Showing posts with label picnic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label picnic. Show all posts

Friday, February 22, 2008

A Use for Grasshoppers

Editorial observations, 1910

A Colorado farmer has gathered 125 bushels of grasshoppers, which he intends to dry, so that they may be used for chicken feed next winter. Since a use has been found for grasshoppers we may expect future crops of them to be failures.

A new comet has been discovered. There ought to be a stop put to this. If the former one brought about all the trouble which has been going on the earth since, we can spare any more of these heavenly mischief makers for some time to come. And those who are looking for trouble and read their answer in the stars should be legally enjoined, at least until the world has had time to catch its breath.

Look over your small change carefully; there are several counterfeit five-dollar bills in circulation.

Owing to the fact that their wives are away for the summer a good many men are almost forgetting how to button waists up the back.

Cincinnati surgeons are to amputate a citizen's six-inch nose. To use a Pittsburgh word, the gentleman really is "nobby."

No picnic can claim to have been destroyed by rainy weather this season.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Harry Potter Leaves Picnic, Attempts Suicide

Pennsylvania, 1935

Harry Potter, Well-Known Karthaus Man, Said To Have Shot Self Twice

Suffering from what was reported to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound below the heart, Harry Potter, aged about 28, son of the late Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Potter of Karthaus, is a patient today in the Philipsburg State Hospital in a serious condition. Reports from that institution early this afternoon stated his condition was "very grave."

The tragic affair, which has been a distinct shock to the little community where the Potter family has held the esteem and respect of their fellow townsmen for many years, occurred at the home of George Potter, older brother of the victim, where the latter was staying, sometime early last evening.

According to reports received here, Harry Potter attended the Frenchville picnic during the afternoon and in company with some friends went to his home at Karthaus late in the afternoon. His brother and family was away when Harry arrived home and the first knowledge of the tragedy was when a neighbor boy, Abner Rolley, heard two shots. He rushed into the Potter home and found Harry unconscious with a bullet wound below the heart, apparently self-inflicted by a .38-calibre revolver which was nearby. The Rolley boy also found the Potter dog shot to death and from the mute evidence found in the house it was assumed the young man shot his dog before turning the gun on himself.

What may have prompted the young man to make an attempt on his own life is a mystery to the people of the community in which he lived and where he was known so well. He is single and has never been known to have any serious home worries. Also, reports from Karthaus today stated the young man had never shown a despondent disposition and his friends are at a loss to understand his untimely act.

—The Clearfield Progress, Clearfield, PA, Aug. 23, 1935, p. 1.

Monday, April 30, 2007

It's Time To Go Out On A Picnic

1919

Want to Have a Regular Picnic?
(By Ruth Baird.)

Do you know what fun it is to go picnicking? Take your family out to the woods the first pleasant evening and becoming acquainted with our glorious out-of-doors. They will tell you it is great fun and you, yourself, forgetting the hot routine task of preparing supper and washing dishes, will decide that after all, summer is a time to enjoy yourself.

There are picnics — and picnics, of course. You could spend all day preparing the lunch and then at the picnic small Billy might say, "My lemonade is warm and the creamed potatoes are going through my paper plate. What shall I do?"

Or tragedy of tragedies, your husband might confess that he was too rheumatic to sit on grassy hummocks or picturesque rocks.

Simple Dishes, But Mighty Good.

A little forethought, however, will guard against such possible objections. A menu like this would not require a day for its preparation and brings no problem of creamed sauce on paper plates.

Meat Loaf, Potato Chips, Pickles, Vegetable Salad, Bread and Butter Sandwiches, Fruit Cookies, Lemonade.

If you desire a simpler supper, sandwiches, cookies, and fruit, with perhaps hard boiled or stuffed eggs, are always good.

An elaborate equipment is not necessary but if picnics become a family habit, one of the many kinds of convenient picnic outfits on the market would add much to the joys of picnicking. All that would be necessary for our picnic could be found about the house; a basket or carton, cups, paper plates and napkins, a little silver as possible, paraffin paper for wrapping the sandwiches and cookies, a carrier for the lemonade or coffee, and a tablecloth or some clean fresh wrapping paper to use in its place. A thermos bottle is excellent for carrying the drink, be it hot or cold, but it is not essential. Lemonade can be chilled by ice carried from home or it may be made fresh at the picnic if pure spring water is close at hand.

Cool Weather Even Better.

If the weather should turn cool and we should decide to change our menu to include eggs or a meat to be cooked over the fire, and coffee, one of the chief charms would be the coffee brewing over a camp fire in your "second best" coffee pot or kettle.