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The Seaforth News, 1960-08-11, Page 6Of The Missing " Mdwfcillin The ward comes to me that lawn has "Inst" its road ma - thine, and I'm delighted. I eon- etss that fora long •time I've /tad an impulse to "steal" one of these} things --- to hook on to it in passing and drag it 100 miles or• sn and leave it. Just to sit back and see what hap- tens. A road machine is a heavy framed device, maybe 25 feet tome with a great grading • blade, and it is not something you could misplace readily. My fiendish desire is predi- rated, of course, on the way towns have always left the things at random, wherever they happened to finish up a road job. My guess would be that in :99 towns out of 100, if you ask- ed the road boss where his grader was at any particular moment, he wouldn't know. "Losing" one is rough treatment on the word lose. Now that pavements have be- come almost unanimous, the oril;tnal purpose of these ma- chines has been largely curtail- ed. They still use then for grooming the shoulders and ditches, but the old custom of dragging them around to "maintain" tha road has happily lapsed. Millions upon until mil- lions of public funds went for road-tuacinir.e work, anal the things spui;cd more roads than they ever five!. Whenever you drove out on an old dirt road, you'd see one of these things going along, with the town's most unlikely candidate atop it, frantically lurch.g tee big adjustment which, without the slightest idea oii what he was about. 1 know, because I did it once. I got a job "with the town" while still in school, and work- ed all summer at hand -tooling the municipal highways for 30t an hour. I shoveled gravel and dug culverts and mowed bush- es Mid also rode on the road machine. When they got a new "man" in the department, they put hiro on the road machine, because anybody who knew what the job was would beg off. You see, Maine was a region of potentially good roads back then. The pin gravel left by the glaciers, if adroitly mixed with just enough of the blue clay. also provided in quantity, would bind down into a hard surface brat made an excellent road. If a man could engineer proper drainage ( and get the votes in town meeting) he could lay out s highway system that traffic then would find adequate. It might rut up a dolt in mud time, but once-over with a king - drag and you had it back in >shape. This king -drag was a timbered •4evice with ironed cross -mem - tiers set at varying angles, and Jiffy Halter lend colnwtul .u;.. t.o ;I. i:: •i:fry-crap halter hat top; -.1:r, 1S, sk.t'ks, :;hir1s rcrnnonta Pattern :172: pattern mucus: trans - r of co.1,r•,ide.ry; rnis;e;; sizes „Hall 19-13; medium 1418; ,ergo 13-20; dicectior,:�. Solid 7I'1J1R't•S-1'i4'li .,tar;'•;.r, r�,t�in�rt 'ho -aerepted, i,o.lal not, ;t>r gar;•tc•) for thin ;rall.crn t,+ i,auto Whoolr,,r, Box t, tee isieigeomi h !t tit. New Tor - lieu. (Jho t,it,l.; PAT- TERN titr,di1Ett, your NAME ed ,'lI)I)1tESS. "See! 9:c`. }':., Our 11160 Leer, Whetter ter N, :rdhTratt Cuol: ten ly NOW! Crammed with hint;, itr,t:mal, papular dt:- o crochet, knit, sear, ern - 1 , )'^r, quilt- v.eave tray,:•.r pita. In the book F}111Ii 3 quilt patterns. IIurrc, 'nd cents fyr your copy. In the beginning it was pulled by oxen. Any blacksmith or wheelwright could make one. The cross -members cut off high spots and tilled in low spots, and if the king -drag didn't cut quite enough you piled on rocks until it did. There was nothing very astute about it, but it work- ed fine in its day and age. Afterwards, somebody invent- ed the road machine, and every town had to have one. It had a single blade, so its mechanical application to the job was in- ferior to the king -drag - but it had wheels on it, and mankind likes wheels. You see, the king drag, with its several cutting edges, had a way of working against itself to smooth things. The road ma- chine, if it hit a rock, would jump in the air. On "wash- board," the road machine could ride the hummocks and just make them worse. The first day I rode the machine, trying to find some adjustment that would do something besides bob around, I got shook up like a popper of corn, and when we quit for the night the road was billowed and fluted. Nowadays, the road machine serves wonderfully to oblige the week -end tourists. Usually on a Saturday morning the crew turns out, and scrapes the shoulders of the roads all along the edges of the pavement. This puts all the rocks and roots up in the highway, and by everse song when the men quit every- thing is delightful. On Monday they come around end scrape everything back into the ditch. But wherever the crew was when quitting time came, that's where the machine traditionally gets left, Even today, in the post -era, if you drive across Maine, you'll see scores of these things park- ed off in the Bustles, gathering rust and awaiting the return of the road crew. They are as our lakes and mountains and wooded hills, part of the scenery. It is a statewide presumption that nobody would want to take one, and wherever it is, it's safe That's why I should like, some- time, to hitch on to one and move it— to see how long it would be before it got found. This one that is now "lost" (and my conscience is clear) is of course not last at all. Last year, I suspect, after much com- plaint by residents on a back road, the highway commissioner finally decided a few votes were likely, and went up to scrape. You will probably find it in the town report -- Grading Humph- rey Road ... $2,000. This means they stirred up all the stumps, and boulders, ripped the planks off all the culverts, and shifted all the holes to new places. It means some poor fellow had to ride the thing. And in the even- ing they parked the machine and went home. November came off cool and they next put the snowplows on the trucks. A new year has ar- rived, and the situation has slipped their memories. Now they have the third-class ap- propriation to spend and the machine is mislaid. "Lost." They'll find it. The gears will be rusted so it will take two days' work to start them. They may have to cut a few alder bushes to get at it. - But it"s there, all right. Someday some- body will say, "When are you conning to get the road machine in my orchard?" Then they will all remember, I hope they find it, but not ton soon. By John Gould in The C0tri'lion Science Monitor. Q. When having a piece of sit. ver for a baby marked with only one initial, should it be the first or the last? A. The finer. REGAL KISS Miss Universe of 19'10, Linda Bement, of S Lake City, Utah, is kissed be Akiko Kojime, last year's M':, U„ from Japan, UNDERWATERMELON — Taking their watermelon in its natural environment, Ginger Stolz, left, and Mary Eagan dine at Cy- press Gardens. ewenxioLi r.e P. C Leake A drive just a few mites from home isn't necessarily unevent- ful. That we realized a few days ago. We were on our way to Johnny's farm, twelve miles from here. To get there we could stay mostly on the high- way or go across country. Part- ner likes the back concessions so that's the way we wente Even- tually we came to an underpass on 401. "Now," said Partner, "when we get through here, turn left." Turn left . . oh, no -- not on a road wet with tar, and no sand) So we kept straight on instead, going several miles out of our way to reach our destina- tion. But we got there. I was telling the lady of the house about the tar. "Yes," she said, "I'm afraid they'll be tarring this road one of these days." "I suppose so," I answered, "but thank goodness they haven't done it yet." "We were at the farm less than an hour and decided to return home by the highway -- once we were off the conces- sion road that led to Johnny's fano. Ah me! We drove down the lane and there, on the road right in front of us, was more wet tar! There was no other way out. Fortunately. only a lit- tle better than hall the width of he road had been sprayed so, once I had crossed the road, I was able to avoid most of the tar -by driving with the off -side wheels almost in the ditch. Well, a good way to avoid tar end other read problems is to do what we are. doing right now — stayine home. About half our family and several of our neighbours are aa'cly on holiday -- which makes it quiet and peeeeful for u;. But the don't lack entertainment, Out here on our netio it is surprising what we s�•o. Our bird -beth is only a feta yards away and just now a movement attracted my atten- tion. Was it birds, taking a bath? Nota bit of it. Ditto had jumps on to the entre stone and was taking a drink. So, cater to the birds and it's the cat who benefits. However, there are plenty of trees to attract the birds. A whole family of them were twittering away lust now among the hranehes of an elm -,• obviously mother was giving her fledglings their first flying les- sors. ("Ditto, you keep away fry at those tre....") 1 sin not guile sure ,,tie.. r;p •,-1:. of birds thee 'n:' t,;;, with art hi .• i r.rist. I'r,Ity little things -.- 't..uttines. perhaps, What, a pily it i, at yhing r;o attractive should aIso the des- tructico, Visitors last night were telling us they have a number of old, but c. 'Il-troll+•d cherry trees. And they didn't gel e cherry. ;obi iv, starlings and blackbirds took them all before. the cherries were even ripe Scents to me there are more birds ste^.Iine fruit nowthan there Used to be. Iic,rmer.; a gen- eration ago alwtos get a gond supply- of fruit from - their orchards. Why the difference" Are there more birds nr le;: fruit? Os is it that so many teoottlnts tlittt used to supply birds with wild fruit have been 1,7 destroyed? I rather think that is the answer. Subdivisions don't provide hungry birds with food so they needs must plunder and steal wherever fruit is available. Speaking of birds and animals Dee and her family have suf- fered a loss. Honey, their eleven - year -old cocker -spaniel had to be put to sleep. Honey was over- fat and had some kind of kid- ney trouble. I was glad when the vet said for fear of infec- tion to the children it wasn't wise to keep her around any longer. I had been saying that for some time. Honey had quite a history. Eleven years ago Dee was living in Fort William. She wrote one time and said she was sending me a puppy to look after. I was to give her a home and look after her but not to forget the puppy was hers. It arrived un- expectedly one Saturday night. Bob was away with the ear so I had to have a taxi-driver bring her home. One six -weeks old puppy in a taxil Honey stayed with us for five years. When Dee was married and Dave a year old she went to live in Toronto. She was an intelligent little tike. Would carry anything you gave her in her mouth and was a wonderful pet for the boys. Also a good watch -dog and guard dog. She wouldn't let anyone near the baby -buggy when the boys were small. At the farm Honey and cur much -loved Persian cat, Mitchie-Grey, used to sleep to- gether in the same box. Honey had many endearing ways and only one fault. She was greedy. Whatever crumbs or cookies the children dropped disappeared in a hurry. That, arid the fact that she was speyed contributed to her fatness. Now Honey has filched her last cookie and her guard duties are over, so we hope she is happy in whatever heaven is reserved for canine pets. I have yet to hear what the boys said when told Honey wouldn't be coning home any more. Few women would wear slacks if they had hindsight. Weil -Loved Voice Stilled At Lost "1 set myself and KKI go all I had," This was how baritone Lawrence Tibbett recalled that eventful January night in 1925 when, as Ford in Verdi's "Fal- staff," the 28 -year-old unknown from 13attersfield, Calif., stormed his way to stardom ou the stage of New York's Metropolitan Opera lfause, in nearly. 30 years of operatic singing at the Mct and else- where, he performed brilliantly in more than 70 widely varied role:. And in an era when American singers enjoyed little or no reputation abroad, he broke down the artistic barriers of such citadels as the State Opera in Vienna and the Royal Opera House ie London. He was a pioneer in radio and in musical movies, and it was his genera- tive force which brought a sin- gers' and dancers' union into being — the American Cuild of liflusicai Artists. Larry Tibbett's persanal life was no less full. A man of boundless energies and zestful enthusiasms, Tibbett attracted just as many male friends as female admirer,. He loved the abundant life -- too touch for his own good, as he himself rue- fully confessed. Often, when other singers were safely home, tucked comfortably in bed after a nightcap of warm milk, big, handsome Larry drank cham- pagne until dawn. Tibbett's voice was not a booming vocal instrument, but he knew how to use it with the most dramatic and exquisite- ly subtle effects. His versatility encompassed a variety of roles which ranged from the tender compassion of the Elder Ger- neont in Verdi's "La Traviata" to his contemptuously evil Scar - pia in Puccini's "Tosca:" Lawrence Tibbett died at 63 last month in New York's Roose- velt Hospital, after failing to rally from surgery to relieve pressure on the brain. His active life could be compared with his first Metropolitan Opera tri- umph — he literally gave it all he had. — From NEWSWEEK.. Modern Etiquette By Anne Ashley Q. When one's name has been mispronounced during an intro- duction, should one let the error go by or should one correct it? A. If the introduction is a casu- al one and you do not expect t0 see the other person again, you might very well let the error pass. Otherwise you may proper- ly say, "I'm sorry, but I think you misunderstood my name. It is Barry, not Perry," Q.'What is tate correct manner in which to eat beef or chicken pot pie when it is served in a small baking dish? A. You may eat it directly from 'the baking dish, or lift a liltht of it et a tint^, trout tlt•e baking dlalt on to the dirtss'r plate. Q. 1 should like alt emeral4 Instead of the usual diamond en- gagement ring, but have bent told this is not proper. What cls you think about it? A. You ntay have any kind ee engagement ring you wish. Q. While confined in a hospi- tal recently, many of my friends visited me and brought gifts. X have thanked ntosl of these per- sons either personally or by tele -- phone. Is it necessary also for me to write each one a "thank you" nate? A. No; write only to those whom you haven't been able to thank personally. Week's Sew.Thrifty PRIN'1II) PATTERN, 4915 SttZ 3 12-20 WONDER blouses — sew -easy and so smart! They take so little fabric, you can whip up all three for practically pennies. Printel Pattern 4915: Misses' Sizes 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, Size 15 top style 1/ yards 35 -inch; mid- dle 1% yards 39 -inch; lower 1s yards. 35 -inch, Printed directions on each pat- tern part. Easier, accurate. Send FIFTY CENTS (50e) (stamps cannot be accepted, use postal not for safety) for this pattern. Please print plainly SIZE, N A M E, ADDRESS, STYLE NUMBER. Send order to ANNE ADAMS, Box 1, 123 Eighteenth St., New Toronto, Ont, NEW U.S. POSTAI TRUCKS — Americans will soon be seeing this type U.S. mail truck rolling around city streets. The Past Office Department has ordered 3,210 from Wiliys. They will be sit. stand vehicles with right-hand drive, automatic shift. THE AMERICAN WAY — Some British think this new U.S. Embassy in London is "brash;' bub what they're really upset about is a huge golden eagle v hick will - be mounted over the en-, trance near the roof line. The building was designed by Eero Soarinen in Portland stone and straw-colored aluminum trim, Vow it.