The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1950-02-02
Mln|
OeAoAoI


/ showers and flowers that put a dash
of spring into midwinter and
that batch of rough weather the first
of the week may presage something
different for February 5. anyway
it stepped up interest in Grounding
day come Thursday, which may
furnish the tipoff to the answer to
the S64 question as to what we may
! expect for the remainder of the
winter !. that cold snap and sleet
Monday night and Tuesday served
ample warning that winter still
packs big wallop-wonder if there's
some way to distract a groundhog's
attention so he won't see his shadow
if the sun shines and Groundhog
day is only one of the high spots in
event-packed February = shortest
month of the entire twelve-per-
haps they figured that % days
weren't enough time for all these
things, so they threw in an extra
day every four years or SO just for
good measure j. it's the month of
clearance sales, real estate taxes and
valentines besides being the birthday
month of three great Americans
Edison is the third one, born
February IL i. j. used to be a sea-
son of stealthy politics back in the
days when precinct warfare thrived
and politicos indulged in the pleasant
pastime of cunning for each others
scalps and high school basket
ball teams pointing for the tourna-
ment-and the varsity drew double
column scare headline in the Toledo
Blade after racking up their first
victory of the season.
It's a good old Pennsylvania
Dutch tradition-grundsau tag
grounding day to you. We're not
sticking out our neck to argue its
merits as weather forecaster-
i however it's a pleasant bit of old
time folklore which persists-a
nostalgia survival of an era when
life was simpler-when a buckeye in
your pocket would ward off rheuma-
tism and lot of things of which
we were certain-those were the
days when we knew all the answers
to about everything that was neces-
sary for life and living-as con-
trasted to the scene of uneasiness
and insecurity in these modern days
of the atomic age.
And just because it's Grounding
season, don't begin looking for
spring-oldtimers who knew a thing
or two about seasons recognized
Grounding day as the halfway point
of the winter season-all neatly
wrapped up in the following jingle:
You should have left
On Grounding day
Half your corn
And half your hay.
Speaking of state universities,
don't overlook the University of
i Florida. Levi Gratz, former Bluff
tonite, one of the top men in the
Florida state agricultural expert
ment station in connection with the
university at Gainesville says they
have a faculty of 1000 and stu
dent body of 10000 in city of
10000 population. 1t requires two
post offices to handle the volume of
mail.
1t was a double treat for Bluffton
high school basketball fans-that
! Bellefontaine game here last Friday
night. They saw the game at the
high school gym when Lowry's ram
paging Pirates racked up another
victory-and at home on the radio
they heard a broadcast of the same
from WILMA in Lima. The broad
cast which began at 9:30 came from
recording made by direct wire
from the gymnasium to the WILMA
studio arranged by the telephone
company. The announcer spoke from
the playing floor here and the re-
cording was made in Lima.
|
In our mail:
The G. w. Benroths of Vivian,
Louisiana, formerly of Bluffton will
soon celebrate their 51st wedding an
niversary. It's spring down there
early shrubs and flowers in full
bloom also appearing in a re-
cent issue of the Shreveport Ia.)
Times was a mention of Buttons
baby derby as well as mention of it
in radio broadcast.
And from the Rev. Elmer Basing-
ers, formerly of Bluffton, now in
| Donnellson, Iowa, where he is pas
tor of Zion Mennonite congregation
one of four churches there which
work together to make possible
many union services during the
year.
Benjamin F. Fairless, president
of the United States Steel corpora
ton whose name has been in news
paper headlines the past week in
connection with projected raise in
! the price of steel was formerly CIV
il engineering student at Ohio North
ern, Ada, from 1900 to 1912. North