January 21, 2006. Happy anniversary today to Dick and Janet McHenry and Happy Birthday to Louise McGarigle, Bellefonte.

At 1 PM today, Benton Boys Basketball will play Bishop Newman at home. Wear a white shirt! We quote with pride this from an article in Saturday's Press Enterprise: "This, ladies and gentlemen, is Benton: The first area team to a district-qualifying 12 wins for the second consecutive season; the Mid-Penn first-half champion; and a serious contender for the program's first state playoff berth since 2003." We are counting on YOU being in the stands today!

On this date in...
. 1987, former Derrs resident Joseph Derr was last seen alive.
. 1998, President Clinton angrily denied reports he'd had an affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
. 2006, Chief Warrant Officer Barry Ribble and his wife, Nancy, are spending time with Barry's father, Dexter, Maple Grove. Barry was previously assigned to the Jointwarfare Center in Stavanger, Norway. He will be assigned to Ft. Carson, CO, an Army post located southwest of Colorado Springs, between Interstate 25 and Highway 115.

Sutliff Hummer, Mechanicsburg, is sending three new Hummer H3s to this weekend's Big Boys, Big Toys event at the Susquehanna Valley Mall, for the show from 10 AM to 9 PM today and 11 AM to 5 PM Sunday. It reminds me of the lady who was stopped for speeding. She explained that she was going 80 in compliance with the law. The officer said, "Lady, that's the number of this interstate." The lady said, "It is? I'm glad you didn't stop me on Route 118!"

It is difficult for many of us to see well in our declining years, and the fact that we write with a cursive style copied from a surgeon who wrote a prescription for us does not help matters. We often research handwritten documents and letters and come across handwriting that is misspelled, cramped, small and difficult to read. It is a relief when we find an old document that is a combination of cursive and printing, although many would consider that a sign that the art of handwriting was on the decline.

Although it takes some getting used to, a writing style with roots here in Columbia County helped bring about a new writing style that is still in use.

We'll get to that in a moment, but first we'll tell you that a reader asked about the derivation of the name "Zaners," an area South of Stillwater in Fishing Creek Township, an early stop on the Bloomsburg and Sullivan Railroad. The town was named for Charles Paxton Zaner (February 15, 1864-December 1, 1918) who founded the Zanerian College of Penmanship in 1888 to prepare students for careers as penmen in those BPC (Before PeeCee) days.

Penmen once hand wrote most of the documents used by business and industry. Zaner's school trained students to become teachers of penmanship and illustrators in the kind of ornamental writing used for diplomas and certificates, somewhat akin to what we now call calligraphy.

Zaner and a partner, Elmer Ward Bloser, began the Zanerian College of Penmanship in Columbus, Ohio. The intent was to prepare students in penmanship skills essential for the world of work in which they would spend their employed days. A snap you say? Zaner and Bloser in their teacher education penmanship program required graduates to prove themselves by completing a 10,000 word thesis in addition to their coursework.

Zaner was born here in Columbia County in 1864 and died in 1918. He liked handwriting right from the git-go, finished common school and headed to Oberlin, Ohio, in 1882 to enroll in G.W. Michael's Pen Art Hall course in penmanship. He soon decided to become a penman and became a teacher of penmanship in Wilmington and later in Columbus. In 1888, Zaner decided to establish his own school which he called the Zanerian Art College, In 1891 Elmer W. Bloser joined the partnership forming the Zaner-Bloser Company.

Zaner was sometimes called "the world's best all around penman" and his writing was considered an example of perfection. In 1904, Zaner-Bloser published The Zaner Method of Arm Movement, a simplified style of writing taught to children in elementary schools all over the United States.

On December 1, 1918, Charles Paxton Zaner, 54, died when the car that he was riding in was struck by a train in the darkness of night.

Zaner-Bloser remains a publisher of reading, writing, spelling and study-skills programs.

Details are now finalized for the Cabin Fever concert February 18 at 7 PM in the Benton High School auditorium. There will be four major groups--including Cabin Fever, of course, and Tim Johnson, and Al and Pat Hess and friends and the local group that is becoming very popular, Raven Creek--and we'll tell you all about it tomorrow. The concert is to benefit the Northern Columbia Community & Cultural Center.

On Sunday, January 22, at 2 PM, the Anthracite Heritage Museum will host a 47th anniversary commemoration of the Knox Mine Disaster. The event is based on the book Voices of the Knox Mine Disaster. Poetry and other readings compiled by Kenneth, Nicole and Robert Wolensky will be read throughout the day and 'mining music' will be played by Donegal Weavers, a folk music group. Attendees will also be able to view the documentary Knox Mine Disaster that was produced by WVIA Public Television. Admission to the event also covers the main exhibit, Anthracite People: Immigration and Ethnicity in Pennsylvania's Hard Coal Region, which features a section on the disaster. For more information call 963-4804.

A state historical marker honoring band leader Les Brown will be dedicated at 6 PM on Tuesday, March 14, at 1944 East Grand Avenue, Tower City. Brown was famous for his 'Band of Renown' which hosted Doris Day and starred with big names like Bob Hope and Dean Martin. The Band was inducted into the Guinness Book of Records as the longest-lasting continuous organization in the history of popular music. One of its biggest hits was Sentimental Journey. Brown's son, Les Brown, Jr., is expected to be there.

Here's a fun game to play. The object of the game is to move the red block around without getting hit by the blue blocks or touching the black walls. If you can go longer than 22 seconds you are phenomenal. Reportedly, the US Air Force uses this for fighter pilots. They are expected to go for at least 2 minutes. As a result of personally playing the game about 40 times, I am now qualified to drive a John Deere on a level hay field with only a 37% chance of running into anything.

Today is the 60th wedding anniversary of Dayne and Ruth Kline, Green Acres Drive, Benton. We won't divulge any ages here, but Dayne is five years older than Ruth, married when he was 26 and she was 21. Ruth often walked from Maple Grove to the farm of Robert and Evelyn Kline, just south of the Borough line, to buy milk. A romance began.

Dayne and Ruth Kline

Dayne and Ruth courted by Ruth bringing glasses of water to the pea viner where Dayne worked during the height of the season, always around the Fourth of July. Dayne would gulp down the water, then get back to work on the pea viner, a machine which gently rolled pea vines and pods, allowing only the peas to collect in boxes. The pea viner occupied the spot where in later years the Pied Piper Restaurant stood. Like all pea viners, workers worked around the clock when the peas were ready to pick.

Dave Floyd remembers the pea viner that his grandfather Floyd had on his farm beside West Creek. The Roy Hess Farm "on the flats" south of Benton also had a viner and there was one at Zaners. The pea viners were usually owned by the cannery in Bloomsburg, under the control of Frank Beishline, Stillwater. Farmers were able to keep some of the vines after the peas were cut, windrowed, loaded on a truck and taken to the pea viner and processed. The peas formed a silage, along with a very offensive odor. Peas were a common Pennsylvania field crop from early colonial days. Over the years, virtually every farmer in the Fishingcreek valley had his field of peas. Today, fields of peas are rarely seen in our area, although the Hanover plant on Route 45 West of Lewisburg still process peas.

Edith P. (Force) Karns, 90, (July 27, 1915-Jan. 18, 2006), the last to operate the Pied Piper Restaurant in Maple Grove, died Wednesday at her home, 10 Park Avenue, Lightstreet. She was born in Berwick, a daughter of the late Harry and Verne (Fausey) Force and graduated from the Orangeville Normal School. Surviving are her five children: JoAnn Johnson (Paul), Lightstreet; Sandra Glatfelter (Jere), Lancaster; Thomas Karns (Cindy), Elizabeth, CO; Diane Ditty (John), Bloomsburg; Richard Karns (Linda), Lightstreet; and 19 grandchildren; and 28 great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband, Clyde M. Karns, in 1980 and by her son Kermit Karns in 1978; and by three brothers and a sister. Funeral services will be Saturday at 11 AM with viewing preceding at the McMichael Funeral Home, Inc. with burial in St. James Cemetery.
--from the Friday edition of the Press Enterprise, where a complete obituary can be found

Over coffee yesterday, Leon Robbins told us of his cold, a problem shared by almost everyone at the table. Leon was precise about his condition, saying that the doctor told him that "you use medicine for a week, then no medicine for a week." Ken Kelsey corrected him, saying a cure was "14 days whether you use medicine or not." The topic then turned to mustard plasters.

We remembered that Benjamin Franklin, a topic of our rant a few days back, reportedly ate mustard with fresh eggs. He loved to empty six fresh eggs into his goblet with butter, salt and pepper and mustard. He called the concoction "Philadelphia stew." Mustard probably originated in ancient Egypt and arrived in Europe thanks to the Romans who used it for food and medicine such as mustard seeds seasoned with unfermented grape juice called "must." The origin of the word mustard is believed to originate in this way.

In addition to Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, the mustard plaster was considered a cure by our parents for a congested chest. The mustard plaster seemed to open the lungs to make breathing easier and at the same time Doctor Mom applied it for cures involving the stiffness associated with arthritis and rheumatism. Mother used to apply an oil-like olive or castor oil to a poultice of egg white, flour and dry mustard powder sandwiched between cloth dressings, then applied to the skin. We had to leave it on until we felt our skin start to burn or until we screamed in pain, then it was removed and Mother would say to us, "Now, see there, don't you feel better!" Her comments were never asked as a question. Readers should not attempt to make mustard plasters, since our memory of the subject was more of pain than of relief.

Have your children while your parents are still young enough to take care of them.

Some say that the name of the DL&W Railroad stood for Delay, Linger and Wait.

At the movies and open to the public...
. At the Methodist Church Friday night, "Madagascar" plays at 7 PM
. At the Christian Church Saturday night at 6 PM, "The Miracle of the Cards" is on the elevated screen. The story is about an eight-year old boy with cancer who shocks the world by breaking the Guinness World Record for receiving get-well cards, receiving an astonishing 1.3 million cards. And that was only the beginning of the miracle.

Things are slow this morning, so we though that we'd tell you about the farmer who went to church and found he was the only one who went that Sunday. The preacher asked if he should go ahead and preach, and the farmer told him, "I may not be very smart, but if I went to feed my cattle and only one showed up, I'd feed him." So the minister began his sermon and two hours later when he finished, the preacher asked the farmer how he had liked the sermon. The farmer answered slowly, "Well, I may not be very smart, but if I went to feed my cattle and only one showed up, I sure wouldn't feed him all the hay."

Quote of the day
"It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all."
--James Thurber

January 18, 2006. Today is Bill Boston's birthday.

Regular, unleaded gasoline prices in the area remain at the lower end of prices in the state. The average price for gas in the Bloomsburg and Berwick areas Tuesday was $2.45. Back Home in Benton, PA, for the prices were $2.31 and $2.35.

We take some things for granted today. In a 1926 column from the Benton Argus entitled "The dream of years is to come true," readers were told that "there seems now to be no obstacle in the way of building of Route No. 237, from Benton to the Luzerne County line."

The article described how bids would be advertised for the building of the road and that the bids would be opened February 6, "If the low bidder's figures are within the estimate of the engineers, and the contractors responsible, there should be work started on the road by March 1st, as much of the grading can be done in the winter as well as the summer."

The promised route would up the "dug road" using "the present road at the summit of the hill at the first field of Jacob Minnier, and from there on goes in a straight line, touching the old road in but one part and that for a very short distance." The article states that four miles of road will be completed in 1926 and will leave only about four miles of dirt road between here and Shickshinny, "which will no doubt be contracted for before the close of 1926."

From the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, we get these birdbath tips...
• Look for a basin that has a gentle slope so birds can wade into the water.
• Heavy-duty plastic birdbaths are less likely to break in winter if the water freezes.
• Use a birdbath heater in winter, like a 60-watt light bulb under the bowl.
• Make the birdbath resemble a natural puddle by positioning it close to the ground.
• Place birdbaths near shrubs and trees for shelter. Birds can't fly well when they're wet and may need a quick escape from predators.
• Clean your birdbath every couple of days.

Term of the Day: "Pie in the Sky."
The term "Pie in the sky" comes from the early 20th-century folk song The Preacher and the Slave written by labor activist Joe Hill, a member of the Industrial Workers of the World.

The first verse goes...
You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay
You'll get pie in the sky when you die.

If you look up Joe Hill, you'll find he is best known, however, for the way he died. Found guilty of murdering a Salt Lake City shopkeeper in 1914, he was executed by firing squad.

In 1870 a group of sixteen people formally organized the Methodist Episcopal Church, Benton. They met in homes until 1872 when the first church building was erected where the present building now stands. That church was used for thirty-five years. In 1907 the old building was moved back on the lot to make room for the present edifice. The window above the altar was a gift from Dr. Frank C. Laubach who was reared in the church, and his was the first wedding solemnized in the church. The history of the Benton United Methodist Church is under CHURCH on the side panel.

Words Worth Repeating...
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."
--The Declaration of Independence.

Why do some sausages have meat at one end and corn meal at the other?
Because it is hard to make both ends meat.

The Ben Franklin Museum of Science in Philadelphia hosts Body Worlds: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies through April 23, 2006. Philadelphia is the only city on the East Coast where the exhibit is scheduled.

Quote of the Day
"If you want something done, ask a busy person."
--Benjamin Franklin

The genealogy page for Sullivan County contains information about the settlers of Sullivan County, its history, the Endless Mountains, and a lot of useful resources to research family surnames. It is a free genealogy resource. Within a few days, this web site and a new section under PERSONALITIES on the side panel will feature stories about one of our favorite people, Helen Smith Gammon. The two sources will be very different; the Sullivan County site will be much more complete and informative. Our objectives are the same, however, and we hope that readers will end up with a more complete history of this remarkable woman.

January 17, 2006. It is the birthday of Glenda Watts Friend and the 60th wedding anniversary of Grant and Mary Conrad.

On this date three hundred years ago in 1706, Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706-April 17, 1790). was born in Boston. Over the next 84 years, he made expressions like "No gain without pain." or "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise" a household expression.

Franklin was the fifteenth son of a soap and candle maker's seventeen children, a self-educated man, who had careers as a printer, publisher, scientist, teacher and diplomat. He organized the country's first public library (1731) and the first fire department (1736), and invented the lightning rod and got a charge out of tinkering with all things electrical. He organized an insurance company (1752), an academy (1751), and a hospital (1751). The lightning rod and bifocal eyeglasses also were his ideas. He invented a type of stove to give more warmth than open fireplaces. Bifocals came from Ben and an arm extension to get things off high shelves. He got the French to support the American Revolution, helping the colonists win. and he signed the Declaration of Independence, the treaty that ended the war and the U.S. Constitution.

During Franklin's lifetime, he was one of the most famous men in the world. By 1748, he was financially sound enough to retire after having started a newspaper, begun a tradesmen's club called the Junto which lasted for 40 years and eventually became the nucleus of the American Philosophical Society. He founded the first American subscription library, become clerk to the Pennsylvania legislature, established the first fire company, became postmaster of Philadelphia, and launched "Poor Richard's Almanac," a collection of wit, wisdom and financial advice that he headed for twenty-five years. His religion was that of a deist.

He was a mover and shaker in the Pennsylvania legislature, and was sent to England as the colony's agent in 1764, emerging as the leading spokesman against the Stamp Act.

He didn't always listen to his own advice about "temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility" that he dished out in "Poor Richard's Almanac." "Be temperate in wine, in eating, girls, and cloth, or the Gout will seize you and plague you both," Franklin wrote, while at the same time basking in the company of women, dressed to influence and loved good food. Gout plagued Franklin for much of his life.

Even his accidents achieved! His illegitimate son, William, who assisted at the silken kite experiment, became the colonial governor of New Jersey until his arrest in 1776 as a "virulent enemy to this country." He was exchanged for a patriot prisoner and lived the rest of his life in London.

Franklin sat in the Second Continental Congress, was a member of the committee that formed to draft the Declaration, and was sent to Paris to negotiate an alliance with the French. Happy birthday, Ben! You certainly were a man of BENergy

He that lives on hope will die fasting.
-- Thoughts by Benjamin Franklin

The Thrift Shop associated with the Northern Columbia Community & Cultural Center (N4C) will accept donations on Friday, January 20, from 10 AM to 2 PM at their Mill Street location. The thrift shop will accept items of utility and value. Space limitations preclude acceptance of seasonal items at this time. There is a special need at the moment for shelving and display items, but clothing in good condition, furniture and other items are welcome. The thrift shop will not open for business for several weeks but will eventually be open for both business and donations Thursday, Friday and Saturdays. Donations will also be accepted Mondays during limited hours once normal hours begin.

Rent for the N4C thrift shop is coming from a generous donation from the Steve Shannon Tire and Auto Centers. Additionally, six board members of the N4C have pledged to pay building rent for the next six months. All other expenses of operation will be paid out of thrift shop earnings.

Keep thy shop and thy shop will keep thee.
-- Thoughts by Benjamin Franklin

Bob Webster, Hughesville, was the featured speaker at the North Mountain Historical Society Monday morning. Bob graduated from Hughesville High School in 1946, two years before Harry Ritter, North Street, and the two were excited to sit down before the meeting and talk about "old times." Their conversation centered on the sport of wrestling from their Hughesville high-school days.

Harry was a big guy back in 1946, and even on a diet of raisins and water Harry weighed in at 154 pounds, while Bob wrestled at 138 pounds. Harry remembers that he had never seen a wrestling match, but a teacher by the name of Joe Martin said to Harry that wrestling would be real simple for a boy the size of Harry. "You just get down and you sit on him," his teacher said, offering his brand of advice. Muncy had a team--which consisted of two wrestlers--and Hughesville wanted to field a team. Hughesville came up with two wrestlers in 1946, Harry being one of them. Weight was always a concern and a set of bathroom scales was used for the official weigh-in. The dressing room was beside the basement furnace at a gas station where the team practiced.

Hughesville fielded their first official team and had their first offical match in 1947, wrestling on the stage of the high school, much as Benton did for many years. Harry would put on a pair of long underwear that his mother had dyed green, then slipped on a pair of shorts borrowed from the basketball team. Harry wrestled at 154 pounds and then often turned right around and wrestled at the 165-pound class. The team didn't win a single match--and carried that record through the 1948 year, too!

By 1948, the wrestlers had official uniforms. Harry progressed to the District finals, but during one hard-fought match Harry injured his knee. His opponent sensed Harry's injury and knew that if he simply stayed away from Harry until the end of the match he would win and go to the state finals. Harry's opponent didn't count on the outpouring of sympathy for Harry, however, and after the match Harry's opponent realized that what he had done was wrong and he declined to go to the state finals, then held in the Kingston Armory, insisting that Harry be permitted to go as the better wrestler. Harry drew a wrestler from Canonsburg, which Harry referred to as "Pistolville," a boy who "threw me every which way."

During Harry's first match, he remembers that he "stretched out his leg, and the other guy pulled it back." The two rolled around the mats for a time, then "the first thing I knew, the other guy throwed something on me" and Harry found that wrestling was not as easy as he thought that it would be--especially when he had to walk 14 miles to get home at the end of each practice .

Harry's father, Mac Ritter, later brought the Hughesville wrestling team to Benton and demonstrated the sport at the local high school. Roy Evarts, Charlie Woodrig and Dayne Hartman liked what they saw and helped promote the sport in the local high school where it has remained as an honored part of the sports scene in Benton ever since.

Allen Turner reminds us that "despite the lack of numbers," and being a small school, Benton has achieved "a high level of success over the past thirty years" with its wrestling program. Allen talked glowingly about the coaching efforts of Bill Pasukinis who restarted the program in the late 1960s and early 1970s; Nelson Fritz, who coached during the "glory years" of Benton wrestling; and of Scott Hughes, Eric Schaffer and Eric Kocher.

Wise men learn by others harms; fools scarcely by their own.
-- Thoughts by Benjamin Franklin

January 16, 2006. On this date eighty-six years ago in 1920, Prohibition began in the United States as the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution took effect. On this date in 1991, the White House announced the start of Operation Desert Storm to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. The United States and its allies began bombing Iraq in the Persian Gulf War on this date in 1991.

Few will remember the early part of the 2006 Martin Luther King Memorial weekend or the first 55 minutes of the Pittsburgh Steelers/Indianapolis Colts game, even though the Steelers ran all over the Colts. But the story will be told for years about the excitement of the Benton/Bishop Newman basketball game at Millville Saturday and Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and his one-handed tackle at the Indianapolis 42-yard line Sunday. Both the Benton Boys Basketball and the Steelers won this weekend, the Steelers winning their sixth straight 21-18 to become the first sixth seed to advance to a conference championship game. Good luck in Denver to the Steelers (13-5) and the same to the local basketball team!

Today is also the day that the nation celebrates the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968). King was born in Atlanta, the son of a prominent minister and grandson of the man who had organized a protest that created Atlanta's first black high school, named for Booker T. Washington, a school that he had attended. He went on to Atlanta's Morehead College, studied theology and philosophy at Crozier Theological Seminary and the University of Pennsylvania and had completed his Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Boston University in 1955 when he accepted the pastorale of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Inspired by Henry David Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi in the areas of nonviolence and civil disobedience, King planned a civil rights movement using teachings of Christianity.

The whites of Montgomery looked for ways to retaliate. A lady by the name of Rosa Parks was arrested, King was arrested on charges ranging from drunken driving to organizing an illegal boycott. Black homes were firebombed, a shotgun blast shattered a window of King's house and an organization known as the Imperial Klans of America, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, appeared on the scene.

The Supreme Court was beginning to roll back "separate but equal" statutes and ended Montgomery's bus segregation in November, 1956. On December 21, blacks climbed back on the buses in the city. The battle had been won, but the war was just beginning. In 1957, King moved to Atlanta and organized the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Later that year, he led a civil rights march in Washington, D.C., as part of a prayer pilgrimage and even later he returned with hundreds of thousands marching with him. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court ruled in May, 1955, in a decision known as Brown II that states needed to make a prompt, reasonable start toward full compliance with their 1954 order as Chief Justice Warren wrote, "with all deliberate speed."

In August, 1963, King delivered his famous "I have a dream" speech in Washington, D.C. in front of an estimated quarter of a million people. The Civil Rights Act followed and was signed into law by Lyndon Johnson in June, 1964, and in October of that year King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

J. Edgar Hoover was having none of this "King is a good guy" stuff and began to eavesdrop, attempted to prove that King was a Communist and reportedly even went so far as to send King a note suggesting that he commit suicide.

The year 1963 brought the assassination of President Kennedy and Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers was gunned down in front of his home. Violence and death met the nonviolent activities of King at every turn. A Birmingham church was bombed and four little girls were killed. In 1965, Black Nationalist Malcolm X was shot and killed at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, while preparing to speak. A month later King, with Army protection, walked from Selma to Montgomery. A white civil rights worker was killed on that march. A Klansman shot her, it turned out, and he was riding in a car with an FBI informer. Men like Floyd McKissick and Stokely Carmichael grew tired of nonviolent methods, preferring instead the rhetoric of Malcolm X.

The kettle boiled over in places like Watts, a run-down section of Los Angeles. Dick Gregory tried to calm the thousands who were rioting and got shot in the leg for his efforts. When the dust settled, the toll was thirty-four killed, more than a thousand injured, 4,000 arrested and an estimated $35 million in property damages. King was heckled by blacks when he tried to tour Watts after it was all over, as it became evident that his "soul" power was overtaken by "black power."

Martin Luther King was killed in Memphis in 1968, and his killing set off another wave of violence over the nonviolent man. James Earl Ray confessed to the killing and was imprisoned, but conspiracy theories about the guilt of Ray, fueled by lingering theories about the death of President Kennedy, hung on.

President Ronald Reagan signed a bill making the third Monday of January a national holiday celebrating the birth and life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On the third Monday of January, schools, federal offices, post office and banks close as we celebrate the national holiday.

The "30 Seconds" concept of the Press Enterprise has hit the internet. A website called "Everyday Hogwash" collects "rants" from people about various annoyances and things they've had to endure from companies, things like hidden fees, fine print that no one would ever see, overbooked airplanes, punk rock," that sort of thing. We've all had bad experiences, so the website's concept goes, so let's "have some therapeutic yuks at the millions of little ways companies stick it to us." Check out the rants from everyday people about the Everyday Hogwash they've endured, and you can contribute your own. But you do have to sign your name and be prepared for differing opinions... Find it all at www.everydayhogwash.com/

The comics are on the left side of the opening screen, click COMICS. Here is a partial list of the ones available: Andy Capp, B.C., Baldo, Ballard Street, Boondocks, Captain RibMan, Cathy, Cleats, Close to Home, Doonesbury, For Better or For Worse, Garfield, Heathcliff--oh, heck, just go and check for yourself...

From sources like Pennsylvania Cooperative Potato Growers Inc., Pennsylvania Livestock Association, Penn Ag Poultry Council and Penn Ag Feed and Grain Council come the statistics that food sold at the Farm Show Food Court last week included 240,000 potato doughnuts, 60,000 cups of french fries, 30,000 baked potatoes, 26,000 roast beef and pork barbecue sandwiches, 6,200 whoopee pies, 3,360 pounds of chicken nuggets, 3,500 cinnamon rolls, 3,300 red-beet eggs, 2,000 cookies, 1,600 bowls of lamb stew, 1,300 pounds of chicken breast sandwiches and 750 steak salads.

January 15, 2006. Martin Luther King Jr. was born on this date in 1929. He was the nation's most famous civil rights leader and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Sue Artman still needs our prayers during her recovery in the ICU of the Geisinger Hospital. Temperatures in Loma, Montana, set a record on this date in 1972 for the greatest change in a 24-hour period. Temperatures went from 54° below zero F on January 14 to 49° F on January 15.

An email is making its rounds about a new national directory for cell phones. Contrary to what the email says, the directory will only include cell phone numbers if the owner of the cell phone decides to list his/her number. Telemarketers won't get their mitts on the directory since it will not be published in book form or on the internet--and will only be available for 411 usage.

The best time to buy a used car is when you are moving. The new neighbors will think you bought it new.

Remembering our heritage...
Dr. William F. Confair, 36, Benton physician and veteran of World War II, died in the George F. Geisinger Memorial Hospital from complications which followed an injury sustained in 1943 while serving as a major in the Army Medical Corps and based in the Aleutian Islands. Following Dr. Confair's injuries in the service he was taken to the Walter Reed Hospital, Washington, DC. Dr. Confair was Benton's only attending physician once Dr. C.R. Albertson died in May, 1944. A native of Berwick, he was the quarterback on the varsity football team. He was a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, class of 1932. Dr. Confair entered the active service in the Army in 1940 with the rank of captain and retired with the rank of Major. Dr. Confair resumed his duties in Benton upon discharge despite the fact that at Walter Reed Hospital he had been advised to take a year's rest. He was a member of Painter Den Club. He was survived by his wife and four children: Joselle, 12; Billy, 10; Joel, 7; and George, six months.

Do you remember when Dr. John Morris, Brooklyn, NY, arrived in Benton in March, 1945, and rented the office and equipment of the late Dr. Confair? We do. In fact, we're sitting in Dr. Confair's and Dr. Morris' examination room as we prepare this edition.

Carmen E. Hittle, (April 17, 1924-Jan. 14, 2006), Jonestown, died Saturday,at the Orangeville Nursing & Rehabilitation Center. She was 81 and born in Jordan Township, a daughter of the late Walter W. and Stella D. (Young) Keller. She was employed at the Lightstreet Hotel, the former Magee Carpet Company, and the former Dockey Shirt Factory. She was a former sales representative for Stanley Home Products. She was preceded in death by her husband Alfred R. "Fuzzy" Hittle, on June 26, 2005; a son, John Lee Hittle, on May 20, 1980; a great-granddaughter, Jessica Lynn Hittle, on May 3, 1998; two brothers: Jacob Keller and James Keller; and a sister, Mabel English. Surviving are a daughter, Devona. Albertson (Marvin), Orangeville, and a niece: Anna Brown, Benton, along with other relatives. Funeral services will be held Wednesday at 10:30 AM in Zion United Church of Christ, Forks. Interment will be in Elan Memorial Park, Lime Ridge. Friends may call Tuesday from 7-9 PM at the Dean W. Kriner, Inc., Funeral Home, or Wednesday at the church beginning at 9:30 AM.
--A complete obitiuary can be found in Sunday's Press Enterprise

A friend was talking about the Dead Sea and I didn't understand what she meant. Turns out she was talking about her waterbed.

If you want to know your external IP address, simply go to www.ipchicken.com/.

The name Haudenosaunee is not well known as part of the history and heritage of this area. Haudenosaunee is the name given to the Six Iroquois Nations Confederacy, which includes the Mohawk, Seneca, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Tuscarora Nations. This confederation has existed for centuries by authority of an orally transmitted constitution called Kaianerekowa, or "The Great Law of Peace." It is the oldest constituted participatory democracy in the world. This confederation of nations protected the English colonies during the 17th and 18th centuries, and was influential in the development of methods of governance for the fledging United States. If you go to FEATURES at the top, then to the section on Indians, you'll find an interesting series on the Haudenosaunee written by guest writer Tonya Boston Sager.

Quote of the Day:
"Patience is the companion of wisdom."
--St. Augustine

Didja know that the original "Uncle Sam" was Samuel Wilson, from West Cambridge, MA, who,with his brother, Ebenezer, moved to Troy, NY, where they formed a partnership in themeat-packing business. The brothers contracted to supply the Army with beef and porkduring the War of 1812, and marked their shipping barrels "US." The soldiers jokinglycalled the meat "Uncle Sam's beef." A soldier drew a caricature of Sam Wilson withhis goatee and flowing hair and labeled the picture, "Uncle Sam of the U.S.A." Thispicture is the exact one you see today.

Have you noticed that Government regulations are like salad dressing--you usually get too much or too little!

The folks at Google come up with so many good ideas that we are constantly in awe of them. Google has now released a Google Tool Pack, where you can choose from a shopping list of essential and some not-so-essential programs for your computer. You can choose to include a number of worthwhile programs to install all at one time. Google Pack consists of essential, simple and safe software. Choose only the software you want. Already have some of this software? It will only be updated if a newer version is available. Go to http://pack.google.com/pack/pack_installer_custom.html .

What is there in this Google Tool Pack, you ask? Well, at the moment, Google Earth; Google Desktop; Picasa, a photo organizer; Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer, to search from any web page, autofill forms and block annoying pop-ups; Google Pack Screensaver to view pictures full screen or as a collage; Google Talk for voice and IM applications; Mozilla Firefox with Google Toolbar, a web browser with tabbed browsing; Ad-Aware SE Personal to safely detect and remove spyware; Norton AntiVirus 2005 Special Edition to protect your PC from viruses, worms and Trojan horses, a 6-month subscription; Adobe Reader 7 to view, print, and search PDF files; RealPlayer to play popular media formats, organize music and videos; GalleryPlayer HD Images to work with high-quality artwork and photos; and Trillian, which lets you chat with friends on AIM, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo!

January 13, 2006.

We were asked to tell the story again of the fate of old Moses Savage. So we'll do that at the end of today's report and we'll also add it to the PERSONALITIES section on the side panel in the section about O.B. Savage.

The Benton Volunteer Fire Company will hold a gun and outdoor show at the Benton Fire Hall February 11 and 12 from 9 AM to 4 PM. Guns, knives, ammunition and hunting-related items will be available. Both breakfast and lunch will be available. Admission for those over 12 years is $4.

Parents of children who will be 5 years old before September 1, 2006, and are planning to attend kindergarten in the fall of 2006 should call the L.R. Appleman Elementary School office to pre-register their child. Please call 925-6971 between 6 AM and 3:45 PM. Actual registration will take place February 7. At that time, a copy of the birth certificate and social security card should be available.

You may have noticed a drop in the amount of spam you receive relating to mortgages and debt consolidation services. CIS Internet Services, an internet service provider, was recently awarded an $11.2 billion judgment against a Florida resident for sending more than 280 million illegal spam emails using false return address to disguise their source.

Unlike Australia, the sending of unsolicited commercial email is not illegal in the United States. It is only illegal to send dishonest spam, which includes forging a company's domain name onto the email or having a misleading subject line. Read more about Australia's anti-spam laws at http://www.newstarget.com/001463.html .

Spam is broadly defined as any electronic mail message that is commercial in nature and transmitted to a large number of recipients, but not explicitly and knowingly requested by the recipients.

The 2006 O.A.T.S. Bluegrass Festival has signed the following for their June get-together at the rodeo grounds: The James King Band, The Grascals, Special Consensus, David Davis & Warrior River Boys, The Bluegrass Brothers, Dan Paisley & Southern Grass, James Reams and the Barnstormers, The Stringdusters, Like Father - Like Son, The Chapmans, Stained Grass Window, Lykens Valley Bluegrass Band, and Rev. Al & Jean Lumpkin & Friends. It all begins in five months and 16 days, June 29-July 2, 2006.

Recently we said that asparagus and rhubarb are perennial vegetables and Max Hartman responded with "How about Vegetable oysters" or Salsify? Mom had it in the garden and it was there every very early spring---no replanting."

We had to look up the meaning of "Salsify," an herb we knew nothing about. The root herb has long-stemmed heads of purple ray flowers and milky sap. The seeds should be sown 1 inch or more deep, 4 inches apart, as early in March as possible to give a long season for its growth. The roots may be lifted in October and stored in the same way as beets and carrots or they may remain in the ground until the spring. The herb is listed as biennial.

In this space on this date, we told a story told to us by Richard Shoemaker and confirmed by Richard Savage, Berwick, a son of O(rville) B(artley) Savage, and grandson of Moses Savage, who figured prominently in the story. to read the story today, you'll have to head over to FEATURES or to O.B. Savage under PERSONALITIES on the side panel. We have deleted it from the the archives and repositioned it.

January 12, 2006. Happy birthday today to Walt Lysk, Ray Kishbach and radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. The television show All in the Family debuted on this date in 1971. Sue Artman is through her heart valve replacement at the Geisinger Medical Center Wednesday.

Quickies...
. An architect by the name of Napoleon LeBrun designed the first Columbia County Courthouse in Bloomsburg. That building, constructed in 1848, is the major part of the existing building. Additions took place in 1868 on the backside of the building and in 1890 to the building complex in front of the original. Some call the changes made during this second addition designed by A.S. Wagner and constructed by Mathias Shaffer so significant that it represents the second courthouse.

. OfficeMax Inc. plans to close 110 retail stores by the end of the first quarter of 2006. The Illinois company has approximately 28 stores in Pennsylvania.

. There is no obvious Republican successor to George W. Bush in 2008, an electoral situation previously only faced by Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman.

• A beauty of a brook trout graces the cover of the March, 2006, issue of FlyRod&Reel Magazine. The picture was taken by Barry and Cathy Beck.

• Ah, the joys of retirement! Rep. George Hasay of the 117th District, 57, will leave office at the end of the year with 34 years of service in the legislature and an annual pension equal to his salary of $72,182. The generous state-retirement program permits lawmakers to collect full pensions at age 50 if they have at least three years of service and if they have ten years of service they will get free health insurance coverage for the rest of their lives.

Localism of the Day: darsn't [aux. v. DAIRS-unt].
Darsn't is a first cousin of shouldn't, wouldn't, couldn't and the ever popular daren't. If you darsn't do something, then you dare not do it, or there will be unfortunate consequences. For those of you who never got your feet wet in Fishing Creek, here is an example. "I told that boy, he darsn't swim below the dam, but did he listen?" This curious slang is perhaps now almost unique to the Benton area, but in the nineteenth century it could be heard throughout much of the entire United States, especially in the deep south. The word was often used in writings we see from the local area. Today, the word is occasionally uttered by older people in the southern and Appalachian states. It is obsolete slang, but is quite expressive and it does give us a clue where the person who said it has been dangling his toes...

A young reader asked his mother to write to us about the tooth fairy, another in the long list of subjects of which we know nothing. It has been a very long time since we were equipped with the twenty teeth normally associated with kids under five or six. About all we know is that when a "baby" or "milk" tooth falls out, we would leave the tooth under the pillow when we went to sleep and somehow the tooth fairy not only got into the room and under the pillow but he managed to slip a couple of small coins under the pillow. We even tried once to claim that we had lost a tooth in a crass attempt to fool the tooth fairy, but unfortunately we didn't get past Mother who seemed to know how many of our teeth were missing. Ah, the difficulties of growing up.

Another time, I decided that like a shark's tooth necklace, I would wear a discarded tooth on a string around my neck. A single child's tooth actually looks mighty lonely, and the idea was discarded and the tooth was given a decent burial before Father, with a grin on his face, hauled out the pliers and threatened to "make the necklace bigger."

As I grew older I concluded that the question of the existence of the Easter Bunny, a man who came down the six-inch chimney in our farm House, and a tooth fairy was suspect--none of whom could ever have snuck past Beau, Mother's Boston Bull dog. And besides, what would the tooth fairy have done with all those teeth? I made the mistake of openly questioning the chimney theory, but wised up and never said a word about the tooth fairy, who continued to show up until my baby teeth were all gone.

To make a good chowder and have it quite nice
Dispense with sweet marjoram, parsley and spice;
Mace, pepper and salt are now wanted alone.
To make the stew eat well and stick to the bone,
Some pork is sliced thin and put into the pot;
Some say you must turn it, some say you must not;
And when it is brown, take it out of the fat,
And add it again when you add this and that.
A layer of potatoes, sliced quarter inch thick,
Should be placed in the bottom to make it eat slick;
A layer of onions now over this place,
Then season with pepper and salt and some mace.
Split open your crackers and give them a soak;
In eating you'll find this the cream of the joke.
On top of all this, now comply with my wish
And put in large chunks, all your pieces of fish;
Then put on the pieces of pork you have fried
I mean those from which all the fat has been tried.
In seasoning I pray you, don't spare the cayenne;
'Tis this makes it fit to be eaten by men.
After adding these things in their regular rotation
You'll have a dish fit for the best of the nation.
--Author unknown

January 11, 2005. Happy birthday today to Jack Gulliver. How nice it was Tuesday to have a thaw day rather than our typical January raw day. Consider the situation in Seattle where it has rained for 22 consecutive days. The record was set in 1953, with 33 consecutive days of measurable precipitation.

Watch for construction dirt in the spring around the Montoursville Wal-Mart at 1015 N. Loyalsock Avenue as it gets transformed into a "Super Center." The existing building will be expanded from 114,000 square feet to 200,000 square feet.

There seems to be trouble in paradise. A local curmudgeon told us that he and his bride of 35 years have a wedding anniversary coming up. His wife asked where he was going to take her for the anniversary, that the cold of the winter was getting to her. The man said that he told her he was going to take her to the Caribbean, maybe Saint Martin, for their wedding anniversary. She was thrilled and quizzically asked how he would top that next year. His answer was simple. He said that next year he would come back and get her.

A reader asked about the tableware of local settlers. We have a few examples in poor condition so we'll simply tell you about our family experience and not pull out the camera and take pictures that are hard to understand.

The hand-me-downs of tableware from bygone generations were mostly handmade out of wood. Early settlers in Pennsylvania were not able to bring much with them. What they fashioned in their new homes they made and decorated in the memory of what had served them where they had lived previously.

Our family, as an example, never had the money to have pewter. Heavy handmade earthen-ware that probably originated in grandmother's mind were covered with ugly brown and seashells and may have been appealing to Grandfather and Grandmother, but aren't very attractive today. The few good, treasured pieces that have filtered down through the years probably originated in Germany and England.

Early plates were called trenchers, simply squares of hardwood a couple of inches deep, usually maple, then hollowed out and used to hold food. Knives were the big item. This useful tool cut the food and got it to the mouth.

The article that origianlly appeared here about the Kozy Korner Restaurant has been moved to the FEATURES section at the top of the page.

The North Mountain Historical Society meets the third Monday of each month at the Brass Pelican Restaurant. The griddle goes on early and the buckwheat cakes start sliding off by 8 AM. The speaker gets behind the podium about 9 AM. This month the speaker is an old favorite of the North Mountain group, Bob Webster. The discussion will be on the Fabulous Fifties and the turnaround that took place in this country following World War II. Please throw back those covers and join the group. The meeting is free and open to the public.

Slide that deadbolt over tonight! Burglaries in the area continue. Monday night, three more businesses in the Borough were burglarized, the Classic Grill, the Benton Roller Mills and the Center Street Video Store. The nighttime activity shows the strains of the economy with high gas and heating oil prices as well as the lack of a local police presence. State Police apprehended suspects Tuesday evening, although there was no confirmation of the relationship to this case. The local businesses that have been burglarized include the Market Square Classic Grill, Benton Roller Mills, Fireside Video and the Brass Pelican. Other businesses in the area include Heritage House and Diggers Diversion, Orangeville. Anyone with information on any of the suspected burglaries may call State Police at 387-4261.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission's staff has concluded that hunters should not be allowed to use a prehistoric weapon known as the atlatl to kill deer. The atlatl (pronounced "ott-lottle") propels a 4- to 6-foot-long hunting dart. Some scientists claim that the atlatl was used by American Indians 12,000 years ago and they were used more than 20,000 years ago in Europe. The nonbinding recommendation comes two weeks before the Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners votes on permitting atlatl hunting.

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January 10, 2006. Birthdays today include Eleanor Kocher, Gertrude Stowe and Alecia Schlichter.

Today in history...
. On Jan. 10, 1776, Thomas Paine published his influential pamphlet, "Common Sense."
. In 1911, temperatures dropped 47 degrees in 15 minutes in Rapid City, South Dakota.
. In 1920, the League of Nations was established as the Treaty of Versailles went into effect.

From the Farmer's Almanac:
* Always expect a thaw in January.
* Fog in January brings a wet spring.
* He that drops a coat on a winter day will gladly put it on in May.

January 9, 2006, a day known as Plough Monday, the first day to return to work following the twelve days of Christmas. It is the birthday of Tom Fought, Jr. and the anniversary of Jack and June (Boudman) Gulliver. On this date in 1913, Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, was born in Yorba Linda, CA.

Upcoming...

. Plan the weekend of January 26-29 around the Early Bird Sports Expo at the Bloomsburg Fair Grounds. Woodbury Heights, New Jersey, fishing pro Mike Iaconelli will be the featured speaker at several bass fishing seminars. How "pro" is Mike? His career winnings are reported to be $818,229.

. The Greater Philadelphia Sport Travel and Outdoor Show will be at the Fort Washington Expo Center from January 19 through the 22nd.

. Twenty-five days from now at the Harrisburg Farm Show Complex from February 4 through 12 is what is often called the biggest outdoors show in the world. It is the Eastern Sports and Outdoors Show.

Have you noticed how people used to have time to stop and talk. Now we rarely even have time to say "hello" and move on.

A remarkable North Carolina store--the size of four football fields, is called "Replacements, Ltd." The store only sells china, crystal and silver--all "replacement" china, crystal and silver, over $71 million in 2000! The store has over 7 million pieces in inventory in more than 150,000 patterns.

If you are missing a piece of Aunt Bertha's 1847 Rogers' Brothers silver, or have a chip in Grandma Gertrude's Cherokee Rose, these guys have it.Each week, 70,000 pieces of china, crystal and silver are shipped to Replacements, Ltd. from a network of 1,000 independent suppliers. (A lot of these "independent suppliers" are people who buy at garage sales and send them to Replacements) All the pieces are inspected, cleaned or polished and assigned a storage place in one of over 50,000 shelves in the warehouse. The huge showroom in Greensboro, North Carolina, can be reached at 1 800-REPLACE.

A new documentary film airs tonight on the Discovery Health Channel. The show is titled "Dwarf Family : Meet the Fooses." and tells the basic "dwarf family lives the same way everybody else does and just wants to fit in" story. Discovery Health Channel is a pay subscription channel on Dish and is not available to all readers.

Joyce Davis, Mill Street, is the national director of Camp Little People physically located at Camp Victory, outside of Millville. Camp Little People dates back to 1997 when Joyce Davis, mother of a child with a type of dwarfism known as achondroplasia, founded the camp and began planning weekends for children like her daughter, who wanted to get together with her friends.

Take a look at www.animatedatlas.com/movie.html, a history of the United States.

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January 8, 2006, the 71st anniversary of the birth of Elvis Presley, which isn't bad considering that in 2005 his music brought in $45 million. Jim Edson, 82, is doing well in Philadelphia following emergency surgery for a hernia problem, the night before he and Pat were leaving for Florida for the Sunshine State portion of their honeymoon.

Benton Jr. wrestlers did superbly at the Myers Invitational over the weekend. The 7th, 8th and 9th graders from the Benton Area Schools represented one of 22 teams invited to the tournament, and all teams were AAA schools except for Wyalusing, Lake Lehman and Benton. Ten Benton boys wrestled and the school came in third for the tournament bringing home three first-place medals, three second-place medals and three fifth-place medals. WAY TO GO, GUYS!

We recently attempted to provide the email subscribers of the Benton News with a replacement for the plain text of email. For technical reasons, formatted email did not work for many subscribers, while others were happy about the change, Comments were both positive and negative, but because of the number of problems that were caused, we have dropped a formatted delivery of email.

Production of an email version of the Benton News is becoming increasingly difficult and time consuming simply because of the numbers we have to send out. We continue to look for an "ezime" format for delivery of the daily rant, but we haven't found one that will work satisfactorily for us. We continue to believe that our only solution is to terminate the email version of the Benton News except for the visually impaired and for those who can receive email but cannot receive a web version. For all others, we suggest that you consider bookmarking the Benton News on your browser or making the Benton News your home page. We will announce our decision shortly.

The results of the January 7 balloting for the offices of the Bloomsburg Fair Association are...

Supt. Of Arts and Crafts: David Millard, 52, 618 votes, defeating Dale Beagle.

Supt. Of Grandstand: Carey Howell, 63, 386 votes, defeating Alan Girton, Dennis Williams and Marvin Hughes.

Supt. Of Agriculture: Kenneth Carlson, 66, 300 votes, closely defeating Thomas Parr, as well as Audrey Bronson and Roy Farrell Jr.

Recently Benton News readers were told how to use the "Table" option on the Microsoft Word menu bar to sort items. As you probably know, that table option can also be used to convert a text to a table (or a table to text). For example, assume a listing of check numbers linked to corresponding check values and check dates. Also assume that the three components of each list item are separated by commas.

To convert this text to a table, it is first necessary to "Select" (highlight) the whole document. Go to "convert" in the top pull-down menu. When you select the "Convert text to table" option in "Table," options appear to make the conversion. Designate 3 columns and choose "automatic" as the column width. You need to declare that the delimiters defining column segments is the "comma" or whatever other delimiter you have used.

Next, complete the dialog to produce the 3-column table. Further assume you want to sort the check listings by check value. Assume that you chose to make column 2 the check value column. You next need to go to the top of that column and "Select" (Highlight) it. You can do this by using the "Select Column" option in Table. While the whole column is highlighted, do "alt a" to go back into Table. If you follow with "alt s," you will proceed to the "sort" option for column 2. Dialog options allow you to declare that you want sorting by "number", and you can declare whether you want ascending or descending order. By hitting the "enter" key, the sort is completed, and the whole table should appear sorted according to the values of the checks.

Columns from tables created in Microsoft Word can be selected and pasted into Microsoft Excel pages to perform computations. This is very handy for converting text material to a data base.

The 90th version of the Pennsylvania Farm Show is ongoing in Harrisburg and we paid a visit Saturday. We saw some different color farm tractors than we remember at the show the first time we visited many years ago, but generally things are very much the same. The 1,000 pound butter sculpture in the Maclay Street entrance is of a milk-delivery wagon and I wished that I could have borrowed a little of it to eat on my baked potato sold by the Pennsylvania Co-Operative potato growers. The longest lines were for the milkshakes--at one point, eight lines each had an estimated fifty people in each line. French fries also had long lines. Other food items included frozen maple yogurt, apple butter, cider floats, mushrooms sold as "Schroomies," whoopie pies and scores of more typical farm-show eating. The 25-acre Farm Show site is well worth visiting.

Here are some Pennsylvania Agriculture figures for the latest period available, thanks to figures the USDA provided at the Farm Show...

Farmers in the state plant an estimated 75,000 acres of barley, 1,450,000 acres of corn, 140,000 acres of oats, 13,000 acres of potatoes, 380,000 acres of soybeans, 175,000 acres of winter wheat, 20,000 acres of sweet corn, and 1,300 acres of strawberries. There are an estimated 10,338 cows in the state involved in the production of milk, with additional cows for beef and other purposes. Using figures from 2003, there were an estimated 129,500 broilers, 25,350 layers and 29,400 other chickens in the state. Using figures also from 2003, there were 58,200 farms in the state.

Pennsylvania's milk production for 2003 was 10.34 billion pounds. The 2003 average milk production per cow was 17,979 pounds for the year, 440 pounds less than 2002's production of 18,419 pounds per cow. Pennsylvania remained fourth in the nation's ranking in milk production, producing 6.1% of the nation's milk. California was first with 20.8% of the U.S. production, followed by Wisconsin and New York. USDA estimated the number of commercial dairy farms for 2003 in the state at 9,100. Commercial dairy farms are defined as farms with ten or more milk cows in operation during the year. On January 1, 2004, there were an estimated 3,800 dairy milk cows in Columbia County, 2,100 in Sullivan County, 8,700 in Lycoming County and 1.500 in Luzerne County.

To have a friend, be a friend.
--Old saying

We read a view of things offered by one woman that we'll pass along to you. She wrote, "If you're a bear, you get to hibernate. You do nothing but sleep for six months. I could deal with that. Before you hibernate, you're supposed to eat yourself stupid. I could deal with that, too. If you're a mama bear, everyone knows you mean business. You swat anyone who bothers you or your cubs. If your cubs get out of line, you swat them, too. Your husband expects you to growl when you wake up. He expects you to have hairy legs and excess body fat. I wish I were a bear."

January 7, 2006. Happy birthday to Danielle Deitrick, who celebrates with Trace Adkins, 44. On this date in 2002, the Borough had 14" of new snow on the ground.

On this date in 1789, the first U.S. presidential election was held. Americans voted for electors who, a month later, chose George Washington to be the nation's first president. It's the anniversary of the first motion picture ever made. On this day in 1894, Thomas Edison Studios filmed a man by the name of Fred Ott while he was sneezing, a plot even slower than the last movie I saw.

It is pop quiz time again. Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial vegetables? (Answer at end)

You can never tell about a woman, and if you can, you shouldn't.

Mary Lou Kitchen Buckalew, a native of Mountain Springs Lake, near the site of the Job Corps Center on top of Red Rock Mountain, is a wealth of knowledge about Mountain Springs Lake. Mary Lou was born there and a few years ago shared an article from an issue of the Wilkes-Barre Record in 1949, the year the #2 ice house burned down.

The article told about the Mountain Springs Ice Company storage building at Mountain Springs burning to the ground at 3:45 in the morning. We have often looked at pictures of the ice houses that burned to the ground on July 4, 1910, during the devastating Benton Borough fire, and remember wondering how an ice house, filled with solid water, could ever burn.

The Mountain Springs building, approximately 1000 feet long and 50 to 60 wide, and high enough to hold 34 feet of ice, was owned by R. A. Davis, Wilkes-Barre, and operated by Davis and Jack White, Davis's partner.

Harvey's Lake Chief of Police Fred Swanson was returning from a fire at Harvey's Lake and noticed the red glow in the sky over North Mountain in the vicinity of Mountain Springs. By the time the police and firemen arrived, the icehouse was nearly consumed by the fire. Arthur Kitchen, superintendent for Davis and White, found out about the fire by Chief Swanson. The property was acquired from Robert Stull through the Stull estate. Arthur and Albert Stull, brothers, operated the ice house many years ago and cut ice from the three lakes in the vicinity.

For more information on Mountain Springs Lake, we suggest that you buy The White Gold of Mountain Springs, by local writer Peter Tomasak. The price is $19.95 and if you like local history, pick it up. There are a number of pictures of Mary Lou's childhood home and lots of good reading, starting with this introduction to the book...

For thousands of years, cold caves, wells, cool running streams, and root cellars were used to keep food refrigerated. Later, as time and man progressed, someone discovered by accident that liquid in a porous container left in the wind to dry actually cooled the container.
--The White Gold of Mountain Springs

Have you noticed that too many dads worry more about their golf swing than they do their offspring?

Asparagus and rhubarb are perennial vegetables.

Here are my 2 cents on the need for increased revenue from the sale of stamps. A first-class letter will shoot up to 39 cents Sunday--a 2-cent increase from the 37-cent stamp that has been used since June, 2002. The increases will affect all types of mail and packages, including postcards, which will go up by a penny to 24 cents. The postal service admits they had a bumper year last year with over $1.6 billion in profit--the same amount that clothing company Tommy Hilfiger Corp. agreed to accept in cash from Apax Partners, the same amount that Congress in late December approved for hurricane relief for schools and colleges, the same amount in cash and assumption of debt that Paramount Pictures signed to acquire DreamWorks SKG. The point is that the profit of the Postal System is on sound footing. The increased revenue will simply build the coffers of the Postal Service's retirement fund.

According to a 2003 law, the U.S. Postal Service must put $3.1 billion into an "escrow account" by September 30. As part of that deal, Congress was to decide within 180 days after passage of the law what the money would be used for, but that has not happened.

So my 2 cents worth is simply here is another case of a herd of Guvvies deciding their constituents would look favorably on them passing a new law, which they did. After the law was passed, the deal was that the Congress would define why it was passed and what the increased revenues would be used for and in what manner they would be used. We should point out that Cecil Adams, writing in the Chicago Reader, says to "Kwitcherbitchen." His point is that of the countries that do not subsidize their postal rates, the U.S. has the lowest rate for standard-size letters of any industrial country--with Japan and Germany more than twice as high.

God grant me patience, and I want it right now.

January 3, 2005.

Quickies...
• Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion hits theaters June 9.  The movie takes place backstage during the last broadcast of guess which radio show, where singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty, a country music siren and a Altman-loaded bag of others cavort including Woody Harrelson, Tommy Lee Jones, Meryl Streep, Lindsay Lohan and Garrison Keillor himself.

• Congratulations to Jackie Malhoyt on completing her first year of retirement.

• The cost of a first-class U.S. postal stamp goes up Sunday, January 8, 2006, to $.39.

• Betty Hiscox Weston checked in from Orlando yesterday, saying that "When Ben Pollick let us get married in my senior year, he didn't know it would last" 52 years.

• It was nice to hear from Louis Traini by telephone and by email Monday.  Lou lived on 2½ Street and later in Dr. Confair's Market Street home during the days of the Benton AFS.  Lou retired from the FAA in May, 1994, and went to work for TRW Corporation overseeing a FAA Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) systems contract.  Lou said that "after almost eight years, he got tired of driving to downtown D.C. and retired for good."  The Trainis now live three miles north of Frederick in Walkersville, MD.

It is always nice to know what goes on in our own back yard, and Lou Traini provided some insight into the FAA long-range radar on Red Rock.  Lou tells us its range is 200 miles--from the East end of Long Island to the West just past Pittsburgh, the north shore of Lake Ontario, to south of Woodbridge, VA. This radar information is sent to the New York, Boston, Washington, and the Cleveland ARTCC. The North Mountain Remote Communication Air to Ground site is used by the New York Air Traffic Controllers to communicate with airplanes flying over that part of Pennsylvania.

In this section on this date we continued with the life and times of Orville Bartley Savage, a man known locally simply as O.B.  The story is now under PERSONALITIES section on the side panel.  

Attorney William Kreisher, Bloomsburg, celebrates his birthday today, and Frank and Brenda Conrad, Lebanon, celebrate their wedding anniversary. Country singer Hank Williams Sr., 29, died of a drug and alcohol overdose on this date in 1953. In 1966 on this date, all US cigarette packages began carrying the health warning, "Caution: Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health."

On Thanksgiving a very generous donor issued a challenge to the area on behalf of The Northern Columbia Community & Cultural Center. The Center had to raise $100,000 by the end of 2005 and the donor would match it. The figures are in for year's end and the Center has raised $111,225.

Most of these donations came in $25, 50, and $100 amounts. At the beginning of the day Saturday, almost $80,000 had been raised. More pledges came in throughout the day Saturday. Then a most generous $30,000 pledge arrived from Fritz and Jeff Hall, owners of The Benton Foundry, one of the most interesting, innovative, and generous companies in the upper Fishingcreek Valley.

The Northern Columbia Community & Cultural Center raised $111,225.00 in about 35 days. The Center has raised 1.45 million dollars and needs about $250,000 more to build the center as currently envisioned. With your help, we can do it. Thanks to the people of the upper Fishing Creek valley, surrounding areas, former residents, friends of the community and readers of the Benton News. Your support and generosity brings tears of joy to our eyes.

We aren't going to say anything surprising about the New Year when we are still cluttered up from the Old Year. So we'll take a quick look around the town during the year 1963 and reflect on it and bring you up to speed on things then and now. We'll quickly pause and reflect on the last year and do a little mental preparation for the year ahead in anticipation of the reality of a Community Center in the upper Fishingcreek valley.

On the national level in 1963...
Martin Luther King had a dream, which included four black cadets graduating from the United States Air Force Academy, President Kennedy thought it would be nice to make Winston Churchill an honorary citizen--and did, William Faulkner was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in fiction, The movie Cleopatra premiered at an unheard cost of $35 million, Idlewild Airport became the Kennedy International Airport, the nuclear submarine Thresher was lost in stormy waters off Boston with 129 entombed, President Kennedy took pride in saying Ich bin ein Berliner. A 22-year old songwriter by the name of Bob Dylan stopped at Newport and sang Blowin' in the Wind. President and Mrs. Kennedy made the unfortunate mistake of taking a limousine ride to the Trade Mart with Texas Governor John B. Connally. Two days later Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald in front of 50 reporters and millions of TV viewers. There was not a dry eye in the house when John F. Kennedy, Jr. snapped a salute as his father's casket passed by.

And Back Home in Benton, PA, in 1963...
January 2 was a heavy snow day, as travel was hampered locally. The headlines in local papers included, "Fourteen marooned 14.5 hours; includes infant of 3 months;" Ill Baby of 9 months in family of 5 held prisoners by storm:" and "Cuts through drifts up to fifteen feet."

In February, the Benton Roller Rink located in the former Benton Auction Company opened. Mr. and Mrs. George Rolph were the owners and had experience in operating other roller rinks around the county before opening the Benton facility. The building today houses the Riverside Market. Leo Sharek was a former owner of the auction company, and today his son, Dayne, is in Gilbert, Arizona, with his wife Linda, comfortable in their motor home. Also in February of 1963, Susan Fedder and Macky Unbewust were chosen Queen and King of the Winter Fantasy Ball at the high school. Runners up were Judy Houseweart and David Ward, and Ben Pollock and Marianne Holcombe.

In March, the Benton grandstand collapsed at the Benton Athletic Field with damages estimated at $2,000. The roof was crushed from the weight of falling snow and rain. The roof caved in about 10:15 at night creating a sound heard throughout much of the Borough. When the light of Saturday morning arrived, officials recorded over 20" of snow on the infield. On March 23, Alice Dobbs and Gary Karl Strauch were married at the Waller Methodist Church on Alice's birthday. Gary frequently reminds Alice that he "was the best gift she ever received." Loretta Strauch sang "Because," "Walk Hand in Hand," and "the Lord's Prayer." Both Gary and Alice have an impressive list of accomplishments under their belt, including President of the Lions Club for Alice and retired postmaster of Benton for Gary. Loretta is now married to Bill Hiscox, Montoursville, and Palm City, FL.

In April, about a quarter of the roof of the Stillwater Covered Bridge was torn off during a hard windstorm.

On May 10, Roy and Lorna Evarts opened the Evarts' Farm Dairy a mile and a half north of Benton. The company specialized in the sale of homogenized and pasteurized milk. Roy and Lorna still live adjacent to the former milk store, but drinking a little milk is as close to a cow as Roy wants to be.

Howard McCern leased his garage, which he called McCern's Essostation, to Ed Hess, who was employed there for many years. Howard McCern in turn leased the former Boyer Garage on Lightstreet Road, Bloomsburg, which included the Chrysler-Plymouth franchise.

Mr. and Mrs. Ray Davenport sold their Main Street business, which operated under the name of Buckley's 5¢ to $1.00 Store, to Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Fullmer, Bloomsburg, The name of the new firm was Benton Variety Store. The building burned in late March, 2004, when it was occupied by the Benton Flower Station. An estimated 100 firemen from Benton, North Mountain, Orangeville, Millville, two trucks from Bloomsburg, and Espy's Rapid Response Team responded to the 2004 fire.

The Benton Area Industrial Plan was organized and set out to raise $10,000 to find an industry to locate in the community. The group raised $1,000 more than their goal, and with the cooperation of state and local lending agencies the organization had a working capital of more than $100,000. Otto G. Little was president and Ray Davenport was vice president, with Thomas Buchmann as treasurer. Carl Kline, Voris Miller, Bert Ritter and Wayne Yorks were major pushers of the organization. Bert Ritter remembers that the BAIP "was able to assist John Dockey in getting the $100,000 low or no interest loan to add a large addition to the shirt factory" which resulted in about 20 additional jobs for the area.

Wayne K. Baker retired as acting president of the Benton Kiwanis and Otto G. Little took over the reins. Other officers were Robert Vincent, Jr., Voris Miller, Warren Ketner and Dayne Kline. Wayne Baker is a Virginia and a Florida resident and Dayne Kline spins yarns about various personalities, like O.B. Savage--whose story we'll resume Monday.

Back Home in Benton, PA, the dam held for another year, the town decorated beautifully for each season, pride of ownership is showing throughout the area, and we succeeded in frequently having the lowest gasoline prices in the state. The Northern Columbia Community & Cultural Center had a very successful auction and moved closer to actually raising the money necessary for construction, bids were received for the new building and some very exciting announcements are right around the corner for the Community Center and the area. We look forward to telling you about the excitement later this year.