Editor's Notebook

When it comes to making mistakes, few people are immune. What sets some of us apart is how we recover from our mistakes.

When opening the Monday morning mail, I realized an envelope from a national printing company had been flipped in the printing process. The flap I had to open was on the bottom instead of the top. Not a major problem, I just had to turn the envelope over so my letter opener would work.

Looking at it more closely, I discovered the window was in the wrong position. If one turned the envelope to put the flap in the right position, the window was a the top of the envelop where the stamp should go.

How many thousand envelopes were made before the mistake was caught?

The problem illustrates one of the challenges in the printing industry. In the printing world, many things are just opposite of what we think. To move an image right, we often have to move the form left.

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With many events canceled because of COVID, I sometimes think we are printing a history book instead of a newspaper and worry our readers will not be pleased.

Apparently some of our readers are enjoying receiving our history lessons. This weekend I was working on a scanner with the hope it could be used to convert negatives to digital files. After finishing with the set up, I wanted to test the system. On my desk was a packet of negatives taken in late August of 1970. I took a strip of negatives out and loaded it into the scanner. Without advance planning, I had scanned a picture taken 50 years ago of freshmen girls being initiated into the Superior High School Pep Club.

If I remember the story correctly, upper class members had gone to the girls’ homes earlier that morning and taken them to the school for a “come-as-you-are” breakfast. After breakfast, the freshmen girls were made to parade along the sidewalks of the Superior business district. Most were dressed in their night clothes.

When the photographer caught up with them, they were in front of the Brown’s Shoe Fit store located where the Wave’s beauty salon is now located.

The scanner worked perfectly and I soon had a digital copy of the old negative. As a lark, I posted it on Facebook page and soon I was getting email messages reporting on who was pictured.

Apparently the picture includes (not in any particular order) Karen Rempe Tinkham, Carla Alexander, Pam Hill, Jill Tyree Scripter. Cindy Switzer Carver, Brenda Stiles, Cindy Beckler, Deb Spring, Melva Diehl, Deb Lowery Sibert, Mary Beaumont Hamilton, Lynette Nelson, and Melinda Stone Duncan. In some cases, the girls were identified by their maiden name and other times with their married name.

Viewers started sharing the photo and commenting on their memories of the event.

Jill Scripter reported, “I still have the kimono. My uncle sent it to me from Japan.

Earlier in the week, I was looking through a scrapbook Rita made in 1994 for pictures taken of her parents. I found a picture of the Lady Vestey Festival Food Court sign Rita made that year. She had screen printed the sign and used 2x4 lumber to frame it. The sign hung above the entrance to the food court which was located in what is now the Farmers & Merchants Bank drive-up exit which on festival days served as the foot court entrance.

On a whim, I also shared that picture on the Facebook page. It shows only the backs of festival attendees but it has been interesting to follow the conversation of viewers who think they recognize people entering the food court.

Today, with our computer driven wide-format printer, a similar sign could be more colorful and easier and less costly to make.

We used that printer last week to make a transparent sign which was placed on the door of a downtown Superior business. From the street it appears the sign is solid but from the inside people can look through and see what is happening on the street. Such a sign on a door which opens out, makes for a safer door. By being able to see who is approaching, it is less likely someone leaving the business, will swing the door out and into the face of a person entering the business.

I have wished for a hobby I could pursue in my retirement years. I think I have found it. Should I ever come to a time of life when I need something to do, I can busy myself sharing old photos. I have collected negatives and digital files of pictures taken in this area which span about 80 years. While I have taken many of the pictures, the collection includes the work of several photographers.

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When I was in Mankato last week delivering newspapers, it looked like the owners of Mac’s convenience store were planning to host a county-wide pumpkin pie feed. They had a 370-pound pumpkin setting on the drive in front of their store.

As I left Mankato, I wondered how many pies that pumpkin would make.

So when I got back to Superior I started researching the topic. I learned 1 pound of fresh pumpkin yields on average 1 cup of pureed pumpkin and two cups of pureed pumpkin are needed to make one pie. Thus the pumpkin sitting on Mac’s drive would probably make 185 pies. If each pie was cut into 6 pieces, that one pumpkin would yield 1,110 pieces.

Before inviting 1,110 people to a pumpkin pie feed, we need to consider how we would bake that many pies. If each oven could hold 4 pies, 27 ovens would be needed.

I’m not sure what will happen to the giant pumpkin but I doubt anyone is planning to use it for a county-wide pumpkin pie feed.

The pumpkin was raised by Randy Slate and entered in the Jewell Corn Show where it received the grand champion purple ribbon.

I’d like to know how Slate moved the pumpkin from the patch to the corn show and then to Mac’s. He either enlisted the assistance of a lot of friends or used mechanical equipment.

When I was a youngster, I helped my father harvest watermelon. My job was to ride in the trailer or wagon and stack the melons which Dad picked and tossed to me. If I missed, the result was usually smashed melon. But that was sometimes okay. Early in the morning watermelon hearts make for a great breakfast when eaten in the melon patch.

While some melon growers went for the big melons, Dad was focused on raising market melons, not show melons. He preferred a more medium size. Neither the small ice-box melons or the large melons sold well.

We had a neighbor who was proud to raise 70 or 80 pound water melons but my father knew his customers would rather buy more of his smaller melons than one of the large ones. I didn’t argue. I didn’t want to handle the larger melons.