Oh It's Only A Dog's Life!

By - Edwin B. Petersen

HELLO FOLKS! — If you growl all day, it's no wonder you're dog-tired at night.

Employe: "You promised us more money for less work. We've given you less work. Now how about more money?"

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NEARLY FIVE years ago I received a letter from Margo Cairns of Minneapolis asking me to think over the idea of having the corn tassel for our national emblem. At the time I reported the idea to you in this column. I suppose that most of you have forgotten about it by this time, or have been approached about it through other organizations.

I have had it pretty much in mind ever since and have given it considerable thought. At first the idea did not appeal to me but the more I thought about it the more I came to the conclusion that the corn tassel is the ideal emblem. Especially when I consider the alternative that is being considered, which is the rose.

I love roses as well as anybody, but not as a national emblem. It is true that the rose grows in nearly every state and that it is a thing of beauty; besides being perhaps the most common of all flowers.

I so vividly remember when I was but a boy, my sister Ruth and I planted a flower garden. We had to plant it on the north side of the house to keep the hot summer winds of the Dakotas from burning it up. Right in the middle of it we planted a rose bush that we had dug up out on the prairies. It didn't look like too much of a thing then but by 'taming' it, it grew into a beautiful bush and each year it doubled in size until we left there and the land went back into range.

Corn on the other hand is the most widely diversified crop in the U. S. It grows in every state, it is of American origin, born in the western world and found nowhere else. No other country can claim it. What can be more beautiful that a forest of symmetrical corn. It sustained the pioneers in the precarious existence on the continent since the landing of the Puritans.

It was used as a medium of exchange before the coin was established.

Today it is the most widely used crop for our livestock feeding programs.

Me? I am all for the corn tassel as our national emblem. How about you?

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OUR LITTLE girls are always coming up with something cute. They are of course in that age (2 to 4) and most of the time they are not aware of their own cuteness.

The other day Zina said, "See Daddy, I got some of mother's lick stip on."

This morning she came running to me as I came into the house from chores and said, "Daddy, do with me as you do an accordion" I had a few bad moments figuring that one out, but finally got the idea, "Squeeze me."

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House Vote Crowns Rose as National Flower

LAWRENCE L. KNUTSON

AP NEWS ARCHIVE  Sep. 23, 1986 10:37 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AP) _ The House, brushing aside the claims of marigolds and dogwood blossoms, corn tassels and columbines, ended decades of indecision Tuesday and crowned the rose, that thorny beauty, America's national flower.

The voice-vote decision completed congressional action on the rose resolution, ending a debate over an appropriate ''national floral emblem'' for the United States that had flickered off and on since the late 19th century.