HELLO FOLKS! — The burning question of the day; "Should Albert Lea have a Junior College?" I answer a definite YES for many reasons, and I can think of very few reasons why not. The few I can think of don't even come close to balancing the asset side.
We need an Albert Lea Junior College because there are many area students who otherwise probably won't get a higher education.
It would keep money in local circulation that would otherwise go to other colleges and cities, and be lost to our economy.
It would go a long way toward keeping cultural standards high and raising them from what they are now.
The instructors employed would create a demand for housing which would create work, and help stimulate the economy.
The higher education attained by local people would in itself create a higher standard of living.
An industry trying to decide where to settle would take into consideration the fact of a college being here.
There will no doubt be a greater demand each year for higher educational training so if the need is here now, it will be much grater ten or twenty years from now.
Let's all get behind the drive for a Junior College and have one soon.
—o—
A YOUNG graduate of St. Olaf College married a girl from Carieton College. He confided to his older brother who had done the same thing, "there is only one thing bothering me. I simply don't know how to address Margret's mother. I don't think it's right to go around calling her motherinlaw, and I don't think it proper to call her mother, in due respect to our own mother. How did you get around this when you married Susan?"
"Simplest thing in the world," his older brother replied. "The first year I addressed her as 'hey'. After the first year we called her 'grandma.'"
—o—
I'VE JUST made a big discovery! I am married to a poetess. It's a fact; and to prove it to you I am going to print it in this column.
I know that she doesn't have a copyright on it and if she doesn't know I am printing it until she reads it in the paper it is OK with me.
The way it all came about is because we have a good friend by the name of George Kurth.
Last fall George was telling Vera that we would have a mild winter. The reason he knew it was because of the way the muskrats were building their mounds.
When the cold weather came along Vera chided him with 'you and your muskrats'. Then when the weather warmed up real nice, George called up and asked "What do you think of my muskrats now?" Vera answered that they were probably dead from the cold they had to endure before the warmup came.
Then came this recent 20 below weather and Vera wrote him a letter that went something like this:
You better head for the hills,
I'm tired of the cold, shivers and chills;
So contact your rats and get on the run,
I am a coming with a great big gun.
Those meadowlarks, too, were singing a wrong song.
So I suggest you take them along.
Head for the hills and don't dare stop,
cause a few warm days won't save your mop (hair).
Run real fast and don't stop to rest.
I took your word and left my flannels in the chest.
I'll never again believe those ol' beaver tales.
From now on I'm hunting the long flannel sales.
—o—
A FRIEND of mine just returned from California. I asked him what he thought about the west. He replied, "Well, take those California drivers. They figure that if you travel less than 60 miles per hour you are double parked.
—o—
I SUPPOSE that most of the farmers in the county got a county directory in the mail. Might as well throw it in the stove, fellows. It isn't worth the paper it is written on, much less the cost of advertising that the publishers got out of it. It is not a bit accurate.
—o—
I SEE THAT THE Austin Police have been arresting auto owners for leaving keys in their cars. Must be they are trying to create more delinquents. It c[er]tainly is not a good policy to leave an auto open to theft. But when we take the attitude that a car deserves to be stolen becau[s]e the keys are left in it we are really driving the nail from the wrong end.
There is one sure way to cure delinquents of theft and that is to give them one year's prison sentence at hard labor, on a well balanced diet of gruel and water, giving them only time off from the work to go to school and church, and of course a few hours sleep. After a few first offenders, the rest of the gang will think the pursuit of a legitimate career is much more fun, and then in a few years we wouldn't even think of taking our keys out of the cars. The youths of the community would be developing their talents instead of concentrating on mischief, and that diet of gruel would, in most cases, be the healthiest (though not the most interesting) food they will have had since their infancy.
Of course there will be problems arising from such a plan. The law officials will have to find other jobs.
—o—
THE DAIRY industry, which had been made sick by government neddling through price supports, is gradually mending itself back to health. While prices are still too low, they are on the ment. The numbers are going down at a rate of 4 per cent per year, and production is holding about st[eady]. This means that if dairy is [left]alone it will be on its own in [about] another year. The most serious[ly] depressed are is right here [in] Minnesota as we are in a su-- area and can't find a close ma--.
For the most part the price [of] milk is about 10 cents above support level and butterfat at one cent above. That means any raise in support prices w[ill] have to be considerable in order [to] raise the income for farmers -- would only tend to stop the [ad]justment in supply and dem[and]. Rather than appeal for an inc[rease] in supports, the dairy farmers best try to get the Govern[ment] out of the game so that the d[airy] man can again proser along [wiht] the rest of the economy.
Perhaps the supports are a[t a] place now where they might [not] do any harm, but the dange[r of] leaving them is that the ene-- of free markets will continu[e to] attempt to use them to rob [the] farmer of his just place in an -- and competitive market.
