Soda Crackers & Firetlies are ripe in the Land of Mears

Still living on the farm where he was born , H. F. W. Meyer looks back over the changes made by the years and remembers the Golden landscape before there was any Silver Lake hereabouts , when people still called it Au Sable Lake . His father came there in the sixties , car- ried flour on his back from Pentwater and worked in the Dutch Boys ' mill up the Areklet shore . It must have been three miles that young William walked to school , way up past Al Urtel's on the Morris Lake road . I think it was a log school at the curve where Mrs. Jennie Wil- Ison rang the bell . L. P. Hyde , the shoe man , was a teacher . He used to take off his slipper for educational purposes . His sole yearned for the tender children . Hiram Wilson , Alice Carpenter , Maggie Lewis and the Farnsworth girls , Fannie and Addie , were other teachers that came along . In the winter he played fox and geese on the wagon wheel paths in the snow ; sometimes pussy wants a corner , London Bridge and goal . Clara and George DeKay went there , Gertrude Wilson , and the Baragar boys , Charles and James , Frank and Ichabod . And that is where Sib Davis learned his numbers . Stebbins sawmill was up the road a spell by Happy Hollow and there was a little store , but children those days didn't have many pennies to go after gum qr candy . I don't know if gum had been invented then . In pioneer days the Meyer family got their mail at Golden post office down by Campbell's bridge . Postmaster Hank Howarth tied up the letters and sent them away in a bag with a mes- senger on horseback who yelled whoa when he got to Blackberry Ridge . Yes , H. F. W. can remember August Schiller , who had a farm on the west side of Silver Lake in the lap of the advancing sand . The Schillers had three children , August , Charlie and Emma , who lived there maybe four or five years before they moved away to keep from being covered . Afterwards they built the old Lurvey house on the lilac bush corner . Emma never went to school in these parts . H. F. W. can remember the coming of the railroad and how his parents bought him a ticket so he could ride to Pentwater and know what a train was like . He walked up to Mears to the station , about four miles and a half . Arriving in Pent- water he was over on the depot side during his whole visit , not once going over town , as the train would come back in about an hour . There

eral years withou

glistening golden trumpet . - Floyd Krauter's family sojourned as week- enders to Goshen to see his wife's brother , Mr. Gonderman , who was home on a military furlough from Oklahoma to taste the home dough- nuts . - Goldie Simpson loves the Lake Michigan breeze that sifts through Mrs. Ralph Stringer's screened porch . Frances Stringer is mar- ried . Her husband has been in the coast guard a year and a half . - The Sanitary Meat Market in Shelby , owned by Brimmer & Blackmer , has a fine cold storage insulation for their line of fresh quality meats . They also sell canned goods , cookies and cheese at their cool sanitary market on the east side of Shelby's main street , adv . - If Amil Sundell hadn't fallen off the wagon in the field he might be living yet . Born in Sweden 75 years ago , he came to Stony Lake when he was 2½ years old . His father was the blacksmith there and he went to school in the old school- house which is now the Russell cottage . When he was ten years old he moved to Bradyville and there he spent his life . He was a member and deacon of the Trinity Lutheran church and there he was buried under the shadow of the spire on the hill . His memory will long be loved.- WINDMILL for sale ; also Bissell carpet sweeper . Mrs. Jungman , Rt . 3. Hart . Second house south of Highland's corners .

Mary Forbear was back at Silver Lake park camping . Also Bertha and her little girl . Bill Forbear won a prize at a big pancake eating con- test . - The soil committeemen , who would rather do anything than farm , are at it again . The matter will come up at an election on August 25 . Twelve polling places will be set up and the voting will be done from 7 to 11 p . m . All people in the county who own land outside of the in- corporated villages are eligible to vote . For instance , you might live right in Hart , Shelby , Pentwater , Walkerville or Hesperia and Own land out in the country . Then you can vote anyway . Every lotowner in Mears , New Era , Ferry , Crystal Valley or Rothbury can vote anyway as this setup will include them . Every liberty - loving citizen in Oceana who has the power to vote should turn out and swamp this proposition . Who are the gang that are trying to put it across ? The cheap - skate committeemen , three in each township , who would rather trot around with a wheelbarrow wheel for five dollars a day telling the other fellow how to farm while their own farms grow up to weeds . In general they are failures as farmers themselves , and can't make a living on their own farms because they are too lazy to work the business end of a hoe . So they want to dress up and go around and tell the other fellow how to farm and earn five dollars a day and mileage adoing it . They are para- sites on our civilization . They are not the kind that want to save the country money or the taxpayers money . They are sticking their hands out for easy money and they don't care a hoorah if the national debt mounts into billions of dollars and your children's children are kept in bondage from generation to generation paying for the spending folly of this foolish extravagance . Think of it , in this current year when the nation is at war , when the good people of America are asked to spend every dime they can spare for war stamps and bonds , think of it in an hour like this and consider this lazy , grafting bunch of parasites who are too lazy to farm and who want to establish in this county a soil district setup that would cost the federal government thousands of dol- lars a year for this county alone , in addition to all the private expense you would have to pay out on your farm obeying the mandates of these agricultural parasites . And if you don't obey each and every land - us regulation you can be thrown into jail and fined $ 250 besides . Your very farm may be taken from you because the grafters may run up such a bill of expense against you that you cannot pay your taxes , I tell you , good citizens of Oceana county , to be on guard . Be ready for these

for a prominent insurance man from

the

smooth - talking pussy - footers when they come around to try to convert you to this proposed system of bondage . Men , today you have liberty to farm as you please , to till the fields that are your own , which your fathers wrested from the pine stumps and plowed with the oxen or which you yourselves have moulded into shape with years of patient labor . You can plant trees at will or cut them down to be made into lumber at the mills , you can lay tile when you please and crop accord- ing to your best judgment . But eternal vigilance is the price of liberty . And now in this momentous hour you must be vigilant at this election or you may find yourselves in bondage , you may find an swinging over your farm telling you what you can plant and what you iron club dare not plant , and telling you where you can plow and where you dare not plow , and threatening you with prison if you cut down your upland trees and take them to the mill . And what will you get out of it then ? A lot of headaches ; and the pussy - foot parasites a lot of graft . I tell you , my friends , you must be vigilant in this hour . You must be on the alert for the parasites , the wolves in sheep's clothing who will come to visit you . The men who are fighting against this thing are the real patriots , the men who want to save this country a lot of money and safeguard your liberties . These patriots have the spirit of Lexington and Concord town . I wish I had a horse like Paul Revere and could ride with lightning speed to every crossroad in Oceana to sound the alarm . The pussy - footers will be around you to whisper in your ear . They are looking for more easy committee work . And they don't care a whoop if their own farms are growing up to weeds or if the national debt needlessly swells into the billions as long as they can get the easy graft and stand on the street corner eating ice cream cones while the filth piles up in their stables and the milkweeds go to seed on the idle twenty . It is your duty to warn your neighbor that you may together go to the polls on the 25th of August to fight for his liberty and your own . If we have problems in our farming operations , what's the matter with Lyle Tompkins , our county agent , that he cannot give us advice to help us solve them ? He's paid for doing that . And if he wants to hold down the national debt and save thousands and thousands of dollars in this county alone he would not be out using his time and mileage run- ning around agitating for this unnecessary soil conservation district business and running up needless expense in this crucial , quivering hour when America watches the skies , the sea , the land in the breathless vigilance that means failure or victory ! Let us go ahead with our agri- culture as we are , with simple expense - cutting wartime horse sense , and if Lyle Tompkins , with all his college training , with all his free privi- leges of consultation with East Lansing professors , cannot answer our simple agricultural problems , then it is time we all went back to farm- ing with the good old fashioned horse sense and elbow grease that help- ed our fathers and grandfathers keep the farms of Oceana county flourishing before these days of wheel - pushers , snoopers and folderol . The Hanson - Osborn real estate folks at Hart are shaking the farm dirt from their shoes these days as they travel over farms and lake shore properties from morning ' till night with their prospects .

Phil Wurthner can fix your car and make it purr cheerfully . He sells En - Ar - Co motor oil for happy lubrication .

House cleaning days are here . A good time to buy a new mattress at Richard Wietzke's . And he sells floor coverings for kitchen and parlor and all through the house . Also window shades and chairs , adv .

ANNOUNCEMENT : I wish to announce to the voters of Oceana county that I am a candidate for the office of Sheriff an the Republi- can ticket . Your support will be greatly appreciated . F. Glen Walker .