Tuesday, January 09, 2007

No•Nats, Ak•Sar•Ben

The rivalry between Stanton and Pilger was typical of many areas. The smaller towns feel the larger ones get more of the attention and are fiercely competitive when issues are joined.

A good example was shown when Jim Cornwell was publishing the paper. He worked as a sports official for extra money but made the mistake of booking Pilger for both basketball and football.

Pilger’s “mover and shaker” was the town postmaster and he had a son who was a good high school athlete. It so happened that Jim fouled him out during a basketball game and his father didn’t leave any doubt about how he felt about that. The next fall, the kid threw a punch or some other serious violation during a football game, and Jim tossed him out.

The father was irate and organized enough financial support to bring in a competing newspaper to spite Jim. The man he brought in to run the paper was a printer from a plant in Fremont and he was able to survive with commercial work. A town of 500 could not support just a newspaper and the advertising revenue it might produce.

This man and his wife ran the paper for a couple years after we came to Stanton. The wife was very outspoken and when they ultimately decided to leave and return to the job in Fremont she proceeded to tell everybody in town what she thought of them. The job fell through, however, and they had to continue working in Pilger. Bea (the wife) had to face her advertisers with a contrite attitude as she called on them thereafter.

I spent quite a little time in the courthouse, which was just across the street from the paper. In addition to covering the various offices for news, we also sold the county printing services.

While making my rounds one day, I noticed a gathering of employees at a window listening to a radio. I walked over and found out they were playing a joke on the county welfare director.

He lived directly across the street from the courthouse and you could see his garage from the window where the employees were standing. He was parked in front of the garage door using a radio controlled opener (the forerunner of today’s remote controls). The courthouse gang had gotten hold of the radio station he used to signal his door and as he would lift it, they would dial it to close. He would raise it and they would reverse it. After a few frustrating minutes, they lifted the window and told him what was going on.

The joke was probably in retaliation for some joke this man had pulled on them. He was known as a practical joker. Although he was not a member, he attended the Methodist church in Stanton and was a regular contributor. One Sunday, the church treasurer (the same man I talked about at the “girlie” show earlier) found a poker chip in the collection plate. He took it to Rev. Bartleson and asked him if it was 4H Sunday because the chip had an imprint like their logo, a four leaf clover. The straight laced treasurer, of course, was not familiar with poker chips.

The minister knew immediately what it was. Businessmen and others (including the welfare director) frequented a place called the Not Nats Club (Stanton spelled backwards). Members usually dropped in on the way home to supper for a cool drink and a game of cards, quite frequently poker.

Our jokester from the welfare department had taken a poker chip, split it apart and inserted a five dollar bill in it and pasted the parts back together. He had thrown that in the collection plate after Rev. Bartleson had kidded the players he was going to take ten per cent for the church from their poker pots.

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