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The Seaforth News, 1959-02-19, Page 3Taffy fulling Is Still Fun O1" Ed Gilligan had ,himself another Gloucester fishing yarn in the magazine the other week, and I was in a dory on the win- try banks hauling in halibut by the gross ton when a large and conspicuous aroma of clear, knifelike vinegar, pushed me off ,the thwart and overside. It's pretty hard to settle intoan armchair in this particulararena of unbridled activity and get through a bit of reading without some penetration of the irrelev- ant, but vinegar on the Grand Banks is new. I climbed back, stuck my hook in the gun'l, and went out in the kitchen. ' It was some taffy. It being holiday time, and an accumula- tion of wooers and woo -ed about, pulling some taffy was suggest- ed by niy woods -queer spouse as a wonderful way to pass a cold and stormy evening which • had unkindly set in. "What can we do?" had been the wail, and she met this doldrum head . on with the suggestion, dredged up from forgotten times, that they pull some taffy. I, myself, was always a molas- ses taffy man, and never could go this vinegar taffy. It sets up such a lound shout, to begin with, and then the finished product is du- bious. Vinegar has its place in the world, but I think it is not in candy. On the other hand, the vine- gar coming to a stanch boil in the pot makes conversation eas- ier, because it is 'very easy to make remarks about it and to compare watering eyes. Of Course, there was a time chil- dren were knowledgeable, and knew what was coming when*khe. taffy was put to cook. But these newer children, wise in all the teen-age categories, didn't know and were alarmed. When they said "What can you , do on a cold night when there's nothing to do?" they were not expecting any such fumigation as this. There is a big difference be- tween taffy then and taffy now. e We used to cook it en a wood EVER SEE ONE? -Many of to- day's youngsters have never seen one of the devices pictur- ed; above. It's a mailbag standard, from'which a speed- ing 'train snatches the mailbag as it goes by. Mrs. Edna Dun- fee, 81, adjusts the sack for the one train a day that picks up mail in this manner. A few years ago, at least six mail trains each day made such pickups at Little Hocking. ISSUE 7 - 1959 stove by the ball method. Sou held a glass of cold water In one hand, and dripped some of the syrup in it. You could tell by the kind of reaction you got, It called for judgment and know- how, and there was room for community conjecture. "I don't think it's ready" was answered by "Sure, it'e gone just a dolt too far." We all stood around the stove, creating a ooziness, and naturally enjoying close hand the soporific combination of heat and flavor. Now the gas flame speeds the boiling, and the candy thermo- meter 'allows no compromise. ' When it gets to the mark, it's done. Nobody needs to super- vise or corroborate; they can sit around and wait. The pot needs just one watcher. This lets the boys and girls talk about other things while they're waiting -a bad thing. Attention should be focused. Poured on the marble slab to cool, the mixture was soon ready, and word to butter the hands was variously received. Rands that had reached eigh- teen and nineteen and had never been buttered approached this requirement gingerly, Who ever heard.of such a thing? One or two recoiled visibly from this Unkempt idea, thinking it might be better to refrain altogether. But horrayl The kitchen was shortly ajingle with happy laugh- ter, and the long strands of taffy were beginning to look White and crisp. Somebody said, "Gol- lies, this really is fun!" Of course, it's fun. It was fun. long ago, too, and need not have perished as a youthful pursuit. It's an old-fashioned, out-of-date, time -lost amusement, smacking; of the defunct and long -gone past. It came before cellophane and plastic, and the age of indi- vidual wraps. It has no relation- ship to progress and culture. Yet, lacking all recommendations, it turned out to be fun! '0' They pulled and pulled, and there was the boy who found out he couldn't do it. Something about body heat, or his palms, or something -there is and was always one such in every taffy crowd. The stuff, in spite of but- ter, stunk to his hands. They yanked and yanked, and some of the taffy fell on the floor, and some didn't seem to want to pull right -with all the side issues and tangents and funny remarks and expressions. Then there was another boy who found he couldn't eat any. Stuck to his teeth. Some people • like that. They found him in t corner going "Mmm-mmm- mmm" and he had to wait it out. He was out of the conversations for about a half hour. He found out it doesn't do any good to pull it away, it just sticks some- where else. •Everybody . came to him with suggestions, and solici- tous inquiries about his condi- tion, and immediate questions he couldn't delay answering. "What can we do?" Is this such a problem? I don't -remember we ever had it, and we didn't have "advantages" back then. We couldn't . jump in an automobile and go ten towns over for a pizza. We didn't have hi-fi and tee -vee. ("Aw, there's nothing on it -just banging and hang- ing!" said the black-eyed` girl.) We had a sociable occasionally, always getting home by nine - thirty, and sometimes we pulled taffy at them. Organized play was unknown; we had no youth centers. We walked and walked home. It's a little hard for me to take .a modern youngster seri- ously when he says, "What can we do?" At least one small segment of today's teen-age crowd now knows how to pass a pleasant evening pulling taffy. They said they'd like to come another time and try some molasses kind. Do you suppose we've started some- thing, and buttered hands will bloom all across the land? -By John Gould in The Christian Sci- ence :Monitor. CROSSWORD PUZZLE ACROSS 1 Spoil 4 Pursue e. Discover 12. 'English river 12. Mel 14, Pagoda ornament 18, Ilsred. 17. Mei voices 19. Obliterate 21. pun 22. Thong 24. T,ni1,11ng ' sttnpert 2R. Nnlaance 29, 811N 80 7'rmsle , rabbit 81. pen Trod 22 punned away 2r Tae bring 211, Serpent 8B'ientte strokes s9, espnse 41. white ant 43. Shoots 44. Souse of (torn 415. Pilot 47, Small brim, lase hat I0, Omni. s. Curve 54 Fitrmrc of cars KR tdnthlne b7 cl,nr�hlg sviln hie K8 Vends 50. Muffin DOWN 1, Mire 5, Lout! measure 2. Attudes 16. t6nraged IS. And not 20, Lander) properties 22. Herrtnglike 42, Plums!' rap, fish 42. Flowerless 23. Coax pinnts 4. Ata bargain 25. Fruits of the 46 W hut'Fido 5. Brick - wild rose wags carriers ..26, Hnbbuh. 47. 1lorlsonlnl R. Article 27 -Exploits stripe 7. Coterie 29; Command to 48. Enoch 8. 'Unpleasant ' .neat 49. Sooner than night .88. Souls 61. eo,,tend 9. Impassive 84. That whleh K2. Trot,: 0. Through absorhs 66 Mose 1111,e 11. Affirmative •moisture nickname 87. Deliver sermon 40 lining astray AnsWer elseWhrei on this page ALL.DUNN IN - With a $light hangover apparent, four-year-old Sylvan Sundby has'had a bellyfuls of a farm convention. He's snoozed off under a sign marking the area of Dunn County Farm Bureau, headed by his father. TIIfSAI2M FRONT jok*i2ea.-vms A wintertime swing through snow-covered hills to. visit New England dairy and poultry farms has shown specifically the tre- mendous investment in time, work, and money which farmers must make to produce the kind of commodity demanded by to- day's consumers Like their counterparts in other areas, these dairy and poul- try farmers are having • to find new ways to increase theireffi- ciency and to beat the cost -price squeeze. Take, for instance, Jean and, Byron Hathorn's diary farm, a tidy river -bottom farmstead in a narrow valley. Only about _ 125 acres out of their total 370 are usable as pasture and for grow- ing hay and corn. In the seven years since Byron began taking over management of the family farm from his father, he not only has doubled the size of his Holstein herd, but has practically doubled the but- terfat content of the milk. His over-all accomplishment, says William Stone, county agent, has put him in the top 10 per cent among the dairy farmers - "maybe the top 5 per cent." « * Like many other modern young farmers who are making their farms pay, Mr. Hathorn had a family farm to start with - but prospects didn't look very encouraging at the time. Byron and : Jean came back to a farm that heand his five brothers and one sister had all been' glad to leave • as soon as they could get out on ttheir own. They'd .all had, enough of the drudgery of pertpetual before- -and -after school farm chores in the days when manpower and horsepower did all the work. But after trying other things, Byron decided that "there are worse things than farming." His father was "getting .along" and needed help, so Byron and Jean moved to the farm seven years ago to share 50-50 with his mother and father. O * A But 50 per cent of the pro- ceeds from the 17 milk cows then on . the farm was pretty slim, even when supplemented with a little grain business and a few chickens. Gradually, with some help from Bill Stone, the Ha - thorns not only made necessary improvements to the farm, but worked out an agreement with the elder Hathorn which contin- ued the 50 per cent arrangement and also assured. Byron's future as the ultimate sole owner. His father has since passed on, but his mother still occupies her own house on the farm; * Y. Now the !fathoms have a new modern barn which Byron built himself three years ago at a cost of $6,000 for materials alone. This snug, picturesque red barn now houses about 70 purebred Holsteins, living a lfe of bovine luxury; a $4,500 milking parlor from which milk is piped di- rectly from the cow into a 300- gallon, $2,500 bulk milk tank; an automatic gutter - cleaning sys- tem, which conveys manure out- side and loads it into a manure spreader; and a radio, dispensing soft music to keep the cows con- tented. ✓ a * Byron breeds replacements for his herd, using mostly his own bull but also, at times, artificial insemination. He figures the average number of milking cows at about 31, writes Helen Hen- ley in the Chrstian Science Moni- tor. Mr. Hathorn credits a practical system of Dairy Herd Improve- ment records with some of his success in keeping his cows in top producing condition. His own careful records on each cow are sent to Cornell Uni- versity, where IBM machines evaluate and interpret the statis- tics to the point of even pre- scribing the exact 'feed best for each cow, determining when she needs a complete rest, etc. The service costs about 9 cents per cow per month, and Mr, Hathorn feels this has paid off well, as have all his investments in mechanical equipment which have enabled him to handle all the work himself well, not quite by . himself. When Mr. Stone commented that he had good equipment, Byron smiled at Jean and said, "Yes - and a good wife." King George Wore Lead -Lined Bowler Dorothy Wilding, who photo- graphed King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) immediately after the Coronation ceremony, was told. that a fortnight before it the King had accustomed himself to the weight of the Crown by wearing a bowler lined with lead to make it the same weight! He arrived at Buckingham Palace looking remarkably fresh; the Queen was so pale that Miss Wilding feared she was going to faint, but she walked resolutely to the dais in the Throne Room As the King moved forward to take his place on the dais for the photographing he handed to Lord Cromer the Sceptre which he had held in his right hand, according to ancient tradition, after receiving it at his corona- tion. Lord Cromer in turn, hand- ed it to another dignitary, who looked around for someone else to take charge of it while he ratried out other duties - and finally handed it to Miss Wild- ing's husband, Rufus Leighton - Pearce. "I shall never forget the awe- stricken look on my husband's face when he found the fabulous relic planed in his hand," she recoils. "There be was, standing alone, holding the sceptre, with no one daring to relieve him of such a precious burden Finally, when it became too much for him, he, wishing to be helpful, laid the Upsidedown to Prevent Peeking sceptre on a near - bybucil and carefully covered it with cushions so that it and its jewels were definitely protected and he would be able to keep his eye on that couch" Unaware of this, Miss Wild- ing's assistant, Marion Parham, feverishly removed ex posed Elms in their carriers from the camera and placed them under those same cushions, also for protection. At the end of the sitting Rufus removed the cushions and nearly passed out when he saw the sceptre completely smothered by the photographic equipmentl Is Your Memory A One -Way Street? An attractive young American bride-to-be failed to keep an 11 a.m. appointment with her dress- maker to try on her wedding dress on the day before her wed- ding. She only remembered it at 9 p,m. when it was too late. An incredible incident? Not at all, comments a psychiatrist, who says that after studying the tricks that memory sometimes plays he is convinced that such memory lapses usually occur be- cause forgetfulness is an attempt at escaping from one's problems, l;t was -later revealed that the young bride was not really in love with the much older man she was pledged to marry. Their marriage was dissolved a few months after the wedding. Medical authorities in this country have pointed' out that forgetting is often intentional and deliberate. Barristers and doctors, for instance, can train themselves to forget the details of a case once it is over and done with. ` They clear their minds of it when fresh cases de- mand their attention. Some famous men in the past • had very bad memories. Novel- ist -poet Sir Walter Scott heard a song sung at a Christmas party where he was a guest of honor and observed, "What remarkably good words! I wonder who wrote them?" He was amazed when a friend pointed out that Scott himself had written them and that the song had been sung in his honor. Lots of people have poor mem- ories for names and faces. The Queen and Prince Philip have so trained their memories that they nearly always remember faces. The Queen's grandfather, King George V, also had a mar- vellous memory for faces. At ninety miles • He liked to whiz: Now he's 'was' Instead of 'is'. UNDi SCOOT .SON he Rev R. Barclay Warren B.A., B.R. Responsibility to God and Man Marls 12; 28.34 Memory Selection: To love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to We his neigh- bor as himself, is more than all whole burnt offering's and sacri- fices. Mark 12: 33. Of all the commands given in the Scriptures, there Is none so extensively and at the same time, so intensive, as the Great Commandment composed of two parts selected from the law of Moses. Their substance is given in the memory selection. The young lawyer recognized that the answer which Jesus gave to his query as to which was the greatest commandment, was a masterpiece. Love for God and man is the solution for man's ills in every age. Without it, everythingelse is vain, as expressed so clearly in Paul's first letter to the Cor- inthians, chapter 13, But before we can so love God, we must surrender our wills to Heaven's greatest expression of love, the Lord Jesus Christ. Only then can we fully love our fellowmen. The love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us, will be manifest in many practical ways, Today's lesson has been desig- nated as the Temperance Lesson for this quarter, It is appropriate, too. If we love our fellowmen we will. want to influence them' in the right direction. • In the old days of the saloon, a young man (whom I came to know in his later years) took a widow's son into the bar and treated him to his first drink, The lad in due time became a drunk. Today we would call him an alcoholic. In- stead of being a help to his mother he became a burden. He died young. The man who •treat- ed him later became a devout Christian through repentance of his sins and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He became a gifted and successful minister of the Gospel. One of the burning re- grets of his life was that he had started the other youth on the way to drunkenness. He himself had escaped from the tyranny of strong drink but the other had succumbed to it. "Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink-" Habakkub 2: 15; COLD - WEATHER AID - - - THE OUTDOOR SAMARITAN - Porky the porcupine, although wild, responds regularly to chow call by Dewey Spines, top. 'Spines, who lives atop 8,000 -foot Casper Mountain, takes caro of many wild friends when deep snow makes foraging difficult. Below, Spines puts out fodder for a family of deer. Other "customers" include rabbits, squirrels and various kinds of birds.