Strawberry Searchers are ripe in the Land of Mears

FIFTY CENTS A YEAR

On Decoration Day I always try to do a little decorating , like slap- ping on half a gallon of aluminum paint on the side of the house . After that I like to go up to the cemetery and talk to the dead a while . After the firing squad have saluted to the lamented and the small boys have dodged down between the legs of the musketeers to get the empty shells for souvenirs , I figure the dead are sufficiently waked up to listen , so I begin : " How are you down there , Ed Allen ? It's a cold and chilly day up here by the spiraea , Ed . Maybe you better button up your blue over- coat . You'd be surprised how things have changed back in Mears . Ed . Clara is putting in a new bathroom and the paint on the barn is get- ting a little blistered . The new heating stove is burning oil and you'd miss seeing the long woodpile drying in the sun . I don't know about the old asparagus bed where you used to put the salt water on , because yon said it was a seaweed . But the rain still rolls off the barn into the old horsetank . Gosh , Ed , if you were back here on earth you'd tell ' em to keep the big barn doors shut so the wind wouldn't get under the roof and loosen up the tacks . Good morning , down there , old Orange Pow- ers . You know I always liked your name because it was so outstand- ing . Why can't we have more names that are different , like Pineapple Barton or Grapefruit Brubaker ? Chester always ate one at break- fast . Uncommon names like yours dress up the meal a bit and give it a fruity flavor . They don't take much more green ink to write than the common run of names and they are remembered twice as long . I tried to give my boys uncommon names . There's nothing like having a fancy handle on a frying pan . You know , Orange . I always liked you . I liked that your tall straight figure and your long beard and the house cat followed you like a dog when you and Sarah walked all the way down to Silver Lake again after a spell of staying up town . You were about the first resorter down there , and you and I got up and saw the sunrise on the yellow hills together . All around us was quiet wilderness . We heard the whippoorwill and the owl . My boats slept quietly on the watercress brook in the moonlight , even after the new bridge was built . because I prevailed upon Marion Road - scraper Johnson to make the concrete a little higher at one end to give me boat clearance . I smack my is yet remembering the sundish and blueberry pies we ate to- gether in your yellow rottage with the fence around it . Peace to your soul . And you , SED Davis , losy blessed was your slow - going , unhurried

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life where the farms left off and the wilderness began . Peace slept on the weathered well house where your mother put my quart jar milk those nights 35 years ago . I was at your auction sale five years ago but you didn't know it . You were here beneath the sod . I went to your sale in the old granary to buy memories . I got the old cradle you cut your oats with and the brace and bit you bored bung- holes in the cider barrel with and chisel you used to whittle the pegs for the wooden barn latches for the stable door . Charlie has built new barn and torn down the old house to build it fresh . And you . II . F. W. Meyer , haven't been there so long . I rode with Hazel yesterday and she told me again all about Parchment , the paper mill town where she teaches . You had told me often before . But I could always listen to you forever because you knew Silver Lake before there was any Silver Lake , when it was the Au Sable , and the mystic haze of the infancy of the Golden nation was your kindergarten primer . So many times I talked to you and your father about the ' 60's . But always I was going to come back and ask you about Emma Lutz and August Schiller and the children who played along the road on the west side of the lake long covered with oblivion for 60 years . The Taylor girl and her bugle have sounded taps and are going home . The crowd thins out and sil- ence settles over the white spiraea . Another May I will come back to talk to you again in this dooryard of the yesterday . Goodbye for now . " Marjorie Ziegler is glad when Saturday afternoon comes when she can catch up on her dishes and give the kitchen sink a lick and a promise . Thelma Lathers completed her count of academic days at Butter- worth hospital and is home waiting for her commencement day.- Eleven barrels an hour is what the very new oil well in Weare flows . In this McMillan No. 2 well a depth of 3007 feet was reached . - Herry J. Palmiter was 78 when he was buried Tuesday in Hart . He was the son of Judson Palmiter , mid - century pioneer , last century of course . In 1889 he was graduated from Olivet College . For many years be sold collars and shirts , boots , neckties and suits of clothes . In 1924 he re- tired from the haberdashery and said : " Let George do it . More power to you , George , " or words to that effect . Then he went out north of Hart and raised peaches and petunias , cherries and onions . Henry was a leader in the Congregational church and a gentleman and a scholar . IIe hatched up the Hart Hatchet while Sid Sayles was walloping with the Weakly Wallop . He wrote insurance on many roofs and many steer- ing wheels . He pitched baseballs in his early life and horseshoes in bis later years . Henry was an honest , industrious citizen , and in this lean- ing , strap - hanging age , Henry will be remembered as a man who stood on his own two feet . - Daisy Ann Nackoul and John Kraus got a run- riage license . - Although Round Lake school has been out several weeks , they have not picnicked yet . waiting until the water warmed u so it would not freeze the buttons off Stanley Lee's bathing suit . But now that the temperature has bettered itself already , the date of the picnic has been set for Sunday , July 13 , at 1:00 o'clock - On the Gold- en shore of Lake Michigan Dr. Robinson and family spent Monday and Tuesday in their Pill Box . If the rollers under the ice box are consti- pated Doc will give them some castor oil - Joseph Cook mows the lawns , sprinkles the flowers and helps around Silver Hills Farm . Paul Wiener got acquainted with him in Florida this winter . It was hot Wednesday that young Bob McDonald of Knox's swamp road went swimming in Ferry mill pond while his little brother Monty , who is six . cooled off in Huftile Creek . - John Cloutier , the catamonnt mounter . fixes shoes in Hart next door to the bus depot . Rundown heels and

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thin holey soles eured promptly at John's Shoe Shop . - Roy Wise used to live around Mears 26 years ago , one time on Pike's Peak , and he had a little girl named Marie who smiled every day in the week , and શ handsome wife whose pa and ma were Nichols . Looking much rounder and greatly increased in ounces , Roy was up from Ypsilanti the other day with the same old brand of optimism . - Brought back to Hart from some island military cemetery , the body of Donald Wolf , of the Mar- ines , was buried Thursday . He had been cited for extraordinary hero- isin on Guadalcanal , Solomon Islands , on October 8-9 , 1942. With mili- tary escort , services were held in the Congregational church . - A long time resident of Walkerville , Mrs. John D. Wanamaker , now 73 , Was buried Wednesday at Hesperia . Her husband was once a blacksmith in Hart on Tin Can Alley . John and Mary Edlund entertained all the relatives Sunday , at least 25 of them circulating around the dining room table . - Mary Ann Brandel is adjusting her veil to marry Frank Wyns , Jr. One day last year when Mary Ann was working at her brother's gas pump in Mears a handsome young stranger drove up , complimented Mary a lot on her good looks , had his fuel tank filied up and oil poured into his crankcase , talked to Mary Ann about getting a date soon , thrilled her romantic expectations , waved goodbye and said he would see her again , and after he was gone Mary remembered and put her hand over her mouth and gasped : " Why , he never even paid me for the gas ! " Everybody thought that Mary was ente . You did yourself when she wiped your windshield . But next time Mary sells gas and the man at the wheel tells her how much she looks like the Hollywood stars Mary will smile and say : " Your gas comes to $ 2.05 , sir . Thank you , come again . " - After 27 years Elsa Peterson sees her parents from Sweden . They came across . Elaine was thrilled to her grandmother , who never rocked her in a cradle . - Chralie Brown's new house is almost done and you can gamble he will be in it by the Fourth of July . - Up from Ionia came Nina Berger to eat a hamburger at Krantz's restaurant . Ketchup or mustard , Sis , says Corrine . Last week Friday the Shelby Eastern Star celebrated their 50th anniver- savy by eating and reminiscing n the Congregational church . The charter members were honored n a ceremony entitled " In the Garden of Remembrance . " - To shut out the heat Larry Best and his little brother Danny wrap up in a rug in the front yard on the same theory that Myra Stanhope wears her overcoat in July to keep the heat out.-

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Meals and lunches at Elmer's Place , Mears Anderson's Grocery , Mears , sells ice cream & food for Juneoutings .

Tate Ambulance Service . Courteous , reliable . Phone 92. Hart .

Wedding gifts at Harold Moore's .

Jewelry f Watches , bracelets , rings . Lay - away plan and trade - ins . Hamilton , Bulova and Elgin watches . Moore , in liart . WHEN YOU NEED A GOOD STRONG WRECKER CALL THE FLOOD MOTOR SALES ; 24 HR . SERVICE . PH . 161 ; NIGHT . NO . I. Sweet's Servire Blls 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 arcessories bicycles , bicycle repairs , fishing tackle On