25 Years Ago - 1984

The Staples Jaycees announced this week the

selection of Dallas Sams as their local Outstanding Young Farmer award winner.

T

he Woodland Container

Corps has had three men working full time on renovating the abandoned plant since last August. General manager Dick Jordan said he hoped the old box factory will be re-opened in a week or two.

The Staples Theatre has announced its schedule for free shows for the children in December. They

will show "For The Love

of Benji" on December 8, "The Christmas That Almost

Wasn't" on Dec. 15 and on Dec. 22 they will show "Kartoon Karnival."

"Happy Birthday to a Special Lady, Pearl (Miller)."

Excerpt from Looking Back (1934): "The Gamble Store Agency which has been under the management of Phillip Anderson since it was opened a year ago has changed hands this week, the business having been sold to Herbert Schmuck of Osage, Iowa."

50 Years Ago - 1959

Lyle Stevens, son of Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Stevens, became the first player in the history of Staples High School to be named to the Minnesota All-State Football Team. The mythical team, consisting of 22 outstanding players from throughout the entire state, included Stevens on the defensive team in the middle guard position.

In connection with the new building and remodeling at the Staples Municipal Hospital, the Northwestern Bell Telephone Company is presently installing dial PBX (public branch exchange) telephones throughout the entire building. Doing the installation of the 13 telephone systems are Vic Fergerson of Brainerd and Jerry O'Keefe of Staples.

For the fourth consecutive year, Santa Claus will make his annual appearance at William's Floral and Nursery in connection with their pre-Christmas open house on December 6.

This week the Staples Theatre will be featuring Rock Hudson and Doris Day in that most hilarious comedy romance "Pillow Talk."

REMINISCENCES: It is peculiar that on almost any given Tuesday after doing my Looking Back column, I end up ignoring my list of possibly 50 or more subjects (it just keeps on growing) that I would like to reminisce about. So it is today. I was going to write about my wonderful memories of Christmas time at Lincoln school. Instead I have veered off onto the subject of "Duck and Cover." With Dec. 7 looming, the 68th anniversary of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, a recall of the mood of the times seems appropriate. In the '50's the threat of communist nations having the atomic bomb and the need to provide a solution for what to do to protect ourselves from fallout became a big deal. Not that it wasn't important - just that it is reminiscent of the plastic and duct tape solution for the more recent terrorist attacks.

Looking back with the benefit of hindsight I'm wondering how people of at least average intelligence could possibly think that the little wooden desk top with the ink well in it could possibly protect us from anything. Perhaps the purpose was to keep our hands busy doing something since no real solution was possible, similar to the duct tape and plastic solution.

Under President Eisenhower, the 7th of December became Civil Defense Day, a day in which the American people should make a plan to be safe, or take an inventory of how well they had planned to meet an atomic attack. Many programs were set up promising to prepare you for the eventual attack. One of the programs was to set up warning signals (including the ones still seen on TV today with that old familiar dire sounding blare that goes on for an entire minute and is followed by the announcement, "This has been a test of the emergency preparedness warning system…"). Another

program was to teach the

public how to use Conelrad - 640 or 1240 on your radio

dial - to obtain official directions and instructions. Books were available at your own expense for First Aid (what can you do about radiation exposure ?) and how to protect you and your family from radioactive fallout. In addition and this was certainly considered the most important, for as little as $150 you could obtain building plans for a doit yourself concrete block home fallout shelter and build it.

I have often thought that the children who lived through the fear and trauma of Pearl Harbor, WW II, Korea, the "Communist Threat" and Viet Nam, etc., were a more sober generation, that they seemed to be more aware of the baffle of just being. These children were raised with fear. It didn't stop for years. In 1965, shortly after high school graduation I worked for the Federal government with a job title of Census Enumerator. My job was to go to every residence in assigned townships within Todd County and check to see how many fallout shelters there were, measure basement windows and question the residents on preparedness. Although I was born in 1947, six years after Pearl Harbor, I spent my entire life until graduation with the fear of radiation and communist threat until the day I realized it was all for naught and came to grips with reality. It wasn't until then that I realized fallout shelters need a ventilation system to the outside so people in them have air and in an attack, the radiation would be in the air.

To those few of you who survived Pearl Harbor I thank you for your contributions and hope and pray that you can someday forget the horrors you saw that day. God, please bless America.