The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1914-1938, 1916-02-03
From the Correspondents
Items of Interest Concerning Our Neghbors Hereabouts

sically incapacipated; julius Caesar
Perkins was so busy organizing the
strawberry growers that he couldn't
dance, and Abraham Lincoln Ryerson
couldn't find his bones. However.
there will be something doing on the
18th just the same, for a valentine
party has been planned in its place.
Next Saturday, the 5th, the Pomona
Grange will meet at Finley. The
Changers expect thirty or more Po-
mona members from outside Oranges,
and have planned to meet them at
Hedges at noon and take them to the
hall where they will be served with
dinner. There will be speaking, open
to all, from 2:3O until $3.50 when sup
ger will be served. A literary pro-
gram has been prepared for after sup
per, and this will be followed by the
installation of the Pomona officers.
Later in the evening the meeting will
be closed to all except Changers and
degree work will be taken up. All
the grangers are urged to come and
bring their friends. Those coming ex-
] pecting to stay to supper are request
ed to bring something to help fill up
the table.
Later On account of the bad
weather this meeting of the Grange
has been postponed. Date will be an
nounced later.
1t would seem as if the postal au-
thorities strive to be unaccommodat-
| ing at times. When letter with
postage due stamp is received at the
Office, instead of the carrier bringing
it with him, and whistling out the adj
dressee, card is sent, asking the adj
dressee to send in two cents. Often
these letters are important, and one
never knows but what he should hitch
up and drive five or six miles to town
and back rather than run the delay of
two or three days which always oc-
ours under the present system, for if
the money is sent in by the next mail,
a second and often third day pass
before the letter is delivered. To avoid
this delay, several patrons leave mon
ey in the Office to pay for any letters
that may come postage DUE" Our ex-
perience is that two out Of every three
letters are still held up, and the pesky
little gray card is sent. It does seem
as if some plan could be devised to
avoid all this inconvenience to the
patrons on the rural lines. If the post
mistress would install telephone in
the postofice so we could call up and
remind them to send out our mail
when we had money on deposit for
that purpose, it would help some.
| We despise sneak, and so does
everyone else. We despise the person
who smiles at US sweetly, and then
goes around saying mean things about
us behind our backs, and we admire
the man who stands up and tells US
what he thinks, be his thoughts ever
so uncomplimentary. Among the first
class we list the telephone sniper or
wire Taper. Under the grounded cir
cult telephone system which the local
telephone company still maintains in
the valley, it is often impossible to
avoid hearing cross talk while wait
ing for central, or while waiting for a
number, but the person who will de-
liberately take down the receiver and
listen to private conversation is in
the same class as the person who will
listen by window or peep thru key
hole. Several of the lines in the val
ley have their chronic listeners who
gather gossip and weave scandal from
fragments that they patch together
from stolen telephone conversations.
They feel secure in their hidden posi-
tion, little realizing that the patrons
cften know who is sneaking in on
them. Could they know how wise the
! central girls become in detecting the