On this date in...
1858, John Landis Mason received a U.S. patent for his invention eventually known as the "Mason" jar for preserving food. Mason jars sealed at the shoulder and had a zinc screw cap. The threaded neck fit with the threads in a metal cap to screw down to the shoulder of the jar and form a seal. In 1869, a top seal above the threads and under a glass lid was introduced to the jar.

Please take the time to read the oral history of Jamison City, "A Conversation with Jim Downs.

The preliminary total bear harvest for the state's traditional three-day season was 2,423. Statewide, 42 black bears with estimated live weights of 500 pounds or more were killed in the regular three-day season. We will not include any statistics for the buck season until the end of the season.

Three little words you often see
Are articles--A, An and The.

A Noun's the name of anything,
As School, or Garden, Hoop or Swing.

Adjectives tell the kind of Noun,
As Great, Small, Pretty, White or Brown

Instead of Nouns, the Pronouns stand--
Her head, His face, Your arm, My hand.

Verbs tell something being done--
To Read, Count, Laugh, Sing, Jump or Run.

The preposition stands before
A Noun, as In or Through, a door.

How things are done the Adverbs tell,
As Slowly Quickly, Ill, or Well.

Conjunctions join the words together,
As men And women, wind Or weather.

The Interjection shows surprise,
As Oh! how pretty! Ah! How wise!
--Anonymous

A recent trip to the behemoth Buckhorn branch of Wal-Mar started us thinking about the way that we once acquired our medicine, and our thoughts wandered back to those days when Rabb's Drug Store on Main Street sold Carter's Little Liver Pills and Lydia Pinkham products, all the medicine previous generations usually needed until someone invented our modern ailments and modern remedies. Rabb's Drug Store sold the medicine we needed to cure our aliments, and they were prominently displayed on the shelves.

Younger readers won't remember this, but Doc and Lola Rabb ran the drug store where the Columbia Country Model Train Group now meets. The store was in operation from June, 1921, through 1948 when Doc Rabb passed away. Mrs. Rabb then ran the drug store for another 18 years until 1966. Prescriptions were handled, after Doc Rabb died, by sending prescription requests to Bloomsburg each day where Moyer's Drug Store filled them, then returned the completed prescription requests with the afternoon mail run.

Druggist Norman Gelb purchased the property in 1966 and ran the store for a few years before moving his operation to the site of the former Charlie Hess Meat Market. The Charlie Hess Meat Market was on the East side of Main Street.

For those who don't exactly remember how the area was laid out between the former Jay McHenry Funeral Home (now Brian Laubach's Beauty Parlor) and Jay Yorks' Sports Center, lets describe it out this way. First, North to South, came the Jay McHenry Funeral Home, then the old Buckley's Five and Ten Cent Store, which recently burned during the occupancy of the Benton Flower Station. Next came an alley, which is still visible next to D. R.'s QuickMart, followed by Hotel Moses Van Campen. The Hess Meat Market came next, then another alley approximately across the street from the alley that runs beside the Old Filling Station. The M. D. Pennington Store Company came next, followed by a double house, then in the same building the U.S. Post Office (now Jay's Sports Center) and Kozy Korner.

In 1960/61, Edgar Baker combined the former Charlie Hess Meat Market and the M.D. Pennington store building and eventually seven apartments were added on the second floor. About 1965, Ginger's TV & Appliance started operating out of the combined building. Norman Gelb bought the building from Edgar Baker about 1968, and the drug store was moved from the location of the former Rabb Drug Store. Gelb's drug store and the Hotel Moses Van Campen burned in 1975 during the flood.

But, we digress! We set out to tell you about a medicine made by the most famous maker of patent medicine in the country, Lydia Pinkham. You can read more about this product at www.mum.org/mrspink3.htm .

Old Ebeneezer
Thought he was Julius Caesar
And so they put him in a Home
Where they gave him medicinal compound
And now he's Emperor of Rome.

Lydia Estes Pinkham started her business in 1875. What she sold was for "all those painful Complaints and Weaknesses so common to our best female population."

Johnny Hammer
Had a terrible ss..ss..ss..ss..ss..ss..stammer
He could hardly s..s..say a word
And so they gave him medicinal compound
Now he's seen (but never 'eard)!

The "female complaint" appeared on the backs of newspapers and women's magazines. The advertisement appealed to the "pain and suffering of being a woman," and featured glowing testimonials from women who claimed to have been healed from all manner of dysfunction and disease by the compound. Women were encouraged to write to Mrs. Pinkham for advice but the advertisements always failed to mention that Lydia Pinkham died in 1883.

Auntie Millie
Ran willy-nilly
When her legs, they did recede
And so they rubbed on medicinal compound
And now they call her Millipede.

Lydia Pinkham's morning picker-upper contained "seven natural herbs, plus iron, calcium, Vitamin C, and Vitamin E." Oh, and we forgot to mention the alcohol! Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound was 13-20% alcohol, which she claimed acted as a "solvent and preservative," probably solving many problems and preserving or pickling a number of her customers.

Up to Heaven
Her soul ascended
All the church bells they did ring
She took with her medicinal compound
Hark the herald angels sing.

We remember as we were growing up Father and Mother were good friends with Bernard and Alice Wolfe, Towanda. As a good friend, we suppose it was OK for Bernard to accuse Father and Mother of having a son that was a direct product of the alcohol in the Lydia Pinkham medicine. And if Lydia Pinkham was responsible for us being here (and being able to leap tall buildings with a single bound), we owe a lot to this medicinal compound once so popular Back Home in Benton, PA.

Jennifer Eccles
Had terrible freckles
And the boys all called her names
But she changed with medicinal compound
And now he joins in all their games.
--from Lily the Pink, sung by "Scaffold."

Sometimes it doesn't matter if you are on the right track. If you don't keep
moving, you'll still get run over.

Diatribe: "to wear away, spend, or waste time," "to be busy."
--The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1961, the first U.S. satellite carrying an animal was launched from Cape Canaveral. Enos, a five-year-old chimpanzee, was along for the two-orbit ride for almost three and a half hours. Enos experienced up to 7.6-G accelerative force during the launch, but carried out the lever-pulling and psychological testing that he trained for 16-months. Enos performed the tasks well, but received electrical shocks for incorrect answers. The input device eventually failed and Enos received shocks even when the correct answer was given. The well-trained chimpanzee continued to give answers until the end of the flight. Enos landed some 220 nautical miles south of Bermuda and was picked up by the U.S.S. Stormes. The test preceded John Glenn's orbital space flight.

If you loved the days of spinning on roller skates and boogying down to the sounds of ABBA, you'll want to see Bjorn Again: The ABBA Experience. Complete with Swedish accents and plenty of sequins and glitter, this show has delighted audiences for 13 years. From "Momma Mia" to "Dancing Queen" the 18th of February 2005 at the Kirby Center, Wilkes-Barre, will be a night of ABBA music you don't want to miss. Tickets go on sale Monday, December 6, at 10 AM. Call the Kirby Center Box Office, 826-1100, ticketmaster at 693-4100 or on-line at www.ticketmaster.com .

Most of our readers get the Benton News by email every day, although we consider the email version only a rough draft for the web version. Many of our readers who have joined us lately never look at the web version, and we recently were told by an email reader that he was afraid he would "break his computer" if he attempted to navigate to our web page and said that he "preferred to stay with the email version."

We were looking at the Benton News we published a year ago today and read about the history of the Exchange Hotel, the large hotel that once stood at the corner of Main and Market Streets in the Borough, at the location where the Market Street Grill and Dr. Hutnik's office now stand. If you have the time, head to the panel on the side and scroll down until you come to the ARCHIVES section. Double clink on the November 2003 articles and scroll down until you come to the November 28, 2003 portion.

The younger readers of our daily diatribe won't know the answer to this question, but take a look at the following two snippets and that is what we are going to write about Tuesday. The question? What was the "medicinal compound?"

Mr. Frears
Had sticky-out ears
And it made him awful shy
And so they gave him medicinal compound
And now he's learning how to fly.

Brother Tony
Was notably bony
He would never eat his meals
And so they gave him medicinal compound
Now they move him round on wheels.

November 28, 2004. The Benton News was not published today, but on this date in...
1925, the Grand Ole Opry, Nashville's famed home of country music, made its radio debut on National Life & Accident Insurance Company's station WSM. The station's call letters were abbreviation for the insurance company's motto, "We Shield Millions."
1948, the Polaroid Land Camera first went on sale. The 40 series, model
95, roll film camera sold for $89.75 and sold through 1953. It was the first commercially successful self-redeveloping camera system. A sepia-colored photograph took about one minute to produce and it was strictly "fingers off" until the photograph dried. Polaroid one-step photography was invented by Edwin Land.

November 27, 2004. Don't forget the Christmas Bazaar at the St. Gabriel's Parish Social Room Saturday from 9 to 4 PM.

On this date in...
1701, Swedish astronomer, physicist and mathematician Anders Celsius was born. He is known for the temperature scale he developed. He and an assistant discovered that aurora borealis influence compass needles. Celsius' fixed scale for measuring temperature, often called the centigrade scale, defines zero degrees as the temperature at which water freezes and 100° as the temperature at which water boils. This scale, an inverted form of Celsius' original design, was adopted as the standard and is still used in almost all scientific work.

1901, John Clement Studebaker died. Studebaker was born in 1799 in Adams County, later married in Ephrata to a Lancaster girl. In 1852, brothers Henry and Clement Studebaker opened a blacksmith shop in South Bend, Indiana. During the Civil War, the shop supplied wagons to the U.S. Army. In 1868, four of the brothers established the Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company. The family firm took in $.25 the first day for shoeing a horse. The company later became the world's largest producer of horse-drawn vehicles and a leader in automobile manufacturing, delivering on its motto, "Always give more than you promise." The company built both electric and gasoline powered automobiles.

Buck hunting begins in Pennsylvania Monday. Last year about a million licensed deer hunters harvested 465,000 deer in Pennsylvania. The rifle season runs through December 11. To learn more about deer information from the Game Commission, head over to www.pgc.state.pa.us/pgc/cwp/view.asp?a465&q150279 .

We don't pretend to be movie critics, but we have seen three movies this year we enjoyed very much. They are, in the order we saw them...

RAY
Director Taylor Hackford didn't give us a great movie, but if you loved the music of Ray Charles. you can overlook the hard-core drug use, the fact that he had 12 children, and was at best a philanderer. The man could sing! Jamie Foxx plays Ray Charles Robinson to perfection and supporting players are excellent.

NATIONAL TREASURE
A couple of our Founding Fathers concealed a stolen treasure 230 years ago and wrote clues to its location on the back of the Declaration of Independence, using invisible ink that would be revealed under the influence of heat and lemon juice. Lots of action and an excellent movie about the Knights Templar, the Freemasonry, the pyramids of Egypt with Philadelphia, Boston and Washington, D.C. thrown in. Nicolas Cage and Sean Bean head the cast trying to unearth the loot.

SIDEWAYS
Paul Giamatti treats his old college friend played by Thomas Haden Church to a weeklong fling before the character "Jack" marries. The two tour California's Santa Ynez Valley vineyards hitting our favorite restaurants (Los Olivos Cafe, The Hitching Post,"), the wonderful Fess Parker vineyard, and our favorite towns of Santa Ynez, Solvang, Los Olivos, Buellton, Santa Barbara and others. They meet two ladies, and the plot sickens from there. Worth seeing for the superb beauty of the Santa Ynez valley, a sailor could come out blushing and there is a scene with full-frontal nudity. Like a good wine, the movie will sneak up on you and you'll leave in a buzz.

We will not publish a Benton News Sunday. We will be in Washington, D.C. Saturday night at the Kennedy Center to see the Joffrey Ballet production of the Nutcracker Suite. The development of the story is worth noting, whether you like the music composed by Petr Ilich Tchaikovsky or not.

The story dates back to 1816 as written by E.T.A. Hoffman, an amazingly long short story called The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. Alexander Dumas revised it into a children's story about a little girl named Clara and what happened to her at Christmas time when she received the gift of a nutcracker doll from her godfather. On Christmas Eve she dreamed that many of her toys became lifesize. In the story, there is a beautiful princess cursed to be ugly, a Mouse King, an ugly princess who becomes beautiful, a Rat King, a handsome prince and some other characters we'll remember when the production begins.

Tchaikovsky wrote the music for The Nutcracker Ballet and the ballet debuted in Moscow in 1892. It was first performed outside of Russia in 1934 when it was produced in England. In 1940 it came to the United States. The current staging was created in 1954 and is the Nutcracker most American audiences know.

Saint Francis (Pa.) racked up an 81-61 victory over Bucknell in women's basketball Friday evening at De Gol Arena. Saint Francis finished the game with 41 rebounds, including eight each by Benton's Regina Schlichter. Schlichter also tallied 11 points.

Pennsylvania's Republican senators, Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum, announced some of the 2005 omnibus spending bill handouts passed by the Senate and soon to be passed by the House. The list includes...
• The Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Commerce, $250,000 to buy the Irem Temple for a cultural center.
• Lancaster, $250,000 to renovate Central Market.
• Eagles Mere, $250,000 to revitalize the downtown area.
• Lewistown Borough, $200,000 for its municipal building.
• Philadelphia, $300,000 to save the 18th-century, 15-room Philadelphia home of Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, the first speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
• Philadelphia, $250,000 to the Allegheny West Foundation for the Budd Plant rehabilitation project.
• Philadelphia, University Community Homes, $200,000 for converting land into lots for low-income and moderate-income families.
• Philadelphia, Inglis Foundation, $200,000 to plan and build housing for the disabled.

Regretfully, no money was allocated to make Fink Street, Borough of Benton, into a navigable street. Fink Street runs behind the Market Square Restaurant, Dr. Hutnik's office, the ceramic shop, passes by the entrance to the Old Filling Station Restaurant. A street parallel with Market Street then leads to Main Street.

On this date in...
1915, W. Atlee Burpee died. Burpee, then 18, began selling seeds in 1876. He founded the world's largest mail-order seed company in Philadelphia and called Bucks County home. He had a passion for plants and animals and a mother willing to lend him $1000 dollars of "seed money" to get started in business. Within 25 years he had developed the largest seed company in America.

1836, John Loudon McAdamm, the inventor of macadamized roads, died. In 1816, as surveyor to the Bristol (England) Turnpike Trust, he designed their roads with a raised roadbed to facilitate drainage and laid graded stones in levels, with the smallest stones crushed and laid as a top surface. Later he added a paved surface having compressed layers of broken rocks held together with tar (tarmacadam) to bind the top layer. His methods were adopted in the United States.

Google has recently launched a new search tool for access to academic material. Google Scholar, http://scholar.google.com/ , allows anyone to search for keywords in theses, technical reports, university Web sites, and books. This service is free of charge and allows you to search from medicine and physics to economics and computer science. The search results are ranked by order of relevance, rather than by the number of hits. The project involved broad co-operation from academic, scientific and technical publishers to improve indexing of restricted-access material. Some publications may require a subscription to the publishing website to be read but short extracts should be available.

Foster Young's farm will be posted for NO HUNTING, NO TRESPASSING this weekend. For older readers of the Benton News, this farm was once the home of Dallas Hess and his wife, Mary Dallas Hess. Well, actually, Mary Dallas was not quite her real name, but everyone called her by that middle name because of the number of women in the area named Mary Hess.

Anyone caught trespassing on the Foster Young farm will be prosecuted to the fullest. Foster has always let people hunt who ask for his permission, but this year Foster's tree stand was stolen and so, unless the tree stand is returned, there will be no hunting on the land.

Dayne Kline remembers the time that someone built a tree house on his land without permission. During hunting season, two different parties started arguing over the rights to the tree house when neither party had permission to construct the tree house in the first place.

Need to shop for children this holiday season? Here is the list of the top ten toys for 2004, arranged by age and category, chosen by 1,300 children who played with the toys for about 38,000 hours, then voted. There were 21 winners and 42 finalists that kids had decided were worth recommending.

What we know as Thanksgiving originated in two holidays known as the Harvest Home feast and the formal day of thanksgiving ordered by church or government authorities in gratitude for a particular event. Thanksgiving Day began in 1621 at Plymouth Colony, when the Pilgrims gave thanks for their survival and a good first crop. President Lincoln in 1863 set aside the last Thursday in November for a national celebration of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving Day was permanently fixed in 1941 by a Congressional decree as the fourth Thursday in November.

On this date in 1998, Kenneth Brugger died. He was an American naturalist who in 1975 discovered the long-sought winter home of the monarch butterfly in the mountains of Mexico. For 38 years starting in 1937, Canadian zoologist Freud Urquhart tried to establish the route and destination of the insects. Using tags on the wings of some butterflies, he followed their trails to Mexican territory. Kenneth C. Brugger, a helper of Urquhart, finally found the first butterfly refuge in the center of Mexico, home of around 20 million butterflies.

Give thanks, all ye people, give thanks to the Lord,
Alleluias of freedom with joyful accord:
Let the East and the West, North and South roll along,
Sea, mountain and prairie, One thanksgiving song.
-- The President's Hymn, 1863

The Pennsylvania Game Commission processed 2,262 black bears this season, including 689 on the second day of the hunt. The statewide three-day bear ended at sundown Wednesday although some sections of the state will have an additional week concurrent with the first week of the rifle deer season (hunters should consult pages 36-38 of the 2004 Pennsylvania Digest of Hunting and Trapping Regulations). So far, hunters have taken 35 black bears statewide that have had estimated live weights of 500 pounds or more. Four have exceeded 600 pounds. County figures released by the PGC indicate the following figures: Bradford, 68; Luzerne, 61; Sullivan, 46; Columbia, 33; Wyoming, 32; and Northumberland, 4.

Turkey facts for turkey day, some old, some new...
• The word "turkey" may have originated with Columbus thinking that the bird was in the peacock family. Columbus, according to some stories, called the birds "tuka," which is the word for peacock in Tamil, an Indian language. Other stories hold that the name turkey came from Native Americans who called the birds firkee, which sounds like turkey.

• A young chicken, partridge, grouse, or turkey is called a poult. A male turkey is called a tom, a female is a hen. A group of turkeys is called a rafter. The tom makes the gobbler sound while the hen never gobbles. The hen makes a gentle clucking or clicking sound. A turkey under sixteen weeks of age is called a fryer, while a young roaster is five to seven months old.

• Tail feathers on a tom are helpful to identify jakes (1 year-old gobblers) from mature birds. When the tail feathers of a jake are fanned out, the middle 2 to 6 sets of primary feathers will be 2 to 4 inches longer than the rest of the feathers giving the fan a "bump" in the middle.

• The head and neck of turkeys have no feathers, but is covered with red, fleshy skin. A soft floppy growth which dangles downward over the beak is called the snood or dewbill. The fleshy, wrinkled, often brightly colored fold of skin hanging from the neck or throat of chickens, turkeys and some lizards is called "wattle." The warts on the wattle are called the caruncles. The head, neck, snood and wattle are reddish colored until the male turkey begins to strut, when the entire area turns brilliantly bright red.

• Ben Franklin thought the North American wild turkey should be the national bird, rather than the bald eagle, because it was quick to defend itself and fight against all predators.

• A domestic tom can weigh up to 50 pounds, while the domestic hen can weight up to 16 pounds. The wild tom can weigh up to 20 pounds, the wild hen up to 13 pounds, although local hunters discussing the hunt over coffee often claim they shot larger birds. The largest turkey is probably Big Bird of Sesame Street fame. He is actually dressed in nearly 4,000 white turkey feathers, dyed bright yellow.

• Breast and wings of turkeys (and chickens) are white meat, while the legs and thighs are dark. The dark coloration comes about because of specific muscle type and its ability to store oxygen, not the amount of blood in the muscles.

• The first turkey trot happened in England during the 1700's, when turkeys were walked to market in large herds. Farmers often covered the birds' feet with little booties to protect them on the long journey. In the dance known as the "turkey trot," dancers imitate turkeys by circling the floor in short, jerky steps somewhat akin to a fast way some of us slow dance.

• The average person in the United States will eat 15 pounds of turkey this year, according to someone who sits around watching what we eat.

• The domestic turkey can't fly and have such large chests that the tom is not able to fertilize the eggs of the hen in the natural mating position. The wild turkey flies for short distances, but it prefers to walk or run and has no problems in the other department. Wild turkeys can burst into flight at speeds up to 50-55 mph in a matter of seconds. A spooked turkey can also run at speeds up to 20 miles per hour. A turkey does not have ears per se, but does have excellent hearing. The turkey also has exceptionally keen eyesight and can see in color with a field of vision of about 270 degrees. A turkey's night vision, depth perception and sense of smell are poor, but have a keen sense of taste.

• An old weather proverb says that turkeys perched on trees and refusing to descend indicate snow. Turkeys can drown if they look up when it is raining.

Planning to visit Central Pennsylvania. The web site at www.visitpennstate.org/ is an excellent source of information about rooms, upcoming events, sports and eating.

EverView Farm is a small family farm at 410 Klinger Hill Road selling a variety of handmade goat-milk soaps. Their market garden carries a variety of peppers and tomatoes and will offer strawberries and asparagus in the future. Their herd is of Scotch Highlander beef cattle and boer goats for breeding and meat. Goat kids and yearlings are available for purchase. All are hand raised, social, and trained to electric fence. For further information, contact Jackie Stash, 925-2611.

We have seen the rumor in publications twice; i.e., the Poconos are being mentioned as a possible resort site for a slot machine facility under the new state gaming law.

May your stuffing be tasty
May your turkey be plump,
May your potatoes and gravy have nary a lump.
May your yams be delicious and your pies take the prize,
and may your Thanksgiving dinner stay off your thighs!

On this date in...
1909, the Wright brothers formed a corporation for the commercial manufacture of airplanes. Bogged down by patent suits against Glenn Curtiss and others, Wilbur died of typhoid fever in 1912 at the height of his career. Orville sold his interest in the Wright Company in 1915. The Curtiss Wright Corporation was formed in 1929 with the merger of the Wright and Curtiss companies.

For those of you who are headed "Through the woods, and over the hills to grandmother's house" via the Pennsylvania Turnpike be prepared for a possible walkout by turnpike toll takers starting today. There could be up to 2,000 workers who may head out to strike. The Commission could charge a maximum flat toll rate of $2 for passenger vehicles and $15 for commercial vehicles with State Police at every toll plaza to maintain decorum.

The Guv could approve legislation shortly that would speed the deployment of high-speed Internet access statewide following General Assembly approval Friday. That measure would replace what was called "Chapter 30," now expired, which required companies that own the telecommunications infrastructure to offer broadband service to every area of the state by 2015. The new measure requires faster speed of service and moves up that deadline to 2008. If the Guv does not sign the legislation, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission will continue to work under the law's original 2015 deadline.

Pennsylvania hunters took 1,573 black bears statewide on the opening day, according to the Pennsylvania Game Commission. The 2004 first-day preliminary harvest is up slightly from the 2003 opening day harvest of 1,454 and 1,348 in 2002. The top four bears processed at check stations on Monday all had estimated live weights that exceeded 600 pounds, including a 660-pounder taken in Black Creek Township, Luzerne County. The top bear harvest county in the state after the first day was Lycoming with 147, followed by Clinton, 131; Tioga, 77; Cameron, 66; and Pike, 62. County harvests for the opening day included Bradford, 56; Luzerne, 38; Sullivan, 32; Columbia, 25; Wyoming, 19; and Northumberland, 4.

We understand that 47 bears passed through the bear checkpoint in Hillsgrove Monday with no reports of oversized bears. Owen Hess tells us that the bear season was successful for Jeremy Hess while hunting with friends Carl Fritz, Sr., Maple Grove, and Jason Deter, State College. The bear was taken in the Bendertown area at noon Monday. Live weight was 271 pounds. Near Dotyville, Charley Kearkuff and Richard Clocker both shot bears. Both Allen Hess and son Bruce shot bear, as did Joel Smith, Benton, and Woody Covington, Raven Creek.

The area record holder, however, is Robert McHenry Rabb, II, Hughsville. Hunting in the Lairdsville area, Robbie shot his fourth bear in four years. The bear dressed out at 225 pounds at the Dallas weighing station. Robbie, grandson of Dr. and Mrs. Donald Rabb, Mendenhall Lane, has three "Triple Awards" under his belt. For the past three years, he has shot a bear, a buck and a turkey. So far this year, he has shot his bear and his turkey, and could possibly get a fourth Triple Award this year.

Pork from Congress's 2005 spending bill flowed freely to the Wyoming Valley Levee Raising Project as the Senate and House of Representatives passed the $388 billion 2005 Omnibus Appropriations Bill on Saturday. The bill contains $7.3 million for the Wyoming Valley levee raising project and flood protection for the city. Congressman Don Sherwood, R-10, coughed up a total of $15.6 million for special projects in Wyoming County, parts of Lackawanna County, and the Back Mountain area in Luzerne County. We have not yet seen what Congressman Paul Kanjorski, D-11, raked in for special projects in his district other than the levee project.

Didja know that excessive automobile speed kills more people in Pennsylvania--472 last year--than drunken driving? Speed was responsible for 30% of Pennsylvania's highway deaths last year. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, over the last five years the average speed near Harrisburg in the 65-mph zone of I-81 has moved up from 68 mph to 70 mph and the average speed in the 55-mph zones has gone from 62 to 67 mph. Expect a crackdown in the near future, even though it currently appears as though State Police interest in speeding is at aa alltime low.

A presentation of the Christmas story will take place at the Stillwater Christian Church December 10 and 11 from 6-8 PM and December 12 from 5-7 PM. The story of the unfolding of the story of the First Christmas is depicted by local actors and through the use of artistic scenery, costumes, and live animals. Angel guides will lead groups of 12 to 15 people for a 25-minute tour through the "streets of Bethlehem." The event is free to the public and the church can accommodate approximately 300 people per night. Bus groups are welcome with advance reservation. Telephone (570) 925-2356.

And speaking of the Stillwater Christian Church, their congregation is ecstatic about the vote Sunday in favor of buying 34 acres just north of the Stillwater Cemetery, behind the Stillwater park. The property will front on Cemetery Road and on McMichael Road. Barbara Edson, secretary to the church, equates it to a Field of Dreams, in that the field is currently planted in corn and the hopes are that by spring an entirely new facility will be built in that location. The existing property in Stillwater will be sold upon completion of the new church. The church anticipates settlement of the agreement within the next 30 days. J. D. Klingerman, Orangeville, was the seller.

Janet and Bill Beishline, on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary celebration Photo courtesy of Richard Shoemaker

On this date in...
1889, Louis Glass and William Arnold placed a coin-operated Edison cylinder phonograph in the Palais Royale Saloon, San Francisco. The machine was a forerunner to the modern juke box. It was an Edison Class M Electric Phonograph with oak cabinet, fitted with a coin mechanism. Vacuum tubes had not yet been invented, so there was no amplification. A patron could listen for a nickel a play using one of four listening tubes. In its first six months of service, the Nickel-in-the-Slot earned over $1000.

Benton can be very, very proud of its championship rodeo. Contrast our rodeo with the Susquehanna Valley PRCA Rodeo held this weekend in Harrisburg. This summer on Thursday night, more people saw the Benton Rodeo than saw the entire Susquehanna Valley PRCA Rodeo over the past three-day weekend.

The hills were alive with the sight of hunters Monday, but the sound of hunters was nowhere to be heard, although the Bradford County bear reporting station reported 40 killed by 7 PM Monday. Five were from Wyoming and Sullivan counties. Dallas had not released figures as of press time. The largest bear brought to the Monroeton station was a 507-pounder, killed on Dutch Mountain. Last year, hunters killed bears in 52 of Pennsylvania's 67 counties. We will get statistics from the Pennsylvania Game Commission in a couple of weeks, but not much seemed to be happening locally yesterday during the bear hunt. The black bear population has grown to an estimated 15,000 right now. Still, the odds seem good for the bears; i.e., according to the PGC, last year only 2.4% of bear hunters were successful, more than 122,000 hunters bought a bear license, and 3,000 hunters got bears. We saw lots of cars on state game lands yesterday. We saw hunters sitting on five-gallon paint cans, on stumps, on downed trees and in the front seats of their pickup-ups. We saw road hunters and swamp walkers and cave people. We didn't see any bears.

We did enjoy talking with two old bear hunters, who said something like this (both talked fast and combined sentences into a few words and a few words into a phrase or two: "They was one up'ere at what they call Bear Swamp." His friend said that he intended to shoot at "him a time'r two," but so far he hadn't "got'im." As nearly as we could decipher the words, "he'uz hid off under the hemlock trees s'long he won't get up from where he'uz at." One of the hunters warned that when he "heered him a-comin', I'll give him a load and that'll be hit for him."

And speaking of hunting, the Times Leader reports that Gary Alt, Moscow, is "looking at retirement options," but nothing official has been determined about leaving or staying with the Pennsylvania Game Commission's deer management section.

At the state level, a bill passed Saturday night what requires that by the year 2020, 18% of Pennsylvania's energy will have to come from alternative sources. In addition to wind, solar and waste coal, other alternative energy sources covered by the new standards include geothermal energy, coal mine methane, biomass energy and fuel cells. The Guv made passing the Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act one of his top priorities in the legislative session. The intent is good: the reduction of nitrous oxides and sulfur dioxides and the improvement of the environment. Some lawmakers, however, warned the bill was ahead of its time, pointing out that similar objectives are lacking at the Federal level. The bill, which the Guv has 30 days to sign into law, will implement the 18% requirement in stages over 15 years.

Numerous readers saw and wrote about the Northern Lights on November 8. Here is a site where you can see some pictures of the evening.

Need a Christmas wreath? Wreath's by Susan Cole, 2.5 miles from Riverside Market, north on route 239. 570 925-6907. All Christmas trees are inexpensively priced. Fresh greens of Douglas Fur, Fraser Fur, Blue Spruce and White Pine.

In response to a reader's question, the Benton Area School Board consists of Lanny Conner, Phillip Edson, Evy Lysk, Geraldine Newhart, Rick Posey, Harold Ackerman, Nichole Shultz, Dennis Threlkeld and Robert Zettle.

On this date in...
1899, Wiley Post was born. The first round-the-world solo flight of 15,596 miles was completed by Post in 1933 in his single-engine Lockheed Vega 5B aircraft, "Winnie Mae," in a little less that 9 days. His first solo flight in 1926 was signed by Orville Wright. He wore a patch over his left eye, the result of an oilfield accident. Post invented a pressurized suit to wear when he flew around the world. He died in an Alaska plane crash with humorist Will Rogers in August, 1935.

1927, the first U.S. patent for a snowmobile was issued to Carl J.E. Eliason of Saynor, Wisconsin. Called a "motor toboggan," the machine had ski-like front runners and a rear-drive track. Between 1922-26, Eliason handmade forty of them. The first machines used a 2.5 hp outboard engine mounted on a metal frame body. In 1932, Eliason introduced a model that used a converted motorcycle engine and could travel over 40 mph. Eliason created the first reliable, self-propelled vehicle that could be manufactured on a sustained production basis. His basic design is still in production.

If you think that you saw Randy Hess on the Grand Ole Opry Saturday night playing with Lane Turner, you were right. Randy normally plays with Trace Adkins, but sits in when he isn't busy and plays with Lane. Lane's name might not be "household" to you. He was a honky tonker on the Texas circuit, playing music to make people dance, like he does on his new album Right On Time.

Having trouble seeing a web site? In both Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, click "View" (top toolbar) and go to "Text Size" and make the text as big as you want. No more eye drops required...

We had to smile at the advertisement for the upcoming "semi-annual After Thanksgiving Sale."

But we didn't have any smiles for Monday's Press Enterprise article that spoke to a Benton Area School Director speaking out of line, in our opinion, about undecided and confidential events involving the school board and the renewal of Superintendent Andrew Pollock's contract. The board must make a decision on Pollock's contract by February 1, 2005. Pollock's contract will expire unless the board chooses to extend or renew it at a public meeting expected in either December or January. In the Navy we had a saying that went "Loose Lips Sink Ships." We feel that one person's opinion published as if it were the decision of the entire school board jeopardizes the official, public decision when it is made. Talking before one knows what should be said sets a dangerous precedent as the school district enters a phase of contract negotiations with teachers.

William C. Follmer is recovering from a badly injured right kidney he suffered three weeks ago when he fell off the ladder at his home in Livonia, Michigan, while pruning a tree.

On this date in...
1783, Jean Francois Pilatre de Rozier and the Marquis Francois Laurant d'Arlandes made the first flight in a balloon. They flew near Paris for 25 minutes to an altitude of around 300 feet for a distance of about six miles. A previous unmanned hot-air balloon demonstration and a second with a duck, rooster and sheep in a basket had proved that living beings could survive air travel. Louis XVI wanted to launch two prisoners, but Rozier didn't want to give criminals the glory of being the first men to fly. Ben Franklin was a spectator. By the time the Wright Brothers flew their first plane in 1903, de Rozier and d'Arlandes had already been the world's first human fliers 150 years earlier.

1846, Oliver Wendell Holmes coined the word "anesthesia" in a letter to William Thomas Green Morton, the surgeon who gave the first public demonstration of the pain-killing effects of ether.

Ada L. (Comfort) Holcombe, 94, (May 6, 1910-Nov. 20, 2004), formerly of Benton and Bloomsburg, died Saturday, in Cherry Hill, NJ. She was born in Troy, PA, a daughter of the late Burton Head Comfort and Alta Maud (Wheeler) Comfort. She received her degree in education from Mansfield State Teacher's College. Atter her marriage to Pierson J. "Si" Holcomb, the couple moved to Benton from Dushore in 1947, ran the former Chapin Funeral Home until 1965, maintained a summer home in Jamison City, moved to Bloomsburg in 1981, then to New Jersey in 1997. She was preceded in death by her husband on August 21, 2002. Their marriage lasted 71 years. Mrs. Holcombe was a school teacher and assisted in family business. Surviving are her three children: Pierson J. Holcombe Jr., Advance, NC; Susan L. Rhoads, Medford, NJ; Marianne Bettis, Prescott, AZ. There are seven grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren; and a brother, Laverne Comfort, of Savona, NY. A viewing will be held Monday from 6 to 8 PM at the McMichael Funeral Home Inc. Funeral services will be held 10 AM Tuesday, November 23, at St. Matthew Lutheran Church, Bloomsburg. A graveside service and burial will be held in Benton Cemetery following the funeral.
--from a Press Enterprise obituary. A complete obituary is available from the newspaper.

Clyde ("Jug") Albertson, 73, and Marie Jankowski, 82, are both back in the hospital for the second time in a week and Tom Wenner is in the hospital. Please keep them in your prayers. Marisa Whitenight had a total knee replacement on October 11 and is now at home recuperating under the care of the therapist and "her beloved husband, Ted." She commented, "How loving everyone is in this small town of Benton."

The Nittany Lions scored four third-quarter touchdowns in a 37-13 win Saturday over Michigan State. Students chanted their support for Joe Paterno, 77, as the game ended.

We plan to celebrate tomorrow what may turn out someday to be a national holiday. It is the opening of bear season and we plan to disappear tonight into the Endless Mountains of Sullivan County. We will either not publish tomorrow or we will publish at some strange time.

We remember hearing about a hunting trip about 75 years ago to the same location, and under similar circumstances that group did not have a cook, either. When the group got into camp, they devised an emergency plan. Every day they played a round of poker dealing cards face up. The player with the highest hand was the designated cook for the day, with the proviso that if any other person complained during that period about the cooking, the cook should be relieved of his job and the person who bellyached would get the cooking detail.

An attorney got the first day's high cards and the job of cooking. The man had never even boiled a potato in his life. The meal he prepared was completely uneatable starting when he threw the spaghetti pasta into the cold water. A portly and prominent person proved pompous; in a moment of forgetfulness he leaned back and roared, "This is the damndest stuff I ever ate!" Suddenly, remembering the arrangement, he stiffened right up and quickly exclaimed "But I do like it. Gee, how I do like it!"

Now, let's see! Do four of a kind beat a straight flush?

Our isolated, unrelated and possibly incoherent thoughts for today...
• We don't seem to automatically get smarter as we get older. Except for wrinkles, nothing seems to arrive automatically. Some wines improve as they age, but only if the grapes were good to start with...
• We wonder if we can make sense out of the terms turkey filling, turkey stuffing and turkey dressing. When we put as much as we can into a turkey, we have "filled the turkey." Stuffing in the middle ages was known as farce, and that word came from Latin and French words that meant "to stuff." A "Farce" was a short, lighthearted play stuffed in between lengthy religious productions to keep the audience from nodding off. Forcemeat and farce referred to a spiced chopped-meat mixture, and the term is still applied to the making of sausage. The term stuffing did not appeal to the upper crust of the Victorian era, and the term "dressing" came into fashion. The terms stuffing and dressing are used interchangeably, with stuffing most frequently used in this country in the South and East. "Back Home in Benton, PA, most say "filling," or at least the well-dressed members of the Benton Christian Church congregation said that Saturday night as they filled their bellies until they were stuffed at their church Thanksgiving meal.
• Thanksgiving is good, but thanks-living is better.

Happy days are here again

The skies above are clear again

So let's sing a song of cheer again

Happy days are here again

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.
--Friedrich Nietzsche

One step at a time is good walking.
--Chinese Proverb

Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.
--Steven Wright

1929, the Leo Reisman orchestra recorded Happy Days are Here Again just three weeks after the stock market crash that plunged the nation into the Great Depression.

1947, the first network presentation of "Meet the Press" aired on NBC-TV. The panel interview program became the longest-running series on network television. Guests upcoming on Sunday, November 21, are Sen. John McCain, R-AZ; the former CIA senior analyst known as "Anonymous"; and Michael Scheuer, on CIA turmoil.

1984, 35 years and 11 months after the very first McDonald's hamburger was sold, the 50 billionth burger was made and sold.

The police of Pennsylvania will enforce a Click It or Ticket: Eight Days of Enforcement program from Sunday, November 21, through Sunday, November 28. You have been warned!

As the lame-duck Congress neared adjournment, the House on Friday passed a Senate bill that prevents state and local governments from taxing monthly fees. The ban on Internet access taxes should put an end to the countless emails we receive on this subject.

The Garrison Keillor joke of the week is...
Q: What did the building contractor say to the psychiatrist?
A: I think I'm developing a complex.

When the overcast fall skies overtake our area and we don't feel like banging around outside, we often turn to one of our favorite books, a complete, bound edition of a publication called the General Advertiser. The huge, worn book contains all the pages of the newspaper from the year 1812. The paper was published by Benjamin Franklin Bache, called "Benny" by his grandfather, Benjamin Franklin. Bache started the General Advertiser with the inheritance Franklin left him. Under the Sedition Act of 1798, he was arrested for some of his comments about the government and President. He came down with yellow fever while awaiting trial and died in September, 1798. His widow and William Duane continued to publish after his death.

The offices of the newspaper were in the former residence of an editor of the paper, James Wilson, at 322 Market Street, Philadelphia. Wilson was a grandfather to Woodrow, the 28th President of the United States. Under the name, Pennsylvania Packet and General Advertiser, the newspaper was the first newspaper published daily in United States, starting in September, 1784. The newspaper, which tended to be abusive to Federalists, continued to publish until 1822. The General Advertiser later became The Aurora and General Advertiser.

We give you all this information since we intend to revisit the paper from time to time and we wanted you to know that this is not just a "quack" newspaper, although it was a staunch and vocal anti-Federalist paper mocking Presidents George Washington and John Adams equally. What caught our eye on Friday afternoon was this advertisement, which introduced us to a word we didn't know.

The advertisement read...

"Six cents reward. Ran away from the subscriber on the 17th instant, an apprentice, named William McGonigle, between 19 and 20 years of age, a cordwainer by trade. John Thomas, November 20, 1812."

The English term "cordwainer" means shoemaker. The term cordouan, or cordovan leather, comes from this word. The first "Cordwainers," or shoemakers, in America came to Jamestown, Virginia, about 1607. Captain John Smith was a Cordwainer and his settlement was in part supported by profits made in the English shoe trade.

By definition, a cordwainer works only with new leather, where a cobbler works with old. Cobblers are repairers, and over the years were frequently prohibited from making shoes. The term "Cordwainer" is derived from the Spanish city of Cordoba, celebrated for silversmithing and the production of cordouan (cordovan) leather, called "cordwain" in England.

At the Veteran's Day program at the Benton Elementary School, Anna Dressler was listed to read an essay she had written in which she won $100 in a VFW writing contest. The essay was not read, so we decided to publish it as a public service. The essay reads...

November 19, 2004. Happy birthday today to John McHenry Unbewust.

On this date in...
1863, President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address as he dedicated the national cemetery at the site of the Civil War battlefield. 1928, "TIME" magazine presented its first cover portrait. The cover was Japanese Emperor Hirohito. 1943, Stan Kenton and his orchestra recorded "Artistry in Rhythm," which become the Kenton theme. 1954, Sammy Davis, Jr. suffered a shattered face and the loss of his left eye in an auto accident while driving in the California desert. 1959, the last Edsel rolled off the assembly line. The Ford Motor Company produced the car for two years, with 110,847 cars manufactured.

Have you been worried about the outcome of the Governor's race in the State of Washington? It is finally over--oops, we just found out the race was so close there will be a recount! On the first round, out of 2.8 million votes cast, Republican Dino Rossi defeated Democrat Christine Gregoire by 261 votes.

We were asked to speak at the Benton Lions monthly meeting last evening. We closed our presentation with this story and we'll share it with you in today's Benton News. We prepared the story in honor of Benton's Post Master Gary Strauch, a member of the Lions and husband of the President of the local Lions Club. You can find out specifics about the Benton Post Office under FEATURES.

There is a rule of thumb that postulates that everything takes longer than we think it will take and that if anything can go wrong it will. That rule of thumb is sometimes applied to the U. S. Postal System and that is what this section is about: our mail system. By way of introduction, we'll mention that out in Pittsburg, California, a postal patron once was so upset over the non-delivery of a letter he needed that he simply shot the postal clerk.

What we used to know as the Post Office Department has since 1970 been an independent public corporation operating under the name of the United States Postal Service.

Everyone can tell a story about letters that went askew. What a friend and former postal employee from Arlington, VA, used to call a nixie, a inside term denoting an unknown origin and seemingly undeliverable mail, gets remarkably good service sometimes. We remember Sue Laubach's son Stanleigh Malotte, both now deceased, wrote to his Mother from California. Sue and Earl Laubach were Back Home in Benton, PA. Without a return address, the envelope was addressed simply, "The House With the Hole in the Roof," Benton, PA. The letter was promptly delivered to their home which Earl and others were painstakingly building beside the present Benton Elementary School. A letter incorrectly addressed to "Don Helwig" was correctly delivered to Donald Rabb, thanks to the Benton Post Office.

Sending post cards from a vacation trip was popular over the years, and at one point many post cards were sent to specific people in the Benton area, and the opening line of the post card frequently read, "Dear Wilene," a postal employee who some felt perused the incoming mail before sortingthe mail into the applicable pigeon hole. Those were the days when the post office was at the corner of Main Street and Market, where the Sports Center is now. Those were the days when standing in line waiting for the mail to be sorted was a popular event.

The rather rotund Rev. Robert Matthews served the congregation of the Benton Christian Church from October 1968 to November 1971. A youthful Bob Kelsey once wrote a letter simply addressed to the "Big Man in the Pulpit, Benton, PA," and the letter found its home on the first try.

Pat Truskoloski, Red Rock, told us about her six-year old nephew who sent her husband a letter addressed to Uncle Frank, Benton, PA. The letter was delivered. Their mailman at the time, Bruce Crawford, explained that he knew of two Uncle Frank's with relatives in Virginia and "he took a chance that it was us, and he was right. I still have the letter! You don't get service like that anywhere but 'Back Home In Benton, Pa.'"

John Herbert Laubach tells of a tavern in Bad Godesberg, on the Rhine River. Numerous foreign embassies and government agencies as well as residences of diplomats and government officials are here and in September, 1938, Adolf Hitler and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met there. In the town is a tavern called "Aennchen." With apologies to those who know German better than we do, Aennchen is a form of "Anna," and means gracious. The word "Aennchen" also could mean a small "n." Anyway, many letters were addressed to this tavern with simply a small "n" as the recipient with no other identification on the envelope.

Dayne Kline, a man with a mischievous side at times, is known to have been in Canada and simply addressed a post card to "The Proprietor of the Grist Mill, 17814." The card went through to John Mather without a hitch. Children write a lot of nixies, addressing their Christmas list to "Santa Claus" or "My teacher."

One of the most famous nixie was an envelope addressed to "Smitty, Askk Cookie." It was delivered by the letter carrier, "Smitty," to a tavern owner known to her customers as "Cookie." Another letter was addressed to "s.o.b., Washington." The letter was promptly delivered to the late Drew Pearson, a newspaper columnist. A letter in 1963 addressed to an address in Cowford, FL, a nonexistent town, was promptly delivered to Jacksonville. Cowford had became Jacksonville in 1822.

With our modern transportation methods, we no longer need to write "Haste, Post, Haste," on envelopes. We have come a long way from the days of the mail delivery on the Susquehanna & Tioga Turnpike where the mail went through every three days. We can no longer live as Henry David Thoreau did. We need the mail system.

We all know the motto of the U. S. Postal System, but few of us remember that the motto originated in fifth century B.C. During what was then called the Persian Wars (as distinguished from the Persian Wars still ongoing), Xerxes used runners to send back the warfront news of his invasion of Greece. Herodotus told the story...

A modern adoption of that is today the post-office motto. "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."
--Inscription on the General Post Office, New York City

And where does the name "post" come from? Dating to the time of Augustus, the Romans had a system of delivering the mail, called "cursus publicus." The stations along the route were known as "posts," from the Latin positus, the past participle of ponere and it means "placed." There is no indication that mail was delivered during what we now call the "Dark Ages," but as civilization moved toward the "Middle Ages," private mail carriers carried messages in small metal bags made out of mesh, from which the term "mail" comes.

Mail delivery did not speed up for 1,900 years. In March, 1861, the Pony Express carried Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address 1,600 miles in 7 days and 18 hours. Benjamin Franklin was appointed in 1753 as postmaster general. He wanted the job for the prestige it would bring to him and the increase of sales of his newspaper he thought it would bring. He was an excellent postmaster general, even though he spent long periods of time during his incumbency in London. William Goddard actually got his private-enterprise system into operation and called it a constitutional post office. Disregarding this, the Continental Congress authorized a publicly owned post office on July 26, 1775, passed over Goddard and named Franklin the first American Postmaster general. When Government began under the Constitution, the American postal system had about 75 post offices and 1,875 miles of post roads.

We would continue writing, but we have to quit now. We have to pay some bills, and get to the post office before it closes to get them mailed.

November 18, 2004.

On this date in...
1820, Navy Captain Nathaniel B. Palmer discovered the continent of Antarctica. Speculation over the existence of a "southern land" was finally confirmed when British and American commercial operators and British and Russian national expeditions began exploring the Antarctic Peninsula region and other areas south of the Antarctic Circle. Not until 1840 was it established that Antarctica was indeed a continent and not just a group of islands.

1883, the United States adopted standard time and divided the country into four time-zones.

1959, the film, Ben-Hur, starring Charleton Heston, premiered in New York. It later received 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Director.

Christine Karns will present her karaoke August 11, 2005, for the North Mountain Fire Co. Carnival, the opening Thursday.

We talked yesterday about Ed Allegar playing baseball. Teddy McHenry, writing from Florida, remembers his Navy days in the 1950's and a minor league game in Charleston. A member of the visiting team was Eddie Allegar. Ted went down and talked with Ed after the game. Ed writes, "I told him my name and where I was from. I am sure he didn't know me but knew my father. We had a great chat. I think he played shortstop that day. I was thrilled to see him as I had seen him play with his father, Red, and his brother, Bobby, at the ball diamond by Zehner Bridges."

And speaking of baseball, the Benton Area Little League holds its first registration for 2005 baseball and girls softball this afternoon from noon until 7 PM in the Benton Elementary School lobby. Players must be between the ages of 5 and 15. First-time players must bring a birth certificate. For more information, call Scott Mussleman at 864-2673. Scott tells us that there may be enough interest to have two minor baseball teams, a major team, a softball team, a teener team and a T-Ball team. The girls could end up with two minor softball teams.

When the snow falls, the air is filled with love,
It is a wonderful gift from up above.
The cold winter snow blows through your hair,
It's chill so surprising it gives you a scare.
You understand winter is definitely here,
When snow falls from the sky like happy tears.
--Composed by Caitlin Adams on her eleventh birthday, November 11, 2004

Wouldn't you like to visit five Danville homes that have been beautifully decorated for the holidays? You can Saturday, December 11 from noon until 5 PM and Sunday, December 12, from 1 until 4 PM. The cost is $15 per person. Contact Flemings Antiques, Danville, for tickets.

We love to sit down in the quiet of the evening and read ledgers and letters to loved ones and think how life was for our ancestors. Think, for example, what it was like for the wives of the early settlers who came up the Fishing Creek Valley and lived for months at a time without seeing a person outside her own family. Her family, by the way, seemed to get larger about once each year! Think of making the garden in the spring, spading the earth, throwing up some sort of fence around the plot of ground, hauling water to the garden in a container, maybe walking to town to get a little sewing from the "hotel women" in order to have a little money. An addition of a cow brought unexpected joys and some welcome changes to the meal situation. The unexpected death of one out of the team of horses threw all schedules off balance. Some years the entire crop of food would be corn meal. The house slowly enlarged to the point where a living room and two bedrooms emerged. A milk cow and then another made it possible to work toward the day they could say they had a "herd." More money came into the family as she took in washing when it was available, and did her share of the milking and made a little butter for selling, and made all the clothes.

One of the primary reasons we feel this way about history is because of our friendship with Helen Smith Gammon, a local resident during the summer months and an Arizona resident during the winter months. Helen is known for getting right in there and digging to the bottom to find how it was "back then." We have mentioned Helen many times since we started sending out the Benton News. We have to mention her again today. Helen's cancer has metastasized, evidently the tamoxifen stopped working. A bone scan shows the cancer is in her sternum, right lung and now in a lymph node in her left neck, and possibly in other places.

Helen could use your help in making a decision. Because the radiation would be very close to her heart from three different angles she can't decide whether to have 35 treatments plus boosters or take Arimidex and pray. The radiologist said since she has no "symptoms," she should take the Arimidex for 2 months. Helen has severe pain in her shoulders plus many other bones and is having difficulty walking.

Helen says that she is feeling slightly better at the moment than she has in months and is praying that the Arimidex is working. She needs to go on our prayer chain, and if your time permits would you allot just a little extra for this fine lady.

On this date in...
1932, there was a tie at the Academy Awards for the Best Actor between Wallace Beery and Fredric March. Eventually they both received an Oscar during the Fifth Annual Academy Awards. March got one for his performance in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Beery for his role in The Champ. The "best male performance of the year" was a bit unusual since each had adopted a child that year. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's movie, Grand Hotel, was "Outstanding Production."

1978, a murder-suicide took place in Jonestown, Guyana, when religious-cult leader Jim Jones directed the ingestion of Kool-Aid laced with cyanide by at least 900 of his followers. He and his mistress then did the same. Earlier that day, Jones directed the murder of California Congressman Leo J. Ryan, three news people and several "defectors." Ryan, on a fact-finding tour of Jonestown, was boarding a private airplane with his group when they were shot down.

Alanna Bath, a music education major at Wilkes University, won fourth place in the junior women division at the National Association of Teachers of Singing student auditions held recently at Millersville University. Alanna was one of more than 100 students to perform for voice teachers from the Allegheny Mountain Chapter of NATS, which includes faculty from Wilkes, Bucknell, Millersville, Susquehanna and Penn State universities. The Benton High School graduate is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Bath, Orangeville.

LuAnn Dent Everitt recently wrote of her fond memories of her father, Charles Henry Dent, Sr. (11/13/1910-01/30/1990), a sawyer, a soldier under General Patton, and a 27-year employee of the Mordan & Johnson Garage, Bloomsburg, first as a mechanic under the tutelage of Ercel Smith, and then as Sales Manager. The garage over the years sold Packards, Pontiac, Crossley, Willies, and Diamond-T trucks. LuAnn writes that her "Dad purchased a brand new '47 Pontiac in April of that year and so we traveled on our vacation to Bristol, Tennessee, in high style. My Grandmother Dent was from Washington County, Tennessee, and had many relatives she had not seen since the late 1890's. It was a wonderful time and we stayed a whole week. While we were there we all went to a ballgame to see a young man from Columbia County play. His name was Eddie Allegar.

LuAnn continued that her dad's first love was baseball and he "was scouted by the Phillies to play on one of their farm teams. However, he was raised on a farm and one of nine children, and the family needed everyone home to work on the farm. But that never dulled his deep passion for the game. I remember how thrilled he was to see a 'hometown boy' make good." After the garage closed Charles became Assistant Superintendent of Highways in Columbia County.

We should say something about the semipro league in which Ed Allegar played. A host of players who made it to the major leagues started in the Southern Association (or as it was often called, the Southern League) during their careers, men like Ty Cobb and "Shoeless" Joe Jackson. Teams tended to come and go, but Atlanta, Augusta, Columbus, and Macon played with other teams from Nashville, Memphis, Chattanooga, Birmingham, Bristol and Jacksonville. A similar league was the South Atlantic League, http://www.southatlanticleague.com/index2.html , also known as the Sally League. For more about minor league baseball, swing over to http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/history/general/ . Ed even pulled in a Most Valuable Player award while playing minor league baseball, but as a member of the Giants farm club there just were not enough openings to bring him to the majors. Ed now lives in Jamison City, is a retired teacher from the Benton Area School System and is married to the former Alice Sutliff.

Senator Arlen Specter is what conservatives call a Republican in Name Only, a long way of calling him a RINO. Specter, along with Rhode Island's Sen. Lincoln Chafee, Maine Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, and Ohio's Sen. George Voinovich and Sen. John McCain of Arizona are RINOs on some issues. So far, Specter -- who is in line for the Senate Judiciary Committee post -- appears to have weathered the campaign against him.

The MerleFest for the past 17 years has been the premier festival in Americana music. This year the festival runs in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, from April 28 through May 1, and the music will be no exception. Listen to this lineup: Doc Watson, Patty Griffin, Del McCoury, Emmylou Harris, Jerry Douglas, Buddy & Julie Miller, Ricky Skaggs, and Allison Moorer. The "Father of Bluegrass" will have a Blue Grass Boys Reunion hosted by Peter Rowan, featuring Earl Scruggs, Vassar Clements, Bobby Hicks, Del McCoury, Tater Tate, and Roland White. Many festival favorites return for MerleFest 2005, including Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, Donna The Buffalo, Railroad Earth, Tim O'Brien, Tony Rice, Balfa Toujours, The Kruger Brothers, John Cowan Band, The Waybacks, David Holt, Loretta Lynn, Nashville hillbilly band BR549, Americana pioneer Rodney Crowell, acoustic innovators Wayfaring Strangers, dance greats Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble and John Jorgenson exploring the music of Django Reinhardt. Quintessential traveling bluesman Roy Book Binder hosts the acoustic blues showcases, featuring 90-year old Delta master Robert Lockwood, Jr., Corey Harris, and Mary Flower. New Directions at MerleFest 2005 on Friday at the Americana Stage will feature Allison Moorer, The Greencards, Gigi Dover, Old School Freight Train, Caroline Herring, Daybreak, The Duhks and Hayes Carll. We'll see you there!

There are two types of people:
those who are more for getting,
and those who are more for giving.

We wonder...
• If the counties of Bradford, Sullivan, Susquehanna and Wyoming make up the "Endless Mountains, why aren't the mountains "endless" when they get to the borders of those counties?
• How can we get "usto" terms like "up back of Benton," and "down cellar"?
• Why did the Delaware Indians call themselves "real men" (Leni-Lenape?"
• What was in the lunchtime favorite sandwich known as "Hoggies" at the Hog Island Shipyard in Philadelphia? (the word was later changed to "Hoagies.")

November 16, 2004. Mikelanne McHenry Welliver and David McHenry celebrate birthdays today.

On this date in 1980, Roger Mudd began working as chief Washington correspondent for NBC after leaving CBS after being passed over as Walter Cronkite's replacement on The CBS Evening News. The position was given instead to Dan Rather, who continues to make his own news even today. Mudd, 76, still occasionally hosts History Channel documentaries about politics.

An open house to commemorate the 50th wedding anniversary of Bill and Janet Beishline, 50 Bendertown Road, Stillwater, is planned for Sunday, Nov. 21. Family members are hosting the celebration from 2 to 5 PM at St. James Church community hall, Bendertown. The Beishlines were married by their brother-in-law, the Rev. Kenneth Kindig, on Nov. 24, 1954, at the East Side Baptist Church in Sharon. Mrs. Beishline is the former Janet M. Thomas, daughter of the late Harlan and Patti (Van Horn) Thomas. Her husband's parents are the late Clayton and Pauline (Young) Beishline. Their children are Mrs. Michael (Carol Ann) Bath, Bendertown; Mrs. William (Cheryl Renee) Pasukinis, Benton, and Gregory Levi Beishline, Harrisburg. There are four grandchildren and two step grandchildren.

We are having an old-fashioned Indian Summer all week. According to the Farmer's Almanac, an Indian Summer can occur between St. Martin's Day on November 11 and November 20. It is described as a period of warm weather following a cold spell or a hard frost.

A rapid response from the Benton Area Volunteer Firemen to Green Creek Road kept the woodshop of Carl Stuehrk from being destroyed Monday afternoon. An apparently overheated wood stove was the cause of the late-afternoon fire.

We are like a phish out of water. We are so pleased that we scored 100% on a test! If you can't be sure what is fake email from eBay, Citibank, PayPal, and so on, take the test at http://www.mailfrontier.com to see if you can detect which are phish attempts and which are legitimate. Click on each link to see an example of the email before making your guess.

At the school board meeting Monday night, the board voted to...
• Appoint Linda Smith chairperson of the Arts/Humanities Department with a pro-rated $550 stipend yearly.
• Approve Benton Area High School to host the 2005-2006 Columbia-Montour County Chorus Festival on November 9 and 10, 2005.

We have lots of readers who "don't know sickem" about hunting bear, and yet for thousands of men come a week from now hunting bear will be a primary activity in the state as we enter a period something akin to having a state holiday. The three-day bear season opens Monday, November 22, and the estimated state bear population of 15,000 could be reduced by about 3,000 bears by Thanksgiving.

Bears were taken in 52 counties in 2003, including three bears with estimated live weights exceeding 800 pounds. In Pennsylvania, bears are most frequently found in north-eastern and north-central areas. A favorite topic of conversation around the Kozy Korner this time of year starts off "the biggest bear I ever saw," or "the best coon dog I ever owned." It is necessary to sometimes read between the lines. An animal that was "treed" may never have left the ground. It might just have "holed" up somewhere like a cave or a hollow tree. References to a "painter" could be to a mountain lion that someone thought he saw the previous day, even though the Game Commission swears we don't have any. Other birds and animals come up in conversation, too. The expression "inta'flock" probably means 20 or so turkeys in one location at one time. When something is "up'ere" it means that it isn't down there and when it is "in'ere" it means it isn't out there.

If something goes "t'gobblin'" the something is a turkey and it is telling its friends something that we can only guess at. If a hunter goes to "get'im," the animal or bird probably has been shot and the next question is usually "d'ja get'im?" We heard about a hunter once who shot a bear that disappeared between some rocks into the steep side of a hill. The hunter who shot the bear decided to go in after the bear. Another hunter told him to be careful so the bear "don't bite' chew!" Turns out the bear had been shot and it died. When the hunter came out, he said he wasn't afraid because when he went in he didn't come "a'holt a'th'bitin'" end.

We have to admit at this point that these stories are coming to light because it is Sunday night and three of us are spending the night at the Painter Den cabin in Sullivan County. Buster and Chloe are sleeping on chairs in front of the fireplace. It is a fine place to remember hunting stories, like the November hunt in 1998, when Robert Rabb, then a Muncy resident, shot a 501 pound dressed-weight bear on opening day of bear season in Central. Robert was hunting with sons Robert and Mathew and with Miles Little, Benton. Harry Ritter, also of Benton, shot a smaller bear that appeared about the same time. Robert had a full mount made of the bear.

We know that dragging a huge bear out of the woods like the one Robert shot would be a problem, and we remember an old story of killing and skinning a bear. The bear meat was stacked in as many piles as there were hunters who helped get the meat out of the woods. One hunter was blindfolded and turned away from the piles of meat. He then called off hunter's names as someone pointed to piles of meat. Each hunter would then claim "a mess a'meat" and nobody had hard feelings about the meat that he got. The shooter got the hide.

This year we suspect that hunters will find bears in thick cover like swamps and bogs, outcroppings of mountain laurel and rhododendron, and north-facing slopes as the animals enter a phase known as hyperphagia in which they gorge themselves with high-calorie food. Listen intently. Look for scat up to the size of a soda can. A paw print can be up to 5" in diameter. Bears are very noisy when they eat. Organized drives of hunters are effective. Get out early and stay late. Try to stay downwind of bears and don't expect a bear to run up on you. Most walk and feed slowly. If you use a call like a fawn bleat, remember that the bear that shows up will be there for lunch! Good luck in your hunt and let us hear your bear hunting stories.

Amy Sterner, a DNCR Park Ranger from Worlds End State Park, addressing the North Mountain Historical Society Monday morning. Worlds End State Park is in a narrow S-shaped valley of the Loyalsock Creek just south of Forksville, Sullivan County. The first road through the valley was high on the steep slope of the mountain and the precipitous journey made early travelers think they were surely at the "end of the world."

On this date in...
1806, a professional soldier by the name of Lt. Zebulon Montgomery Pike was exploring the headwaters of the Arkansas and Red Rivers in the newly acquired Louisiana Territory. He had ventured up the Arkansas River, an area heavily populated by Indians, and onto what the Indians called the "Rocky Mountains," when he spotted a mountain peak. The 14,110 feet peak was called "The Long One" by Ute Indians, but its name soon took on the name of the young army lieutenant. "Pike's Peak or Bust!" was a familiar slogan of many a wagon train settler traveling west in the 1800s. Droves of people have walked, driven or ridden to its summit over the past 100 years.

1980, Kenny Rogers got his first solo #1 hit, Lady, after years of playing with the New Christy Minstrels and the First Edition. The Lionel Richie song stayed at the top of the charts for six weeks. Many no longer remember the New Christy Minstrels, but in the summer of 1963 they had a hit with Green, Green. The lead singer of the group at the time was Barry McGuire, who co-wrote the song with Randy Sparks. The New Christy Minstrels performed for Lyndon Johnson at the White House and had their own television show in 1964. The musical director for the group, Mike Settle, left in the mid-60's and took Kenny Rogers with him. Together they formed the group, the First Edition.

There are things we don't understand. Try as we will, state history is one of them. Too many people know too little about what happens on the state level. Colleges grudgingly provide a state history course for those who intend to become high school teachers and, therefore according to state law, must know their state history and must teach it.

States are very different, and it often only takes a crossing of a state line to know the difference. It might be something casual like a difference in the paving of the road, or the ability to carry agricultural products into the state, or ones ability to buy or not buy fireworks, or the fines imposes for littering, or the ability to purchase alcoholic products in the grocery stores, the terrain of the land, the difference in the death penalty or the legal marrying age or the rules surrounding the carrying of firearms.

Since our founding in 1682, we never had many settlers of English descent although we were a state of diverse peoples. We never excelled in producing great people who stayed with us. William Penn only lived in the state four out of the last 26 years of his life. Benjamin Franklin came from Boston and only became a symbol of America and Pennsylvania while he lived in Europe. Thomas Paine published "Common Sense" in Philadelphia, which helped inspire the United States to declare independence from England in 1776, but did so after he arrived in their country from England and then 15 years later raced off to join the French Revolution. The Pennsylvania steel industry had Scottish-born Andrew Carnegie, but New York was his principal residence until he passed away. John D. Rockefeller, who profited from oil in the western part of the state, never lived in the state. Mary Cassatt, an Impressionist painter, left the state for Paris. Marian Anderson left Philadelphia for Europe, then Connecticut. Dr. Frank C. Laubach left his native Benton to educate countless numbers of people around the world. `There are, of course, lists of famous Pennsylvanians, like the one at http://www.50states.com/bio/penn.htm .

Those who have "stuck it out" will quickly tell you of their dedication to their local area and to their ethnic backgrounds. We are from Benton, or from Pottsville, or from Derrs or from Pittsburgh, while residents of Texas will proudly tell you they are from Texas.

We identify with our ethnic background or with our home area. Go to Pittsburgh, for example, and someone will tell you they are from Mt. Lebanon, in Philadelphia they may tell you they are from Plumstead Township, in Benton, you may find that the person is from Hoboken. The diversity that William Penn preached didn't keep the German communities from staying together, and the same applies to the Quaker communities and the Scots-Irish, and so forth.

Whatever community we come from, whatever our ethnic background, we go into the world carrying our history with us. The patterns we develop as children flow through life with us. The use of "ain't" and "darsn't" will pass along to the next generation as surely as our "bringing up" molds our political thinking, church views or affiliations.

And as long as we are ranting on, why is it that we are always so busy? It seems that when two people get on the phone it isn't important to talk about what is important, it is important to talk about how busy we are. We don't exactly remember how the conversation went, but a recent phone call went something like this...
"Sorry I haven't returned your call, but I have been busy."
"Oh, I wouldn't have had time to talk with you anyway. It has been hectic around here."
"I couldn't have talked with you. Haven't been so busy in years."
"I've been up to my earballs in work."
"I haven't had time to breath."
"Not as frantic as me."
"Your joking. I am completely snowed under."
"I was going positively mad."
"I was crazy."
"Hysterical! I have been getting up at 5 each morning."
"In fact, this is the first time I could relax in weeks."
"Same here. There is no point in working too hard."
"There is no point in getting run into the ground."
"We only have one life, you know."
"We gotta take it easy."
"Too much work makes Jack a dull boy!"
"Give me a call anytime."

On this date in...
1851, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, was first published in New York City by Harper & Brothers. The book began, "Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world." In the Bible, Ishmael was the outcast son of Abraham, the patriarch of the Jews. By adopting the name Ishmael, the author adopted the fictional posture of an outcast son. The sea story is told by sailor-narrator Ishmael about a sea captain's search for Moby Dick, the great white whale that had once crippled him. Through the pages of Moby Dick, we meet Queequeg, Ishmael's bunkmate, a whale harpooner from Polynesia. We learn everything there is to know about whaling in the nineteenth century, including Captain Ahab's obsession with Moby Dick. Find out more about Herman Melville at http://www.melville.org/melville.htm and read the book at http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/moby/moby-1.html .

1972, the Dow Jones industrial average closed above the 1,000 mark (1003.16) for the first time in its 76-year history. Friday, the market closed at 10,539.

A reader remembered that we were recently in San Francisco and inquired of us about a place to stay. She asked if we had stayed in an expensive place. We'll answer the question this way: When we left we altered the words in the small placard in our room that asked, "Have you left anything?" We altered it to read, "Have you anything left?"

Applications are being taken for Benton Manor. The apartments are one-bedroom units with one unit handicap accessible, and there is a community room and laundry on premises. Utilities are included in rent, which ranges from $320 to $405. Tenants must be 62 and older and income eligible. HUD annual household income limits do govern eligibility. The income limit for one-person household is $21,540 and under, two-person household $24,600 and under. Call 784-9373.

Although we believe that the world needs less public speaking and more private thinking, we were nevertheless invited to speak last evening at the New Columbus Academy, part of the local landscape since 1856, the same year that Pennsylvanian James Buchanan became President of the United States. We appreciated the opportunity to meet so many people interested in history. The president of the New Columbus Academy Memorial Hall, Grace Welliver, holds the organization together well. We were particularily interested in hearing Peter Sutton explain how he, as the only member of Nellie Bittenbender's 8th grade class, observed the graduation ceremony in the front seat of his teacher's car, rather than fire up the lobby stove to warm up the one-room schoolhouse.

Consider this...
• What is now the Berwick area was settled by Evan Owen about 1780, the year that General Sullivan cleared the Iroquois Indians from the Mohawk River valley.
• The Susquehanna & Tioga Turnpike Road was authorized in 1806. The president of the United Sates was Thomas Jefferson.
• Construction of the "TiogaTurnpike" began in 1808, as Thomas Jefferson's Secretary of State, James Madison, was taking office.
• The first turnpike construction effort was completed through Columbia County in 1810. The population of the United States was 7,239,881.
• Stages started using the Tioga Turnpike in 1827. The stage company was known as the Berwick and Towanda Turnpike Company. Stages ran from station to station over a number of "stages" of road with fresh horses about every 12 miles, except for the Red Rock Mountain run.
• Construction of the Tioga Turnpike ended in 1820. The population of the United States soared to 10 million.
• The New Columbus Academy opened in 1856. Pennsylvanian James Buchanan was president.

We receive a large number of emails about things that "just ain't so!" The Snopes search engine for the Urban Legends Reference Pages stands ready to assist you at http://www.snopes.com/search before you forward something that you suspect is bogus. Bookmark that page now. Enter a word, a phrase, or several words and select the appropriate match. You do not need to enter the word "and" between search terms. For example, an urban legend making the rounds is "Sears pays the difference in salaries and maintains benefits for their called-up reservist employees." Try it now. Check out whether this is a true claim or is bogus. Hint: enter the following in the search engine: Sears, reserve.

President Lincoln once explained the type of preacher he liked. He said, "When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees."

We smiled when we heard about the little girl who told her mother that her new little brother was "much smaller than he was before he was born."

On this date in...
1921 was the release of the black and white movie The Sheik, staring Rudolpho Alfonzo Rafaelo Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla, AKA the "Great Lover" and as Rudolph Valentino. His last film, the comical Son of the Sheik (1926) was also in black and white and was silent. Prior to the premiere of Son of the Sheik, he collapsed in New York on August 15, 1926. Valentino died eight days later from peritonitis.

1927, the Holland Tunnel, New York City's connection to Jersey City, opened to traffic after seven years of construction and over $48 million in cost. The tunnel was named after the chief engineer of construction, Clifford Milburn Holland, who died before the tunnel was completed.

Howard Crusan, (May 28, 1921-November 11, 2004), 83, a former resident of Beaumont, Texas, died Thursday at Millville Health Center. He was a son of the late Fay B. and Florence Emily (Knight) Crusan, Des Moines, Iowa. He moved with his son, Charles, to Columbia County about five years ago. A former clerk in the post office at Beaumont for more than 20 years, he served with the U.S. Navy during World War II. Preceding him in death were his wife, the former Mary Lucretia Lord, on Jan. 2, 1998, and two brothers, Frank Crusan and Edward L. Crusan. Surviving are children, Charles H. Crusan, Benton, and Lucretia Hopper, Beaumont; three grandsons, three great-grandchildren; two brothers and a sister. Services and interment will be in Beaumont.
--from a Press Enterprise obituary. Please read the newspaper for a complete obituary.

Garrison Keillor's Joke of the Week is this:
Q: Why did the lazy zookeeper get fired?
A: He sat on his ocelot.

Microsoft Corporation has launched their test version of its new MSN search service, hoping to compete with Google and other major web search services. The Microsoft search engine offers geographically-based searches to narrow responses to those relevant to the searcher. The new service also allows searches that contain entire questions without using quotations. The beta version of the service is available at http://beta.search.msn.com/ .

In this business of turning over stones to see if there might be a story buried somewhere underneath, we unearth some strange things and we'll relate a couple of them over the next couple of days. We originally heard about this story when it was told to us by Richard Shoemaker. We chatted with Richard Savage, Berwick, a son of O(rville) B(artley) Savage, and grandson of Moses Savage, who figures prominently in the story. Richard Savage remembers hearing this story from his family as he was growing up. You'll have to pay attention or you'll get confused, since we are talking about a couple of "Orvilles" and a couple of "Moses Savages" in this story.

To get you in the right frame of reference, we'll start by reminding you that O. B. Savage once owned the former Helme farm below Benton. If you are lost this early in the story, take the time to read about the barn under FEATURES . O. B. Savage had a son, Richard, and that is who we are talking about when we say that he heard the story when he was small. O. B. Savage's father was (also) named Orville and his grandfather was Moses Savage, named, possibly, for his uncle who also had the name "Moses." This uncle is who the story is about.

Moses Savage--and we are talking about the uncle--went to seek his fortune in California during the gold rush of 1848. Moses Savage returned from California in the winter of 1857 and a Bloomsburg man, William H. Gilmore, drove Moses to Rohrsburg where Savage intended to spend the night in a hotel just West of Rohrsburg Corners before reuniting with his family the next morning. William Ager was the proprietor of the hotel. The hotel is now gone.

Both W. W. Parker, Rohrsburg, and Savage's nephew, also called Moses Savage (now we are now talking about O. B. Savage's grandfather), gave the same accounting of the following story. We dug the story up from old Morning Press and Columbia County Historical Society documents.

A Benton relative of the uncle Moses stopped at the Rohrsburg Hotel and saw someone who looked like Moses sitting near a stove. No one was expecting Moses to return from California unannounced, but the stranger looked so familiar that he asked if the man might be Moses. The proprietor of the hotel did not acknowledge that the man was Savage. The Benton man went home, but thought about it through the night and returned in the morning. The proprietor of the hotel told him the next morning that the man was a "drummer" and not Savage. Mr. Gilmore, however, confirmed that he had driven Savage to the hotel, but no trace of Savage was ever found. Gilmore's story was that Savage intended to surprise his relatives with the fortune that he had made in gold, and that he had much of it in valises he carried with him. O. B.'s father Moses later said that a man by the name of John Black showed him blood on the floor of the hotel when it was razed and that valise frames were found in the basement. The gold never turned up, and neither did Moses. A short time later, the well of the hotel was filled in. A man by the name of Parker claimed that people had stopped liking the taste of the water than came from the well.

The Savage family never had the money to look into the whereabouts of Moses Savage or to press for an investigation. Controversy swirled when the proprietor of the hotel announced that he was going to California to seek his fortune in gold. He apparently was not gone long, but when he returned he had gold and that apparently made a lot of people in the Rohrsburg area talk about the mysterious disappearance of Moses Savage. The properties in California owned by Savage turned up as sold and the deeds had been signed, although the Savage family felt that they had been forged.

Fact or fiction? There is fact in the story and there may be some fiction. Most probably, we'll never know what the fate was of old Moses Savage.

From the bottom: Ross Smith's mother, sitting in her home in Benton.

Standing is Nancy Smith Shea, and her father, Ross Smith with Jill McHenry in his arms.

On this date in...
1859, Jules Leotard, 21, made his first public appearance as the a flying trapeze artist. His outfit was a skintight, one-piece garment with the lower portion resembling tights. Jules had practiced swinging from bars from the time he was a little boy. His father had hoped Jules would become a lawyer, but Jules liked gymnastics, claiming that as a baby his parents hung him upside down to stop him from crying. He joined the Cirque Napoleon and in November 1859 became the first person to swing from his invention which he called a trapeze, a series of short horizontal bars suspended by ropes hanging from the ceiling.

1946, the first drive-up banking facility opened at the Exchange National Bank in Chicago. There were 10 bullet-proof glass teller windows. Customers deposited their money or received their withdrawal money through sliding drawers--common to us today, but a revolution in 1946.

1984, Joseph Allen became the first astronaut to rescue a satellite. Aboard the second flight of the "Discovery" space shuttle, Dr. Allen deployed two satellites, including the Hughes' LEASAT-1, a satellite with which we associated for many years of our career in Arlington, VA. The satellite rescue involved the Palapa B-2 and Westar VI communications satellites.

1986, just down the road a piece from the former town of Emmons and the village once known as "Baumtown," near the runoff of Peterman Run, Elk Run, Bloody Run and Painter Run, Clyde "Jug" Albertson opened a restaurant under the direction of manager Monica Diltz. Monica stirred in her favorite buckwheat cakes, let them raise overnight, threw some Pennsdale sausage and some homefrys on the stove and a tradition of "bucks" and sausage was born. In fact, the original buckwheat cake batter is still in use today, and with each day the cakes get better. We still remember the sign we saw there about 15 years ago when we drove our snowmobile to the front door. It read, "You have to go up this road a long ways to beat our prices." In fact, assuming that the road is not snowed shut, you have to go up that road a long ways to do anything...

The Northern Columbia Community & Cultural Center has received a grant from DCNR for $150,000 which puts the Center over $550,000 in pledges and grants. Rep. George Hasay and Rep. David Millard have requested that the Governor release 1.2 million dollars for the construction of our center. We are closer now than we have ever been.

The Bloomsburg Antique Show and Sale will be November 13 and 14, 10 to 5 on Saturday and 11 to 5 on Sunday. The show will be at the Bloomsburg Fair Grounds, in the Industrial Arts building. We always enjoy stopping at the Liberty Book Shop, in town for the show for a couple of days from Avis, PA.

We took a tour of the Sun-Dry Laundry that recently opened between Fourth and Fifth Streets at Market, Benton. We're not easily impressed, but we didn't see one thing in the place that wasn't brand new and spotlessly clean.

Audrey McGaw handles the tanning bed and nail salon side of the operation and Bill Bennett is there for other managerial duties. Both were friendly and helpful.

This isn't just an ordinary landrymat. There are two tanning beds and a nail salon. Drop off your drycleaning by Wednesday morning and you'll get it back the following Wednesday. For the hard-working people of the Upper Fishing Creek Valley, drop off your clothes and the staff can wash and fold your clean clothes in their Dexter (made-in-America) stainless steel washers and dryers, ready for pickup when the time is available. The store sells Australian Gold Tanning Products. A drop-off shoe repair is coming, but was not in place when we toured. There are 15 new stainless steel washers and the same number of dryers, ranging in size from 20 to 55 pounds. Have a comforter to wash and dry? No problem! They even have an opening special: Monday through Thursday 6 AM to 4 PM, $.99 a wash load. Don't worry about bringing quarters. They have a system for everything in the store. Put your money in a machine and you get a credit card that runs every machine, including the tanning beds. You can even order your Christmas gift certificates using this system. As you use the machines, your balance is reduced. Even the soda machines operate off this system, an ideal arrangement when you sit down to watch the complimentary television and slurp on a coke.

Rick Iddings is the owner and deserves huge amounts of credit for bringing this quality store to the Benton area.

Today is Armistice Day or Remembrance Day or Veterans Day or World War I Memorial Day. Whatever the name, the significance is that at 11 AM in 1918 World War I ceased. The Allied and Central Powers signed an armistice agreement at 5 AM in Marshal Foch's railway car in the Forest of Compiegne, France. You might want to follow the long tradition of bowing your head in remembrance at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Four years of brutal fighting resulted in the death of nine million soldiers and 21 million wounded. Forget about going to the post office or the bank today.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
--Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918), Canadian Army

One this date in...
1885, George Smith Patton, Jr. was born. Later he was known as "Old Blood and Guts," when he served as a U.S. Army General and commander of the Third Army during the Army's drive across France in WWII. A famous quote was, "Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."

1940, Mandrake the Magician first appeared on radio as a 15-minute serial. Mandrake, Lothar and Princess Narda solved mysteries and battled evil doers. Raymond Edward Johnson, playing Mandrake, chanted "invovo legem magicarum."

Quickies...
• Benton Rodeo website, www.bentonrodeo.com, now includes a free Columbia County Auction.
• Moody's has lowered Merck's credit rating, the first time in a decade.
• The Texaco at I-80/Exit 224 & PA 54, has the highest-priced gasoline in the entire state! Regular unleaded was selling at $2.09 at the station yesterday.
• Two Sheetz stations in Loyalsock Township received a shipment of 87 octane gas mixed with diesel. There may be a run on fuel filters in the Williamsport area...
• We think that Jim Dildine was the first of the local snowbirds to arrive in Florida. Ted and Shirley McHenry are now "in sunny Florida."

There is a big difference in what we collect, what gathers dust in the attic and what increases in price and value. Some thoughts...
• Condition ranks near the top of the list. Like the old adage, "location, location, location," the "condition, condition, condition" is so very important. If it is falling apart, it will never substantially increase in value. If pages are missing, forget that someone claimed that Columbus read it on balmy nights while sailing through the Bahamas.
• If an item is labeled "collectible" or "limited edition," it was probably produced in enough volume never to have real future value. Franklin Mint items will be worth something a hundred years from now, depending on how many people put them in the safe-deposit box and forget them. There may be exceptions. Let us know a hundred years from now which ones they were.
• Use your head. If you think the item is fetching now, it will be fetching in the future. What do you think sports memorabilia will be worth twelve years from now when you need the money to put Jr. through college?
• Ask an expert if you think that an item has value. The International Society of Appraisers, http://isa-appraisers.org/ , and the American Society of Appraisers, www.appraisers.org, are good choices.
• Look for items that are representative of an era. Do you think your favorite dolls and figurines will stand the test of time?
• What you collect is dependent on supply and demand. We bought an item in Oklahoma once, a "one-of-a-kind. We decided later to go back to the antique galley to buy something we had earlier decided against, and we found the same "one-of-a-kind" for sale in the same spot where we had bought the original one.

About 500 tickets were sold for the Sugarloaf Men's Group snow blower raffle. The raffle netted over $500 for community service efforts, including working with the Ambulance Association to provide medical appliances for those who are ill or disabled. The men's group thanks all who bought tickets during sales at the North Mountain carnival, the fish suppers and the Pumpkin Festival.

The winner, as announced at the Sugarloaf fish supper on October 30, was Joanne Riley, Benton. From the left, Dr. Harold Ackerman, Joanne Riley, David Riley

You know you are from Benton when you...
• hear someone say "crick" and know they mean a small stream of water.
• call the living room simply "the room," and when you clean it you say you are going to "redd up the room."
• find a breakfast menu without scrapple and it gets your day off to a bad start.
• realize the top stories on local newspapers are about cars running off the road or trucks running cars off the road.
• don't think it unusual that you can only buy beer in a six-pack from a bar, in a case from a distributor and wine and liquor not from a retailer but from the state.

Tired of the same old thing for Thanksgving? Jones Soda, Seattle, has green beans and casserole, mashed potatoes, fruitcake and cranberry flavors--all in the form of sodas. Last year, the turkey and gravy-flavored soda sold out in three hours after it was offered on eBay. Jones Soda is offering the turkey and gravy sodas as a set in 15,000 "holiday packs" for $16 each, complete with utensils. The pack is available nationwide at Target Corp. stores.

The November 10, 2004, edition of the Suburban News includes an article by Sheila Brandon, webmeister of the Lower Luzerne County Website, and the webmeister of the Benton News. The subject is the Long Wagon Works of New Columbus and Benton. Pick up a copy of the Back Mountain newspaper at your local store or subscribe by calling 570 477-5000.

November 10, 2004. Happy birthday today to Frank Beishline, who shares his birthday with theologian Martin Luther, born in 1483, the man who sparked the Protestant Reformation.

Fifty years ago today, November 10, 1954, the Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington was dedicated by President Eisenhower. The memorial was inspired by an Associated Press photograph of the raising of the American flag on Mount Suribachi during World War II.

No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees
No fruit, no flowers, no leaves,
no birds! -- No-vember!
--Thomas Hood (1799-1845)

The Sugarloaf Fish Suppers for the spring of 2005 are set for April 23 and May 21.

It is time again to start thinking about the annual Hall of Fame nominations for the outstanding graduates of the Benton Area Schools. The school will be requesting nominations in the very near future. Please be thinking of who you feel would be worthy. The committee that evaluates the graduates does not write the nomination requests, and so it is important that the justification for the candidate be complete and thorough. The nomination form is on the side panel under the Benton Area Schools. One of the outstanding graduates was Frank C. Laubach. We won't go into a lot of detail about Dr. Laubach, since he is covered on the Benton News website under Personalities and under the Benton Area School 2003 Hall of Fame section, both on the side panel.

The home where Dr. Laubach was born looks better than ever Back Home in Benton, PA. The Main Street home of John and Zane Unbewust yesterday had a plaque added to the front of the house signifying that Dr. Laubach was born in that house.

A sketch by Beatrice Whitmoyer showing how the house looked in the 1880s.

In case you don't remember, Dr. Laubach studied at Bloomsburg and at other schools, then enrolled in the State Normal School in Bloomsburg in 1901. He was a student at the Perkiomen Seminary, received his bachelor of arts degree at Princeton University, studied at the Union Theological Seminary from 1911 to 1913 while earning a M.A. degree, and earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the same university in 1915. He married a local girl, Effa Seely on May 15, 1912. He was later awarded a doctor of philanthropy degree in 1952 and a doctor of Hebrew literature from Wooster College in 1950. He was commissioned by Union Congregational Church as a missionary in the Philippines and for 15 years he ministered and educated Philippine Christians. From 1935-54, he brought "Each One Teach One" literacy programs to Philippine communities and to Southeast Asia, India, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. He was instrumental in the founding of World Literacy Committee, Committee on World Literacy and Christian Literature, and World Literacy, Inc. (later called World Education).

He founded the Laubach Literacy and Mission Fund, later called Laubach Literacy. He continued world literacy tours during the last years of his life, and spoke throughout the U.S. on poverty and illiteracy as impediments to justice and peace. With his son Robert S. Laubach, they founded the New Readers Press to publish instructional materials for the U.S. literacy movement. In 1968, Dr. Laubach created the National Association for Literacy Advance, later called Laubach Literacy Action, to bring volunteer literacy efforts together in the United States.

The Northern Columbia County area is honored to have a number of significant historical structures, many of which we tend to pass by and overlook. Lets take the time to mention a few of them, apologizing in advance for any that you might consider important but which we are overlooking.

• New Columbus Academy
• The Stone House at Lake Ganoga
• The house where Frank C. Laubach was born
• Covered bridges of the area including the twin covered bridges at Forks and the Stillwater covered bridge
• The Hulme barn, commonly known as the O. B. Savage barn
• The town of Jamison City
• The stone house built in 1826 by William and Elizabeth Cole (route 487 N of Benton, near golf course) Picture courtesy of Brad Cole
• Churchs of the area, including: • The Millville Quaker meetinghouse
• The Presbyterian, the U.M. Church and the Christian Church buildings of Benton		Pictures included with articles.
• St. Gabriels Church and Cemetery

We suspect "take-home pay" is called that because when you get it there is no other place you can afford to go with it.

The human brain is a wonderful thing. It works from the moment you are born until you get up to make your first public speech.

On this date in...
1912, the Carlisle School for Indians beat Army 27-6. Glenn S. Warner was the coach of the Carlisle team and Jim Thorpe was one of his star players. The Army right halfback was Dwight David Eisenhower. The Carlisle coach was nicknamed "Pop" Warner since he was older than his Cornell University classmates during his football-playing years.
1948, This is Your Life debuted on NBC radio. Two years later, Ralph Edwards took the show to television where it lasted for another nine years (1952-1961).
1989, the Berlin Wall, the 27.9-mile-long divider between East and West Germany, opened after 28 years.

Nothing attracts
The mustard from wieners
As quickly as slacks
Just back from the cleaners.
--Burma Shave

The Village Reading Group will meet on December 9 at the Benton United Methodist Church from 7 to 8:30 PM. The group will discuss the second book in Jan Karon's Mitford series, A Light in the Window. Call Linda Major at 925-5911 if you have questions.

The Saying of the Day: "Measure Twice Cut Once."
John Florio (c. 1553–1625), British author, writing in Second Frutes.
"Alwaies measure manie, before you cut anie."

Brian Goode wonders if anyone else saw the green and red Aurora Borealis Sunday night over the skies of Benton and Red Rock around 11 PM. Brian wrote, "They're quite rare around here and it was quite awesome."

We had to smile when we came across the old father-son advice dispensed many years ago in an exchange of letters. The son was getting his steam up over a local girl and wrote to his father saying that he planned to take the girl out for the evening to see a movie. On the way home he planned to buy her an ice cream soda. The son wondered if it would be OK to give her a kiss when they parted for the evening. The father wrote back, saying, "No, George. You've done quite enough for her."

I've given my memoirs far more thought than any of my marriages. You
can't divorce a book.
--Gloria Swanson

Marriage is like twirling a baton, turning hand springs or eating with
chopsticks. It looks easy until you try it.
--Helen Rowland

Sexiness wears thin after a while and beauty fades, but to be married
to a man who makes you laugh every day, ah, now that's a real treat.
--Joanne Woodward

We learn from history that we do not learn from history
--Georg Wilhelm Hegel.

"Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves."
--Abraham Lincoln

On this day in...
1864, Abraham Lincoln was reelected, defeating Democrat George B. McClellan and carrying all but three states. In 1892, former President Grover Cleveland defeated incumbent President Benjamin Harrison, becoming the only chief executive to win non-consecutive terms in the White House. Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th Presidents of the United States. In 1904, Theodore Roosevelt defeated Democrat Alton B. Parker. In 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt defeated incumbent President Herbert Hoover to become the 32nd President of the United States. In 1960, John F. Kennedy, 43, defeated Richard M. Nixon in the presidential election. In 1988, George Herbert Walker Bush and Indiana Senator Dan Quayle were elected President and Vice-Presidents, defeating Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis and Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen. Bush was the first incumbent vice president to win election since Martin Van Buren won in 1836.

1954, the American League approved the transfer of the Philadelphia Athletics baseball team to Kansas City. Later, the A's moved to Oakland.

1965, "Like sands through the hourglass, these are the days of our lives..." introduced the soap opera, Days of Our Lives, which debuted on NBC-TV. This week Brandon decides to stick around Salem a little longer, some of the Salem captives remain lost and do not return to Salem, Nicole and Brady make it back, and Nicole stands to get everything with Victor and Caroline missing! We don't understand what all this means, but this is what will happen this week. See how much time we've saved you!

The last day of July in 1913 in Columbia County was a turning point for those who planned to marry. On that date, a new marriage license law went into effect and a new series of questions became mandatory to answer in order to marry. The questions were a sign of the times, and would make most people hiccup today. The speculation at the time was that the "questions would lead to out-of-state marriages."

Some of the questions were rather standard and straight-forward: the full name and surname, occupation, birthplace, residence, age, name and surname of the father and of the mother, plus the occupation of the father and the mother and their birthplaces. From there, the questions got a little more pointed. The next set of questions included the color of the applicants and of the applicant's father and mother, and the date of death or divorce of the former spouse. The next question was a scorcher. "Is applicant an imbecile, epileptic, of unsound mind or under guardianship as a person of unsound mind, or under the influence of any intoxication liquor or narcotic drug?" The questions didn't end there. The next question in order to get a marriage license in Columbia County was "Has applicant, within five years been an inmate of any county asylum or home for indigent persons? Is applicant physically able to support a family? Are applicants related by blood or marriage?

Shirley Yost taught at Benton High School from 1970-1998 and lived in Benton from 1970-1977. Shirley is looking for information on her husband Robert's family. His grandmother Margaret Young, Danville, married Charles Albert Yost sometime in the 1920's. There may have been another marriage to a Mr. Jenkins before she married Mr. Yost. Mr. Yost passed away in 1929 when Shirley's father-in-law was 5 years old. The family has been told "that he is buried in the cemetery on the hill behind the feed mill." A search of cemetery records does not locate Mr. Yost. If anyone knows more of Charles Albert Yost, let us know.

Want to spend some time looking up financial information? Here are some places to do it on the internet, assuming that you are trying to do it free.
• Yahoo! Finance, http://finance.yahoo.com/
• Yahoo! Finance Weekend, biz.yahoo.com/weekend
• Business pages of the Net York Times, www.nytimes.com
• San Jose Mercury News, www.mercurynews.com
• Business Wire, www.businesswire.com
• CBS Market Watch, cbs.marketwatch.com
• Reuters, www.reuters.com
• Powerswings, www.powerswings.com

Down on Main Street, Pastor Calvin Miller of the Benton U.M. Church was adjusting his precisely fitting Sergeant's uniform, while running through a checklist of things that needed attending to for the "Honoring God and Country" services sponsored by the Benton Council of Churches. Seconds later, the Benton Firemen proudly and briskly walked though the front door of the church with Brigadier General Jerry Beck, Jr., who until minutes before was the primary passenger in the Chinook helicopter.

At precisely 7 PM, the enormously talented Alan Hack began playing the piano and an evening of fellowship, worship and praise began. Handbells began ringing and the enthusiastic audience started singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic. The local boy scout troop, #51, presented the colors and the audience broke into You're a Grand Old Flag. Kelsea Miller gave the pledge to the flag, and in appreciation later General Beck gave Kelsea and her friends Melanie Schlegel, Olivia Johnson and Tom Kester a tour of the Chinook and instilled some memories that will never be forgotten.

The Community Choir sang the National Anthem, followed by Rev. Mark Shellenberger giving the "Recognition of the Flags." The Benton Volunteer Firemen and the Boy Scout Troop #51 had the "lighting of the candles" ceremony. An armed forces medley began playing, songs like The Caissons Go Rolling Along, Anchors Aweigh--songs that brought tears to people's eyes as they watched the veterans stand who served in each of the military departments. The room came alive with men who stood as their service songs were played. Men like LCDR (Ret.) Bill Repco, a 28-year veteran, a man who served his country for 14 years in the enlisted ranks and 14 years as an officer. Not at all shabby for a man who only completed tenth grade! Bill has a son in the Navy and one in the Marine Corps, and proudly wore his uniform, the same one he used when he retired from the Aviation Supply Office, Philadelphia.

Navy Captain Joe English (Ret.), now a Lake Ganoga resident, still looked trim in the uniform he wore when he retired at the age of 63. Don King only weighs five pounds more today than he did when he left the service in 1945.

Sgt. Calvin Miller with his 13 medals and 17 ribbons looked every inch a man of the military.

Songs like America the Beautiful, America, Onward Christian Soldiers, Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow, God Bless America, and Amazing Grace came roaring out of the mouths of the audience, just as contributions collected for the Wilkes-Barre VA Medical Chapel Fund were generously provided. The contributions were so generous, in fact, that Rev. Miller had to find some unused Easter baskets to hold all the money. Sam Dressler from the edge of the recreation hall and Joe Shultz from the basement played Taps, and eyes started to tear up.

Pastor Miller folded the American flag, with help from Troop 51 and from Pastor Howard Leh who explained the significance of each fold. Virginia Thomas provided the "Recognition of Veterans in Attendance."

Few received more applause than did SFC Richard Lukashewski, a 14-year Army veteran, who attended with his family. SFC Lukashewski just returned from Iraq where he served from January, 2004, to October, 2004, with the 416th Civil Affairs Unit.

General Beck, the deputy Commanding General of the 28th Infantry Division (Mechanized), acknowledged the Chinook's landing, saying "I think we shook the whole town up!" In his address to the congregation, General Beck said that our "soldiers have given something of themselves and some have given their all."

The 28th Infantry Division is a National Guard Division trained to conduct missions in support of the federal government and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. During peacetime, division soldiers can be called by the Governor for emergency situations, such as disaster relief and assisting civil law enforcement authorities. The 28th Infantry Division is the oldest division in the armed forces of the United States, dating to March 12, 1879. General Beck pointed out that elements of the division can trace their histories back to 1747, when Benjamin Franklin organized his battalion of "Associators" in Philadelphia.

Pastor Miller, the Benton United Methodist Church and the Benton Council of Churches, all the veterans who participated, along with all the people who so ably provided the entertainment and the refreshments, are to be commended for making it a swell evening to be Back Home in Benton, PA.

We apparently won't be able to get immunized for the flu this year, so we intend to stay clear of people who have the flu and we intend to wash our hands frequently with ordinary soap. From what we read, and we are not attempting to dispense medical guidance at this point, the fancy soaps don't help all that much. Ordinary soaps won't kill the bug, but will make your hands slippery, so the virus slides off under water. Make it a habit this winter to wash your hands often and well.

Randy and Linnea Holdren are beaming just like the happy new grandparents they are. Joseph and Keri Cardone have a daughter, Isabella Renee Cardone.

On this date in...
1820, James Monroe was reelected. Our fifth President was unopposed for the Democratic-Republican party nomination and ran unopposed in the general election. Only one elector did not vote for him. The reason, according to some accounts, was so that George Washington would be the only president unanimously chosen by the electoral college.

1944, President Roosevelt won an unprecedented fourth term in office, (ten years to the day after losing to Edmund Brown for the Governorship of California) defeating Thomas E. Dewey. Roosevelt only lived long enough to serve 53 days of this fourth term. Roosevelt said when elected, "Republican leaders are not content with attacks (on me and my family); they now include my little dog, Fala. Unlike members of my family, he resents this." Vice President Harry Truman filled the remainder of the term and was elected President in 1948.

1972, Richard Nixon was re-elected for a second term in a landslide (60.7% of the vote) over Democrat George McGovern. A year later he announced he "was not a crook." His presidency ended at exactly 1:35 AM August 9, 1974, in a memorandum to the Secretary of State, in which he wrote, "I hereby resign the Office of the President of the United States."

Guv Schwarzenegger, a Republican, is married to the niece of former President John F. Kennedy. Schwarzenegger recently said the presidential debates were not a big deal in his house. When he wanted to hear a Republican-Democratic debate, he would "just take my wife out to dinner." Bush and Kerry only had to debate three times, he says, but "I have to do it every morning over breakfast."

Buster and Chloe asked that we mention some common foods that are harmful or fatal to dogs. This list is long, but includes avocadoes (fruit, pit, and plant), onions, chives and large amounts of garlic, grapes and raisins, tomatoes, nutmeg, caffeine (from coffee, coffee grounds, tea, or tea bags), diet products containing the sweetener Xylitol, macadamia nuts and walnuts, chocolate (the darker the chocolate, the more dangerous it is). Any chocolate, in large enough amounts, can kill a dog. Apple seeds, cherry pits, and peach pits, pear pits, plums pits. Peaches and apricot pits contain cyanide, which is poisonous. Too much salt can cause kidney problems and too much fat or fried foods can cause pancreatitis. Ham and bacon contain too much fat and too much salt, and can cause pancreatitis. Raw liver or too much cooked liver (three servings a week) can lead to vitamin A toxicity. This can cause deformed bones, excessive bone growth on the elbows and spine, weight loss, and anorexia. Grains should not be given in large amounts, but rice is generally safe in small amounts. Cooked bones can splinter and tear a dog's internal organs. Dogs can't digest most vegetables (carrots, green beans, lettuce, potatoes or yams) whole or in large pieces. Potato peels and green potatoes are dangerous. Dairy products are high in fat, which can cause pancreatitis, gas and diarrhea. A small amount of non-fat, plain yogurt is usually safe.
--Source: www.lacetoleather.com/fataltodogs.html , which we recommend you read in its entirety.

Around the area...
• We can't quite decide which takes the longest--finding a place to park at the new Wal-Mart SuperCenter at Buckhorn, snaking through the long checkout lines or finding the car in the huge parking lot after we have endoured the first two.
• On the way Back Home to Benton, PA, late Friday night from a "Gaithers" concert at Penn State, a number of local folks came upon a large buck between Jerseytown and Millville that had been killed by a car. The deer lay in the middle of the road, which caused some swerving of the cars, but the anxiety level went up even more when they realized that a large black bear was chowing down on the buck. The pucker factor rose once again when a short distance later an unsuspecting Amish boy in his black clothes was walking on the road toward the black bear in almost total darkness.

On this date in...
1860, Republican Abraham Lincoln, 51, defeated three other candidates for the United States presidency. He failed to win a majority of the popular vote, but carried 18 states with 180 of the total 301 electoral votes.

1888, Benjamin Harrison, a grandson of former President William Henry Harrison, won the presidential election, beating incumbent Grover Cleveland on electoral votes although Cleveland led in the popular vote.

1900, President McKinley, 57, was re-elected, beating Democrat William Jennings Bryan. New York Governor Theodore Roosevelt was Vice-President.

1928, Herbert Hoover was elected United States president, defeating New York State Governor Al Smith in a landslide. Hoover promised a "chicken in every pot and a car in every garage."

1956, President Eisenhower, 66, was re-elected, beating Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson. Richard Nixon, 43, was Vice-President.

For the casual computer user...
• Windows XP does not include scandisk and defrag functions of earlier Windows computers, but these features are available. Begin by clicking on "Start" and then on "My Computer." In the My Computer window, right click on the drive you want to run scandisk on, and click on "Properties." In the drive properties window, click on the "Tools" tab. In the "Error Checking" section, click the button that says "check now." A new window will appear with two options. One will automatically fix file system errors and the other will scan for and detect problems with the hard drive. We suggest that you select them both. Click the start button and scandisk will run. When scandisk finishes, go back and click the "Defragment Now" button to defragment your hard drive.

• Want to have a concise listing of everything available with Google?
Try www.google.com/options/ .

• A free online service known as ProcessLibrary.com gives users easy access to an extensive database of detailed process descriptions helping you to figure out what is running on your system. In the recesses of your computer, many invisible processes run silently in the background. Some hog system resources, turning your PC into a sluggish computer. Worse yet, other useless processes harbor spyware and Trojans, violating your privacy and giving hackers free reign on your computer. You can ferret out these useless processes and make your computer run safer and faster by using the free program: www.processlibrary.com/ .

Garrison Keillor's joke of the week is this: A three-legged dog walks into a saloon in the old west. He slides up to the bar and announces:
"I'm looking for the man who shot my paw." Want to listen to his annual joke show, this one from April 17, 2004? Go to http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2004/04/17/ .

Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons have produced 19 top ten hits and sold over 100 million records worldwide. Franki Valli is still making live performances after almost four decades, making him one of rock and roll's most enduring performers. He'll be at the Kirby Center February 11, 2005, at 8 PM. Tickets go on sale November 12 at the Kirby Center Box Office, 570 826-1100, Ticketmaster at 570 693-4100, Ticketmaster Outlets or on-line at www.ticketmaster.com.

We tried some fruit from a farmer's market on our recent trip to the Left Bank, and commented that the avocadoes were a little on the small side. The fruit seller replied, "Ay-up." In the car we bit into one, then walked back to the fruit seller and complained that the avocadoes had no taste. His response was brief: "Lucky they was small."

Bob Casey, Jr. won election as State Treasurer this week by getting 3,296,465 votes, 419,000 more votes than Sen. Kerry got. Figures will climb as absentee and provisional ballots are tallied, but at least 5.6 million voted in the state. Some 8.3 million Pennsylvanians were registered to vote Tuesday.

A reader disagreed with our recent use of the word "camper." We'll explain. Movable places to live or work aren't all alike. They differ in their ability to move on their own, and in size, shape, degree of comfort and purpose. Recreational vehicles, usually called RVs, are trailers, fifth wheels, campers or motor homes or some similar vehicle designed for living during casual travel or in some cases for full-time living.
• A mobile home is initially pulled to its permanent or semi-permanent location by a truck, does not have a permanent foundation, but is normally set up more or less indefinitely at one location.
• A trailer, sometimes known as a house trailer, has wheels but no engine, is closed, and is pulled by or "trails" a truck or a car. There are beds, cooking and sometimes bathroom facilities, and serves as a place of business or as a dwelling.
• A motor home is a vehicle that runs on wheels on streets and highways under its own power and has a van or truck-like chassis. It is a traveling home with self-contained electrical and plumbing, and with sleeping accommodations.
• A camper is a trailer or a motor home equipped to camp in.

"Examine what is said, not him who speaks."
- Arab proverb

If it were not for the brave, there would not be a land of the free.
--Fred Thompson

Nobody is forgotten when it is convenient to remember him.
--Cervantes

On this date in...
1872, suffragist and activist Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) was fined $100 for attempting to vote in a presidential election. First a teacher, she became active in temperance, but was not allowed to speak at temperance rallies because she was a woman. She joined the women's rights movement in 1852 and dedicated her life to woman suffrage. She lobbied for the abolition of slavery, women's rights to their own property and earnings, and women's labor organizations.

1912, Woodrow Wilson won the United States presidential election, becoming the only president to defeat two former presidents in one election. In an unusual, four-cornered contest, Democrat Wilson received 41% of the vote, Teddy Roosevelt running on the Bull Moose ticket got 27%, President Taft, the Republican candidate, got 23% and the Socialist nominee, Eugene V. Debs, got 6%.

1935, the game "Monopoly" was introduced by the Parker Brothers Company. The game for would-be wheeler-dealers sold so fast that its jobless inventor, Charles B. Darrow, Philadelphia, stopped looking for work! Other items that were big that year were canned beer and bingo cards.

1940, President Roosevelt won a third term in office, whupping Republican challenger Wendell L. Willkie and carrying 38 states and 449 electoral votes.

1968, Republican Richard M. Nixon (29,726,409 votes) won the presidency, defeating Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey (29,677,152 votes). Third-party candidate George C. Wallace (nearly 10,000,000 votes) made good on his promise to deny the office to the Democrats.

1996, Democrat Bill Clinton was re-elected United States president, defeating Republican Bob Dole.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has a $194 million budget and almost 500,000 tons of salt, and is ready for Winter. Ever wonder what it takes to be ready for winter storms in the state? Well, how 'bout 2,300 plow trucks, 520 front-end loaders and 22 snow blowers, coupled with 322 rental trucks. In addition, the department hopes to save $5.7 million over the winter by upgrading its fleet and using fewer trucks.

Many readers of the Benton News grew up in this valley that was formed by a stream of water known as Fishing Creek, a stream that flows toward the Susquehanna River as if it had a purpose in life. Although the stream sometimes flows from one side of the valley to the other, generally it sets a course and direction and heads on south. Readers know that the winters here are severe, with clouds setting in during the shortened fall days and staying with us during most of the winter and spring. This just isn't the place to construct a passive solar house, or to live if the absence of sunlight in the winter tends to leave a feeling of "cabin fever." Winters can be hard, with temperatures dropping well below zero. Snow accumulations seem to get somewhat lighter each year, but a foot of snow overnight can make life difficult for a lot of people. We don't have a library or a traffic light, or a huge industry to reduce our tax base, but we have two very modern service stations, one boarded-up grocery store within the Borough limits once known as Horace Harrison's IGA, and only within the last week did an enterprising businessman build and open a laundry mat. We have what is locally known as a Wal-Mart, Jr., not to be confused with the Wal-Mart Super Center that opened in the last couple of days less than 16 miles away. Our pace is about like it was decades ago, with conversations among the men turning to nuts and bolts things, how to get through the endless winters and a confirmation of the current outdoor temperature, some politics, where to get the best buckwheat cakes, anything about hunting and fishing, what it was like "in the old days" and church services.

Rev. Diehl was called to be the full-time pastor on August 15, after serving nearly two years as the interim pastor. He said that "we have felt as welcome here as anywhere we have ever been." Jeannette Hartman echoed those thoughts, saying, "He and Carolyn get our highest praise."

Rev. Diehl was born in the Bloomsburg Hospital but as the son of a minister he moved with his family through Western Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia during his "growing-up years." He lived in Virginia until the tenth grade of high school, then returned to Western Pennsylvania where he graduated from Emlenton High School.

Rev. Diehl traces many of his local roots to the responsibilities given to him at Diehl Fruit Stand on route 11, outside Bloomsburg, owned by his uncle, Walter. During the last two years of a Navy stint, he "felt called to the ministry."

He graduated from Trevecca Nazarene University, Nashville, a private, accredited teaching facility designed to meet the higher education needs of the Church of the Nazarene. Rev. Diehl has 16 years of experience as an ordained pastor in both city and rural locations, has acted as a Hospice Chaplain and Spiritual Counselor, and served for six years as the pastor of Hamline Church Fellowship Rev. Diehl met his wife, Carolyn, at the Diehl Camping Resort, Orangeville, a facility owned by his uncle Walter and later run by his father Harrison. Carolyn leads a popular weekly bible study at the church.

Elders John Ellis and John Sutton organized the First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Benton on December 6, 1836. The church building at Third and Church Streets has been home to the congregation since the construction of the building from 1894 to 1896. Adjacent properties were added later.

Rev. Diehl indicates that the church is moving forward and is advertising for a youth pastor on a part-time basis. The church is actively looking for a choir director. Planning is underway for major changes to the fellowship hall. Money has been raised for a handicapped bathroom on the main level. In the coming weeks, discussions will begin on a video system for the church. The church had been escrowing funds to help with the moving of a new pastor to the area. Since Rev. Diehl is a resident of the community, these funds will not be needed and instead will be used to help pay down the existing mortgage on the building.

We got caught up in the late-night election returns Tuesday night and forgot to mention yesterday that Douglas Rodney Pennington turned 11 and the guy who helped spearhead the delightful buckwheat cake and sausage supper last night at the Benton Christian Church, known by many as "Whitty Ear" Letteer and his bride of many years, Joyce, celebrated their wedding anniversary yesterday. We regret not mentioning these important dates in their lives .

On this date in...
1842, Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd in Springfield, Illinois. Mary spoke French fluently and was said to be scholarly and an excellent conversationalist. The 5'2" Mary was popular and dated people like Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, but "honest" Abe won her heart, and the two married. Her wedding ring was engraved with the words "Love is Eternal." During the next 11 years the couple had 4 children: Robert (1843-1926), Edward ("Eddie") 1846-1850, William ("Willie") 1850-1862, and Thomas ("Tad") 1853-1871. Robert was the only child of the Lincolns to live to adulthood.

1862, the first rapid-fire machine gun was patented by Richard Jordan Gatling. He studied medicine and dentistry but never practiced. Gatling took out the patent for a mechanical gun that consisted of six barrels mounted in a revolving frame. A later version with ten barrels, fired 320 rounds a minute. The United States Army purchased these guns in 1865 and over the next few years most major armies in Europe purchased the gun. He continued to improve the Gatling Gun and by 1882 it could fire up to 1,200 rounds per minute.

1884, Democrat Grover Cleveland was elected to his first term as president, defeating Republican James G. Blaine. In 1952, Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president of the United States. In 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected president of the United States.

Monday night's regular Borough Council meeting concluded by 8:55 PM, a record. The new secretary, Dolores "Dee" Huda, was introduced. Surveyor Frank Beishline advised Council about how to proceed to make a site selection for the new borough building on airport property. Frank agreed to meet with a building committee on airport grounds to assist in making the site selection. The airport parcel was surveyed in 1977. Michael Klem chairs the building committee which includes Nancy Laubach and John Jankowski as members.

Volunteers will hold a Benton Town Park cleanup Saturday. Volunteers are needed.

In the state yesterday, the average regular unleaded gas price was $1.951, unchanged from a month ago. A year ago, however, the average regular unleaded gas price in the state was $1.47. The lowest price in the state yesterday was at B.J.'s Wholesale Club, Reading, $1.85. A Mobile station in Downingtown was the highest in the state, at $2.14, although not far behind was the Danville Texaco welcoming visitors to this part of the state at I-80/Exit 224 & PA 54 with $2.09 hanging from the pumps. The prices in Benton yesterday were $1.929 and $1.949.
--Information from http://www.pennsylvaniagasprices.com/ .

While we were gone, a lot of "Phishy" things were going on. Unidentified con artists are sending out emails to consumers in an effort to obtain personal financial information. The consequences of giving up that information to the scammers can result in identity theft or the loss of money from bank account. Emails are sent using sophisticated graphics and images associated with Citibank, Wells Fargo, Paypal, Ebay and others. The emails always appear to be official and always provide a link to a website where they ask you to confirm your personal information, such as PIN numbers, for some made-up reason. We even got one from the American League of Women Voters asking us to confirm our Social Security number. We usually tell the phone callers "just a second," then put them on hold and go about our business. We have found this action makes them very nervous. Please be very careful if anyone via email asks you for a Social Security number, an account number or a PIN number. What to do? Head on over the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office at http://www.attorneygeneral.gov/ppd/bcp/EmailScam.cfm .

We were asked last evening what about our trip to the Left Bank we most enjoyed. Our response, not in a prioritized order...
• Coming home.
• The city of Santa Cruz on California's Central Coast, the city with a 1920s wooden roller coaster by the Pacific Ocean, train rides through the giant redwoods, a wonderfully renovated downtown, a huge fall and winter monarch butterfly population, the Santa Cruz wharf, West Cliff Drive, museums and much more.
• Highway 1 north of Santa Cruz, through a whale of a town known as Davenport, population 292, and north through Half Moon Bay. Former Benton resident Frances Vincent wrote telling us about Half Moon Bay, near the intersection of route 1 and route 92, where we loved our pumpkin pie smoothie and our views of migrating whales.
• The Taco Trucks in San Francisco, whimsically painted eateries with no printed menus, just a list of available fillings. This is the real deal, just like in Mexico. The soft, fresh corn tortillas come covered with a spoonful of seasoned meat, a sprinkling of cilantro, chopped onions and salsa and are garnished with jalapeno and wedges of lime. They cost $1.50 and they are all cooked by the senoritas who drive the vehicle. There are folding chairs if you want to sit, but be careful many of the ladies do not exactly speak English so if you order sesos (brains) instead of seis (six) tacos you might end up losing your appetite.
• The many people who wrote suggesting places to visit, including Susan Messersmith, who grew up in Bloomsburg and still has family there, and has lived in Oregon for 34 years. Her suggestion? Keep on truckin' to the Oregon coast!

The new Harrisburg International Airport is configured with a Y-shaped terminal building to provide a quick, easy access to all ticket counters, baggage claim areas, and all 12 departure gates. The security checkpoint, located at the center of the building, can double in size to accommodate increases in traffic. The longest walk to a departing gate is just around 490 feet. There is a Perfectly Pennsylvania Gift Shop that features Pennsylvania-made products. Anyone with an Ethernet card in their laptop will find free wireless internet access throughout the entire terminal building. An observation area on the third floor overlooks all of the A Concourse gates, half of the B Concourse gates, much of the aircraft apron, and nearly the entire 10,001-foot length of the runway. This observation area is located pre-security, allowing the general public to watch planes arrive and depart. Pennsylvania can be very proud of their new terminal, although we will admit that when we got off the plane the runway to the terminal would not line up with the plane and a slight jump was needed to get from the plane into the terminal.

Beginner adult computer classes start November 8 at the L. R. Appleman Elementary School in Benton's Technology Lab. The fee is $20. The classes cover basic computing skills and Microsoft Word. Seating is limited to the first 20 participants. If you are interested, drop off a check as soon as possible to the elementary school office. Make the check out to the Benton Area School District. The session dates are November 8, 10, 15, 17, 22 and December 1, 2004. Classes begin promptly at 3:30 PM and end at 4:30. The instructors are Kathryn Chaudry and Cherie Roberts. Last year this class sold out in two days. If you have someone in your life who needs to get computer basics, this is your chance to get them started. The project started last year when Cherie, then a graduate student at Marywood University, was asked to participate in some community service projects. Cherie, with 15 years teaching experience, teamed with Kristina Wood, a first-year teacher in the Benton Area School System to produce the class.

November 3, 2004. Happy birthday today to Dan McHenry.

There is much to report in the world of elections, from the national level to the state level. Republican Rep. David Millard beat Democratic challenger Paul Reichart, State Rep. George Hasay beat Democratic challenger Nate Sorber in Benton Borough and Benton Township, State Sen. John Gordner easily won and Arlen Specter beat Joe Hoeffel to win his fifth term in the U.S. Senate. The Paternos had another defeat, this at the hands of Rep. Tim Holden over Republican Scott Paterno. Bob Casey, Jr., a Democrat and currently the state Auditor General, swept to victoryas State Treasurer. Voters in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah all approved anti-same-sex marriage amendments by approving state constitutional amendments defining "marriage" as between a woman and a man.

John Kerry won Pennsylvania by a margin of about 125,000--or 51 to 49% --less than the votes given Al Gore four years ago. The national vote was approximately 51% for President Bush and 48% for Sen. Kerry, who phoned President Bush Wednesday morning to concede the presidential election. The incumbent has won again!

On this date in...
1507, Leonardo DaVinci was commissioned to paint the portrait we know as the Mona Lisa.

1868, Republican Ulysses S. Grant defeated Democrat Horatio Seymour. In 1896, Republican William McKinley defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan for the presidency. In 1908, Republican William Howard Taft was elected president, outpolling William Jennings Bryan. In 1936, President Roosevelt was re-elected in a landslide over Republican challenger Alfred M. "Alf" Landon. In 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson was elected United States president by a huge margin over Barry Goldwater. In 1992, Bill Clinton was elected as the 42nd president of the United States, defeating President Bush.

1892, in Laporte, Indiana, the first automatic telephone system to be successful was introduced. It was invented by Almond Strowger, who came up with the idea because non-automatic systems allowed his competitor to intercept his customers calls. Strowger's job? He ran a funeral parlor.

1952, for the first time, frozen bread was sold. The bread could be found at a supermarket in Chester, New York. It was an invention of a local baker using the quick-freeze technology Clarence Birdseye of frozen food developed.

1957, a mongrel dog named Laika became the first animal to be launched into space. Laika, projected inside the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2, died after a few days in orbit because the craft was not designed for recovery and the batteries of her life-support system eventually went down.

Helen Smith Gammon reminded us that people "got just as excited about elections back in 1852 as we do today." Helen pulled out a letter her great-grandmother had written about the November 1852 election from her deep treasure of historical research she has completed about the upper Fishing Creek Valley. Ann Peterman, widow of James Peterman, wrote this in a letter postmarked from Marshall, Michigan, dated October 31, 1852, to her stepson, William Bartleson Peterman living in Sugarloaf Township. William was Betty Victory's great-grandfather and were among the early Fishing Creek Pioneers. The letter reads...
"Tomorrow evening will end all suspension on our election. Tomorrow will be a busy day as both parties will have out all the teams they can get to haul old men and invalids to the polls. They have had busy times here for two months. They have meetings on both sides every evening to install their own party and blacken the others. Gen Cass, Gov. McClellan, Ex. Gov. Fetch and 50 0thers have been speechifying in favor of Pierce and King. While all the Big Whigs in the state and more too goes in for Srat and Graham. They will have out the Brass Band, drums and fifers and everything to make noise. "

On Thursday morning of that week she wrote, "I have let this lay to tell you how the election has gone. Our town and the most of the county has a Democrat majority. Both parties sat up all night to receive the telegram dispatches. They got the news from Boston, New York and all the places along the line by nine in the evening. The Democrats staid at the Marshall House and the Whigs at the Court House and when the dispatch arrived, which party had gained fired cannon and hurrah, so there was no sleep that night again. At 6 in the morning they had heard from all the Old States and Pierce and King is elected."

The three-day bear season opens Monday, November 22. Pennsylvania's four largest black bear harvests have occurred over the last four years and this year should be an excellent hunting season. Bear are often seen in our area.

We continue to have problems operating from the road and so we will have an abbreviated Benton News for today.

On this date in...
1920, radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh began broadcasting weekly, the first station in the world to be licensed as a fully commercial radio station, broadcasting regularly to the public. Westinghouse replaced the 100-watt transmitter with a 500-watt transmitter shortly after going on the air and in those days of uncluttered airways, weather permitting, the signal of the Pittsburgh station could be picked up Back Home in Benton, PA, or out on the prairie of the mid-West. It took until early in 1922 before other new stations would seek and receive licenses.

1931, the DuPont Company announced the first synthetic rubber, which the company called "DuPrene." Neoprene was the first major product to emerge from DuPont's fundamental research program. In the mid-1920s, high natural rubber prices set off a search for an effective synthetic, and in April 1930 a DuPont chemist produced a rubber-like substance during a polymerization experiment.

1948, President Harry Truman (1884-1972) won re-election by a narrow margin in an upset over Republican challenger Thomas E. Dewey. Truman was a prosperous Missouri farmer for 12 years, was a Captain in the Field Artillery in France during World War I, and ran a haberdashery in Kansas City. Truman was elected a judge of the Jackson County Court in 1922 and became a Senator in 1934. During World War II he headed the Senate war investigating committee, checking into waste and corruption. As President, Truman ordered atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japanese surrender quickly followed. In June 1945 Truman witnessed the signing of the charter of the United Nations. He spearheaded the expansion of Social Security, a full-employment program, and a permanent Fair Employment Practices Act. Truman retired to Independence; at age 88, and died in 1972.

Thanksgiving is stuck right before Christmas and right after Halloween and the election. We will be ever so happy to concentrate on Thanksgiving rather than the election. The election will be over very soon, but today will be hectic and tonight on television will be a zoo. We remember that our parents would collect some of their favorite people on election day and we can remember them talking about the Dewey/Truman election. After voting, the women would all collect some of their favorite casseroles and the men would collect some clear beverages with names like "O.B. Special" and head into the mountains with their radios. They would head up Grassy Hollow road and out of the view of the rest of the world. They all headed for Painter Den, up in Sullivan County, and there in the flickering light provided by carbide lamps would listen intently to the radio and the results of the election. The broadcast on election night began at 8 PM Eastern Standard Time and ran until after midnight. Various announcers would read the bulletins as they came in. The evening was always a smashing success, even if the election came out differently from what was wanted.

President Woodrow Wilson's second wife, Edith Galt, supposedly once said, "When Woodrow proposed to me, I was so surprised that I nearly fell out of bed." By the time of the proposal, she had come a long ways! Up to the age of 12 she never left the town; at 15 she went to Martha Washington College to study music, with a second year in Richmond. Mrs. Galt met the bereaved President Wilson while he was still mourning for his first wife. A man who depended on feminine companionship, the lonely Wilson liked Mrs. Galt immediately. She was charming, intelligent, pretty and didn't fall out of bed easily. Admiration changed swiftly to love. They were married privately at the end of 1915 at her home. Mrs. Wilson, known as "first woman to run the government," lived to ride in President Kennedy's inaugural parade. She died in 1961 on December 28, the anniversary of her husband's birth.

The Benton Girls' Field Hockey Team will be hosting a Longaberger Basket Bingo fund-raiser at the Benton Fire Hall on Sunday, November 21. Doors open at 12 PM, Bingo starts at 1:30. Along with the bingo games, there will be door prizes, raffles, 50/50 and food. Please see a team member for tickets or call 683-5820 for more info.

Saturday night at the Central Columbia High School auditorium will be the Columbia/Montour Chapter's annual barbershop harmony show. Be advised that the show begins at one minute of 8! A comedy quartet from Lancaster, known as Razzmatazz, will be the featured quartet. The Bloomsburg Middle School Select Chorus, directed by Holly Lapinski, will be featured. The Susquehanna Valley Chorus, under the direction of Dale E. Thomas, and New Found Sound, a quartet featuring singers from the local chapter and Lewisburg, will be featured. A number of Benton-area residents are members of the barbershop group, although the group will just never quite be the same without Greg Notestein who passed away earlier this year. Tickets are available from Columbia/Montour Chapter members, by calling 925-6894, or at the door the evening of the performance.

On this date in...
1512, Michelangelo Buonarroti's paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican were revealed to the public for the first time. Michelangelo painted the frescoes while lying on his back on a scaffolding. Michelangelo decorated the ceiling of the chapel based on the Old Testament, including the famous center section, "The Creation of Adam." The painting took four years.

1870, the United States Weather Bureau made its first observations on the weather. Until then, observations were the responsibility of the Signal Corps of the United States War Department. The earliest weather diaries in this county were kept by the Chaplain of the Swedish colonization force in what is now Wilmington. Weather diaries were the primary source of weather information in our country through the War of 1812 and were kept by well-known Americans, including Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

1947, Man o' War died. Over 2,500 people went to his funeral. He was a big horse of great power. His chestnut coat and imposing presence earned him the nickname "Big Red." He sold at Saratoga's yearling sale in August 1918 for $5000. Man o'War debuted at Belmont Park against six other contenders and won by 6 lengths. Man o'War died quietly at the age of 30. He was embalmed and lay in state for three days while his final resting place was prepared in a portion of his old paddock. He was lowered into a moated enclosure, beneath a green marble. Man o'War was eventually moved to the Kentucky Horse Park.

1973, following the Saturday Night Massacre, Acting Attorney General Robert H. Bork appointed Leon Jaworski (1905-1982) to be the new Watergate special prosecutor, succeeding Archibald Cox. Jaworski demanded unedited tapes from Richard Nixon, who turned over the tapes under pressure from the Supreme Court and was forced to resign in August 1974. A child of Polish and Austrian immigrants, Jaworski became the youngest person ever admitted to the Texas bar (1925).

How 'bout those undefeated Philadelphia Eagles taking the Baltimore Ravens yesterday and the Pittsburgh Steelers whupping the New England Patriots and ending the NFL's longest win streak...

We don't have the time to dig up any news from back home in Benton, PA, this morning, so we'll recycle an article Buster wrote a year ago after we arrived home from a trip. Buster wrote, "It hasn't been easy, having Leader and Mother home again. We certainly are happy that they are back, but they seem tired out from their trip and, frankly, just a little on the grouchy side. Take yesterday, for example. Leader snuck in two naps, when he could have been out walking She and I, although our last walk together just didn't work out too good. I was on my leash and She was with Mother, walking home from the post office. I admit that I saw both a garbage can and a light pole by the sidewalk that I needed to sprinkle and I did dawdle a little more than Leader tolerates. Mother said that Leader "barked" that for God's sake I should walk on my side of the sidewalk, although really I didn't hear him "bark" anything. The problem came about when a lady thought that Leader was talking to her and she turned a funny color. Anyway, the point is that Leader has been rude to us since he came home. He tells She and I to "sit" just before we cross a street and to "lie" and to "stop whining" and that I am "stupid" about traffic and he even told me the other night that I didn't have to go out when really I did have to go out. He'll believe me in the future, I am sure of that!"
--Buster, a Bichon Frize, a staff reporter for the Benton News. From the November 1, 2003, edition of the Benton News.