Prairieland Talk— Not ‘Fluffy, Fluttering’ Flakes By KOMAINE SAINDEKS, 4110 South Slat St.. Lincoln 6. Nebr. LINCOIJnJ In a recent number of ‘‘In All Its Fury,” a publication devoted to perpetuating the memory of the great blizzard of January 12, 1888, appears a story by the late T. A. Graham under the title, “The Blizzard in Holt County.” I do not know where the author's home was in Holt county. There was a Graham family out in Shields township which we T knew well. The Graham that ! wrote the blizzard story’ was apparently not of that family. To give his story a touch of literary nicety, he went at it this way: "Beautiful fluffy, fluttering snowflakes great numbers of them, were sinking slowly, half floating toward our earth.” Not so that morning in O'Neill where the engineer of this department was. No Kinialne "fluffy, fluttering snowflakes” founders of the poet's dream. Rather a snow cloud dropped to earth driven by a mighty tempest "in all its fury." (Editor's note: It is possible the Mr. Gra ham referred to alxjve was a member of the Graham family south of Emmet. One mem ber of that family in recent years wrote a book of limited circulation. A highlight of that lxx>k concerned a classic south of Emmet bullfight.) • • • Pluck a dandelion bloom despised, but where call you find a speck of gold among the green more like a touch of color divine. Pause, sniff and look when* lilacs bloom along the way, as you hurry about from day to day. Things of nature, the stalwart pine, blooming bush anil g resin robed earth, endless as time. • • • At the annual meeting in June, 1906, T. D. Hanley, IT. P. J. Flynn and D. J. Cronin were elected to serve on the school board. The report of Dr. Gilligan, treasurer, showed the district in debtedness to have been reduced during the year from 520,000 to 58,000 . . 82-year-old Grandfather Powell of Stuart, having received a letter from a niece whom he had expected to care for him that she was going to be married and could not come to him, went out to the bam, ended his life with a bullet in the brain. . .M.D.Wileox, postmaster and merchant at Dixon, S. D., was convicted in court on a charge of stealing horses. . . Fire destroyed the Bowen livery bam on lower Fourth street and the Bazelman lumber business a night in June that year. . . Misses Clara Gatz and Eula Barton were visiting friends in Orchard. . . Mr. and Mrs. F. B. Cole were spending a day or two with their daugh ter at Amelia. • • • < 'un't teach your dog how to do It? Well, the trainer must know more than his dog! The night has run its course, another morning dawns, the bright glow of sunbeams from an un clouded orb of day flood the eastern horizon. An other pleasant May day starts down the highway of time, a day for planters in the "com country" to rattle across fields, another day of apple blossom time. City dwellers rake and scrape a hit of garden ground, mow lawns and sprinkle water over grass and walks. Nature awakens from winter hiberna tion and [Hits on the silken gown of green, bud and blossom and leaf. Memorial day a little way off when we place again our floral tribute at the abode of our dead. Mother's day a little way be hind, father's day just ahead; but to devoted sons and daughters here in prairieland every day is mother’s, is father's, ever mindful of the divine ad monition, honor thy father and thy mother. • • • A citizen of that little state of Rhode Island, F. M, Felts, has compiled a work dealing with the history of Holt county which will appear in book form later this year. Prairieland has a rich store of pioneer experiences of historical interest, and none more so than Holt county romance and ad venture, tragedy and comedy, political battles cov ered wagons of the pioneers and saddle horses on down to automobile days; homesteaders "happy as a clam in this land of Uncle Sam" while hold ing down a claim. The late J. J. McCafferty wrote the story just as he saw it, and it is great ly to l)c regreted that it is greatly to be regreted that it was never published. Holt county citizens await with anticipation and interest the Felts story of the settlement of the prairieland empire of Holt. • • • So the barbers of O'Neill have formed a trust, still individually cut hair but ni price cutting. Memories of Fred Harre, of John Smoot and the two-bits for a handclipped haircut and another dime for a shave. Now the barber goes over heads with machinery, the machine age, asks and gets a dollar for mowing the upper story meadow. Most of them down this way charge a dollar and a half. Our dollars are said to be about worthless. But how is it everybody, even the cordial gent at the barber's chair, has a hand out reaching for the dollars? One dollar for a 25-cent haircut, two dollars a night for the pillow at the hotel you once got for 50 cents. Why not with the guys sawing boards and driving nails demanding $20 a day? • • • Told me his name was Martin and his home in Greeley county. In Lincoln to hobnob with his daughter and family and would visit others of his tribe in Oklahoma before returning to Wolbach. He had helped win the late war by holding down a war job in Grand Island and now had joined the ranks of the hasbeens. A remaining bit of mascu line modesty so I refrained from asking her name, a lady holing up in the capital who said she was from Custer county, and Prairieland Talker is from Holt county. So Lincoln draws citizens and visit ors from all over the state. Are there Holt county patriot who have not yet set foot on O street Come down and see us! Editorial— What Isn’t Complicated? A great deal is written and said these days about the revolution that is taking place in rural (agricultural) America. Farming and ranching, like other industries such as manufacturing, are undergoing radical changes due to the increased use of machinery, electrical gadgets, even electronics. The horse has practically disappeared. Sim ilarly the need for extra farm hands has diminish ed even though farm units afe larger. In the ranching community, there are seasonal demands for extra ranch hands, but it’s a widely accepted fact the rural population has diminished in the past 20 years and it is becoming more and more diffi cult to keep the young ones down on the farm. Someone has figured the rural population in Amer ica is at>out half what it was in 1929. A generation ago it was generally felt that “anybody can farm ”, Now it’s "anybody can TRY farming.” ■" m .. j ~ t. r.._Kunnhinir hnrpnhtillts x \j aui>uwu ui, - --- capital investment amounts to 50- to 100-thousand dollars. One must have credit and considerable dough to get into agriculture today. Relatively few can get any such amount of credit, so there are relatively few new farmere or ranchers. The new ones come into it by virtue of birth or marriage. Any more very few start from scratch. Then there’s the deterrent of taxes. Young farmers and ranchers today labor under a tax bite and an inflated dollar that foreclose almost before the operator can get his feet on the ground. The farmer and rancher of tomorrow must be more than a capitalist. He'll also be required to be a technician, versed in various skills. Either Mr. Farmer himself or some member of the family has to be an accountant for one thing, and he must have at least elementary ability in mechanics, soil culture and economics with emphasis on marketing. This makes farming and ranching sound, com plicated and difficult. But what isn’t complicated and difficult now adays? The product parade is a novel idea and un doubtedly will attract considerable interest. Not a Chance If He’s Lazy This is an age of specialization. When a spe cial job is to be done, we call a specialist But when an individual is out of a job and he happens to specialize in thumping watermelons to find out whether they are ripe, that is bad. If he is drawing unemployment compensation, he can simply sit back and wait until the watermelons are ready. The public can offer him a job of bookkeep ing, helping brand cattle, shoveling coal or herd ing bees, but he doesn’t have to take it. He can stand on his constitutional right, refuse work at which he is untrained, and occasionally get a dole from the county. This calls attention to a few local problems. Try and find a man to spend four or five days cleaning up your premises. Billiards and bowling, even the ice show in Omaha, can prevent certain otherwise unemployed workers from taking on a part-time job. We know of an unemployed person who turn ed down a good job at good pay for a few days. “If I take it,” he replied, “I’m supposed to report it. That will come out of my unemployment check.” This is an age of specialists The jack of all trades, master of none, just hasn’t a chance—that is, if he doesn’t want to work. Teach Children Tractor Safety No parent in his right mind would give his boy a charge of dynamite and instruct him to blast out a tree stump, yet many parents don’t think twice about letting their youngsters operate a tractor without proper training. The National Safety Council’s study of 317 tractor fatalities revealed that 50 of the victims were children under 10 years of age, and almost one-third of the fatalities were less than 20 years of age. You as a j>arents have the greatest opportun ity to instruct your boy in tractor safety. Begin by showing him that the controls must be easily reached and applied if accidents are to be prevent ed. Let physical maturity and maturity of judge ment dictate when your boy can operate the tractor. A short piece of rubber hose, a toy tractor, and a string tied to the tractor can be used for an effective demonstration of causes of tractor upsets. wnen tne toy tractor is puued in a straignt line over the hose causing the rear wheel to cross the hose, the tractor takes a bounce and remains up right. But when pulled in a circle at the same speed, this bump upsets the toy tractor easily. Demonstrate the danger of unshielded power takeoff shafts with an old dishtowel. Wrap one corner of it around the shaft, hold the opposite corner lightly. With everyone well back from the shaft, start the tractor motor, open the throttle about half, and engage the PTO shaft. Being in a hurry to clean off a cutter bar has resulted in many serious accidents. Use a carrot attached to a nail in the end of a board to show’ how quickly fingers are lost when exposed to the fast-moving cutter bar. Demonstrate also the correct techniques in re fueling a tractor and hitching equipment. Import ant, too, is know how to extinguish a fire. Light a pan of crude oil and let your boy actually put out the fire with an air-charged, dry chemical ex tinguisher. Also, show him the effectiveness of other extinguishers, w’ater-soaked sacks, and dirt in controlling fire. Our only hope is that the attacks on Vice President Nixon were not representative of the feeling toward America by all Peruvians. We are told the demonstrations w'ere communist inspired. There is no doubt such demonstrations are a com mie tactic. But the question is: Are all anti American exhibitions communist shows? Or is it possible we don’t win many popularity con tests any more? In any event the violence is a sad chapter and most certainly was the work of thugs regardless of political affiliation. ilgjE Frontier CARROLL W. STEWART, Editor and Publisher Entered at the postoffice tn O'Neill, Holt coun ty, Nebraska, as second-class mail matter under the Act of Congress of March 3, 1879. nils news paper is a member of the Nebraska Press Associa tion, National Editorial Association and the Audit Bureau of Circulations. --— ■ ■ - — ■■■■—■ — — Terms of Subscription; In Nebraska, $2.50 per year; elsewhere In the United States, $3 per year; rates abroad provided upon request Ail sub scriptions payable In advance. Bowling Team Competes in Omaha Members of the Caterpillar gals bowling team from O’Neill competed in mixed singles in the Missouri Valley Machinery company's tourney re cently in Omaha. Left-to-right: Mrs. Art (Carol) Tibbets. Mrs. Joe (Delores) Menish, Mrs. Don (Harriet* McKamy, Mrs. Clifford (Nel) Harding, and Mi's. Donald (JoAnn) wecker. in the tieut ot 50 men and women. Mrs. McKamy won fifth; Mrs. Wecker, 14th. In O'Neill howling the gals parti cipated in the Booster league and at present stand in second place with three weeks of league competition remaining. The Frontier Photo. When You & I Were Young . . . Townsend Owner of 24-hp Jackson Car To Buzz Holt, Boyd Brown Counties 50 Years Ago Roy Townsend is proud pos sessor of a 24-horse power Jack son automobile. He’ll find it con venient travelling in Holt, Boyd, Brown, Key a Paha and Rock coun ties where he is overseeing bridges which he is building. . . Drs. Ira and Skelton were out to Eric Borg’s and took out a sec tion of his rib and removed the pus from an abscess which had formed in his lung. Albin Berg strom and Josie Hammerlund are helping at the Borg home. O’Neill high beat Atkinson high 11-9 in baseball. Players for O’Neill were Golden, Campbell, Kane, McNichols, W. Biglin, Ry an, Ward, Mullen and McCafferty. Atkinson players were Morgan, Webber, Donley, Scott, Mohrman, Purdy, H. Miller, A. Miller and Callen. In a game with the Peel ers vs. O’Neill, the score was the Peelers 4, O'Neill 3. Players for the winners were T. Murphy, H. Coyne, J Murphy, Hopkins, D. O’Malley, Gagahan, W. O'Mal ley, Minton and Simonson. O’Neill players (who by the way were an unorganized team put together hurriedly because the Emmet boys failed to show up to play the Peelers) were B. Coyne, Boyle, Gibbons, Sullivan, Biglin, Kane, Mammond, Hanley and Coyne. 20 Years Ago Mr. and Mrs. E. J. Grenier were pleasantly surprised when all their children came home for a family reunion. . . Mr. and Mrs. Claude Hancock of David City held a family reunion. All their children were present ex cept Mrs. Vance Kline of Clarks burg, Mo. . .The Frontier is cele brating its’ 58th year of publica tion. Mr. Cronin, the present editor and publisher, has been with The Frontier since February 11, 1892 . . Dora Hughes was valedictorian and Virgil John was salutatorian of O’Neill high school's graduating class. . . Don na Shellhase and Helen Wilkinson f.,*, nntntnndinrr f n rm account records in 4-H work. . . Iiuke Kersenbrock received a se vere gash in his forehead and left cheek whn he ran into a barb wire while riding his bicycle near the tennis court. Eight stitches were required to close the gash. . . . Miss Madeline LVom was awarded two outstanding awards at commencement exercises at Jefferson medical college hos pital school of nurses in Philadel phia. 10 Years Ago Natchel Rzeszotarski, a farmer living nine miles northeast of At kinson, narrowly escaped death when a horse he had roped be came frightened and started to run. The man’s leg became en tangled in the rope and he was dragged three-quarters of a mile. . . . Deaths: Troy Howard, 48; Mrs. Henry Huntsman, 91, of Ne ligh, formerly of O’Neill. . . Mrs. William Beha held a tea in her yard for members of the Purple Pansy girl scout troop and their mothers. One Year Ago “It’s been a long, long time since the agricultural conditions have looked better than they do today", said J. O. Walker, who travels extensively in Holt and Boyd counties. . . Deaths: Austin L. Hynes, 60; Miss Bernice Mur phy, 57; Mrs. Alice Axtell, 105, the state’s oldest resident; William P. Carroll in Omaha and El wood E. (“Beck”) Wallen, 76 after leg amputation. . . Total precipitation in Chambers for the year amount to 7.51. Money To Loan! Household Goods, F*er»onal Property, Oars, Trucks, Farm Equipment IX)W RATES HARRINGTON Loan and Investment Company 0>/3s when you buy GOOCH’S 81 Chick Starter GOOCH S BEST Chick Starter Builds Top Egg Producers GOOCH'S BEST — The "Layer Maker" Chick Starter— gives your pullet chicks a solid nutritional foundation on which to develop bodies that can produce all the eggs they were bred to lay. Stop by today for your scarfs and a supply of GOOCH S BEST Chick Starter. Harley Produce Chambers ■ mm mm mm imm mm mm m ^Q(]Mei4it..AH NEBRASKA ? PIM Thi» diorama, »how- . HR mg Wild Bill Hickok 1^^ in the act of (hooting *** David McConlet, i» 1 in the Nebratka Hit torical Society'* mu teum in Lincoln. The incident which gave Hickok hit nickname, occurred in 1861 at Rock Creek Ranch in what it now Jeffer ton County. The livelihood of your local tav* Nebraska division ern operator depends on strict Vnhtd Sum law observance. He deserves Brtum your help to keep standards high VP^Q/ foundation in your community. £,1 Bank ntj, . i.na.m $5*98] PER GALLON I ^ WHm AND READY-MIXED BODY CQZQftf jj -- COYNE HDW. Phone 21 O’Neill, Nebraska PITTSBURGH PAINTS keep that look longer! May is National Car Safety Monte From new Safety-TVin headlight* to new sculptured rear deck, every gleaming line of this Fairlane Club Victoria say* "fine carl” Look what you've been missing if you haven't driven a 58 FORD You fust can’t appreciate all the wonderful things that have been done to make driving more fun t i t until you've checked out in a shiny 58 Ford I The fun begin* with the simple act of get ting info the car. Only "yesterday” it was stoop down or knock off your hat. Now that has been changed. There’s room for you and your hat inside the 58 Ford. Even before you start the engine, notice how much more you can see. 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