PAGE TWO | Bin, Bur and Geather By William J. Robbins Jr. INDIAN CRAFTS GIVE WAY TO CIVILIZATION Because of the educational advan- tages offered by the white man schools located in the Indian ter- ritory iof the west, many crafts of hand are disappearing from the market places of American tourists. The quality’ of Indian made articles is declining and is most noticable in Navajo blankets and rugs. Many families of the region have in their possession rugs and blankets ‘that were made seventy- five or one hundred years ago, that are in perfect condition so far as flexibility of yarn, and colors are concerned, The only deterioration is caused by moth larvae. Today, using Department Store wool and Dia- mond dyes that will not hold color, it has been found by the Indian craftsmen that he must speed up - production to meet the demand for his product during tourist time. This he will do, even though he fully realizes the quality is not there. ? Bead craft is another art that is disappearing too, from the tepee of the west. The knowledge of design, and the know-how of sewing beads onto leather with the {dried sinew of a deer holds no charm for the younger generations of the reser- vations. The steel needle and’ cotton tread of the whites has taken over completely. The Ileather-craft art, —i,e. The making of jackets ,trou- sers, quivers, bags, and long skirts for the squaws has been turned aside, by the Government allocation of bolted muslin. [Clay ‘work is still a great attrac- tion for the tourist but this, too, has declined in’ quality even though the materials are abundant. The baking process has been speeded up and designs are mon-descript, (pretty to look at, but no story there-in) as are the designs of modern beaded articles. Glazing of clay vessels in the west is now a secret of perhaps six or eight Indians and this art will be lost when the last of them passes on, A pledge among them has never been broken even ito the extent of scorning a ‘large sum offered by the Department of the Interior if they would divulge their secret of hand glazing. Occasionally one might see in picture a buck skin bag designed with quills of the porcupine. I'm doubtful if there lare a dozen In- dians in the whole hemisphere that can bleach, dye, and design with material that avenages only one to three inches in length. These or- namental trappings were a necessity for the trousers or chaps of the Indian had no pockets. Two such additions would suffice. One for charms and cone for worldly pos- sessions. Metal workers have found means of meeting the increased demand for their goods also and I've seen some very pretty trinkets made from #tin cans and aluminum. One lady acquaintance of mine boasted of her fine silver bracelet, upon her return from the west, but any jeweler would appraise it as pure aluminum. Basket weavers are obtaining from dealers in canes and reeds the necessary materials to carry ont their trades. They have found it much easier to buy and eliminate the tedious task of gathering and curing native reeds and grasses for their wares. It would not be a mis- representation to say this is an Indian made basket, for actual con- struction was done by them, but the article is not am authentic American Indian basket for the materials in it were grown in the Orient or on islands of the Pacific. ‘When one ‘thinks of all the changes that have taken place since the white man has educated the Indian. Taught him to build up de- sires for an easier way of life, passed on to him many diseases for which he has no cure, in addi- tion to slaughtering them by the hundreds in the early years of settlement of this country, plus driving the survivors out into the desert where one ‘couldn't raise a lettuce plant, it is little wonder that they have given up their crafts and way of life to the advancement of our great so-called civilization. Kunkle Firemen Plan Chicken Supper Firemen and Auxiliary of Harry S. [Smith Volunteers, Kunkle, will serve an old fashioned chicken sup- per in the community hall on Sat- urday, April 26. Serving 5-8 P.M., with no limit on intake. All the trimmings. THE POST, FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 1952 SAFETY VALVE BOOSTING AREA There's a very wonderful place just a few miles outside of Wiyoming Valley where some fine people live, and work and play. It's called the “Back Mountain area’ ... ever hear of it? Since it is such a beautiful place, it's a shame that so few sing its praises. Of course, we have no Chamber of Commerce, no Develop- ment Commission, mor even an active Businessmen’s organization to tell folks more about the Back Mountain. Oh yes, there are some few in- dividuals and business people who have been constantly speaking for the advancement of the area; among them the annual Back Mountain Librray ‘Auction, the Little League, the Lehman Horse (Show, the [Sweet Valley Parade and The Dallas Post, and others have brought attention to the area but there has been no concentrated effort put forth. However, there is one group who recently have been doing a good job of making folks “Back Mountain conscious”. It is a group comprised of eleven different businesses who are promoting and sponsoring the “Back Mountain Show” on the ra- dio. The program features the well- known “Little Bill Phillips” who MC’s the show from 2:30 to 4:00 P. M. Monday through Friday over WBAX. It's an interesting show with lots of good music, news about the Back Mountain, guest appearances (using talent from this area), shopping news and plenty of jokes (though sometimes they're a bit corny.) We say ‘hurrah’ for these few stalwarts who are doing something for thiis area which has never been done before on ia continuing basis. However, it behooves us to say, in all fairness, that there are many business places back here who have always promoted the Back Mountain and continue to do so but this radio program fis of such a nature that it would be imipractical for two similar businesses to be represented. The important thing is that more and more outsiders are taking an interest in the Back Mountain and that’s good for @ll of us. So let's all talk up our Back Mountain and be sure to listen to your “Back Mountain Show". R.'B. 'A Booster Drafts and notes differ in that the former is a written order to pay; the latter a written promise to pay. THE DALLAS POST “More than a newspaper, a community institution” ESTABLISHED 1889 Member Pennsylvania Newspaper Publishers’ Association A non-partisan liberal progressive mewspaper pub- lished every Friday morning at the Dallas Post plant Lehman Avenue, Dallas Pennsylvania. Entered as second-class matter at the post office at Dallas, Pa., under the Act of March 8, 1879. Subscrip- tion rates: $3.00 a year; $2.00 six months. No subscriptions accepted for less than six months. Out-of state subscriptions: $3.50 a year; $2.50 six months or less. Back issues, more than one week old, 10c. Single copies, at a rate of 3c each, can be obtained every Fri- day morning at the following news- stands: Dallas—Berts Drug Store, Bowman’s Restaurant, Donahues Restaurant; Shavertown— Evans’ Drug Store, Hall's Drug Store; Trucksville, Gregory's Store; Shaver’s Store ;Idetown, (Caves Store; Hunts- ville, Barnes Store; Harveys Lake: Lake Variety Store, Deater’s Store; Fernbrook, Reese’s Store; Sweet Val- ley,, Britt's Store When requesting a change of ad- dress subscribers are asked to give their old as well as new address. Allow two weeks for changes of ad- dress or new subscription to be placed on mailing list. We will not be responsible for the return of unsolicited manuscripts, photographs and editorial matter un- less self-addressed, stamped envelope is. enclosed, and in no case will this material be held for nore than 80 days. National display advertising rates 63c per column inch. Transient rates 70c. Local display advertising rates 60c per column inch; specified position 70c per inch. Political advertising $1.10 per inch. Advertising copy received on Thurs- Jay will be charged at 75c per column nch. Classified rates 4c per word. Mini- mum charge 75c. All charged ads 10c additional. Unless paid for at advertising rates, we cam give no assurance that an- nouncements of plays, parties, rum- mage sales or any affairs for raising money will appear in a specific issue. Preference will in all instances be given to editorial matter which has pot previously appeared in publication. Editor and Publisher HOWARD W. RISLEY Associate Editors MYRA ZEISER RISLEY MRS. T. M. B. HICKS Sports Editor WILLIAM HART Advertising Manager ROBERT F. BACHMAN Save Time! Save Money! USE OUR * FREE PARKING LO Next To .Our Kingston Office Central city parking rates have gone up, but parking is no problem for all those who bank at The 2nd National Bank’s Kingston Office. If you have to drive to do your banking . . . you'll really appreciate this convenience. Main Office Market and Franklin Streets Wilkes-Barre Kingston Office Wyoming Avenue at Union Street MEMBER FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORP. ONLY YESTERDAY From The Post of ten and twenty years ago this week. From the Issue of April 17, 1942 Street markers for Dallas can be procured lif every resident will eom- tribute 15 cents. James Stile, Daven- port Street, will make and erect signs for intersections as soon as money is at hand at the Dallas Post. Parents of Keats Poad have re- ceived two delayed letters from him since he was reported missing in action, and a telegram from the commanding officer saying great hopes were entertained of the air lieutenant’s safety. Occupational survey of men be- tween forty-five and sixty-five will draw 1000 from area. Registration will take place in Trucksville, Dal- las, Lehman and Shickshinny. Trout season opens with a poor catch, due to melting snow swelling the streams and rolling the walters. Fred Keifer succeeds George Greg- son as heightened defense work causes resignation from Dallas Township school board. |Clarence LaBar and William Mor- an, teachers at Dallas Borough High iSchool, have been deferred in the draft. Asparagus, 15 cents per 1b; straw- berries, 17 cents per box; lettuce, 5 cents; bologna, 25 cents per lb. Housewives are urged to buy and prepare cheaper foods. Anita Faye Angel marries Sgt. Walter Thompson. Charlotte Mintzer becomes the bride of Rev. Daniel Davis. For rent, four room house on Huntsville Road, heat, light and water, $15 per month. Miss (Glendola Hice, Dallas Town- ship, passed away on Sunday. Wanted to rent, house with an acre of ground amd outbuildings, in vicinity of Dallas, not over $20 per month. From the Issue of April 15, 1932 Clarence Boston, Noxen has been named cashier of Wyoming National Bank, innock, following con- soalidation with Tanners Bank, Noxen. Pneumonia causes death of Horace Crawford, Dallas, Grocery store sales are down. Free fuel may be obtained by cutting it under supervision fin State Forests. Kingston Township will dispose of fits bond issue without difficulty. Jennie June (Virginia Besecker) will become the bride of Tom Thumb (John Davis) at Dallas Methodist Church this evening. Master Richard LeGrand and Miss Marian Wagner will be attendants. For sale, concrete blocks, $8 per 100; pea coal $7.25 per ton,delivered. | o.- = KEEPING POSTED A GREAT AMERICAN INSTITUTION EDWARD H. KENT ® Hi The volunteer fire companies came into existence before the American Revolution and coatributed a great deal to our way of life. In the towns and larger cities there were two or more c@mpanies according to the need, and what they lacked in fire- fighting equipment they made up in fierce and Sometimes bitter rivalry. Each company tried to get to the fire first; each one tried for the most favorable place from which to pump water. Often heated arguments and fist fights followed; even squirting on each other came as a last resort, while the fire burned merrily along. We have core a long way from the little four-wheeled wagons drawn. by hand and carrying moth- ing more complicated than a water pump. Along the side of the engine was a long bar or handle, manned by four or six men to a side. They pumped up and down furiously. Presumably men in those days did not have such weak hearts as they do now. There is a story told of one so- called chemical company that had a tank on two wheels filled with a chemical supposed to smother a fire faster than water. To remove cor- roson on one occasion the tank was stored filled with kerosene. That night the village church caught fire. The volunteers rushed into action and completed the ruin by spraying all the sundry with kerosene. Today a siren screams, motors thunder, and down the road roars a great red Behemoth weighing five tons or more. ‘Cats, dogs, cows and chickens fly out of the way, children wave and cheer, and grown-ups grab the first car handy and follow the fire-fighters. It is lots of fun and excitement and a lot of hard work for the volunteer firemen. The same thing that handicaps most of us handicaps the volunteer fire companies. Namely, lack of funds. They have mo source of re- gular income aside from the dues of members which vary considerably from year to year. Occasionally a township commission will make a small contribution; once in awhile there will be a small personal do- nation or a gift from a generous insurance company in recognition of a job well done, with what might have been a large loss held ‘to’ a small one, These bands of volunteers who fight fires just for the love and excitement of it, with the help of public spirited citizens, have had to build their own fire houses, buy and maintain their own equipment. It is no cheap proposition. Every time an alarm fis answered it’s igas, oil, | Money on Your | Spring Car You can shop around i} and buy for cash if you finance your car on our Automobile Plan. Stop in and see how much you can save, and how quickly and easily all the details of the fi- nancing can be arranged for you. Open Friday Afternoon Until 5 P.M. For Your Convenience “Y% KINGSTON NATIONAL BANK AT KINGSTON CORNERS (TXTULDATAY Membeg Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation NY Barnyard Notes ie DAFFODOWNDILLY By A. n se “When We Were Very Young” A. MILNE She wore her, yellow sunbonnet, She wore her greenest gown; She turned to the south wind And curtsied up and down She turned to the sunlight And shook her yellow head, And whispered to her neighbor: “Winter is dead” Once more the daffodils make bright the tangled slopes and thickets along Machell Avenue, and once more we think of those who planted them there without a thought that some day in Bpring we would remember them because of the daffodils. ; A man can’t go through this world scattering beauty and kind word here and there without being remembered. MENDING WALL By Robert Frost Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That sends the frozen ground—swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair ‘Where they have left not one stone on a stone, But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, No one has seen them made or heard them made, But at spring mending time we find them there. I let my neighbor know beyond the hill: And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. To each the boulders that have fallen to each. And some are loaves and some so nearly balls We have to use a spell to make them balance: “Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’ We wear our fingers round with handling them. Oh, just another kind of outdoor game, : One on a side. It comes to little more: There where it is we do not need the wall; He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across Z And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, “Good fences make good neighbors.” Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: “Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offense. Something there is that doesn’t like a wall, That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him, But it’s not elves exactly, and I'd rather He said it for himself. I see him there Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top In each hand, like an*old8toné® savage armed. + He moves in darkness as it seems to me, Not of woods only and the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father’s saying, And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors’! - wear and tear on tires, hose, and the entire machine, as well as absence from business. We have in ‘this area twelve volunteer fire companies. Some are better than others, but they are all good. [Some have much better equip- ment than others, some better leadership; but they all cooperate beautifully, backing up each other and covering each other’s district. If by any wild stretch of the imagination anyone can think up a tax that property owmers would be happy to pay, it should be a small one for the fire companies, a fair return for the protection offered and received. The companies /in this area have saved thousands of dollars worth of property in the past few years. The American institution that sparks the fire company is the Ladies Auxiliary. They don’t have the fun of tearing down the road at a mile a minute, barging into somebody's parlor and squirting the hose on the best furniture and rugs or down the chimney. No, they work in the kitchen to prepare a dandy dinner, or arrange for a dance, drum up trade for a card party, or bake for la bake-sale, all to raise money for the company. Tf there were no Auxiliary, there would soon be no fire company. There is a saying that a hospital is only as good as its doctors, and so it is with a fire company—it is only as good as its Ladies Auxiliary. The mext time your house catches on fire iand is saved from total ruin, the mext time a grass fire is stopped before it can burn down your barn, send a contibution to the fire com- pany that did the work. If you are fortunate and have mo fire, send a contribution anywaly, just to show your interest and appreciation, and make it an annual gift. Public Address System Installed At School Dallas-Franklin Township ‘schools used ‘the newly installed public address system for the first time March "17 at a PTA meeting. The present set-up, installed by Bill Guyette, includes four loud speakers in the gymnasium and one in the dining room below. [A second microphone will eventu- ally be added. Guyette is arranging equipment to make possible broad- casting of a radio program over the | system. 8 1] Country Rambling by Bob = J With the advent of fishing sea- son this week we want to tell you a story we heard which happened many years ago but will be of par- ticular interest to those who have lived in these parts for some time. Did you know “Jap” Swingle ? Well, he lived in Swingledale, or Hol- comb’s Grove as it's now called, and the old streetcar line ran right past his house and the creek. One day, being more full of the ‘“devil” than ever, he went to town, bought a nice big salt walter whitefish and brought it home. Getting out his fishing tackle he sat down by the edge of the creek, put this big fish on his line, and everytime a street- car went past he would haul this - monster from the depths. Well, be- lieve me, the next day and for days thereafter, the bank of Toby’s Creek was lined with hopeful fishermen. By the way, if you're going on a long fishing trip be sure to take Duke Isaacs along. They tell me he's about the best camp cook around. Seems it’s a throwback to the days when Duke worked for an alumi- num kitchenware company and had to go around giving home demon- strations. Sg It never rains but what it pours. Poor Dan TFitzer over in Kunkle who cut off the first joint, middle finger, of his left hand this winter, had a 115-lb casting drop on one of his big toes and smash it here a couple of weeks ago. Better carry a rabbit's foot Dan. Ask Stain Moore to tell you the story about the two little chip- munks, What with the advent of bait-placers in this area many dogs are finding themselves be- ing escorted around im a manner to which they aren’t accustomed ... ox a leash. Seems funny to get punched in the nose by absolute strangers for nothing at all. Why don’t you let ‘us in on it Jim, the suspense is terrific ? Folks nowadays sure do take our modern conveniences for granted. For instance the lady who stood at the Shavertown crossing this week when the .(Continued on Page Nine) | | Bo A it eter moh
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers