Loading...
The Seaforth News, 1961-08-17, Page 3His Frontier Wc*s His Own Dooryard As spring approaches each year, I find m'y'self doing a ritu- • al1stio thing * I stand in the • sunny dooryard and look off erose the valley and ponder on the beginnings, This year 1 found the phrase "New Frontier" intruded on my thoughts, and it ofdended me. Mere the ancestor met the challenge of his own time and estaabhisbed the com- forts and pleasures we now en- joy, and I like to dwell on the way things were then. The ancestor moved back from the coast, where the fisher as • settled into humdrum. Timber was a new attraction. He made arrangements with a crown pro - Pieter, and at 19 years od age sought his new frontier in the first westward migration irom salt water. That he rnovud a mere 10 miles is unimportant, he was as remote and isolated as id he had gone ten thousand. He came up here in the spring of the year. The corn, snow was crusnbling in the woods, and his first farming activity would be to tap the rock maples. Not on at cenunercial scale, but for home uses. He had none of the equip- ment we now use, He sawed chunks off pine logs, split thein, and gouged out the halves into rough wooden bowls. He sawed limbs off maples, and es sap stripped from the stubs he caaght it in his bowls, later reducing it in a kettle. By the time the snow had retreated he had see- eral piggins of sugar, his first product. The simiple brush lean-to ha made by laying spruce boughs against his wagon gave way to a pole shelter with a sailcloth top. With their two babies, he and his wife were to live in that until they got ready to lay up .a log cabin — and to shorten that time his wife helped chop. Laying up a log cabin is some- times depicted in modern movies es a community chore — a "bee." Everybody helps, and then there is a gay 'feast spread under shel- tering elms. By the time the an=- eestor •came to lay his up, his wife was concerned with` mo- therhood for the third time, and' he had nobody to help him. So le rigged ropes and chains and voles, and by the same devices the tens of thousands of slaves used at the Pyramids, he fitted the great logs into place, He had to teach his oxen to respond to vocal urging first, so he could be boosting while they pulled away. He made the roof with poles and shakes. Again cutting chunks from pine logs,., lie used a s' hingle-maker's tool'known as a Crow, and split out the fiat, khat, shakes that would make hip roof tight. Shingle making was spot as simple as this sounds you; had to know how. In later years he split shakes for many later -comers, and was known as the best men w'itJh a frow in smiles around. He had no nadis so he attached these shingles to the roof with poles that bound them down. lEach row shed onto the one be- -low, and he put his "ridgepole" on top. This .really was a pole, so slotted by the ax that it fit- ted the topmost tier and was tight. It was late in the fall that fie had. "a roof over our heads". sand he could turn to the chim- ney. He had no way to shape or cut stanes, and no mortar, so he se - 'meted his rocks' carefully. All LTS Save. Lives` NATION'S NUMBER ONE DEBATER—President Kennedy receives a plaque from Rep. Chet Holifield of California In behalf of the Capitol Hill Debate Tournament. He is the experts' choice as winner of the "Great Debates" with Richard Nixon, Beaming girl is Marline Myers, student at Univ. of Maryland. summer he had kept an eye out for good shapes and sizes, and would came toting them • to the , Ole. He had to rig a pole gan- try, and scrambled. up and clown his ladder many times as' he worked both ends of the job. He finally hoisted to the top what was known as the "owl stone;' a flat rock intended to keep' these birds from coming down the flue, which is so. So, that first summer, he built his home. He also arranged shel- ter for his animals, and con- structed certain conveniences; such as stools and tables. The floor otf his borne was dirt, but they had some fur rugs. The beds, sumptuously comfortable with the natural spring of hal- sam boughs, were on a half -loft under the roof, gained by a lad- der. Here, on a moonlit night in late Noveenfber, their third child was born, and they settled in to wait out the long Maine winter. It was going to be bleak, frugal and lonesome. They had plenty cif fuel, eniaugfh to eat, and their hibernating aanbitions to nurse through until spring. And, as it always does, the winter began to break up. The "Hill 08 March" was reached. The sun was holding higher in the sky, and there were souther- ly winds that blew up fresh with rain. Down under the corn Snow he •could hear the trickle etf melt- wattrt When he tapped the • maples this year he would have some real spouts, dor . he had whittled them in the winter. He head also made some better bowls, and moreof them, He had a field ready to besturned and planted, and he knew the next winter would be much easi- er to manage. From now on things ,would take shape, and there would be increasing 'cam- fort and luxury. So .I find myself, standing about where he used to, this time od year, looking at things and refilecting en the then and• the now. I wonder -if, in his. 20th year, he looked ahead, maybe, to about the same age I am now, and figured he'd be pretty well fixed. There was no reason he shouldn't— you couldn't ask (for much better prospects than he had! The frontier, to him,was hit own dooryard, and the key to all the future was the sharp clic he held in his own hand. There was nothing nebulous or synsbalic about it — he was sur- rounded by it on' every hand, and it was all his. And I sup- pose, as he stood in the morn- ing and looked off, he had some realization of how fortunate: he was in his dreams, ambitions, and possessions? — By John Gpuld in the Christian Science Monitor. Diplomacy — The art of saying things in such a way that no- body knows what you mean, AS NEW AS SPR!NO --V Tulips form the setting for linin Volvo 122S automobile, just arrived from Sweden 0 Secrets Of The "Strongest" Man Scarcely had the last hansom cab wheeled away from Koster & Bial's elegant theatre in New York's Herald Square on a blustery March night in 1894, be- fore another parade of privately owned carriages started rolling up before the darkened canopy. One 'performance for the public that had jammed the house — was finished. But now the real show — an .exclusive, private exhibition for some of New York's Four Hundred -- was was about to begin. Beautiful, rnink-caped ladies accompanied by their reattached, salk-hatted men were escorted inside the theatre, across the empty stage and up a narrow, winding iron stairway. They en- tered a plush -upholstered parlor 'adjoining the star's dressing room. Gold velvet curtains at one side cd the room parted, all eyes turned to the figure who stood there; a Greek god, a perfect specimen of manhood,' fresh from the bath and dressed in flesh -colored tights of silk. There was an excited buzz of talk- from the men and gasps of astonished admiration from the women. Here was Eugene San- dow, the "Strongest Man in the World," He had already taken London by storm. His fame had swept through America. His feats ap- peared miraculous, In the velvet-tuffted reception room, Sandow was properly in- troduced to his select audience, bowing and clasping each hand in both of his. He would, he an- nounced, "explain the muscles of the human body, demonstrating the difference between ordinary development and the ultimate in muscular perfection." • The ladies gasped in wide-eyed wonder as he contracted his chest, and the muscles sprang out in two parallel ridges, stretching from side to side, "I want you to feel how hard these muscles are," Sandow told. his audience. "As I step before you, I want each of you to pass the palm of your hand • across my chest. Each man in turn rubbed his hand over Sandow's chest, ex- pressions of astonishment and admiration swept over their faces. Then he approached the first of the ladies, She drew back • timidly. "Oh, please," she hesitated. "Never mind." "Ah, but you must," Sandow insisted, "These muscles, mad- ame, are hard as iron itself. I want you to convince yourself of the fact." Gently, he took her small, gloved hand and rubbed it over the hardened ridges of muscle. Abruptly, she paled, tottered backward. "It — it's unbeliev- able!" she gasped. • Swiftly, a uniformed attepdant whisked an opened phial of smelling salts beneath her nose, From 1888 to his death in 1925, Sandow amazed world-wide au- diences by his Herculean skills, by his reputation as a sinewy Cassanova of the variety houses, and more than anything else, by the glamour which his show- manship invested the field of physical culture, And he had more magic in his feats than Houdini, Sandow was the first strong- man to pose semi-nude—a style which all strongmen affect today, His photographs were widely Used in advertising; glossy prints of him in various poses sold by the millions on newsstands; to- bacco manufacturers` paid him $25,000 annually for a series oa exclusive poses which, printed in color on small cards, they in- serted in their cigarette pack- ages. As one of the great box-office draws in London, he attained outstanding fame for his feats of strength by beating Carl A. Samson, a rival strongman, at the Royal Aquarium, before the largest audience ever to jam the hall. Tickets sold for $50 and $100, Sandow's victory established him as an idol in the eyes of the public, but Samson, the defeated giant, subsequently exposed the contest as a fraud and a fake. In.a letter to the Police Gazette, following this match, Samson claimed: "Sandow, after a great many trials, succeeded in accomplish- ing some of my feats. When we had gone through about half the contest the test of breaking chains over the biceps of the arm took place, and. Sandow con- nived with a confederate, who occupied a box, and when my honest chains w ere passed around the audience for inspec- tion this confederate substituted in their place false chains, pre- ' viously prepared and filed by Sandow, and he succeeded in breaking these counterfeits. This fact has been confirmed by Lur- line, who was a lady friend of Sandow's, and who denounced him as a trickster and fraud, "I also have sworn affidavits and confessions from the confed- erates employed by Sandow. Then I became disgusted and left the stage, refusing to con- tinue the contest with a swindl- ing trickster. For leaving the stage and refusing to continue the contest the decision was ren- dered against me by default" Stung by the charges hurled against him, Sandow went into serious training under one of the outstanding physical culturists of the time, Professor Atilla. De- spite this effort, however, when Sandow met Hercules, champion strongman et. Britain, at the Royal Music Hall in London in 1891, Sandow lost—not only the crucial match but also his stake Mont' plus a $20,QOQ side het on himself. He was ruined financially; hip prestige all but gene, But un- forseen circumstances were to bring an upswing in hit fortunes. Florenz Ziegfeld was scouting about London, looking for a vaudeville attraction that he might promote in America, and at the forthcoming World's Col- umbian Erposition ol-umbian'Bxposition to be held in Chicago in 1892. Strongmen had already proved popular in the entertainment field, They were looked upon as outstanding ath- letes, and had won the popular respect and awe accorded boxing champions, baseball heroes, mo- vie and TV stars today, Sandow had little to lose by signing up with Ziegfeld and go- ing to America. And almost from his initial appearance, under the shrewd guidance of Zeigfeld, he became a smash hit. That non- pared showman had Sandow hurl challenge after challenge at the reigning strongman cham- pion, then he adroitly evaded a showdown by throwing road- blocks of red tape into final negotiations. As a result of Zeigfeld's clever build-up, the public came to accept Sandow's claim as the strongest man in the world, despite the fact that he never matched the records of Louis Cyr, the French-Canadian powerhouse, or of J. Walter Ken- nedy, American strongman and holder of the Police Gazette weightlifting chantionship, or those of France's strongman wonder, Appolan, Nevertheless, Sandow had the personal color to make his own claims stick. Ziegfeld, with the money he earned as Sandow's mentor took a plunge as Broad- way producer, and later became famous for his sponsoring a new type of theatre entertainment in his famous Follies, Without • engaging in competi- tion, Sandow, because of superb showmanship, became the world's greatest exponent of physical culture. His popularity led Pres- ident Grover Cleveland to invite him to the White House and give him lessons in body building. Sandow followed this up with going on a nation-wide lecture tour, The vogue of physical fitness that he inspired led schools and colleges to include physical edu- cation courses in their curricul- ums. Sales of Indian clubs and dumbbells • boomed. Sandow was on the way to becoming a mil- lionaire. When Theodore Roosevelt be- came • President, Sandow was again a frequent 'visitor at the White House and became Ted- dy's personal instructor, He was still the greatest thea- trical attraction of the decade. One of his most famous; acts was to wrap a heavy steel chain about his chest, then with a deep breath, shatter the chain with his swelling muscles. These chains, made specially for him in London, had one weak link clev- erly inserted which made San- dow's stunt infallible. But his greatest "feat" was ac- complished with an oversized barbell—a huge crossbar with a tremendous ball of steel at each end, For this, he invited ten of the most powerfully built men In the audience to come on stage and attemupt to lift the barbell in unison.. They strained, sweated, puffed and grunted, but the barbell never budged, Thereupon, the Great Sandow waved them' back, , did a couple of lined bends, rod paced around the prop, posting at it intently, Then, with e a s•a of dramaticfanfare, he suddenly sank his knees, grasped the crc,s> bar in one huge Land, end sta.. iii- ing every sinew, slowly ;ud the weight over his head- :.;ing only one arm. This was the grand finale i was the amazing feat tnat .lit left his audience speoel°".cess then compelled them to lean to their feet In an hysterical out- burst of cheeis talc! yells, What his audiencc didn't icn:w was that the tauten had Moil securely fastened to she flocs by a concealed dei ice waen the ma men had tried to lift it. T'' is device had been removed t tom Sandow made his grand gcstu:r. After his American success, Sandow returned to Enta'zr ci, performing his strongman ari 'various theatres and baskir.i to his acclaim as the strongest man in the world, while record- breaking champions fumed in frustration, Nonetheless, honors and fame kept, coming his way. His great- est honor was being appointed as the personal physical -culture instructor to King George V, Strangely, with ull the renown he enjoyed in England and 'America, Sandow was all but un- known in his native Germany. He had been born in IKoenigs- burg in 1887, and as a voting man had devised a system of body-building exercises which later made hien internationally known. Yet it retrained for Eng- land and America, rather than Germany, to give him the ac- claim that Sandow Wanted. Is This The Stadium Of The Future? The dream of every sports fan —an unobstructed view of the playing field whether he sits in the box seats or the bleachers— will soon become a reality with the completion of a 822,7 million modernistic all-purpose circular stadium now under construction in Washington, D.C. Surely a prototype of the sports arena of the future, the new D.C. Stadium completely eliminates those present-day sup- porting columns which so often annoy the spectator by blocking his vision just at the climatic moment of action. In addition, the upper tier seats will be roof- ed over, and a bank of 5,000 -movable seats can be positioned on the field according to the game being played. The column -free upper decks and roof are supported by 63 welded steel frames, equally spaced around the perimeter of the stadium. They are located about 30 feet apart and are la- terally connected by struts and rafters. When erected, each frame resembles a boomerang, standing on its edge. The lower arm—up to 80 feet long—will support the seating area; the 79 - foot upper arm, the roof. Each rigid steel frame rests on two steel columns, located below and. behind the seating area, Upper tier spectators sit in the mouth FOtiR-ENGINED, NORTH ,STARS FLOWN BY THE • AIR TRANSPORT COMMAND PLANE FACTS RGArS AR TRANSPORT COMMAND • � ;j HAVE NEVER BEEN INVOLVED IN A FATAL ACCIDENT SINCE THEIR INTRODUCTION INTO SERVICE IN 1941-7'- YETT' HAVE AIRLIFTED NEARLY 'I- A 9J'J, PERSONNEL/ A FULL`- L14�ED, BATRE REI\DY INFANTRY SQLDIER-•, (ATC'S MOS`{' IMPORTANT FASSEILEO TOGETHER VNITH •H15 EQUIPMENT EKGHS 280 !t fn1� CO! NI t Rl F/S0 CDR POITE HEAL) MAN OF AT.C., HA5 BEEN CALLED, UPON TWICE IN FOUR YEARS by THE UNITE') NATIOlt TO ORGANIZE AIRLIFT 3UPPORT FOR U.N.1R(P*' I9% IN CGYptT, 1960 IN THE CONGO.