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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1958-09-25, Page 3©�©�Ol►�FJ (�1��© f�1 ®EINE®0 U©©t aUlE1 ; gamin • 50flttlraI, tz © e gESFARAZIEFIlillUOU Cr NO 11�Mv'L�viO uscorANurirpounEt �©v,�flon�o©u Clog 91 Down - YCnc 91 OlJti: Of the mail that comes be- cause of these dispatches, one kind, or sort, is becoming more and more common -enough so. it makes a category, and 1 call it the What -can -be -done - Nothing. It is the letter which protests in vain, which cites some outrage to sensitive perceptions, and then indicts the rest of us, some- how, for not rising up in righ- teous wrath to correct a wrong. I am just now in receipt of such a letter from a fellow Maineiac, wherein enough of the gist of the category is found to war- rant wider reading: "What can be done.toa save the rustle setting of this little cor- ner where three roads meet, named Little River Corner, in down -East Maine? We live four miles straight north from Route 1 at Columbia Falls. A quarter or a nalf mile of the road run- ning past my house is to be re- built right away. The "builders" down this way adapt the big, through -route ideas to our coun- try lanes and byways, laying waste the little gnarled crab- apple treesdaring to grow close to the roadside. "An old gristmill stone has lain near our roadside for over a hundred years, telling the chance passers-by that it used to be in the business world of this little town long, long ago It will, of course, be moved - bumped and pushed away by a heartless bulldozer driver, with a certified engineer waving his arms in whichever direction it is to be pushed. "There are only two or three families left here now at our corner. Trees have made quite a growth along our road, shading us in summer, joying us when they releaf in spring -and show- ing their colors after autumn frosts. A small stream runs through here, too, with falls to delight the eye, a purr for the ear, and foam on the ledges. That's our 'little river.' "This is a most secluded spot, and this is its charm. It should be kept serene, left serene, and bettering it will spoil it. The roses grow almost to the road. Trees, shrubs, wildflowers -what are they worth? Where is the road commissioner who sits down PULL MEASURE - Tailor Max Danchik inches his way along one of the tallest fitting jobs ever to walk into his Hollywood tailor shop. She's Patricia Hop- kins, six feet, three inches tall and a member of a local "tall club." By one of those Holly- wood -type coincidences, a pho- tographer just happened to be hiding in the steam presser, calmly and computes the value of one rosebush wild, to a high- way line? Engineers have slide rules and compass lines, and where the line runs, they go - roses or not. Machines have no gentle touch, no taste, no feel- ing -and men who operate them becomeas mechanical parts. They damage so much. "Our little road is wide enough and hard enough. It doesn't need rebuilding. But there is nobody to say so, nobody to cry stop, nobody to distinguish the rose from the cold statistics of ap- propriations, contracts, profits. Money is provided, money will be spent, willy-nilly. Whom can I turn to, to explain that I like roses and country lanes and old millstones that haven't turned in a century? Am I so alone? Isn't there anybody else?" There you have it. There is more to the letter - the lady wrote to the highway commis- sion, and the' letter was turned Over to the underling who an- swers such letters and does nothing else about its She got in touch with this one and that one, and shoulders were shrug- ged. The Chamber of Commerce man told her it would take 'pull. And so on. In the end, she has written her letter to me, and I have merely observed that as time runs on I get more and more of similar letters. It isn't always a road -but it is some kind of encroachment always, a tread- ing on sensitivities and intangi- bles by the great forward strid- ing era that, in a nutshell, no longer cares about roses. Here in Maine, and in other states too, we have an active organization known as the 'Good Roads Association.' It has work- ed hard to further a program of bigger and better highways, but it has neither constructed nor preserved any good roads' through quiet, shady, rustic vis- tas, with crooks around knolls, little bridges by foamy falls, past recumbent millstones fes- tooned with wild roses, The reason is factual and mo- dere-the membership is com- posed of contractors, machinery salesmen, transit interests, poli- ticians, bonding outfits, compen- sation insurance underwriters, and others dedicated to mighty avenues of commerce, the more expensive the better. They are, in short, a pressure group, al- though they won't like this blunt description any more than my correspondent will like their misappropriation of 'good roads.' They are the people who push millstones out of the way, in the interest of long hauls between major cities. They have banded together in common cause against millstones and roses and coun- try corners and front -porch views clown shady lanes. I men- tion them specifically because their name might invite dissen- ters, like my correspondent, to appeal to them in this present consideration. Just what is a 'good road'? Just what can tree lovers and brook listeners do? Nobody on the side of the roses is permit- ted an opinion any longer. If you even mention a rosebush to a highway engineer, you are pe- culiar and odd -to be brushed off deftly by any of the several accepted ways, You are protest- ing against the bulldozer, which is here to stay. You are senti- mental, and sentiment is absurd. Chop it down; yank it out; level it off. Anybody who doesn't see the mighty wisdom of the great program is a crank, to be bulldozed over with the same relentless insistence. Stand aside -we're corning through! And yet -of course -it's only a rose, only a millstone long idle, only a country lane by a waterfall. Let us not be silly. - By Jahn Gould in The Christian Science Monitor. Drive With Care 8. rt.tlet a1 Per- „0. Lean and sin - 10, Form of oxy- 33. Brings Into 8. Plead covering 82. Pte gen being' 11. Mortise insert 84 dtnst unhepPY 12. Winter ve- 86. Refused Moles 88. Supports Af BOSS 8. 17eceendant 39. Crackle. 30. Plat 3 Burn of Esau22. Is defeated 40.. City In New S Drug Wen- 4. Silent 'l4. Porta of high- Yorlc State tions (cermet./ 5. Youth beloved µaye 42 Armed hand 13 IleCPPRRPA by Galatea 46. Jana coins 8. Abounds 26. A hank of 48. Be nverfond 14. Xind of nut 7. 1.itnrFl ry cum- twi le 4a ( rah 35. Pigmies positions 23 Opening 51. 'pole against 13 'igo'te 17 Vigor 13, Crush 20 (;row sleepy 21 Indigo plant 22. Synonym 5 1'.1 24 camera's ere 28. Private t metier 27. medieval 0 erre Barra• Nye 29 Teeter 51. (Outbreaks of fear 85. (;eralnt•s be- loved 27 Ancient. city In Trans-Jordan 88 ren Red by 41. 4'nr Irdcloth 93 Sow 44,Steep 45. Plceleslastical gnu n ril 47. Baal. 1 ab.) 18, Sheeplllce 6n Set apart 51. Filbert 62 L.nndcdprop- ertiea 64, );road thick nleees 66. Most prnfoUnd DOWN' 1. Ties 2. Suite CROSSWORD ORD PUZZLE 1 2 3 4 5. 6 78 y`. 9 10 11 12 13. `,+,14 15 f fd. 1b.. 17 18 17 <M 20 • 21 22 23-• • 24 25 26 27 - 28• ±s . ?.: 24 30 31 2 33 ` 34' Keg35 36 37 38 39 40 O 0 41 42. 43 44 45 46 47 98 '49 .t 50- --61. 52. . Is 53. 54 '9-2 5 Answer elsewhere on this page. WOOL ARGYLES - Playing a joke on city slicker visitors to the Wisconsin State Fair, farmer William McKenrow paints a color- ful Argyle plaid pattern on his Shropshire ewe Iamb, He says one in ten visitors fall for the gag. Maybe they think that's how Argyle -patterned socks grow. The really up-to-date farmers among my readers - those of you who have the very latest ill equipment - may not be so greatly interested in this article by John Gould which appeared in The Christian Science Moni- tor. Still, there should be enough "old timers" among you to recall the days John writes about, and get a chuckle from his memo- ries of same, 4, * '0 Haymakers no longer rake scatterings. As an accredited scattering raker from away back, into whose fiber the an- cient adages were inculcated that I might succeed and pros- per. I'm aghast at discovering this change in a basic economy. I can't remember that anybody said so in 'just that many words, POWER PLANT - A tomato that apparently didn't know its own strength is admired by young Charles Acerra in the garden of his home. The tough tomato grew right through the loop atop the metal stake which was used to support the plant. but I came along up with the idea that dismal doom and downright despair would des. cend on the untidy and profligate farmer who neglected to rake his scatterings. True, I was inwardly rebel- lious all the time, and I never loved' scatterings no -how, but that didn't get me anywhere. I raked scatterings just as if I believed in them, I was told that the scatterings would feed an- other heifer, which was the fru- gal and utilitarian approach and forced on the growing boy that another heifer was a good idea. I didn't think so, personally. Heifers eat more than you think, once they get startetd, * * * Then there was the, aesthetic argument - that people admired a well -raked field and would take notice that you wore neat, This could also be construed as nasty -neat, and I think I so con- strued it. The difference between then and now is the same old story - mechanical progress. Hay is made today untouched by hu- man hands or feet. A side- delivery rake makes windrows continuously, and the baling machine passes over the wind- rows and consumes them. Bales are then hove on.a passing truck which never stops, and nobody ever looks back, r * * In my time the rake was a dump rake, a jack-rabbitiike de- vice that gathered up its capa- city and then dumped it be- fore gathering again. You made windrows by dumping always in the same relative line. After- ward, you could run the rake along the windrow and manu- facture "bunches" - which is Maine, for they are called other things in other places. A bunch was more or less what a strong man could pitch onto the rack in one forkful. Sometimes the bunching was done by hand, with a fork, And after the bunches were hoisted onto the rack, which always stopped for that exercise, the loose hay left was known as scatterings, and had to be gar- nered. , ,, Of course, in earlier times rak- ing was done by hand, and in later times they got hay loaders. But until the baler there was always an effort, whatever the .method, to rake the leavings be- cause they were valuable and because they made the eld look unkempt. We had two ways of raking scatterings. The first one made the horse mad, because he had to keep turning -turning to bring the horserake over the scatter- ings, passing needlessly over great areas he had already raked in the morning and scattering - less now. No horses ever liked to rake scatterings, because he thought the driver had lost his reason and didn't know what he wanted, ,.. * s The second method was with a dragrake, or bullrake, and that always made me mad. The hull- rake was an infernal machine if there ever wag one. It would climb up your backand. excori- ate you. It was, of course, de- signed for a man about six - four and weighing 240 pounds - but such paragons were too valuable to use on scatterings and always pitched on, built load, or stowed in the mow. It was the little fellow, Iike me, who got to rake scatterings and. had a bullrake riding behind. You could tell a real farm boy in those days by the way he walked - as if he thought some- thing was sneaking up on. him. 4 * 7, A bullrake had a curved han- dle, and one grasped it in the manner of Mr, Discobultis of old - one hand above the neck and the other behind the belt. This put the long teeth in such a position they could ride flush with the ground, and keep clip- ping you on the ankles. By actu- al. count, 28 to 30 times per wisp is the usual average. Thus ac- coutered and postured, the raker walked and walked and walk- ed and walked, in the hot sun, picking up any and all loose hay the harvesting crew had neglect- ed to Hoist to the load. * a * Occasionally the rake would have gathered enough 'o call for dumping, so you would hik' over to the rack and deposit it on the ground. One of the men would spear it and lilt it up, always leaving ,a straw or two as a nucleus for your next batch. Thus, the field was shortly clean as a whistle - the hay was in and nosy neighbors could see that you were a frugal and cir- cumspect husbandman with your scatterings raked. ' * 7, Nowadays, the scatterings in a field wouldnt make a bale, and what' the cam -operated teeth of the baler miss is left, and no- body tries to raise up that extra heifer. That heifer was the sub- tle difference between plain getting by and the luxury of success. Small boys are no doubt left to delinquency, and I feel sorry for them. As for the aesthetic considera- tions, it is probably just as well that modern traffic goes down the road so fast you couldn't see scatterings if they were ten feet deep. I doubt if some of them can even see if the field is mow- ed at all. Thus we take care of our own, and the poor lost extra. heifer isn't missed. If some mu- seum sqmewhere wants a drag - rake .. Mind Like A Sponge Teddy Nadler, the diffident man with a Univac for a mind, had already won $242,000 crank- ing out answers on the CBS quiz show "The $64,000 Challenge" But before he faced his ques- tioner recently and won $10,000 more to boost his winnings to an all-time record, he was fret- ting like any beginner "I might black out," he muttered. "It could be my Waterloo. I know enough about history to know what can happen to people. Robespierre was a big man one day -the next day they shot his jaw off and guillotined him." Back home in suburban St. Louis, things were a little dif- ferent with the Nadiers as a result of Teddy's late -blooming good. fortune. Clara Nadler, whose husband had never earn- ed more than $70 a week be- fore he got into TV, was bustling about n new, $15,000 brick home which is fairly squirming with electrical appliances. "You should put down about the electric bill," she said re- cently. "Whooee! Everything's electric." Pests had forced the Nadlers to acquire an unlisted telephone. Teddy, in a new income bracket, had quit his clerk's job because there wasn't any sense in driving to work to make 20 cents on the dollar," Otherwise there was no change. The neighbors took it in stride. "Do the Nadlers still live down the street?" asked one. "They're very quiet," said an- other. "We never see them." "Come what may," says Mrs. Nadler, "I'm still the same old Clara." Teddy was the same old Teddy. As a bookworm of a boy in the Jewish Shelter Home in St. Louis, where he had discovered that he had a "mind like a sponge," he had shown off his brain as the other boys did their biceps. Last week he still felt that compulsion. "You know Tchaikovsky was born May 7, 1840, and died Nov. 6, 1893, don't you?" he abruptly asked a reporter. "You know Beethoven's sym- phonies, don't you? I mean all 37 movements by heart? I can hum 'em all. I do it in a mono- tone, of course, but you start any one of 'em anywhere and I can identify it for you within a tenth of a second." "You know all the Roman emperors, don't you? Sure you do. First there was 'Augustus, and then there was Tiberius, and then there was Caligula , , ."- From NEWSWEEK. ID DAY SCIiOO1 LESSON Ey Ices lt. Earelay Warren s,n.. 8.1) Justice for People in Need Isaiah 58:6-8; Luke 4:16-22; Hebrews 13:1-3. Memory Selection: Whose hath this world's good, and seeth Iris brother have need, and shiltteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dweileth the love of God in. him? 1 John 3:17. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is, in a very real sense, a social gospel. When people are for- given of their sins they become forces for good in society. They are the leaven for the Kingdom of God. They not only live good lives themselves but they are concerned about helping others to find their Saviour that they may live good lives,. too. The righteous have always worked for a better society, The ancient prophets were the re- formers of their day. Religious rituals, such as feasts were sec- ondary to the practical aspects such as relieving the oppressed and breaking every yoke, Jesus, in his first service read a passage from Isaiah which emphasized that he was continuing the work of the prophets. He would give good news to the poor, heal the broken-hearted and set the bruised at liberty. No wonder that the common people heard Him gladly. "Let brotherly love continue," is a good slogan for every age. We have a responsibility to help all that are in trouble of any kind. The art of hospite'ity which our grandparents prac- tised in simplicity needs reviv- ing. Abraham did not realize that the men he entertained were angels. There are always a few transients who seek hos- pitality in order to rob their host then or later, This has made people very canny, perhaps too canny. Farmer Harry Holt of Cres- well, Oregon, has shown his understanding of the social im- plications of the Gospel by bring- ing hundreds of rejected Kor- ean orphans to USA and finding good homes for them. These children were born of American G. L's and unwed Korean moth- ers. In spite of failing health and countless obstacles, this re- markable Christian layman has dedicated his life to finding happiness and opportunity for these youngsters, unwanted in their homeland because of their mixed blood. If you are not one to whom people in trouble readily turn you should pause and ask, "Why? Have I not the spirit of Jesus Christ?" We need to have the spirit of Jesus Christ that we may live like Him, if we are to be worthy of bearing the name of Christian. A tourist in Cornwall over- took a young man running rap idly along the road. He stoppe4 end invited the perspiring run- ner to get in. "An emergency, I suppose?" the driver asked. "No," puffed the young man. "I always run like that when 1 want a ride. It seldom fails." Upsidedown to Prevent Peeking SPACE DOGS Russia's space traveling dogs, Whitney (right) and Spot, are shown in their rocket containers.' Moscow an- nounced' that the' dogs had been fired 280 miles into space and brought safely back to earth.