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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 25, 1955)
o o 2 O TWO MEDFORD (OREGON) MAIL TRIBUNE Sunday, December 25, 1955 Judge Goldstein Sets Jury Verdict Aside Judge Barnett Goldstein Thursday set aside a jury ver dict which gave a S500 judgment to Robert Voris. Voris brought suit against E. W. Ekman, Med ford, for a S"50 real estate com mission which he alleged Ek man owed. In setting aside the verdict, Judge Goldstein said the jury should have returned a verdict granting the 5750 or nothing. Goldstein said the two contracts stating the agreement between Ekman and Voris were not in Qagreement, as one stated the amount f commission to be paid ana the other did not. Retrial has been set for next rrgnth. U& Tribune Want Ads Just Call 2-6141 4 Gertrude and f Erhardr0 Blind Medford Paint & WALLPAPER STORE Corner 6rh & Holly O Wish to Extend Their Best Wishes for a " and a Most Prosperous NEW YEAR! Is That So? Nothing on this earth can be more enchanting than the first fall of snow with its sudden and magical transformation of every thing it touches. Yet soft as it is, there's hidden in it a mailed fist. The first snow's coming is eerie: steely skies lower, gray clouds hang with a great envel oping stillness. Then a few flakes flutter down without sound. The air fills until one can scarcely see across the valley. And winter's first snow is on As the flakes fall into the swirling back river, they melt instantly the river rushes om inously on. As they fall on the evergreens, thev cling and soon powdered breaches bend with their weight of snow. In the stark hardwoods, last spring's robin's nest grows a cocked peaked roof. A veil is drawn over the 4 k stones. Irrigation ditches soften into gentle slopes. Each fence- post is crowned with a diadem. The familiar cluster of nearby roofs takes on a strange appear ance. Study the first great flakes to lie unmelted on your coat sleeve. With a hand lens, their beauty will be revealed the most deli cate ' and fleeting perfection in nature. Thoreau called them "the sweepings of heaven's floor." Although the patterns are seem ingly endless in varying details, yet the basic design will be the same that of a hexagonal star, its parts divisible by six or three. Night comes with a subdued excitement underlying. It is snowing. The miracle of snow. First To Look Who can resist the windows in the morning? Everyone wants to be first to look at the new strange world. There is an all pervading brilliance of white ness. The outdoors seems sud denly enlarged; and in contrast, the rooms suddenly become smaller, but cozier. Dawn has a new inner glow and all is shot through with blue shadows, and By EUGENE BURNS Ranger-Naruraliit as the sun lifts, it finds a mil lion diamonds. Beautiful as it lies over tree, and rock, and housetop and last season's robin's nest, this snow cover is not to remain un touched for long. Comes the wind to whirl up the flakes and quick ly and easily throw them into new sculptored patterns, piling curving banks there, wavy peaks here, and long hollows there and never was artist more dexterous than the wind, nor his medium, the snow, more malleable. And, as wind leaves off, there is, all over again, a new-shaped world. Falls then the night again swiftly, the chilled silence of winter night, and twinkling stars step forth with a grandeur and sparkling brilliance unmatched. Summer never knew of such skies. In the forest, the snow was al ready inscribed the first day. As one enters the woods, footprints are to be identified the leap of a cottontail, the tracks of a pheasant with the wingbeats where it took off from the snow, the tracks of a deer mouse with tail dragging. Romances are here too to be interpreted; and there are silent tragedies to be read where a great owl on soft wings swooped down on an easily-seen meadow mouse. But red berries, too, are now more easily seen by the birds. Snow Actually Warm Cold as the snow may seem, actually it is warm. Fluffing out feathers or fur, the small crea tures find in the snow shelter and stay warm. And it also con serves the earth's banked warmth and thus protects roots from frost-heaving. Yet hidden in that delicate seeming blanket of snow is cruel power. It can melt, then freeze, making a hard crust hard enough for a wolf to run over, yet too weak to support a deer. Or the same crust may hold im prisoned a grouse which sought warmth and shelter and now has no food. But that crust, too, can serve as a stepladder for the snowshoe rabbit, turned white, so that he can reach up and get new tips and buds to stave off hunger which is already mak ing inroads on his stored tallow. Quickly melted, that snow can start floods; or hold ' stored moisture against summer's drought. But how fickle, the human. Should the snow last a week, he O o o Q 8 o o o y ' Staj safe and sound I ..yfiyiBiwyi-H ; MILK PRODUCERS LEAGUE of JACKSON COUNTY Suit Brought Against Highway Department Salem U.R) Seventy-two employees of a Lane county lum ber mill filed suit against the State Highway department here Friday seeking damages totaling $9,375.20 for loss of wages. The employees charged the department with setting off a blast near the Consumers Co operative association plant at Swisshome which destroyed a?! transformer and forced the mill to close down from Jan. 5 to Jan. 17, 1955. The suit was brought in Mar ion County Circuit Court b'y Elmer Ballard for himself and 71 other workers at the mill. becomes restive; in a fortnight, he is heartily sick of the old, grey tiresome , stuff. Forgetting so soon that the deeper the snow often the richer the year. And forgetting that always under neath the snow spring is hiding: next year's white dogwood and red rose; next year's waterfalls to refresh a parched landscape. All is there, in these first hexa gonal snowflakes, twirling down, gathering in numbers, whitening the sky and transforming the earth as by magic. (Copyright, 1955, By Eugene Burns Released by McCluro Newspaper Syndicate) Free: By special arrangement with the editors of the Encyclo pedia Americana, my panel of judges will award each week to the reader who sends me the best true-life nature adventure, the best nature observation, or the best question on nature and wild life, a complete 3.0-volume set of this world - famous reference work in a handsome Sealcraft binding. Each week new sub missions will be considered. Sorry, 1 simply can't answer your many friendly letters. Please address your letter to: IS THAT SO! co Medford Mail Tribune, Box 575, Sausalito, Calif. jr-"--2. - ' , - . RUSSIAN RIVER ON RAMPAGE This isn't the Pacific Ocean it's the Russian River, summertime paradise for swimmers from the San Francisco Bay Area, roaring through Guerneville, Cal., after the season's" worst storm lashed the Northern California coast. The'resort town was isolated and 150 families evacuated. Damage was estimated at two million dollars. New York Police Look For $10,000 In Taxi New York U.R) Police Saturday carried out a pains taking search for the cab driver whd unknowingly drove off with a Brooklyn housewife's $10,000. The woman, Mrs. Frances Cohen, lost the money last week but didn't tell police until Fri day because she was afraid to break the news to her husband. The money had come from the sale of their house. Mrs. Cohen . tearfully told police that she had gotten into the taxi Dec. 16, carrying the money, her daughter's doll and several packages. She had got ten out of the cab and seen it drive off before she realized she didn't have the money, she said. - Police broke the news to her husband Harry Cohen, 47. "What's done is done," he said. Use Tribune Want Ads Adenauer May Confer With Ike Next Year N Bonn, Germany (U.R) Chan cellor Konrad Adenauer may meet with President Eisenhower early in 1956, informed political sources reported here Saturday. The West German chancellor has been invited to visit the United States to receive an hon orary degree from Yale univer sity. He has not yet accepted th invitation. HOW CHRISTIAN SCIENCE . HEALS Station KWIN 1400 K.C. Sundays '10:15 ' A.M. Klamath Falls Flood News Inside Paper Klamath Falls (U.R) De spite some of the worst floods in recent years within the circu lation area of the Klamath Falls Herald and News, the paper re fused to back away from its reso lution to print only "good" news during Christmas week on its front pages. Readers who wanted to learn about flood troubles in Oregon and California had to turn to the inside pages. A Nichol's Worth of . . . Comment On This and That By HARMAN W. NICHOLS United Pre total Writer g Harman Nichols Washington (U.R) This is an open letter to mamas wherever they are: . The next time junior lets out a 1 1 i 4- rl&"iRJ getting dunk- r : t. I' i ed in a tub, tell him to shaddup. The kid has no copyright on that sort of torture. Bath- taking, accord ing to infor mation I have at hand, has been going on for at least 7000 years, maybe longer. The Plumbing Fixture Manu facturers Association has dug up some facts about the business of keeoine clean. Time was, it seems, back there in the forgot ten past, when bathing in some countries was sort of a celebra tion to greet a new year. It was sort of a public dunking. An al together business. The record says that bathing was quite the thing in ancient Babylonia. Bathrooms were 15 by 15 feet and were fixed up in the palace of King ' Urnimar's little showplace at Tshunnak. Tubs were not known in those days, so his majesty stood there in the buff and servants raced around dousing him with water. Cold water. A long time after that, around 1300 B.C., the Persians and the Egyptians thought up a rough clay pipe system which spurted water onto anyone needing a bath. Could be that was the first shower. Funny thing is that folks think the bathtub is an Ameri can . invention. Fact is, nobody knows who did, really. A story has been going around for years that it was a character named Adam Thompson. That man is a myth. He lived only in the mind of one of our news paper colleagues back , in 1917. The columnist wrote the thing as a joke, but the story grew and grew and is growing still. Thing that started all of this about bathtubs came up in con versation the other day. Some body asked a sensible question: Lodge To Present Festival of St. John . The Festival of St. John the Evangelist will be observed by members of the Medford Lodge 103, AF and AM, at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 27, in the Masonic temple. Two speakers on Masonic sub jects are scheduled, as are sev eral musical selections. Refresh ments will be served. PICTURE TUBES REJUVENATED Is your picture tube dull and weak? Most picture tubes can be restored to original brightness at only a fraction of the cost of replacement. For further information CALL Electronic Service "Why do they slant the tub at the sitting end?" Well, the plumbing people don't know for sure. Several ex planations have been : offered. One is that when one of the first tubs was built, in a Babylonian palace, his high ' and mighty didn't want the place messed up. So he instructed his tub build ers to please slant the tub, so that his servants, while sloshing him would let the water go into the drain instead of spreading all over the floor. That sounds sensible. Tubs probably sired water sys tems. The first water mains in America were wood, laid in early 1700 in Boston. And so today we have show ers, tubs, back washers and foot washers and the like. And there isn't much new under the fau cet, is there? Hannon Named New Attorney For Fong Portland '(U.R) John Patrick Hannon Friday was named new attorney for Wey Him Fong, ac cused of the murder of 16-year-old Diane Hank. Hannon said he would ask for a 30-day ex tension of time before Fong's trial to familiarize himself with the case. Fong was originally scheduled for his second trial on Jan. 9. His wife, Sherry Fong, was re cently convicted of second de gree murder in connection with the 1954 Hank death in a separ ate trial. Convictions of both Fongs in an earlier joint trial was dis missed by the court. Attorney Irvin Goodman de fended both Fongs in the earlier trials. Newsprint Shortage Seen With Closures Oregon City (U.R) A possi bility of a newsprint shortage faced Portland newspapers Saturday because the flooding Willamette river has forced shut down or curtailment of produc tion at two paper mills here. . The Crown Zellerbach cor poration mill at West Linn across the river from Oregon City was shut down for "probably as much as 10 days," a company of ficial said. Publishers' Paper company mill was at 60 per cent of capac ity Friday night. The two mills are principal source of newsprint for Portland papers. AUTOMATIC r--,ryi nn FLEXIBLE oaSS? Vmechanical YOU CAN OWN : ONE FOR ONLY S; A FEW CENTS A DAY is in s Here are time-saving and work-saving features never before equalled in an automatic wash er, including Black stone's exclusive Flex-O-Trol which assures quicker, easier laundering of all fabrics. Treat yourself to a treat and see a demonstration. This Yuletlde Season marks the end of another year of service to you. May we thank you fer your patro nage and say that we hope to see you often in the future . . . Have a Happy .Holiday. We Service What We Sell . . . MARY A "Your Exclusive Blackstone Dealer" 220 WEST MAIN ' PHONE 2-4922 0 May your Yuletide glow brightly throughout the Rogue River Valley with that good old fashioned Christmas cheer that makes every heart lighter, every friendship warmer, every hour richer in happiness and contentment. CRATER INN MOTEL Bill and Mary Schei t PH. 3-1971 0 v 18 N. GRAPE
