4-6-1961
"Yes?" Nancy looked startled. Her eyes left the road for a brief apprehensive glance in my direction, as if she already knew what I was going to say.
"It's still at home in the dryer." I nodded sadly.
The frustrating thing about it was that if it had not been for that blanket, we would have started for Yankton at least an hour earlier Sunday afternoon.
Or why I didn't even remember it until we were on our way home.
One of life's mysteries!
"Well," Becky announced briskly from the back seat, "we ought to have some fun to remember on this trip. Let's stay in a hotel all night."
It took us some little time to realize that she was completely and totally serious, and then a longer time to convince her that we couldn't possibly stay in a hotel overnight, or even in a motel.
She stubbornly resisted all our arguments. That we didn't have enough money with us; that we could be home in less than three hours; that I had to go to work in the morning or that it would be just plain silly, for heaven's sake!
She really had more in the back seat than I had bargained for - especially the radishes and the jar of milk. When she started loading up for the trip I had paid no attention. And maybe I should have. She ate and drank all the way to Yankton - a sandwich, 2 oranges, an apple, radishes, potato chips, milk, water and her big chocolate Easter egg. And two dolls and paper dolls to play with. She was sad though because she had forgotten a pillow.
She still had time to view the passing scene, the highlight of which turned out to be a church almost surrounded by a cemetery.
"Look," she shouted, "what a neat idea! A church with its own cemetery! Why don't we do that?"
"You sure bring out the worst in the weather," I told Nancy, "whenever you get in the car to go anywhere."
"It did pretty well today," she admitted, "especially since it had to work fast because it thought all along that I was going tomorrow."
I looked at her also hatless head and answered just as politely, "I think yours is pretty, too. We must have bought them at the same shop!
"Now this," he said happily, "is what I call a Good Friday."
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4-13-1961
In our neighborhood, the youngsters are dividing their time between playing baseball in our back yard and basketball in Dalton's driveway.
When I watch them pitching and batting and running bases in snow flurries, as they did Saturday, I know they are all right. They know for certain it is baseball season, and that they are supposed to play baseball no matter what the weather does.
This is the same principle they use when they don helmets and shoulder pads in August heat for football maneuvers in the back yard.
This we expect.
But this basketball craze worries me.
Some things are a snare and a delusion.
What is there to know about a library? If you want a book, you walk into the library, you pick out a book you think you'd like to read, you give it to the librarian who checks it out, and you take it home. Even a child can do it.
But Marian seems to think there are many more exciting possibilities in using the library, so she consented to prove her point at the open house. You will want to hear her informal discussion so plan to be there Friday afternoon, April 21.
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4-20-1961
I just hoped he wouldn't do it while the children have guests. Because that might be embarrassing - not to my husband, but to the guests.
He also has to blow a bugle.
My husband had never played a bugle, so he brought one home Friday night. That fearful noise the neighbors may have heard blasting from our house at intervals over the weekend was that bugle.
It was Dale showing his father how, and it was his father practicing.
The awful thing about learning to make a noise on the bugle is that for two or three powerful attempts, accompanied by bulging of cheeks and eyes and a firm stance on two feet - nothing happens. And then when we least expect it, a blast erupts from the horn that startles, not only the unfortunate listeners within range but the player.
"She will probably make something of herself someday," I murmured as I watched her Sunday evening during the Dinah Shore show.
Martha snorted as she tried to see TV around Becky's convolutions.
"She already is something!" said Martha.
"But where are the levers to make the notes?" I asked in deep mystification.
"There aren't any," he said, and blew a call.
"Then how do you make the notes?"
"It's the way you hold your lips and blow," he said.
"How come you know how?" I asked with respect.
He thought this over. He guessed just from experience on the baritone and bass horns.
"Play scales," I said.
"Can't": he said, "The notes aren't all there."
"Aren't all where?" I asked.
But he ignored me.
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4-27-1961
The children all ran wild with the spring Saturday, and the momentum carried them over into Sunday afternoon and evening in spite of the gloomy skies. Baseball was the thing in our back yard; and sunburn on Saturday, and falling flat on faces in the slippery grass on Sunday were only minor distractions.
It was not so many years ago that I never put my whole weight down in a chair, or went about my duties more than five minutes at a time without checking to see where the youngsters were.
And many a heart stopping moment there is for a mother chasing after a child who has casually stepped off the curb in search of greener pastures on the other side of the street!
There is no peace for mothers or older brothers and sisters with a little one darting about in the spring.
Then one Sunday before Easter, the little folks came hurrying home from Sunday school with some startling and tragic news.
"You know what?" they told their mother, "Jesus died on the crossing and we're going to be careful on that crossing after this!"
And they were!
During the year, at Invitational tournaments teams are entered as 'A' and 'B' teams according to experience and ability. So all year, Merle Ricklefs, Richard Howie, Ruth Van Roekel and Faye Carter have been the 'A' team because they are Manson's top debaters in years of debating and in skill in meeting opponents.
The other debaters are less experienced and have been acquiring experience and debating skills in the 'B' division but did not go to Iowa City.
Our 'A' team went to Iowa City to debate against all the other 'A' teams and won in their classification of small high schools.
Still confused???
Some people will do anything to advertise, but is this the kind the Juniors and Seniors want?