Reflections From the Fence: December 2023

Tuesday, December 26, 2023

Thomas Lashbrook, The Newspaper Rant, 1874 Style

As a family researcher I simply adore newspapers, old, historical newspapers. Newspapers with announcements, marriage, birth, deaths, taxes, probates, crime, social tidbits, I love it all.

Lately I found this classic rant from Thomas Lashbrook, b. 1819 England, d 1904 Iowa.

From the Waverly Republican, Waverly, Bremer County, Iowa, published December 24, 1874:

“Compliments of Thos. Lashbrook to the Editor of the Independent

EDITORS OF REPUBLICANS - - I have taken my county papers since they were started. I am now taking the REPUBLICAN, Independent and Folks Zeitung, and have almost invariably paid for them in advance, but somehow Daniel duns me for four dollars. I do not owe him or any other printer a cent for printing. You’ve dunned the wrong fellow this time, Daniel. Daniel, my time is almost out on your paper. I have told you three or four times to stop it, but in your trades, buying and selling, you got the start of me, but Daniel don’t send your dirty sheet to me after January 1st, 1875, for it is not fit for a “Two-cent Democrat,” as you called me in your paper of October, to read. No, Dan, you said in that paper that I was grabbing all that I could “under the plea of a Granger.” Dan, that is a lie and you are the maker of it. Sir, I am a Granger, and do not deny it. I am a Spiritualist all over - - not a Spiritualist on the Wapsie - - a Methodist in Waverly, and something else when elsewhere - - all for popularity. Dan, it won’t always do to have too many faces! Don’t send your dirty paper to a Two-cent Democrat - - you can’t afford it - - but keep your rotten sheet for your “straights,” and you may get another rolling over the logs by-and-by. THOS. LASHBROOK.”

Truly a epic classic rant.

* Graphic courtesy of https://clipart-library.com/

** Article accessed via https://waverly.advantage-preservation.com/ via the Communityhistoryarchive project.

Thursday, December 21, 2023

Holiday Greetings, 2023, The Dreaded Holiday Letter

It's been some year, filled with an ice storm, several "deep" snow storms, a doozy of a wind storm (straight line, very strong winds, actually quite scary). The ice and wind storms led to many hours/days of tree debris clean up, some of which we did and the rest we had to hire out, it was just too much to tackle ourselves. We had power outages, of course. The ice storm took out well over 30,000 customers in our county. Did I ever tell you, how much we love our generator??

This is a view the morning after the ice storm, looking down our street, the night before one tree came down, was pushed out of the way by some kind soul, but, by morning, two more were down.

2023 has also been a year of techy stuff. We added "fiber" about a year ago. And, by that addition to our lives, we now have high speed, no limits on the uploads and downloads. There are also new horizons with learning curves, not to be laughed at as they have been steep at times. For me, it was the normal, research and data bases and adding new web sites and by the end of the year, due to some weirdness, I took a crash course on IPs and ISPs. It was not a welcome course, I'll just say that. May have been good or bad for the blood pressure.

For Man, the techy fun was in televisions and home security system. In an attempt to have a bit of fun he installed a camera shooting out into the back yard where the deer travel and visit. We called it, of course, the "Deer Blind". Come fall, after the pumpkin season, Man cut up one of the pumpkins and placed it almost at the steps from the deck. With the assistance of some twinkle lights on the deck, we were able to catch one doe having a taste. If you look hard, about mid photo side to side and back where the darkness takes over, there is another doe.

That's our fun stuff. The rest of our year was filled with maintenance of the house, yard work and such. Here is Ms. Hibiscus. She spent her 2nd summer outside and now is spending her 2nd winter in the house. She barely bloomed all summer, but, once I brought her in the house she bloomed profusely, up until about 2 weeks or so ago. We would find 2 to 5 new blooms on her each morning. And, we found aphids too. To say, I am not a fan of aphids, well, understatement, eh?? After review of my options to fight the aphids, I chose soapy water, gently applied to the blooms where I found the aphids. I am also not a fan of the oriental "lady bug wanna be" that invade the home in the fall after the farmers cut the soy crops. They bite for one thing. That's enough, frankly. So, guess what they eat?? Aphids. And, guess what I found on one of the blooms of Ms. Hibiscus. And, then, the aphids decreased.

Seriously, isn't Ms. Hibiscus stunning??