No , 49 are ripe in the Land of Mears

FIFTY CENTS A YEAR

It was many years ago that a Swedish farmer was talking to a busi- nessman in Shelby and said : " I believe that Swift Lathers is getting rich . I believe he is going to be the richest man in Oceana county . " And the businessman , who was a college graduate and successful in many ways , answered : " He is already the richest man in Oceana county . " The Swedish farmer said : " Huh ??? " " Yes , you know riches are not measured in dollars alone but in capacity to enjoy life . Show me a man in all Oceana county who is able to get more enjoyment out of his work and life than Swift Lathers can . He may be able to get his whole outfit in a shoe box but look what he is getting out of life . He is already the richest man in Oceana county . " That was 30 years ago , in the brave young days of courage and daring , when I put on a red necktie and green pants and a derby hat and went out and got a thou- sand new subscriptions in one year . The fault , dear Brutus , is not in our stars , but in ourselves that we are underlings . My earthly posses- sions in 1918 were not so much but my inner riches of courage and am- bition and idealism were boundless . Riches to me in those days were a bright blue sky on a June day , a cheese sandwich , a pencil and pa- per , my own two feet and the open road . I still think so . These things are still riches : the time to think , the time to walk by the lush mead- ows , the new clover , the daisies that nod in the wind . After the 30 years that went by since 1918 I still believe in the same riches . What did I long for when I was a child ? I wanted to have a printing press , I wanted to be an editor , I wanted to go to college , I wanted to write books , I wanted a typewriter and a stereopticon . I wanted to study law . I wanted to be a poet . I longed for a row boat . I got all these things the hard way , dreaming and toiling , yearning and reaching out . plodding to the towers of success by inches . I got everything . I wonder if there is any tangible thing in the world I want that I haven't already got or could not get . Perhaps that is because I want so little , because of the great simplicity of my desires , the realization that so many things are unessential . I do not want , a fine modern car . I do not like their streamlined designs , I do not like their receding radiators , their slanting windshields . I like Gothic lines , mission style furniture , table tops in perfect rectangles , vertical windshields , sharp , square corners . Once in a while if I need to take some freight to the lake I get out my

old Model T , jack up the hind wheel , crank it , fill up the radiator , put in three quarts of gas , and I'm on my way . I'm proud of her . She gets me there and back . But mostly I go afoot because I can think with greater concentration , I can intensify the spotlight of attention on the mastery of whatever problem is before me , whether it be the righting of the inequities of justice or how I am going to get my next can of soup . That freedom of mind , that quality of abstraction that lets me walk carefree and soar among the clouds , is one of the greatest riches . in the world . I remember one time 21 years ago Judge Wetufore asked me why I wasn't driving my ford that day and I told him : " When I have plenty of time I take the car , but when I am in a hurry I walk . " For years afterward Frank Wetmore marveled and quoted that famous utterance . I do not consider myself inferior or unsuccessful as I plod along the country roads while people pass me in their chariots . Far from it . Rather I think of myself as a Socrates who has attained the heights of thinking and such a perspective of relativity that cars are unessential in my personal life , Let me be like the gulls by the sea , like the larks in the meadow . I will drink a glass of buttermilk , carry a cheese sandwich and take to the open road . I shall see the beauty of faces and of hills , I will notice the calyx of a weed , and the corolla of a flower . I will make a few dimes here and a dollar there . Who knows ? Perhaps today I shall think imperishable thoughts and forget them . Or maybe put them down on paper . At evening I will go home with an armful of groceries and a quart of paint . I believe in beautiful homes . If I do not get all my buildings painted up as fast as I want to it is not because I do not have paint but because of the great scarcity of time , and because I have thousands of things to do and never catch up with my work . I have no idle moments . Even if it is for only a few minutes a day I am often painting every day in the week during the summer season , sometime , somewhere , among my scattered pos- sessions . Like a golden text I have always remembered Frank Down- ing's advice to go out and paint something if it isn't any more than a fence post . The ambition of my paint brush is untiring , but time is precious . If I paint one side of a building blue , another yellow , one white and one green it is beautiful to me . I don't care what the world thinks about it . Regardless of the color conglomerations the paint keeps out the rain . I have the courage to be original . So I go on liv- ing the simple life , painting , plodding , printing , dreaming , but bring- ing home the bacon at evening . In my green shirt and red necktie and derby hat I am pointed out by the summer resorters as a landmark . I have acquired fame just by living my own life . At the present time I can think of only two things in the world I want . One is an old spin- ping wheel . If I brought one home I would not expect it would get any welcome in the parlor . I might have to put it upstairs in the barn or in my office . But some night at midnight I might smuggle it into the front room of the house fong enough to put a record on the phono- graph and play " There's an old spinning wheel in the parlor , spinning dreams of the long , long ago . " And then I could take it out and put it upstairs in the barn and once a week for five minutes on Sunday I could go up and look at it and realize that we both belonged to the same age . Graduates of 1948 , setting out from high school and college , if you can carve out your own job and always find it glamourous , if you can find for yourselves some simple avocation or hobby to turn to with unceasing Interest , if you can keep your head in the skies and your feet on the earth and bring home the bacon to your family , if you can always have a log ready to put on the fire , if you can find joy in

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flowers and weeds and hills and draw the gold out of the sunrise , you bave abundance and life will hold for you unfailing interest forever . FOR SALE : 75 lb. capacity ice box , insulated , as good as new , $ 15 . Also electric toaster and carpet sweeper . Mary Jungman , second house south of Highland's Corner . Many times a house doesn't need a new paint job but just needs to be washed . This is often the case of house exteriors sheltered by porches . Vera Harrison was out washing hers the other day . Often as I go by I wish Mrs. Meadows would take a basin of water and a cloth and a box of Fels Naptha soap ( adv . ) and wash the coal smoke on the siding under her front porch . It would im- prove things 1000 per cent . And then if Mrs. Congregational Page would come up from Shelby and see it , Mrs. Meadows could say : " Go thou and do likewise . " A little soap and elbow grease works wonders .

Meals and lunches at Elmer's Place , Mears

Anderson's Grocery , Mears , sells ice cream & food for all tables .

Tate Ambulance Service . Courteous , reliable . Phone 93 , Hart .

Wedding gifts at Harold Moore's .

Jewelry fr

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Watches , bracelets , rings . Lay - away plan and trade - ins . Hamilton , Bulova and Elgin watches . Moore , in Hart . -FOR SALE Top dirt , gravel , muck , fill dirt , elay and stone . See BILL LATHERS , Mears , or call 23F4 .. - New Methodist minister in Mears is wom- an . " I'm glad she's married ' says bachel- or Lawrence . Brother Howard , what do you say ? To Holly's Grill at the fair ground corners to eat your fill with other Jack Horners . If the day is spent 4 cabins to rent . adv . - The great white barn at Sil- ver Hills is a compass unto the dunes .

WHEN YOU NEED A GOOD STRONG WRECKER CALL THE FLOOD MOTOR SALES : 24 HR . SERVICE . PH . 161 ; NIGHT , NO . 1 . Sweet's Service fills gas tanks , energizes batteries , heals inner tubes , lubricates automobiles , High - pressure greasing , candy bars , pop . . In Hart on US - 31 at the trax across from Wesleyan church .

Go to the Western Auto Associate Store in Shelby for automobile parts and accessories , bicycles , bicycle repairs , fishing tackle . - On

See Trip Motor Sales in Shelby for sturdy jeeps , coal , tires , Reo SEPTIC TANKS , cesspools and dry wells cleaned at the right price . Malburg's Sanitation Service , Rt . 2 , Hart . Phone Hart 10F22 or address Scottville Rt . 2 , phone 111F5 .

-For Sale : Fine crop of hay on Hanson - Osborn farm Only $ 675 down and $ 35 a month buys a 40 acre farm , in good loca- tion , Buildings , electric , etc. Grow your own taters and corn for the chicken feed , and say " to heck " with inflated living costs . See Hanson- Osborn at Hart . - G