Here we are, now in a brief quiet time. Life may be a bit easier as we are no longer bombarded by vicious political ads. Now our attention will perhaps focus on finer things in life, like the opening of the 9-day deer season followed by Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.
If you can remember back 50 or 60 years you perhaps can recall a time when deer hunting in Southwest Wisconsin was not a very big deal. Most dedicated deer hunters traveled north, perhaps into cranberry country, to find their prey.
I was looking through past copies of The Muscoda Progressive and noticed one of the bigger headlines on I suspect there are not many farmers who spend time thinking about Ben Franklin as they guide their combine through a field harvesting corn. Ben is remembered for various things, such as standing out in a thunderstorm, flying a kite with a medal key attached, hoping to learn about lightening and electricity. He also printed one of the first newspapers in this new nation.
The early farmers were interested in raising wheat. However, according to information distributed to newspapers during our nation’s Bicentennial, Ben promoted the idea that farmers should be interested in the crop of the Indians – corn. He compiled a “corn cookbook” that that claimed the plant “affords a wholesome and pleasing nourishment to men and animals.”
He may be the first person to come up with the first unique dish and American delicacy – roast corn on the cob. That way to eat corn was considered an American dish for many years. I remember one of the first foreign students to attend Riverdale High School. He stayed with a Town of Eagle farm family and reportedly was “flabbergasted” when he was served corn on a cob. – Back home in Sweden corn was considered food for animals, not people.
That young Swede didn’t know, as Franklin wrote, “First the family can begin to make use of it before the time of full harvest – for the tender green ears, stripped of their leaves and roasted until the grain is brown, and eaten with a little salt and butter, are a delicacy.
Franklin also knew how corn could be parched – possibly the forerunner of making popcorn.
Franklin also knew of another use for corn. “The stalks, pressed like sugar cane, yield a sweet juice, which if fermented and distilled makes an excellent spirit. Boiled without fermentation produces a pleasant syrup.
He apparently realized the native crop, a gift from the Indians, was going to be a basic ingredient in the future of American agriculture.
the front page of the November 27, 1941 issue was “Muscoda Deer Hunters Fare Well in North – Three Get Bucks.”
The story continued: “A big portion of Muscoda’s male population made the trek to the northern part of the state Friday and Saturday for the opening of the deer season. From all indications, deer are plentiful in northern Wisconsin.”
The story continued: “Harold Storms returned home Monday with a deer as did Ed Hardy, Lloyd Hardy and Mike Cudney. Al Kratochwill had not bagged a deer. Cars on the highways with horned bucks tied to the fenders have been numerous.”
In the same issue of the newspaper is the story about Charles J. Glasier, associate editor of the Aberdeen, Washington Daily World newspaper. He was a man who got his start in the newspaper world in Muscoda in 1874, when he started as a printer in a shop owned by his father, H. W. Glasier. From here he moved to area newspapers located in Platteville, Lancaster and Bloomington before going on to publications on the West Coast.
It took him 67 years, but he finally got to the White House in Washington, D. C. and participated in a presidential news conference, “seated in the front line right next to FDR’s desk.”
The news regarding local deer hunters being successful in the north and a former printer from Muscoda at a presidential event, soon became small items.
The December 11, 1941 issue of The Muscoda Progressive used large type for headlines regarding the Japanese December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, where a young Blue River man, Robert Shattuck, training with the U.S. Army at Hickam Field, was among the many who died on that first day of a new World War II.
How quickly the world can change.
If you can remember back 50 or 60 years you perhaps can recall a time when deer hunting in Southwest Wisconsin was not a very big deal. Most dedicated deer hunters traveled north, perhaps into cranberry country, to find their prey.
I was looking through past copies of The Muscoda Progressive and noticed one of the bigger headlines on I suspect there are not many farmers who spend time thinking about Ben Franklin as they guide their combine through a field harvesting corn. Ben is remembered for various things, such as standing out in a thunderstorm, flying a kite with a medal key attached, hoping to learn about lightening and electricity. He also printed one of the first newspapers in this new nation.
The early farmers were interested in raising wheat. However, according to information distributed to newspapers during our nation’s Bicentennial, Ben promoted the idea that farmers should be interested in the crop of the Indians – corn. He compiled a “corn cookbook” that that claimed the plant “affords a wholesome and pleasing nourishment to men and animals.”
He may be the first person to come up with the first unique dish and American delicacy – roast corn on the cob. That way to eat corn was considered an American dish for many years. I remember one of the first foreign students to attend Riverdale High School. He stayed with a Town of Eagle farm family and reportedly was “flabbergasted” when he was served corn on a cob. – Back home in Sweden corn was considered food for animals, not people.
That young Swede didn’t know, as Franklin wrote, “First the family can begin to make use of it before the time of full harvest – for the tender green ears, stripped of their leaves and roasted until the grain is brown, and eaten with a little salt and butter, are a delicacy.
Franklin also knew how corn could be parched – possibly the forerunner of making popcorn.
Franklin also knew of another use for corn. “The stalks, pressed like sugar cane, yield a sweet juice, which if fermented and distilled makes an excellent spirit. Boiled without fermentation produces a pleasant syrup.
He apparently realized the native crop, a gift from the Indians, was going to be a basic ingredient in the future of American agriculture.
the front page of the November 27, 1941 issue was “Muscoda Deer Hunters Fare Well in North – Three Get Bucks.”
The story continued: “A big portion of Muscoda’s male population made the trek to the northern part of the state Friday and Saturday for the opening of the deer season. From all indications, deer are plentiful in northern Wisconsin.”
The story continued: “Harold Storms returned home Monday with a deer as did Ed Hardy, Lloyd Hardy and Mike Cudney. Al Kratochwill had not bagged a deer. Cars on the highways with horned bucks tied to the fenders have been numerous.”
In the same issue of the newspaper is the story about Charles J. Glasier, associate editor of the Aberdeen, Washington Daily World newspaper. He was a man who got his start in the newspaper world in Muscoda in 1874, when he started as a printer in a shop owned by his father, H. W. Glasier. From here he moved to area newspapers located in Platteville, Lancaster and Bloomington before going on to publications on the West Coast.
It took him 67 years, but he finally got to the White House in Washington, D. C. and participated in a presidential news conference, “seated in the front line right next to FDR’s desk.”
The news regarding local deer hunters being successful in the north and a former printer from Muscoda at a presidential event, soon became small items.
The December 11, 1941 issue of The Muscoda Progressive used large type for headlines regarding the Japanese December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, where a young Blue River man, Robert Shattuck, training with the U.S. Army at Hickam Field, was among the many who died on that first day of a new World War II.
How quickly the world can change.
