Couple of stories.......
BIG BOOM BERG
The fire siren blasted. Down at the Wabasha Herald we dialed the sheriff and he said "an explosion at the Idle Hour". Properly called the Idle Hour Game Farm, a popular restaurant on the edge of town operated by Gertie and Ted Roemer and serving roast pheasant, duck and geese on order plus all the rest. As a proper reporter we barreled out to the farm and got there with the fire truck. What we found were two befuddled guys, covered with a slimy goo staggered about an open manhole.
Nowthen, the restaurant was beyond the city water and sewer lines and had it's own septic tank for sewage. It consisted of a bottle shaped underground basin, lined with brick. Mr. Berg, the expert in these situations, had pumped it out and then climbed down a ladder to place a couple sticks of dynamite "just to loosen up the bottom a little" he explained. While down in the pit he had moved the ladder a bit in order to center the charge, which he lit and then scrambled back up the ladder. But he had moved it and couldn't get out. Harry, the bartender, tried to pull Mr. Berg out. No go And the dynamite went off! It blew them both out of the hole. And when the fire chief hosed them down, Berg was covered from the bottom up and Harry from the top of his head on down. They took inventory of all possible injuries. There were none, except Mr. Berg's eyeglasses were badly bent.
Mr. Berg, who was quite a respectable gentleman, earned his nickname "Big Boom Berg!"
+ + + +
SMOKED CARP
Newspapers are subject to typographical errors and you never see them before the paper goes into the mail. So it was in a full page grocery ad for Super Value at the Wabasha Herald. The ad featured, among other things, "Smoked Carp" in bug letters at the top of the sheet. That was okay but we misspelled the word "carp". The awful truth hit us right after the paper went into the mail and the manager of Su per Value followed us into the office. "Look what you've done," he shouted, "you've ruined me. I'll sue you for everything you've got. You have embarrassed me in in front of thousands of people."
So there was a general wringing of hands around the shop but nothing could be done to rectify the typo. Apologies were due but could not be made until the next issue of the paper, a week from then. Things look pretty glum around the old printery. Then at the end of the day Norm, the grocery manager, popped back in. He was radiant. His enthusiasm bubbled over. Never had he had so much fun, been heckled by so many people, made so much money. His cash registers outdid the Christmas rush for that day. And it was all because we misspelled a little word in his ad: "Smoked Crap".
+ + + +
B-R-R-R-R, IT'S COLD
I always wrote a personal column for my newspaper, in the Good Thunder Herald, the Wabasha County Herald, and for a time in the Roseau Times-Region.. Up in Roseau, perched on the Canadian border, it was a cold January and I ended several columns with the words "B-r-r-r-r, It's Cold". The words caught on and I was hailed on many occasions with a resounding "B-r-r-r-r!"
+ + + +
THE BOMB
My uncle Bill Kruggel had a lot of friends but he was a shrewd horse trader and had a few people who did not regard him so highly. Consequently, when he found a small, round, aluminum canister on his bedroom windowsill one morning back in the 1930's he had some misgivings. The object was unlike anything he had ever seen before and he approached it carefully. Maybe it was a bomb!
He called the sheriff. Frank Cords studied it, It was less than two inches high and in diameter, had a cast-aluminum top perforated with some small holes. It could be. He called the FBI, they said handle it carefully. He cleared Marie and the kids out of the house, then proceeded to carry it carefully out into the yard. What to do with it next was the problem. Maybe hook the Farmall to it and pull it apart. Maybe set it up on a fencepost and shoot at it. And while they were working out a process, they turned it upside down. A plaintiff little voice came. from the object. It said "M-a-m-m-a".
+ + + +
ANOTHER BOMB
Back in Good Thunder in the middle 1920's a couple of smart guys decided to blow the safe of he First National Bank. So one night they broke in, lined the vault door with nitroglycerine and set it off. The door blew open all right but they had a big surprise -- the cashier, Fred Morloch, had placed a gallon jug of ammonia right inside the door and that blew, too. The fumes saved the bank. The guys couldn't get into the vault. And as they started down across the railroad tracks and up the hill, Bill Marlow had heard the crash, leaned out his window and loosed a couple of shots with his 30-30. He didn't hit them. They got clean away, doused with ammonia and were never heard from again
+ + + +
Vince Mongeau, former elevator manager and mayor of Good Thunder, got to reminiscing the other day, talking about funny things that really happened. "like the time in Paul Darge's barber shop, he recounted "when Paul was cutting Roy Meixell's hair. Roy had about as much as I do and Paul ran his hand over Roy's head and said 'it feels just like my wife's bottom'. Good for a laugh but Roy got a bigger response. after rubbing his own hand over his head, 'By golly, it does'!"
And Vince talked about Nick Hollerich and Doc Schmidt. Nick was sick and he didn't like Doc anyway. (Nick was Alsatian and Doc was German and old memories die hard) However, Nick's wife was worried about him and called the doctor anyway. So Nick was mad before the doctor got there and would not answer any questions. Finally Doc said the Mrs Holllerich, "I am going to call in another doctor for consultation on this". Mrs. Hollerich asked who he wanted to call and he said Doc Carey. Nick spoke up for the first time and said "He's a veterinarian!" Schmidt said, "Yes, he's the only one I know who can look at a jackass and make a diagnosis."
+ + + +