests. They are equipped with different transmissions and carburetors. They want to improve cold weather starting and drive-away capabilities--all looking to improve the 1962 cars. Looks as if Minnesota is the capital of the frigid zone. ---    Years ago the railroad via Jay Gould were accused of saying “The Public Be Damned” and now the public is saying “The Railroads Be Damned.” But don’t cuss the railroads too much. In the final analysis, in peace or war the railroads are our lifeline. ---    Want to get into business for yourself? If so, start a Lonely Hearts Club. They’ve come back to life again after a premature death. Men are in more demand than they have been for years, reason perhaps that there are no rich women left. ---    There will be no horse racing at the Redwood county fair in 1961. The secretary says that the horse races no longer pay for themselves. Taking their place will be autos that move without wheels. Can even travel on water. Compressed air keeps the body aloft and moving. You will see one at the Murray county fair this fall. ---    Down in Mankato a 19 year-old woman with a baby was given 30 days in jail for shoplifting. The sentence was cut to 10 days and only the night to be spent in the coop. What some towns should have is a portable jail on wheels and haul it up to the prisoner’s home each night. ---    Shipping our surplus food abroad for charity’s sake: whenever we send food abroad we’re nudging the home farmer and business man towards the poor house.
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February 23, 1961
   A Swiss recently perfected a frying pan that will never be popular with the butter makers. It is a siliconed pan, needs hardly any fat. You can fry an entire chicken in a half a pat of butter and all the cleaning the pan needs is a wipe with a paper napkin. ---    We live in the largest village in the state and it does not have a liquor store of any variety. In the city of Bloomington there are over 52,000 people, the fourth largest city in the state, but a bill will be introduced in the legislature soon asking that it may operate a municipal store. ---    Big League baseball in Minneapolis next summer is going to be the death of some of the small leagues. Competition is too strong and home town loyalty just can’t fight Mantle, Casey Stengel, Skowron, etc. When one gets the taste of top league baseball, home stuff tastes like weak tea. ---    Here’s a sensible move of the shoe dealers in Boston. They are offering a $2 trade-in on the old shoes. They get rid of their worst competitor--there’s nothing more enjoyable to old folks than to stick their feet in an old pair of shoes. ---    The people in Norman County must like to read good books. The county commissioners leveled a one mill tax for a Rural Library which will hit all the towns and most of the schools in the county: a splendid idea. A bookmobile made a tour of the county and over 900 adults visited it, hence the levy. ---    Soo Line conductor got off the flyer, it had a hot box. He got a shovel and started shoveling snow on it. He was stricken and passed away before aid was available: a rather unusual death. ---    One of the big attractions at the Chicago Sportsmens Show was four frozen wall eyed pike at the Lake of the Woods, Minn. booth, and no wonder. Three weighed 10 pounds each and the other weighed 12 pounds. ---    You never even hesitated after you read the disclosure of the electrical trust, just went along as if it was nothing very unusual. Yet it had stolen more money from the government and the people in five years than all the underworld has done in one hundred years. ---    The county of Dodge is going to have a new grandstand at the fair grounds at Mantorville. The new grandstand will cost $30,000 to be paid by a 1/2 mill tax. Dodge has only a 12,000 population and has an acreage of 280,000. Murray County has 440,000 acres. ---    The big crop of the winter in Minnesota is ice. Out of the lakes around Detroit Lakes 900 carloads of ice was harvested. The ice was from 20 to 24 inches thick, and some of it was shipped as far west as the state of Washington. ---    For Frances, just across the border from International Falls, is going to have a hospital strike. The hospital is operated by the Grey Nuns--and if closed will be the first one in all of Canada. Fifteen registered nurses are not affected. ---    A Halstad man spear fishing in Lake Andrasia near Bemidji took a poke at what he thought was a Northern Pike, hit a 50 pound Muskie. He hit him back of the neck, paralyzing it. As it was, he bent his spear. This is not the end of the story. It’s against the law to take a musky with a spear so he lost it. The warden said the state would mount it and sell to the highest bidder. ---    The Federal Aviation Agency should get its head examined. The Lockheed Corp. sold and delivered 20 Electra planes. One airline found a vacuum cleaner in an Electra’s fuel tank, in another Electra a rocket gun and 20 screws. Another air line reported missing nuts and bolts that had worked loose. Another Electra had one wing full of trash. The Agency fined the Electra Co. $6,000: it should have been $100,000. ---    When a passenger plane crashes, it is splashed over the front page in big black bold type. Yet you are safer in one of them than in your own car when you drive 60 miles an hour. There were 1,500,000 scheduled flights in 1959. There were nine fatal plane crashes: an accident in every 350,000 flights. ---    A move is under way to retire all workers at 62 instead of 65. Why not let a man work as long as he is able to support himself. The future looks dim. A man goes to most homes where he starts in at $160 a month--this does not include doctor bills or medicine, that’s practically $2,000 a year. If he has a wife, it will mean $4,000 a year--if they live ten years it will take $40,000.00 How many have it? ---    Is baseball on the wane? It is at Fairmont, that is pulling out of the League. In 1955, Fairmont used to average 1300 fans a game on Sunday. Last year the fans dwindled to 300 a game. All of the leagues of the class of the Minney are really worrying about big league stuff in Minneapolis. They know the big league games will kill the Sunday game. “How are you going to keep them on the farm after they’ve seen Paree.” ---    Venison is still high priced. Four poachers were fined $210 each at Grand Marais last week for taking deer out of season--which makes $840 and with 2 autos and a rifle confiscated should bring the total up around $2,000. The way of the deer transgression is expensive and costly: almost prohibitive. In the picture with the story were memories for us. Two of the wardens were Art Johnson and Charley Ott of Grand Marais. They showed the writer where and how to catch his first lake trout. ---    Wyoming has barred the trading stamp outfits from doing business in that state. It was the worst defeat in 45 years said the Gold Bond Stamp Co. of Minneapolis. The stamp people can’t carry it to the U.S. Supreme Court. It won’t listen. Trading stamps can be issued only by local merchants. The 1959 retail merchants spent $700 million for about 275 billion stamps. Trading stamps have a wonderful drawing power to bring business and many a merchant who quit them was glad to get back. ---    The Iron Range is in a bad way and will be in the days to come. The Steel Trust has taken the cream and it now prefers the nice Canadian ore to the Taconite pellets of Minnesota. Which is only natural, you would do the same thing. ---    Gov. Anderson’s stand on drunken driving was timely. Why not send him a letter or postal card telling him you’re with him. Means lots more than you think. Men in public office would rather have a letter from you, even if it is written in pencil, than a lengthy typewritten petition. ---    There’s quiet in St. Peter temporarily. The school board is divided 3 on a side. A new member on the board that wants to throw the rascals out is voluble: very. At the last meeting he read a 60 page statement, took him two hours to present his taking the hide from the supt.--the bone of contention. Just wouldn’t like being on the board. ---    We know so little (talking about ourselves) that is really pitiful. Newspaper stories made us believe that the Congo was nothing but a seething bunch of murderers. Last year the Katanga copper mines produced 320,000 tons--75 percent of the world output. The mines employ 20,000 Congolese and they lost only five days last year. If Minnesota’s Iron Range had this kind of a record, things would be booming along the Mesabi.
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March 2, 1961
   Court news in the International Falls Journal--at the afternoon session Jack Havlock was fined $5.00 for harboring a dog causing an annoyance to others. ---    A group of irate citizens swarmed into the Waseca council room one night last week. The board was making water and sewer assessments on various lots and the tax payers wanted to know why they were not notified. Clerk said a notice was placed in the Journal and the village attorney said that was all the notice required by law. ---    Britain is “enjoying” socialized medicine now--costs two and a half billion dollars a year and the tax payers must pay 12 cents a week more. If the British pay $2,500,888,888 a year, socialized medicine would cost the U.S. twenty billion a year. ---    One sneeze hurls germs five feet in front of you and when you cough or belch you can better that record. Instead of spraying your friends, just turn your head or cover your mouth with your handkerchief. Why do so many people clear their throats with many bursts of speed in the faces of others? ---    Here’s an item from the Sleepy Eye Dispatch that will interest a lot of readers: “Restitution in the amount of $1,152 has been made through Blue Earth juvenile probation officers to residents of that county who have been victims of theft and vandalism. Restitution came from 10 youths, two of whom paid $300 each for property either destroyed or stolen.” Losses sustained by Blue Earth county people over a period of more than a year were covered in the payments. ---    Another book minded county is Waseca. The county commissioners appropriated $15,000 to the library at Waseca. ---    The most popular cigaret during 1960, according to the Reynolds Tobacco and the American Tobacco Co., was Pall Mall. The Reynolds Co. that makes the Camel, Winston, Salem and Cavalier earned $105 million in 1960. During the same period the Reynolds Co. sales rose to $1,428,260,858. Its profits rose to $1.45 a share despite the fact that its smoking tobacco and chewing tobacco showed a loss. ---    If this woman wins her suit, every village will have to put a high wire fence around its dump or put on an armed guard. The woman was snooping through the Sleepy Eye dump. There was a piece of sod that a fire had eaten under, she stepped on it and went through it, damaged her legs $300 worth and she wants the city to give her a check. They should never have taken the word “negligence” out of the dictionary. ---    When it comes to law enforcement game wardens seem to be far more efficient than the force that works on the highways. When they get their man he gets a sentence that he remembers. A Ray man is serving a 90 day sentence for having a beaver in his possession. There was no fine or suspension. You could run through all the stop signs from Preston to Warroad and never get a sentence like that. ---    Here’s one man that believes in advertising. His billboard ad reads, “I will give $50 to anyone that gets me a job.” ---    Some communities are keenly interested in bomb shelters. The first one in North Dakota was built at Grafton. It will hold 1,000 persons if they all stand up, and 200 can live there for 14 days. It is under the Eagles Club. The Federal government chipped in $21,000. To be up to date, it has a bar. ---    Where are all the compact cars? The Pittsburgh Steel company says there so many of them on the road last year that they cut steel production 700,000 tons. ---    Instead of using trucks to distribute free food to the needy, Uncle Sam will give applicants stamps that can be exchanged for groceries at the local grocery store. Two of the most distressed areas are in Pennsylvania and Northern Minnesota. ---    We take off our hats to a St. Louis drug store chain. It is giving a discount of 25 percent to all persons over 65. It is one aid that everyone can understand. ---    There’s a new bowling ball on the market that is going to interest thousands of bowlers. Instead of finger holes it has a handle that snaps back into the ball when released. Many women will appreciate the change. ---    Silver, raw silver, has changed hands many times of late and some of the dealers have done real well. Over in England something stirred things up and a million ounces were sold one day. There were only 16 million ounces traded in all of 1960. ---    Mrs. Martha Treadway is running for U.S. Senator from Texas, and she’s telling things about Texas you never heard before and that are hard to believe: “Under the Texas law I would have to get permission from my husband every time I wrote a check or made a speech.” Minnesota women are fortunate--they both make speeches and write checks. ---    There’s less bitterness against the sales tax than there was two years ago. You can’t keep raising property taxes year after year and expect big business concerns to locate here: remember we have one drawback--our winter. ---    How can we take the refugees of Cuba and Latin America into our arms in Florida, etc., while we make sturdy white emigrants and their families go through the fish bowl test at Ellis Island. ---    They are not saying much but tobacco dealers are looking for tobacco that tastes like the Havana leaf. If Cuban tobaccos are cut off, a lot of you will be smoking tobacco from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, etc. If the U.S. puts an embargo on Cuban tobacco, lots of men will take up chewing. ---    For years ninety per cent of the homes have been painted white, but the pendulum has started to swing the other way. Pink isn’t popular either. Beige seems to be the new favorite, followed by turquoise and coral. ---    You don’t believe in miracles, what do you call this: an auto collided with a freight train going 50 miles an hour. An infant girl in the car was thrown into the freight train and wedged on a shelf between the diesel engine and the tender and was found there smiling a mile from where the accident occurred. The mother was found near the demolished auto, badly bruised. ---    Cedric Adams is gone but his memory will still be with thousands of friends, especially in Southwestern Minnesota where he was born. We can still hear the women of 20 years ago saying, “Cedric said this,” etc. and then going to bed with him at 10:20. His friendly and kindly voice won him friends that did not forget. He was odd in a way. You never heard of him going hunting or fishing with the gang. His column was never mean, always at the service of some odd bit of charity. Last time we saw him was at Slayton at the county fair when after the show he broadcast his radio talk. It started to rain pitchforks and he said to us, “Get into the car.” We did and Cedric sent his column that night from an auto, and it wasn’t a Cadillac either. Minnesota never had a better advertiser. ---    If your child is injured in an auto accident and you accept a certain amount of money in payment for all damages, does that prevent the youth from suing again if he is still suffering from the effects of the accident? In New York the law makes a settlement invalid unless it is approved by a court.
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March 9, 1961
   Hard liquor may be anathema to some people but it is a life saver to many a small town in the tourist section. One town with less than a thousand population cleared over $17,000 on its municipal liquor joint. Moose Lake with a population of 1,600 had a new profit of $25,922 besides having three extra jobs. ---    We were over to the Cedric restaurant for lunch Friday with Katie and Marjorie. Naturally we asked the waitress if there would be a change. She said they would be closing Sunday, maybe just for 3 weeks, but they didn’t know. At the present time it is tied up in court. Cedric had three partners in the restaurant. ---    The township of Moose Lake can have complete fire protection from the Moose Lake fire department for $1,250 no matter how many times the fire department is called. Money to be raised at an annual levy 7.3 mills. It will be voted on at the township election in March. ---    You’re not going to starve if you have a few pennies in your pocket. The new mixture sells for a penny a portion in Guatemala. It is made out of 29 per cent corn, whole ground sorghum grain 29 per cent, cottonseed flour 38 per cent, Tooula yeast 3 per cent, and added carbonates and vitamins. ---    New tax laws in West Virginia should bring plenty of money. The legislature raised the sales tax from 2 to 3 cents, added a new income tax and plans on raising the cigaret tax from 5 to 6 cents. ---    Hard for a lot of us to think of a whale being an animal same as a horse or a cow. Here’s one odd thing about them: a whale more than 100 feet long and weighing 115 tons has the same size eyes as a Holstein cow. Whales don’t lay eggs. A female gives birth to a calf every two years. Calves at birth are sometimes 25 feet long and suckle their mother for seven months. The milk of a blue whale is much like cow’s milk, has 10 per cent protein and a lot of fat. Some whales have small throats and some of them wide mouths. They swallow sharks, seals, etc., so perhaps the Jonah story is true--not, it can’t be a whale--it says “A great fish.” ---    The legislature should not hesitate to put a little more tax on telephones. There’s money in the telephone business. The Bell Telephone system reports earnings of $1,400,000,000. ---    Over at New Richmond a man rammed into the car ahead of him and killed the driver. The speeder was taken to Balsam Lake where he was fined $100. The News adds, “Mr. Preston can thank his lucky stars that he didn’t hit a deer from the rear.” ---    We get kind of confused over worldly affairs sometimes. Over in Britain the papers are carrying ads on the front page asking the people to subscribe money for the starving residents of the Congo. They have no seed for next year’s harvest. You are asked to send you donation to “Congo Fund.” ---    Some corporations are getting real thrifty these days. The Bendix Co. has closed two entrance gates at one plant--saves two guards. Skandia Corp. has a wide spreading plant. They get along on bicycles now, no more autos. Holly stores washes its windows 3 days a week instead of five, saves $500 a year--and so it goes. ---    Today all over the U.S. nearly every state has started squeezing the whiskey bag to get more tax money. In two states the drinking men and women fooled them. In one state they started drinking cheaper whiskey and in the other they crossed state lines, and the revenues in both states dropped instead of rising. Pennsylvania is in the business in a big way. It operates 654 state liquor stores and not a dump in the lot. It sold $288 million of liquor last year, making a net profit of over $90 million, and both drys and wets were happy. ---    Juvenile depravity has a new twist up in the border towns. See where an 18 year old and a 20 year old took a 16 year old boy for a ride. The made him strip naked and set on a snowbank after giving him a beating. The assault took place at International Falls on Jan. 27 with the thermometer around zero. The judge gave them 90 days in jail: nothing suspended. ---    The Freeman manufacturing plant at New Ulm ended in the bankruptcy court. The company lost $30,000 in 1960. Actual title of the plant is held by New Ulm Industries, Inc. ---    If a married couple can’t get along in Sweden they don’t need to appear in court. They just write the judge. He makes an investigation and finds they both have incompatibility. He mails them their divorce. ---    We’ve read and listened to cigaret and lung cancer in the U.S. Why not listen to a Scottish doctor in the Stirling Journal. He blames it all on bronchitis. He said 80 per cent of the smokers had it. The doctor dealt with the age 35 plus group because it too 20 years of smoking cigarets before you had any malignant effects. He found that cancer was 12 times greater in the 20 a day smokers than among non smokers and over 20 a day it was 25 times greater. Dr. Reid says there is not much cancer before 55, at 65 it becomes more marked. The death rate on lung cancer is increasing yearly. If you must smoke, get a pipe. Dr. Reid spoke before the Rotary Club. Doctors in both countries recommend pipe smoking, and pipe smoking shows a decline each year. ---    Must be something in ethics after all. New York surgeons are coming to Minneapolis to investigate alleged splitting of fees and over in Canada the dentists say they are losing face because one dentist has this sign: “O’Neil Filling Station.” He is going to be disciplined. ---    J. Edgar Hoover, head of the F.B.I., says a falsely made bank check cashed in one state and drawn on a bank in another state when the drawer has no funds is a serious crime. Tough if you live on a state line. ---    In spite of the M.E.A. the St. Peter school board rehired all its teachers, including those that had been black-balled by the M.E.A. The M.E.A. put the finger on two teachers, suggesting they be fired. Now the M.E.A. wants to have the teachers dismissed. The M.E.A. had no business sticking its nose in there in the first place. ---    We know you’ll be interested in the national debt. At the present time the interest is about a million dollars an hour. ---    What has 7 Up got? If you have a nasty connection that won’t work, pour some 7 Up on it and it will loosen up. ---    Mr. and Mrs. Kenny Gunderson of Sioux Falls, S.D. and Mr. and Mrs. Duane Gunderson and daughter of Minneapolis, all old neighbors, visited us last week. ---    See where the Piersons and their beautiful horses are on the trek again. You’ll never really know what fine advertising they give Murray county. Imagine you’re a Denverite, have a program, when the horses come in you see some from Slayton, Minnesota. Naturally you’ll say, “Where in heck is Slayton?”
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March 16, 1961
   Greyhound racing is now sweeping the country. There are only seven states that have it yet. $400,000,000 was wagered on the greyhounds last year. A horse man says it costs over $200,000 to keep a racing stable going, and you can bet and win or lose as much with a group of dogs. There are from six to eight dogs in each race and they wear colored blankets so you can see who you are betting on. There’s nothing in the world more graceful to see than one of them and sometimes two after a wily jack rabbit. States need more tax money and you’ll see more dogs in action. Promoters say they will have a $100,000 dog race this summer. ---    They do commercial fishing in the winter time along the Gun Flint Trail in Cook county. The state is taking out the herring in Greenwood Lake. The lake trout were getting so fat they would not look at a lure. ---    Some folks believe earnestly that some day we will have atomic attacks and are laying away stocks of food. The kits contain 14 cans of canned water besides vitamins, etc. “Survival” of New York will send you a kit for $5.00. The food will keep for four years. ---    Cottonwood county that has been dry since the year one is going to vote on the liquor question this summer. If the wets win it is going to hurt many a wet joint in neighboring counties. The petitioners will need 2007 signers on the petitions before it can come to a vote. The lure of the tax money is going to help the petitioners in some of the villages. ---    The teachers of New Richmond, Wis. have a 12-inch ad in the News endorsing A. Rothwell for State Supt.: something new in politics. ---    Sleepy Eye has two municipal liquor stores and in the interest of economy the council wanted to close one, and what a row they started, ending in both stores remaining open; reason was closing one would hurt the business in the other section. ---    The failure of the Cedric Cafe to make any money was no doubt one of the bitter disappointments in Mr. Adams’ career. For years the name “Cedric” has been on most people’s lips at times, and Cedric decided to go into business--he did and failed: reason was the drys did not stick by him. Cedric was a dry and so was the Cafe (it could not be wet as it was in a dry district). ---    In every house there is an electric appliance that vibrates and every office has a machine that rattles. Both vibration and rattle can be stopped now. The new Scotchfoam tape when applied to the metal kills all sound. It is made the Minnesota Mining Co. but it costs $1.55 a sq. foot. It even kills the rattles on a jet plane. Been just the thing for the Model T Ford. ---    The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie railroad is being electrified and the claim is made that it will prove as much superior over the diesel as the diesel was over the steam. ---    If we were living in Blaine, a village about 25 miles from here, we would have a stiff neck. The village is putting in waterworks. The tank holds a million gallons (we can’t imagine 1,000,000, except by comparison. If you have a water tank that holds 40,000 gallons this tank is just 25 times as big). It was built on the ground and then raised 10 feet a day, up to 100 feet high. Then the tank will be set on a single pedestal and the framework torn down. They do wonderful things these days. ---    If you are an average driver you use 667 gallons of gasoline and 24 quarts of oil a year, which means you pay over $200 for gas. ---    The Cedric Cafe closed and the place is in a muddle--had plenty of customers but did not make any money--trouble was there were too many women customers--they just don’t eat as much as men and they look at the price first, except when they are with a male friend. It is really one of most beautiful cafes in the city. ---    Here’s a record--Mankato schools were closed Monday. The last time they were closed was on Armistice Day, Nov. 11th, 1940. Do you remember that awful day when 49 lives were lost in the snow storm? ---    Uncle Sam is helping the farmer this month. He ordered 5.7 million pounds of dried eggs, the biggest order in any February in eleven years, and in the slumping potato market through processors he is adding 60 cents a hundred. ---    South St. Paul police found a woman in a hall bleeding from knife wounds. A man in the building admitted doing the stabbing. The justice gave him a 30 day suspended sentence: it’s a good thing for him he didn’t kick a muskrat. ---    What is the matter with our colleges? At Mankato another beer party was raided by the police and 17 of the participants had to appear in court. There were six young women and eleven young men. They were not from the lower five homes in Mankato. They were students from two Mankato colleges. There were students there from Lamberton, Blakely, Granite Falls, etc. Young folks don’t often get arrested when they are sober. The police found both beer and whiskey. Men can live down bouts of this kind but they follow the female unto the second generation. The colleges should at least come out and say they do not approve of those drunken parties. ---    This will be interesting reading for village councilmen. Grand Marais netted $55,500 on its liquor sales last year. Here’s how, it lines up in the village statement as “Investments: U.S. Savings Bonds $15,000. Federal Savings and Loans $24,000. Certificates of Loan Assns. $17,000.” A nice nest egg for a rainy day. ---    A Blooming Grove man was sentenced to jail for 30 days for failing to send his child to school. The Millers pled not guilty but the records disclosed she was not at school for 18 days out of 20. During the first term the 4th grader was absent 60 out of 80 days. The child said she was afraid of the teacher: so are lots of kids. ---    The Norman County Board took a forward step in the fight against cancer and has made arrangements for all Norman county women to receive a free cancer checkup. This is the first free checkup of its kind in history. The checkup will be held at two hospitals in Crookston. ---    The school board at Detroit Lakes adopted a resolution last week that will stop the noon driving by high school students. So many of them cluttered up the streets that they weren’t fit for car, man or beast. ---    Notice the Waseca Memorial Hospital went in the red $1,295 in January, not including depreciation. These small hospitals have a hard row to hoe. The total revenue for the month of January was $15,565. ---    Tooth decay is stirring up the fluoridation of your drinking water. Coming out soon is a pill you can drop in a glass of water that will help ward off decay. ---    Here’s a drive-in movie with big ideas. He is planning on putting in air conditioning units to cool the air around his show place.
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March 23, 1961
   The county commissioners of Koochiching county asked its county attorney last week to investigate a “Peddler’s License.” The board wants authority to control peddlers that are not residents. It will bring in some tax money as well as giving some protection to tax paying merchants. Good idea. ---    Every village and city will soon have a union of its own. The new labor union will be composed of the teachers in the public schools Ten Waseca public school instructors started the ball rolling last week by forming the Waseca Federation of Teachers, which will be affiliated with the A.F.L. and the C.I.O. ---    County sportsmens’ clubs in Central Minnesota have been having debates over the bounty on foxes. For the year 1959-60, 55,529 fox were killed. The more fox you kill the more fox there will be next year. One county that uses good judgment on the bounty business is Anoka county. There’s a lot of poultry farms in Anoka county and the losses from predatory animals went as high as $30,000 a year. The county board hired a professional predatory trapper and said to him, “See what you can do.” He cut the losses down to a mere trickle. No, Anoka is not such a small county: it has over 273,300 acres. ---    The word “ethics” just doesn’t mean the same in Minnesota as it does in Wisconsin. Here’s an ad from a Wisconsin paper: “The State Medical Society of Wisconsin, through Wisconsin Physician’s Service, proudly announces the appointment of Bud Anderson as its agent for W.P.S. surgical medical hospital insurance.” You will never see an ad like the above in a Minnesota paper. ---    You’re going to get a raise in all postal rates, so says President Kennedy. First class mail letters will be raised from 4 to 5 cents, air mail letters will also be increased this year--rates on newspapers and packages will not be raised until 1962. ---    Don’t get the idea that Murray county had no early residents. The Mound Builders were here, a village being located on the east side of Lake Shetek. All except two were round and nearly all were flat topped. One of the mounds measured 92 x 34 and 7 1/2 feet, was declared at the time of the survey to be largest of its kind in the State of Minnesota. ---    Had a pleasant and interesting visit from former County Agent Mereness last Tuesday. We had a lot to talk about as we both remembered the county fair at which the 4-H Clubbers made their first public appearance. A.G., the real father of the movements, is proud of the part he played and we don’t blame him. The fair board rented a bunch of small tents. We can still see the boys carrying arms full of straw from the barns for their bed--what a happy bunch of kids they were, wonder if any of them are still living. ---    No use in trying to disguise the fact, the Iron Range in Minnesota is in a bad way and is not going to get better soon, in spite of all the pep talks. Last January the U.S. Steel said it was going north into Canada for high grade ore: that started things. The U.S. Steel said it preferred Canadian ore to Minnesota Taconite pellets. The U.S. government realizes the desperate condition of things on the range. It is getting ready to put the stamp plan into effect up there in June. The Big Coleraine ore plant, the largest plant for low grad ore, will not operate this year. Last year the plant shipped 975,000 tons of ore. Steel manufacturers want high grade ore these days. ---    Raising tomatoes, the favorite U.S. vegetable or fruit, whichever you want to call it, is getting modernized. Canners have developed a strain which ripens whole fields in a day. Libby has a machine that plucks up whole plants, shakes them and the tomatoes drop off into the water. One of these machines with 14 men will handle as many tomatoes as 60 hand pickers. We’d never plant that kind of a tomato. Half of the joy of gardening in the early fall is to pick the tomatoes as they ripen on the vine. ---    If Murray county farmers only had enough sugar they would get rid of the nematodes that eat corn, potatoes and almost everything else, but as it takes several tons to the acre we might as well forget all about it, except the housewife and the flower fanciers. If your plants and flowers are not doing well, sweeten the soil around them. ---    A lie detector test is being given a man at St. Peter. His wife was found strangled with a heavy garment. Every city and town should have a lie detector. ---    Only three states, Colorado, Oregon and North Carolina do not tax cigarettes. Dumbest thing we have read about on the cigaret was that of the lower house in North Dak. It passed a bill raising the tax from six cents a package to eleven cents. Don’t the smokers have enough to do worrying about lung cancer without doubling the tax. ---    Blue Earth county and Nicollet county boards voted down a motion to abolish the household goods tax. Abolishing this tax comes from city councils and farmer county commissioners just don’t want the burden put on real estate. ---    It is not the average educated female that craves trading stamps. College bred women gather up the most S&H stamps. Another odd features is that people with $7,000 incomes save more stamps than those in the $3,000 income class. ---    Looks as if colleges will have to do some screening. Three Gustavus Adolphus students at St. Peter are in the Blue Earth county jail for 60 days each, having pled guilty to petty larceny. The young men are from Moose Lake, Brighton and Stewart. Police found over $600 worth of loot of all kinds in their rooms. ---    The AT&T company has started laying the first phone cable in history to the old country. Up to now all the phone calls have gone via Newfoundland. The new cable goes to Manahawkin, England. It will be 3,500 nautical miles long and will cost $28 million. It will have amplifiers 22 miles apart. The cable will provide 128 circuits, so 128 people can use the cable at the same time. ---    Some of the women of today think they are really tough and hard boiled. Don’t believe they has as tough necks as Mrs. Anna Billansy who was hanged by the neck until she was dead in the St. Paul jail yard 100 years ago today. The Pioneer Guards were in attendance. Every city had its Guards, more like a society. They dressed to kill. The St. Paul outfits had pants of blue with red coats and big gilt figures on them. The privates wore feathers in their hats, the officers wore plumes, and they stood there in all their glory watching Anna struggle for another land. They must have had strong stomachs. Anna was the first white person executed in the state of Minnesota. ---    If you are growing bald, quit worrying about it. Baldness is on the increase all over the world, affecting both men and women. Humans will eventually be completely bald, that’s what Dr. B. H. Fern says. ---    We’ve all been thinking wrong about the amount of airborne dust that has gone into Lake Shetek and other lakes in the county. Only 1/16th of an inch of airborne dust settles in the lakes annually. It would take 50 years for 3 inches of airborne dust to accumulate.
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March 30, 1961
   Texas has the oddest elections law you ever read about. A special election will be held on April 2nd to elect a U.S. Senator. There are 71 candidates and instead of putting a cross after one name you have to scratch out the names you don’t want. There seems to be no legal form for county elections. The auditor rules that some of them put the candidates’ names on the ballot alphabetically, some in rotation as they file, etc. ---    Riggs was fired for taking groceries from the State of Minnesota. What about the other twenty: you can’t make flesh out of one and meat out of the other. ---    Tobacco farming is better than you think, for some of them. One of them lives near Dultans, N.C. He planted only 4.23 acres and grossed more than $6,100. He gives credit to the federal control program for better prices, and the farmers down there see to it that there is no snitching on acreage. They hire policemen to see that all the members obey the law. This farmer used to set his plants 30 inches apart; he changed to 18 inches. ---    Some Minnesota towns have now snow for their “Sleigh Day.” Neither did Anchorage, Alaska. On their big winter Fund Day, snow had to be hauled in on several blocks for the World Champion Dog Races. There were 23 teams in the event. The distance was 75 miles and the course went out and in the city at times. Winning team won in under six hours. As there were 12 dogs on each team the barking was almost deafening. ---    The school board at Prior Lake learned an expensive lesson. They fired a teacher without giving her notice. The Supreme Court said the board erred, so the school district paid the teacher $4,275 for not teaching. You’ve got to handle school ma’ams with kid gloves in this day and age. ---    Are you interested in the weather? Of course you are, but some are more keenly interested than others. To those, we suggest, why don’t you start a weather station of your own. You can buy the same thermometer, rain gauges, etc. as the government stations, also record blanks. You get a lot of real enjoyment besides being of some service. Write the Weather Bureau at Washington, D.C. Better still, write Congressman H. C. Anderson or one of the Senators at Washington, D.C. ---    You know there is no danger of the county going thirsty for drinking water. Here’s what it costs to change salt water into fresh water. Using the same gas as you do in the kitchen range the cost will be 19 cents for a thousand gallons. ---    Here’s a warning, gals: that thermostat can be a real dangerous weapon. A Kentucky woman went a visiting. She left her home just as neat as a pin. When she came back it was worse than a wreck. She had left the thermostat on the furnace at 55. Something went wrong and the temperature went up to 140 degrees, and there were cooked eggs and unfrozen food in the refrigerator. Candles evaporated, leaving the wicks dry. Piano keys bulged, floor boards were warped and the wallpaper peeled off in sheets. Better leave the key to your house with a relative or friends when you go on that next trip: it will help take the worry out of your visit. ---    If you want to grow tall a new growth hormone will add inches to your height, at least it did to a bunch of dwarfs. Some of them grew 2 to 3 inches at Seton Hall in Connecticut and the item closes with, “Since the supply of human growth hormone is so meager it can only be used for scientific purposes.” ---    Just as the new editor felt he was making quite an impression he got this note in the morning’s mail: “Dear Sir: we have just bought anew garbage disposal unit for our kitchen sink so we no longer need your paper to wrap the garbage in, so please cancel our subscription.” ---    Drunkenness is a real crime in Minnesota. Even if you’re sleeping it off in the hay mow or in an auto, if you’re drunk you’re violating the law. ---    The probate judge is a real judge these days. We notice where the judge of probate in Waseca county had four liquor cases in one day, ending in fines and a jail sentence for 30 days. ---    That Kline-Sister Kenny case gave charity a big jolt in the U.S. They are down over a million in donations. Among those taking the rap were the Red Cross, the Cancer Fund and the American Heart Association. ---    A three column head says, “Near Riot Over Winona Win” in a B.B. game. Strange to say while we think we are rabid we make the meeker class. Even staid old England beats us. When England plays Scotland or Ireland for the Soccer championship game, it is nothing unusual to see 800 to 1000 fist fights at the same time. Best of all is Argentina, S.A. More tear gas, in fact all the tear gas that goes to South America goes there to be used on the crowds. Some countries down there have wide ditches around the football playing field to keep the fans from mobbing not only the players but the umpire. They take their sports too seriously in Latin America. ---    Half of the underground iron mines in Minnesota closed a short time ago. The Zenith mine at Ely was one of the two deep mines, and the closing put 200 men out of work. We thought Minnesota has more than two underground mines--didn’t you? ---    Straws show which way the wind blows. Dealers in auto parts did a wonderful business in 1960. A big dealer in parts said it was his best in 20 years and said 1961 would be just as good. All cars are not slipping, though. the Ford folks say that the Lincoln is going better than it did last year. This is the only exception. ---    Some guys, smart ones, are making easy money by taking out health policies in other companies. They get sick, go to a hospital four days and collect on all of them. One man had policies in 36 companies. There’s no law to prohibit a person from having policies in other companies than his own. ---    Those fumes from the exhaust of the auto ahead of you may be very annoying, but they are more than annoying. They contain harbingers of cancer. Now it is said that auto fumes and other vapors are the real cause of cancer, at least people that live in that sort of atmosphere are liable to be lung cancer victims. More men die from cancer than women. ---    If you have driven a full size Ford, Plymouth or Chevy you can save $400 a year by buying a small foreign car. Sure you can, but if everybody bought foreign goods most of us would be eating surplus food through the courtesy of Uncle Sam. ---    There is always a “best” time to do everything. Take buying gasoline for your car. You can save 5 per cent by buying gas after it is dark. ---    We’re mighty proud of the honor that comes to Art Warren, but we’re not surprised. He’s led that type of life ever since we knew him and we’ve known him all his life. Only regret is that Trena, his mother, who we knew and loved so well, did not live to see the day. Her heart would have been filled to overflowing. ---    Now they are asking that all cigarets must place the content or moisture and tar content on each package. Not a bad idea and we look for it to spread on all tobacco, even including snuff. ---    Had a visit with Geo. Grimm, columnist of Mpls. Trib. Geo. put on a show here Friday afternoon. Like wine, Geo. seems to improve with age as he kept folks enjoyably entertained for an hour and a half.
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April 6, 1961
   Two women tried to commit suicide last Sunday by drowning: one was caught as she climbed over the Washington Ave. bridge. The other tried a different method. She started at the river’s edge and kept on walking; when the water was over her waist a policeman grabbed her. ---    An auto seat company laid off 100 persons at Gaylord--tough on both the employee and the business men. ---    You’ll have to take the high road if you’re going to see the baseball games at Minneapolis this summer: read the other day that the highway dept. is adding two lanes in the Mankato and Shakopee sections. ---    At Nome, Alaska, one of the biggest events is “When will the ice break up,” and many wagers are made as to the day and time. At one northern town an old jalopy is hauled out on the ice; the American Legion has an “Ice Busters Day.” You tell when the car will disappear and you get $100. Tickets are a dollar. ---    A Wisconsin paper has a free “Pet Peeve” column in which you don’t have to sign your name. Here’s a sample: “I doubt anyone will file for school board. Seems there are too many who feel the present teaching staff set up is inferior and they don’t want to be blamed for it.” Page the M.E.A. ---    With 22 pages last week the Herald was quite a paper, not only for size but for contents. A pretty well balanced paper is the Herald--covers the county like a blanket--well edited and has a front page each week that is not surpassed by any other paper in the state: compare. ---    We were out to a family birthday party last Sunday at the Elias home. It was Ray’s birthday and we celebrated on a dinner that had everything new, from taters to strawberries. Wish he had four birthdays a year. ---    Over in Wisconsin they are having village elections. At the top of each ballot are instructions on how to vote. There are 1400 words in this notice. They must have good eyesight. Anyone who is sick or will be absent may vote at the city office the day before. You ask for a ballot and mail it. You must have a notary public to complete the affidavit. ---    Eight thousand persons on the Iron Range are receiving food from the Federal government and the Range instead of being a gold mine for tax committees bids fair to be a debit. Ever since the U.S. Steel left the Range last January things have not been doing so well. The U.S. Steel gave as one of its reasons for leaving was the excessive taxes charged by the state of Minnesota. Now they are asking for tax protection for the Taconite firms. ---    The brewers of the U.S. are in a real dither. The Union Carbide Co. has developed a powder that will produce beer, with all its flavor, when cold water is added. Odd thing is, the Miller Brewing Co. is in with the Carbide people. About this powder. We never knew you could transform alcohol from a liquid to a powder: all a guy will need is an empty tobacco can a teaspoon, then you can get lit up. ---    When you talk about Saturday night drawings, think of the one at Sleepy Eye, a city of 4,000. The town has a $100.00 free jackpot every Saturday. The pot went for five consecutive Saturday nights but the owner of the name called was not present. According to the rules the pot can never be more than $500 and for nine consecutive weeks there has not been a winner present for the $500. ---    Spelling contest days are here. What the country really needs are “writing days.” We have degenerated in the use of a pen in two generations. What’s the use of being able to spell when nobody can read your writing. Time to bring the old copy book back. ---    You’ve heard the old saying how “The quickness of the hand deceives the eye.” Here’s one job where they have to blend. The man is a killer on a mink ranch at pelting time. The mink are wheeled to him in small boxes. He opens the lid and with the same movement grabs the mink by the back of the neck, swings the body so it is held between his knees and with the other hand tips its head back, quickly breaking the mink’s neck. There were 2,175 mink pelted at the ranch so far in 1961. One item of advice which would have been of value a generation ago was--never stretch a mink pelt tight. Mink pelts are worth $21.00. ---    Federal court which has been held in Mankato since the year one is closed. Judge Devitt says there are not enough cases to pay for the expense. Only in extreme cases will court be held there. The other cases will be tried in St. Paul. Exception could be a criminal case which would not consent to being tried in St. Paul. ---    Business is so good in the Panama Canal that an additional one is needed. Will be a good thing for the U.S. Teddy Roosevelt bulled his plan, pushing Panama to one side: chickens come home to roost. Some day the U.N. will discuss things on the isthmus. ---    The “Standing Room Only” sign is up at the Blue Earth County jail. There were 29 prisoners in the jail last week which kept the sheriff pretty busy getting meals for the bunch. Here’s the odd thing, fourteen of the prisoners, almost half of them, are in for traffic violations. Look well to your drivers license if you go through Mankato. ---    Remember those ungainly Commemorative postage stamps we had last year? There were over 40 of them. Some of them you couldn’t tell when they were on right. Right here give credit to J.F.K.: there will only be 15 of them this year. ---    Notice by the Herald that all Memorial Hospital bonds are paid. We got a kick out of the item, as the first suggestion for a Memorial County Hospital appeared in the Lake Wilson Pilot many years ago. ---    Few men have done better than the late Cedric Adams: his estate totaling over $500,000. Some people refer to him as a newspaper man but he did not belong in that category. He was a columnist and entertainer, and did both well. ---    The closing of the iron mine at Coleraine was a bitter blow to the Iron Range. Last year it shipped a million tons of ore; try to imagine how much labor was used from the pit to the docks at Duluth. ---    A lengthy article ends, “In conclusion, don’t at any age be a sugar addict.” You and your children will live longer and with better health and vigor on a diet which holds sugar to a minimum: the consumption of sweets, soft drinks, ice cream and other “quick energy” foods or drinks. ---    Had a visit from Dr. R. F. Pierson last week and were we glad to see him, for if it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t be maundering here today. We lied when he examined us. Kneading our tummy like Grandma working the dough in the old dish pan. He and Miss Crumm gave us the white treatment one Sunday afternoon. Two days later the surgeon came down from Minneapolis. When we came to, sitting by our bedside was Mrs. Pierson, a very dear friend of ours. We can still remember the tubes down our nostrils and throat, the intravenous feeding bottle and Miss Crumm with a bunch of yellow jonquils: emblem of hope and life. ---    The highest price seats in the world are not the thrones of European nations, they are the seats on the New York Stock Exchange. The limit of members is 1,366. Top price so far has been $625,000 in 1929. ---    While old folks are welcome at St. Petersburg, Fla, the business men don’t want it called the “Old Folks Capital”: it hurts. The city council is keeping up with this sentiment and is having its 5,000 green benches pained heavenly blue and shocking pink.
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April 13, 1961
   Too bad that a girl with as thorough a mind as this one had, took this way out. A 17 year old high school girl at Minnesota Lake cut a piece of rubber tubing from the garden hose, attached one end to the exhaust pipe in the family auto, ran the other end into the car, then closed the windows and started the engine. Finis. ---    The City of Winona elected two women on the council. Sensible idea. More women should be on village and city councils. The state is full of widows that have property and they should have their say. ---    Butter is going to need some more support from the government as the popularity of oleo is increasing. The consumption of butter has gone down to 7 pounds per capita. In 1949 the total amount used was 10 1/2 pounds per capita. ---    Now the Iron Range country is asking the state to help build and operate Taconite plants. Admitting that the cream is gone and nothing left but the skim milk. The state is also asked to urge and solicit all lines of business to come to Minnesota. Best way to do that is with a 3 cent sales tax. ---    Gus Zieman of Lake Wilson observed his 83rd birthday last week. Gus is the only living member of the group from Murray that volunteered in the Spanish-American war 62 years ago. ---    A lot of you who have served on the jury will be interested in a Nicollet County case. A North Mankato man and wife were suing the estate of E. Kaushagen for an injury received in an auto accident in which Mrs. Kaushagen was killed. The jury brought in a verdict for the defendant (the estate). The jury found the plaintiff has no cause for the action. The decision was a five-sixth verdict meaning that all 12 jurors did not agree. At least 10 jurors must agree to return a verdict, but they must spend 6 hours in the jury room. ---    That car you are driving was sold you with the understanding it should be lubricated every 1,000 miles. This year most of the Ford cars will go 30,000 miles and the Cadillac has done away with lubrication all together. Most 1961 cars extend the lubrication period but it costs more, sometimes up to $5.00. ---    If there is such a thing as “Medals of Honor” for cities, one should be sent to Italy, Texas. A tornado struck the town, doing $740,000 damage. Federal relief was offered by some politicians. Here’s what the council wired back to Washington, D.C. “City council authorizes me to thank you, but it believes the federal treasury is in worse shape than we are.” ---    Those who are interested, an who isn’t, in Social Security will be pleased to know that at the end of 1960 the income exceeded the outgo by $646 million. ---    If you are a cigaret smoker it will pay to buy a copy of Consumers Reports. It contains the pedigree of 115 brands of cigarets as to the tar and nicotine they contain. In U.S. cigarets Tarryton and Pall Mall are the worst offenders. They average 39 tar in smoke per milligram. Top honors went to King Sano and Life with 13. In nicotine, Chesterfield had the most with a score of 2.2 in smoke of cigaret. Camels had 29 in tar and 1.8 in nicotine. Lucky Strike had 32 in tar and 1.7 in nicotine. ---    Potato growers should go a little slow on this year’s planting as the country is full of last year’s crop. You can buy Maine potatoes for $1.99 a hundred: last year they brought $3.77 at this time. ---    The county treasurer of Koochiching county is the busiest man you ever heard of. He mailed out 10,000 notices to the real estate owners telling when their taxes would be due and the total tax. If he sends the tax notice in an envelope the postage alone will be over $400. Then there’s the labor, etc. The county treasurer said is not required to do this by law, but it has been the custom for years. ---    A dog’s life is a precarious one in Waseca. They have a dog catcher down there. He asked the council for $5.00 extra for gas, but the council turned him down. He gets paid by the number of dogs he turns in. ---    The introduction of synthetic coffee is causing a lot of wrinkled foreheads in Washington, D.C. and Brazil. Now don’t throw out your chest and say it can’t be done. The Scripps-McRae papers say, “Laboratories achievements in the last two years have developed a coffee as good as the best natural coffee.” There are 30 brands in the making that have all the flavor and odor of the natural coffee. ---    The Saturday Evening Post is one of the real big magazines. As of today it has 6,303,000 subscribers. In 1960 it had 4,034,000. Not only the Post but Life and Look are worried over the advertising they are losing to T.V. The Post by the way is 232 years old. ---    Women’s clubs and business men in Wisconsin are united in asking that the legislature make a change in the trading stamp law. At present the stamps are only redeemable in cash. The gals want mdse. added. ---    You’ll soon have plenty of thunder storms, and some night after you are in bed a storm comes up. You wake up. If you want to know how near the storm is to you, you can tell by checking the time between flashes and claps of thunder. Count the seconds 1-2-3-4-5. Every fifth count measures a mile between you and the lightning. ---    Eight students from Ohio have been kicked out on account of raising heck. A Mankato student won a first prize at Miami, Fla. for being the top nut in the student riot and ended up in jail. College students have shoved the scum of the slums from the front page this spring. ---    Geese came early to the Mud Lake National Wild Life refuge this year. The first pair arrived to take up house keeping March 20th. They were followed by more flocks to test out some of the new bridal suites. This is a favorite place for Canada geese and the manager and his crew were compelled to build twenty-five new sites for geese homes. The name should be changed from “Mud Lake” to Honeymoon Slough. It should also come under the federal housing act. ---    Saddest story of the year comes from Winthrop, Iowa. A four year old youngster was missing from his home a month ago. Diligent search was made for him by many searching parties. His body was found last week. The body was in a plowed field 70 rods from the house, where he had fallen and was covered by snow. ---    What’s going on in Washington, D.C, are all republican postmasters in danger. They are getting a new postmaster at St. James. The acting postmaster who is quitting said he cannot appoint a successor because Postmaster General E. Day at Washington, D.C. has suspended all civil service rules and promotions for the purpose of a revision of these rules. ---    David Kennedy Jr., a Comfrey resident, disappeared somewhere between the years 1915-20. He was driving a Peerless car. It was one of those mysteries that is hard to solve. He just vanished. Skin divers walking on the shores of a northern Iowa lake came across an auto. One of the divers tried to break off the license plate but it crumbled in his hands. The first effort to raise the car failed. Many believe that this is the Peerless car. ---    Attorney General Mondale ordered the Holland Furnace Co. of Holland, Mich. to stop doing business in Minnesota. This company has been doing a lot of faking in the sale of furnaces. This is the first order of this kind in 41 years.
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April 20, 1961
   Kittson county is one county that the crop future for ‘61 looks gloomy. The county did not receive a drop of moisture of any kind during the month of March. The amount of snow or rain during the month was so small that it was not measurable. The county had 31 inches of snow during the winter but the runoff was early and none of it soaked in the ground. The Hallock Enterprise goes on to say that “Seeding has been done as late as June 15th and netted good crops.” ---    The Wahtonwan county lakes are infested in the summer with a lot of smart alecks and their speed boats, who do everything possible to make it both unpleasant and dangerous for those in rowboats, and the county board brought a patrol boat for the sheriff so that he can run down the speeders. The new boat cost $800.00. ---    Particular people are paying sixty million dollars a year for good drinking water. The city of Miami, Florida bought $500,000 of water from Tripure Water Company in 1960. Impure water and the pollution problem have made the public water conscious. Water has been sold in glass containers for years. The new ones this year are plastic lined cardboard. They hold a half gallon and sell for 31 cents. It’s the labor that costs. ---    We don’t get it. The papers are full of aerial warfare, bomb proof shelters, etc. and the army last week bought an additional 660 M-60 tanks, making the total 1,545 tanks. What are they going to use the tanks for, chasing satellites? ---    George Dalluge, that Mankato man, a student of the Mankato State College, who carried the banner of Minnesota in the front ranks of the rioters at Miami, has had his share of the spotlight. He quit college and enlisted in the army and will come back to Mankato and finish his schooling. ---    People who smoke and drive autos have more accidents that non-smokers. A British survey showed the smokers had 27 percent more accidents in 1960. Every smoker will admit that no matter whether you smoke a cigar or cigaret they break into your thoughts so often, matches to keep them going, where is the ash tray, taking the pipe, cigar or cigaret out of your mouth while you exhale the smoke, etc. ---    Here is the new barber bulletin. Haircuts in good sized villages and cities have gone up to $1.50. Children under 14 haircuts will be $1.25 on Friday and Saturday. Shampoos and shaves will be $1.00. Shops will close at 5 p.m., open at eight a.m. The Barbers Bulletin reads, “A charge of 25 cents must be made for oil or tonic used, regardless of the quantity used. No service shall be rendered for less than 25 cents. The use of scissors or clippers on the head or neck constitutes a haircut and the price of a haircut must be collected.” If prices keep going up, Mr. Barber, you are going to have a hard time to get a pair of clippers. ---    These 4-H’ers are a power for good in some counties. Up in Koochiching County where the county was as dry as tinder, 18 4-H clubs scoured the country with “No Burning” pledges and had them signed by farmers and loggers. The slogan is “Keep Minnesota Green.” Good citizens are the 4-H-ers and they should be called on when needed. ---    Mankato rooters take their sport seriously. They tried to mob the two so-called dirty wrestlers Kowalski and Mills. Kowalski kicked Gagne on the head and the Mankato police force had to sneak Mills and Kowalski out of the building: best kind of advertising. ---    The American Tobacco Co. at its annual meeting decided that it was not going to introduce any new brands. It lost a lot of money when it introduced the “Hit Parade” cigaret. They are no longer boosting this brand. It has been testing out a new menthol cigaret for over two years and the president of the company said “We don’t want to introduce it nationally and see it die.” ---    Best news of the year is that there is hopes that a new vaccine will halt the ravages of cancer: then perhaps we would get rid of the hated word “cancer” which depresses so many people. Business men in both cities are licking their chops in anticipation of increased business from their big league baseball team and football team. These teams will draw fans from over six hundred miles for some of the games. Notice that Lake Wilson fans, 40 of them, are coming up in a bus for one Yank game in June. ---    A lot of you will be interested in knowing just how many liquor permits there are in Minnesota. Here is the list as of Jan. 1, 1961.
  Exclusive On Sale--761.
  Exclusive Off Sale--513.
  Combination On and Off Sale--490.
  Club Licenses--308.
  On and Off Sale Municipal Stores--317.
  Off Sale Municipal Stores--75.
  Total is 2454. ---    Bathtubs and TV sets don’t mix. An Anoka lady was watching the TV while taking a bath. She evidently fell off, slipped and touched the TV set and was electrocuted. When Mr. Chancellor tried to life his wife’s body he received a shock that knocked him down: keep your TV set in the front room. ---    Tornado warnings are issued by the Red Cross. There has only been one tornado in April in Minnesota history and that was the deadliest of all of them. That was back on April 14th, 1886. It hit Benton, Stearns and Morrison counties, taking 79 lives. If one is reported near you by radio, if you can’t get to your auto hit for the southwest corner of the basement. If you are in your car drive away from the path of the storm. Tornadoes don’t travel fast: average speed is 40 miles an hour. But they are unpredictable. The town of Codell , Kansas has the record. It was hit by tornadoes three straight years on the same date, May 30th. Baldwin, Miss. was hit by two tornadoes inside of an hour. Look well to the southwest--that is where 90 per cent of them start. ---    Do you believe in signs? If you do you are going to see a real wet and dry battle just across the line in Cottonwood county this summer. What are the signs? In a daily paper we read, a plane flying a So. Dak. preacher is making three trips to Cottonwood county to aid the dry forces. The drys will fight tough. Cottonwood county is the last dry county in the southern part of the state and one of the nine remaining dry counties. The others are Grant, Isanti, Kandiyohi, Kittson, Lac Qui Parle, Marshall, Pope and Roseau. ---    Here’s how the General Tire Co. of Los Angeles, Calif. does business. It sends its 43 salesmen out to the larger parking lots. They take down the car numbers that need new tires. They take the numbers to the Sec’y of State’s office. He gives you the owner’s name for a nickel. Then the phone call and the salesman’s call and the sale is made: might work in the rural districts, too. ---    There’s a big fight on in the auto business that might interest you. For years all the side windows in your auto have been made of laminated glass (two panes of glass with a sheet of plastic between) to prevent glass from flying all over in case of an accident. Most of the autos you buy this year have replaced the side windows with big heavy glass windows but they left the windshield as it was: laminated. The auto makers save $1.50 on a car by having heavy glass side windows. ---    Don’t get it. Why is congress trying to raise wages while thousands of men are seeking a job. Why not make jobs for the unemployed? ---    If you want to retain the flavor of milk keep it in dark colored bottles. The flavor of milk depends upon ascorbic acid, which is chemically affected by light. What woman would ever buy milk in a black bottle.
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April 27, 1961
   Coffee drinkers have changed from the old sturdy, hairy chested individual who wanted his coffee thick and as strong as lye, has gone from our midst and the males of today are happy if they get a cup of instant. Every fifth cup of coffee drunk in the U.S. is instant coffee. ---    The common skunk at certain periods of the year is as dangerous as a tiger. A 12 year old girl at Ellsworth, Iowa, after being in a coma resulting from a skunk bit recovered last week. She was in a coma for eight months. She was bitten while on a camping trip at Ray Lake State Park in South Dakota. ---    Stapes has a restaurant with a unique record. It serves 139 different kinds of soft drinks--and they are really soft the owner says. ---    There’s going to be milk for everybody this year. The government estimates that the milk yield this year will be over six million pounds. Wow! ---    With a lot of blow, Sears and Monkey Ward are announcing that no down payment is necessary. What’s new about that? We can remember the days when you didn’t make a down payment or any other kind of payment at the Engebretson store at Lake Wilson until fall. Business was on a yearly basis then. ---    The weather has been ideal for wheat this spring. Wheat is 15 inches high in Okla. and Kansas. A year ago it was just starting to sprout at this time. ---    Hudson police tried to stop a speedster. They shot two tires off the car while trying to force it to the curb. The occupant jumped out and took off across the fields. His name was Pete Kelly. He was fined $350.00 and 30 days in jail and the paper went on to say Kelly was the driver of the car in which the Ellsworth Prom Queen was killed two years ago. His father Les Kelly called to the scene of the accident collapsed and died when he saw the car, etc. from a heart attack: and yet the authorities did not revoke his license for even a day. ---    The Milwaukee Journal is lambasting its readers because they do not vote. There are 507,000 registered voters in Milwaukee and at the recent election 105,000 voted. Why should you push a woman or a man into the election booth when they don’t know who they should vote for: and in the final analysis the totals show that about half of them were wrong. ---    The chief of police at Staples got a real rap on the knuckles last week. He must have been over officious. He arrested J. Chase last year for speaking on the street and threw him in jail. Chase sued him for damages in the district court and the jury awarded him $1,000 for being detained without sufficient cause and unwarranted arrest. It will pay the village officials to see that their marshalls use their heads. ---    One out of four U.S. income tax blanks is wrong, and the error is generally in arithmetic, and seven out of then are in favor of the tax payer. ---    “Buy American” causes some argument. Here’s one of them. Volkswagen dealers say that if you buy one of their cars you will have $1,000 more to spend in the U.S. The Japs are putting on a real Pearl Harbor deal on our TV mfgs. Getting closer to a protective tariff. The Japs claim they will sell forty thousand TV’s this year in the U.S., $125.00 each. ---    The American Family :Life, a Georgia life insurance company, is opening up a new field in cancer insurance. It sold 500 policies in Jamaica. One section in the policy provides for $250 for transportation to a U.S. hospital for treatment. ---    We have had a lot of classy bands up here in the last four years, but the most popular one was here Thursday. Why was it the most popular? It was composed of 77 youngsters from St. James High School. They were full of vim, vigor and talent, things we have lost somewhere along the way. They had a splendid program. The youngsters seemed interested in things up here and we were all glad they came. ---    Say gals! If you want to be up to the minute you’ll have to get a burlap dress--not only dress but coats and shorts come in burlap. How it started no one knows, but it is spreading across the country. Burlap comes from India and it has furnished our potato sacks ever since we can remember. ---    Sample bags containing four ozs. of Sanka coffee will be tied to every copy of the TV Guide and Family Circle magazines. ---    The men on the council of Sleepy Eye are scratching their heads of late: the profit on the two municipal liquor stores show a loss of $5,000 from last year and the accountant added there was a good sized shortage in the inventories and suggested making a change in help. ---    The state of Nebraska carried this ad in some financial journals last week. “Nebraska will build for you--new legislation permits cities, towns and counties to issue revenue bonds for the acquisition and construction of industrial sites and buildings.” Minnesota legislators should send a committee down there to see how it works out. ---    Kerosene, which has been in the background for several years, is taking on a new lease of life. It is being used by jet powered planes. They take a lot of it and to keep the market alive the Phillips Petroleum company sells some of its surplus gas as “Flite Fuel” at its service stations. ---    Baseball fans at Judson are real mad. Some lowdown skunk stole the wire from the light wire poles at the baseball park. The copper wires run to each pole and someone will have to pass the hat. Have you looked at the wires on your baseball park recently. ---    Read an ad yesterday of a camera sale. A camera started at $80.00 and it went down 5 per cent a day until sold: someone may get a real bargain. ---    Talk about enthusiasm: saw a Chevrolet dealer’s ad which read, “With each lubrication and oil change starting April 21st we give a free reserved admission ticket to the Minnesota Twins opening home game.” ---    One of the most interesting cases in the United States Supreme Court is the validity of the state Sunday closing laws. This decision will make a lot of difference to many people. ---    Did you see that new fish bait. How we wish we could try it out. You fuel up the bait and it runs for an hour, going up and down for 15 feet. The lure is only two inches by 3/4 inch. There’s a little chamber in the bait, you fill it with “flure” and you’re all set for wishes and thrills. ---    One of the orneriest things that a man falls heir to is an attack of hiccups that just won’t subside. One expert says “Take a spoonful of vinegar,” another says, “Blow in a paper bag.” Both are no good. Here’s one still unpatented. Take a piece of common white wrapping string, bow your head, put one end of the string in your mouth then touch the other end of the string with a lighted match. Keep your eyes on the flame and see if you can count sixty mentally before the flame reaches your nose. ---    You never thought of it, but the mining companies on the Iron Range gave Minnesota the eighth wonder of the world. The Hull-Rust Mahoning mine on the Mesabi at Hibbing is the biggest man made hole in the world. It is over 400 feet deep, covers 1500 acres and has a 55 mile railroad. The Mesabi Range is 110 miles long and is only one to three miles wide. ---    If you want to take a splurge or create an impression you can do it cheap in Chicago. You can rent a brand new Lincoln Continental, said to be the top U.S. car, for $165.00 per month. Think how a guy could drive one back to his old home and show the folks how well he was doing.
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