Did Ya Know... The Carthage Shops Christmas Open House is Sun., Nov. 9, from noon-5 p.m. There will be free rides with Santa & his elves on the Double-Decker Bus.

Did Ya Know...The Carthage Shrine Burn Crew will have a Bar-B-Q Pork Dinner on Sat., Nov. 8 at 6 p.m., north of Carthage on M Highway (71 Highway to M Highway & ¼ mile west). Cost is $6 per person.

Did Ya Know... The Good Shepherd Lutheran Church’s Fall Bazaar and Soup Lunch is Sat., Nov. 8. The Bazaar is from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.; lunch is from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. Cost for adults is $3.50 and children 12 and under are $1.50.

Did Ya Know... The Family Literacy Council Book Affair - Silent Auction is Sunday, November 9 at the historic Phelps House. For information, call 358-5926.

The only thing you can get for a quarter today is a dime.

Most people operate on a one-track mind of two rails - "me" and "I".

A one-liner is a mini ha-ha.

It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.

The Evaporator and Its Work.

A representative visited the evaporator of J. H. Magee & Co., in this city, which has been doing such a lively business since the latter part of August. The establishment now employs regularly about twenty women and eight to ten men. Owing to the long continued drought and unseasonable hot weather, which have caused the apples to fall from the trees and have practically depleted the apple crop of this region, Mr. J. H. Magee has had to go to Seligman, Arkansas, and buy apples with which to keep the evaporator running. In his absence his brother, Mr. Chas. Magee is in charge of the business here.

"Our factory," said Mr. Magee, "has a capacity of six hundred bushels of apples per day but we have only been running about two hundred and seventy-five bushels per day. We ship our entire output of evaporated apples to St. Louis. We also have a great deal of stuff, which we call, waste that we dry just as we do our regular product. This we ship to St. Louis where it is made into jelly."

The waste is the parings and the cores of the apples, which are prepared for drying, and also apples, which are slightly rotten, and those, which are known as culls. The manner in which the waste is utilized is a striking illustration of the fact that in a well-regulated institution of any kind nothing is lost.

The apples are evaporated by means of steam heat applied to the sliced apples which are placed on trays and then slid into a cabinet through which a mile or more of pipes convey steam heat, the steam for which is piped from the Fitch electric light plant that is near by.

Sidewalk Hopscotch.

The Public Works Committee took up the sidewalk issue in earnest at their meeting Wednesday night and moved closer to bringing sidewalks on City owned property up to code. According to comments made by Committee members, the City is currently in litigation concerning claims that faulty City sidewalks caused personal injury.

Their agenda listed the issue in two parts: the repair of sidewalks on City-owned property and the consideration of the current sidewalk ordinances.

At the Mayor’s request, City Attorney David Dally is preparing information for the Committee concerning the current ordinances and proposed changes. The Committee will take up that aspect of the sidewalk issue once they receive Dally’s recommendations.

Discussion Wednesday night focused on the repair of City-owned sidewalks, including some on park properties and at the hospital.

The Engineering Department presented the complete list of City sidewalks which need repair at an estimated cost of $65,000. According to Assistant to City Engineer Joe Butler, the sidewalks listed do not meet City code or Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements.

After much discussion, the line between the two parts of the sidewalk issue began to blur.

Diane Sharitz of Main Street Carthage raised the possibility of grant money which is available on a matching basis from the state for the downtown area. The City must provide one-third of the funds, businesses must provide one-third of the funds and the state will provide one-third, up to $200,000.

Sharitz said it was possible that the City could include the $100,000 allotted for the Mall Sidewalk project and the cost of some smaller repairs in the downtown area which are included on Engineering’s list toward their share of the funds for the grant.

If a grant of this nature were received, the City would be assisting the business owners with the cost of sidewalk repairs. Under the current ordinance, business owners and residents are responsible for the cost of repairs to sidewalks on their properties. Other businesses and residents would not be receiving this help from the City.

From there, concern about equal treatment for those having to make repairs and the possibility of Neighborhood Improvement Districts and grants for residents were raised. Since the Committee does not know what changes to the ordinance Dally may recommend, discussion of possible programs to assist with residential repairs could not proceed to any conclusions.

Council members Lujene Clark and Mike Harris, sitting in on the meeting, urged that no action be taken until the sidewalk ordinance has been revised and a comprehensive plan for repairs City wide, including both City-owned and private property, is in place.

"We’re not anywhere close to developing a plan," said Committee member Bill Johnson. "We’re fixing ours. We’re fixing what we can’t assess to anyone else. Now when you go fix a property owner, be it a business on the Square or residential, you can assess some of that back to that property owner. We’re not talking about anything in that category. This is something you’ll never assess to anyone, you’re going to pay for all of it."

"All I’m saying is deal with the sidewalks as a whole," said Clark. "You have a sidewalk issue, deal with it comprehensively rather than saying we’re going to spend this amount of money, these are ours, we’ll look at grant money. By then you’ve already got bids let and everything and you may find grant money, but if you’re halfway through the project, it isn’t going to help you. Life’s in the details, folks."

"We seem to have a consensus that the Committee is in favor of this, but we had some reservations from people on the Council that are in the crowd also," Committee Chair Bill Fortune concluded. "We’d like Tom (Short), to address this with David (Dally), then we would like to proceed with this. But we want to know how this impacts with our revision of ordinances, if there’s any problem or conflict with that."

The Committee passed a motion that the list be approved and the City move forward on repairs to sidewalks on City-owned property, contingent on Dally’s review and approval, with funding to be from City sources, grants, the parks department and McCune-Brooks Hospital as available.

Some folks just don’t understand tools.

I knew one guy who claimed ta have at least one a ever’ Snap-On wrench in the catalog. For those who don’t hang around professional mechanics, Snap-On is one a the most respected names around. This guy also had a big tool box with what appeared ta be a couple a hundred drawers in it and they were indeed full of tools of all sizes and shapes.

Now whether this guy knew what they were all for I don’t have the slightest idea, but the fact was that although it was an impressive sight, they weren’t bein’ used. They all just sat there at the back of his two car garage. Now the potential was great for this collection of finely crafted equipment, but they were of little use unless they got picked up now and then.

Bein’ a member of an organization is like havin’ a big tool box. But unless ya put some energy behind those tools, ya can’t expect much.

This is some fact, but mostly, Just Jake Talkin’.

by Oak Street health & herbs

Natural Nutrition

by Mari An Willis

From personal observation, the flu or something like it has started early and seems to be hanging on once someone catches it. This is one of those times when I want to practice prevention in a big way. I rank being sick as being one of my least favorite things!!!

From the pages of modern scientific research this is the perfect time to be upping your regular dosages of garlic and Vitamin C. Many of you who are regular users of garlic know this routine very well and seem willing to pass the word to others.

Echinacea has been in the limelight along with Astragalus for keeping the immune system fit. It is my understanding from Steven Foster, who is noted for his research with Echinacea, that the time to take Echinacea is at the onset of symptoms...the sooner the better and to discontinue use after a few weeks.

A more appropriate herb, stated in Newsweek magazine may be Astragalus. This herb is a tonic herb. Herbs in this classification keep the system "tonified" so that it may respond in an appropriate manner if attacked by virus or bacteria symptoms.

A couple of years ago a gentleman brought an article in from one of his travel magazines which highly recommended Astragalus for use by retired travelers to keep them from coming down with colds and flu while away form their homes. He has sworn by it ever since, stating that he had previously had two or three colds and at least one bout of the flu each year and has not had any since he started using Astragalus.