The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1902-04-17
REAL THING IN BILLIARDS..
The Montana Man Was Accumulated
with the


with the Genuine Article.
"I've been stewing in your semitrop-
ical climate all winter" said the man
from the wool-growing West to the
dyed-in-thewool New Yorker. land ey-
cry now and then, when the thermome-
ter drops little below freezing point
l hear strange talk about billiards..
ITS nice-sounding name, l admit,
and it looks we'll in the newspaper
headlines. But, bless your benighted
souls, you're just as likely to have a
Kansas twister on 9th avenue or a
South sea simeon off the battery, as a
blizzard in Manhattan.
III admit you had good imitation
of it good many years ago in the
storm that cost Senator Conkling his
life. and once again about three years
back. The New-Yorker who's never
been much farther west than the Har-
lem river might be excused for calling
those two little blows "blizzards."
We've big country out there, and. of
course, busy man in New York will
naturally get the Yellowstone park
tangled up with the Yosemite, as an
evening newspaper here did some time
ago, and we don't mind your dramatic
critics referring to Missouri as the oc-
cident. Yes that has been done, too.
What is a real blizzard like? My
dear sir, to talk is not my trade. l
never went in real heavily for words,
and maybe you'd better put stamp
on your inquiry and send it to the pa
per published by the great plebeian in
Nebraska. He knows all about frosts
and such things, and likely as not he
could spare you two or three columns
telling you what blizzard is like
"A blizzard, did you say? Why, the
very word sends cold chills creeping
up my spine. Why, the last time |
was in blizzard in Montana, was in
the act Of drinking. l was just lifting
the glass of milk to my lips-what's
that? l say was just lifting the glass
Of milk to my lips when the air grew
suddenly dark and the thermometer
fell 60 degrees quicker'n l could count
'em. never did drink that milk
mo, Of course, it wasn't too dark to
drink it, That's foolish. Any child
can feel his way to his mouth with a
drink-at least, any Western child can.
But the milk just naturally froze hard
on top and the wind-I'd forgotten the
wind. Well maybe, it's enough to say
it was the wind that blew the snow
about and made it SO dark. Now, In
the Dakotas there isn't much snow, be.
cause the wind doesn't give it a chance
to light.
But it's got to light somewhere,
hasn't it? So when the snow that's
really comm to Montana gets a chance
to settle down, 1t start in again and
SHOWS in great chunks. till the Dakota
product is all piled up. But that's moth
ing. A chinook wind comes along and
in twenty minutes the ground is ready
for spring plowin'."
"Well," said the New-Yorker, admir-
ingly, according to the New York Mail
and Express, 'I'll try to be careful and
never exaggerate any more. It's bad
habit. remember that some time ago
an adventurous New Yorker penetrated
beyond the Bronx, even to the wilds of
the northwest, and when his friends
asked him for description of the
scenery, he said, found every hill a
mountain peak, every frog pond lake,
every dry run a river, every irrigating
ditch a canyon and every man liar.
So l suppose you're right"