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August
24, 2003
Do what you feel in your heart to be
right—for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do,
and damned if you don't.
--Eleanor Roosevelt
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August 24, 2003, the 75th birthday of former
teacher Dayne Hartman—three-fourths
of a century! Dayne also says that he is the longest continuing member
of the Benton Christian Church. Comments poured in about Dayne; i.e.,
a local minister observed that "Dayne would be 76 now, except he
failed first grade" and we heard Dayne himself say that he would
actually be 78 now, if he hadn't been sick two years. George Remphrey
commented that he never guessed that Dayne was that old, since he had
"such a young looking wife." Dayne celebrates his birthday
concurrently with the 43rd birthday of baseball player Cal Ripkin, Jr.
There are only a few days until the summer vacation is over for school
students and 30 days until the official start of fall. At 54° at press
time, the cricket's chirps were far apart. ("The faster a cricket
chirps, the warmer the temperature," sayeth the Farmer's Almanac.)
During the War of 1812, British forces marched on Washington, D.C.
At a brief, unfortunate battle known as the Battle
of Bladensburg , British forces defeated the American forces, and
on this day in 1814 the British captured, then dined at and later burned
the White House and the Capitol. The British, under orders not to hold
any territory, then withdrew. Reconstruction began a year later and was
finished in September 1817, in order that James Monroe could move into
the new White House.
On this date in 1682, the Duke of York awarded William Penn the three
"lower counties" in the American colonies, later to become the
state of Delaware. We'll take just a second to review the history of Delaware,
before we get on to the other business of today. Penn acquired what is
now Delaware to prevent his Pennsylvania colony from being landlocked.
The Delaware territory remained part of Pennsylvania until 1704, when
it was given its own assembly. Delaware ratified the new U.S. Constitution
in 1787, becoming the "first state" of the United States.
The Lenni Lenape, or Delaware, Indians were Delaware's first settlers.
These Indians supported themselves by farming, hunting, and fishing. Swedes
started arriving in the late 1630s in what is now Wilmington and that
area flourished as a center for saw, paper and flour mills and later as
the home of DuPont Industries. French immigrant Eleuthère Irénée
du Pont de Nemours founded DuPont in 1802 as a gunpowder mill outside
of Wilmington.
Delaware sided with the Union during the Civil War. The river route
into the state was protected by Fort DuPont on the Delaware shore, Fort
Mott on the New Jersey shore, and Fort Delaware in the center of the river.
Fort Delaware housed Confederate prisoners of war, and after the Battle
of Gettysburg, the fort held an estimated 12,500 prisoners.
Do you like tractor and equipment parades, steam traction engines,
antique tractors, antique machinery and gasoline engines in operation?
Do you like to watch steam-operated machinery threshing grain, bailing
straw, sawing wood shingles, sawing logs into lumber? Do you like model
trains, horse-drawn wagons and equipment, peanut roasting, home made ice
cream, bean soup, and over 500 different venders selling at a flea market?
If you said "yes" once or twice to the above, consider the 29th
annual show September 4, 5, 6, & 7, 2003 at Penn's Cave, Centre Hall,
PA, of the Nittany Antique Machinery Association, Inc. of Central Pennsylvania.
This year the featured tractors are the Minneapolis Moline & Fairbanks
Morse. We hope to see you there.
Are you planning to have a sip before you get behind the wheel? The
chief public defender in Luzerne County, according to a Citizens Voice
article today, estimates that a "DUI conviction could cost as much
as $10,000 in court costs, fines, fees, counseling and increased insurance
rates" and these costs could go up even more for repeat offenders.
Don't forget to put the 36th annual Flaming Foliage show and sale
on your October 4 and 5 calendar. It will be held at the Forksville Fairgrounds.
The Fairmount Fire and Ambulance Volunteers will hold an "all
you can eat" breakfast at their firehall September 7 from 8 AM.
Youngsters today have a tough time with events that occurred before
their time. A college freshman, for example, felt that Roe vs. Wade was
about the decision George Washington had to make before he crossed the
Delaware.
We are very behind in reporting the news, and we'll do this one in
detail later, but two pledges rolled in this week in the amount of $51,000
for the Northern Columbia Community and Cultural
Center. One $50,000 pledge is in support of having the proposed gymnasium
upgraded to a full-size gym. If you are in need of additional information
about the community center, please feel
free to email and we'll get you all the information about the center
that you need. Any help that you can give in the form of a pledge now
for payment later will help the entire area so very much.
The Centre County Grange Encampment and Fair, better known as "The
Grange Fair," runs through August 28. The fair is a city within a
town, as campers live for more than a week in tent city. The Grange Fair
has been around for 129 years, ever since Leonard Rhone urged the Progress
Grange to join sister granges in having a picnic to which they would invite
their neighbors and introduce the Grange Organization and the benefits
of membership in such a fraternity. The Grange fair has grown into a family
tradition with some campers going back generation after generation. Tent
sites are passed down to family members as prized possessions. The Fair
now includes over 950 tents, 1300 RV's, hundreds of concessions, over
7,000 exhibit items, amusement rides, livestock, tractor pulling and much
more! And what is playing today you ask... "Cowboys for Christ"
opens at 8 AM, the "Dancing Boots" line dancers are on at 2
PM, and the highlight of the evening is a worship service at 7 PM.
It seems that protection from a computer virus is generally something
that readers strive for, but email continues to go booming about pretending
to be from someone you know when actually it comes from someone else's
inbox that has your email address in it. Please get your antivirus program
updated. If you don't have one or haven't paid for updates, you can get
an antivirus program totally free from http://www.grisoft.com
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Amish live within self-sufficient communities and do not collect Social
Security, unemployment or welfare benefits. Their religious beliefs hold
that paying Social Security is tantamount to not "taking care of
their own." Self-employed Amish are not obliged to pay Social Security
taxes, but pay property, income and sales tax. An Amish person working
outside of the community must pay Social Security taxes.
In 1955, the IRS extended the Social Security Act of 1935 to include
farm operators. Some Amish complied with the tax, but many conscientiously
objected to it believing that paying a commercial insurance for the elderly
went against their trust in God to take care of them. The IRS and the
Amish fought over this until 1961, when the IRS seized a farmer's horses.
The Amish elders united, and ensuing media and community outrage over
the incident led the IRS to eventually relent. Tucked of in a corner in
the 1965 Medicare Bill was a clause exempting religious groups that conscientiously
objected to paying insurance premiums from Social Security tax. The sect
must have been established prior to 1950 and maintain reasonable provisions
for their elderly.
For more about the Amish, the Mennonites, the Brethren, and the other
"Plain People" who reside in Pennsylvania, turn to http://www.800padutch.com/amish.shtml
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