Alfredisms

"How Big Will Farms Become?"
April 25, 1974

By Norris Alfred

The definitive story about abandoned farmsteads is yet to be written for this agricultural area. Perhaps it is just as one grows older the past is viewed with increasing nostalgia because the present is so different. As size of farms increase by merging smaller units into larger ones, a way of life is obliterated and the countryside littered with sets of lifeless farm buildings.

"Polking Around"
March 15, 1984

We won’t have space for a birding story this week. Friday’s snow and Saturday’s early morning zero reading had us wondering about the ducks and geese on the rainwater basins and we drove south, Saturday afternoon, to see how our friends had survived.

On Oct. 23, 2009, Norris W. Alfred was inducted into the Nebraska Journalism Hall of Fame. In honor of that occasion, Prairie Fire asked a long-time friend and mentor to write a personal remembrance of their friendship. Alton M. “Mook” Wilhelms sent the text that follows.

By Alton M. Wilhelms

Norris Alfred? Yeah, I knew Norris Alfred. We became acquainted in the fall of 1951.

Jan. 9, 1975
"Kicking the can"

The late Rev. J. F. Balzer of Crete once preached a sermon on “Things” beginning with “Not long ago, while we were having our kitchen remodeled to make more storage space, one of the painters entered the room and set up his ladders. He surveyed the room critically, and then peered into the new cupboards. ‘It’s the same everywhere,’ he said, ‘too many things: the more cupboards, the more things. It doesn’t pay.’” Balzer recognized this as a “contemporary version of the Emersonian dictum —Things are in the saddle and ride mankind.”

“Wants and Necessities”
March 2, 1989

Make do or do without” was pounded into our head during our growing-up years (the 1920s) and now, in the late 1980s, at age 75, our concept of value hasn’t changed. Reflecting on the debt-ridden, throw-away lifestyle of contemporary living has us questioning our sense of value, wondering if we have it wrong. Our rationale for a “make do or do without” personal lifestyle first came under attack during President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration, when the decision was made that the United States was rich enough to fight a war in Vietnam without asking the governed to do without…

“Polking Around”
Aug. 21, 1980

Consumer confidence increased about 10 points, according to a news story. We question its significance. “Confidence in what?” we wondered. Certainly it can’t be in Chrysler Corporation, General Motors or the Ford Company. Everybody knows the dealers in electricity, oil and natural gas are ripping us off. Has anybody bought a pair of shoes lately?

“Polking Around”
Oct. 24, 1974

While bird watching one noon we were walking a stretch of graveled road and caught sight of an old tone in a ridge of gravel. Ira Glasser had told us how he sometimes found arrowheads and pieces of worked tones in the gravel spread on roads and we always have that in mind when on gravel and occasionally turn our attention from the roadside bushes, grass and fence to the road surface.

“Polking Around”
Aug. 1, 1971

John T. Arbuckle, an Indian, was convicted of possessing parts for a Molotov cocktail during a 1973 civil unrest and in Scotts Bluff County District Court was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. The materials for making what was described as a “destructive device” were “plastic, gallon jugs, clothesline rope and can of gasoline.” What was meant by plastic the newspaper story didn’t detail.

“Polking Around”
Oct. 7, 1971

Since 1955, when we first assumed the responsibility of publishing the Polk Progress, we have watched, and at times, recorded, the changes in Main Street businesses and farming. Our observations have confirmed the Great Truth—where there are humans there is change, and not necessarily for the better. We are not thinking about changes we can see in the mirror. The process of aging is a natural one which is hastened by the worries and anxieties of weekly newspaper publishing. The furrowed brow, twitching ears, slack jaw, reddened nose, watery eyes, thinned hair, stooped posture and limping step are the rewards of our work which we accept with the usual amount of necessary groaning.

“Polking Around”
March 14, 1974

County Agent Donald Sigler sent a March 13 news release with advice about planning and planting a garden. In it he states: “Your garden size will depend on space available.” This is the kind of pertinent comment that inspires us to continue publishing the Progress, so we can relay this needed information to our readers.

“An Evening Spent Fishing”
June 17, 1971

There are moments memorable when the conjunction of time, place and activity are harmonious; when the psychic is sensitive to soothing stimuli; another way of describing the pleasure and contentment we felt while fishing at the Polk County Wildlife Club’s sandpit, north and west of Hordville Wednesday evening. Overhead, the clouds were supersaturated and would loose brief showers as the wind drove them from the south into a darker and more threatening north. Between showers, we (the writer and Lyle Dornburgh) would leave the car and return to the fish poles.

“Jobs and Satisfactory Living”
August 27, 1987

By Norris Alfred

We take issue with the assertion that having a “job” is the prime reason for living. A “job” is admittedly necessary for “earning” a living. But “earning” is not, necessarily, “learning.” Living is a learning process that should continue until the final breath. When a business entity—corporation, or whatever—announces plans to locate in Nebraska and create a certain number of “jobs,” our cheering is subdued by questioning the quality and “kind” of jobs, not the number. Humans are not automatons. The words are not synonymous.

“Polking Around”
August 18, 1977

Another store front on Main Street is being remodeled. MacDonald’s GW is gaining the permanent awning look of the buildings north and south of it. Homer MacDonald, the store’s slimming proprietor (he’s on a diet. He is not the male member of the TOPS club.) was taking down the IGA signs when one chunk crashed through a big plate glass window. This accident caused the timing of the remodeling and covering the remaining expanse of plate glass with a solid front.

“U.S.A., Inc.”
December 23, 1971

“Few things are growing faster down on the farm these days than corporate influence”—and—“Only 1 percent of the farms are incorporated.” Conflicting statements. Which to believe? The first is the opening sentence of an article in the Lincoln Sunday Journal and Star for Dec. 12, “Down on the Farm: Big Business” by Drummond Ayres Jr. of the New York Times. The second is a portion of a statement by Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz on “Meet the Press,” Sunday, Dec. 5.

“Polking Around”
March 2, 1972

Man has evolved from crawling to standing to sitting. This is the peak. To be able to live sitting down. Nearly everyone exits this life in a prone position, or hopes to (we have never heard of a head-first or feet-first burial) and as long as they can stay awake, they fight stretching out on their back for fear someone will put a lily in their hand and read an obituary.

“Polking Around”
Oct. 2, 1980

A cock pheasant strolled into our backyard Sunday morning. He was obviously exploring new territory, taking cautious steps, stopping to glance warily at the house, pecking at something in our crabgrass lawn and, finally, after peering intently at the neighbor’s rhubarb and asparagus patch, disappearing into it.

“Polking Around”
Feb. 17, 1972

We were intrigued with Labor Secretary Hodge’s claim of progress in solving the unemployment problem even though the number of unemployed has increased. His reasoning had to do with the rate of unemployment, if we remember correctly—the number of employed was increasing and the number of unemployed was decreasing while increasing. If this sounds confusing, it can perhaps be simplified by using Secretary Hodge’s figure of speech—look at the doughnut and not the hole. The doughnut being the employed and the hole being the unemployed. The doughnut has grown larger—so has the hole, but not at the same rate.

“Polking Around”
April 22, 1971

“In England there are 2,000 more bet shops than drug stores. We have no idea where we came across that statistic, but the oddity of the comparison is intriguing. In the hunt for new sources of revenue, national and local governments are, more and more, eyeing the citizen’s almost pathological urge to gamble with the thought that here is the next great natural revenue source.

By Vincent Dowling

Norris Alfred no longer polking,
With curious Polaroid and pen
About Nebraska.

February 27, 1986 "Farms, farming and politics"

Converting Nebraska sandhill land to row-crop agriculture, probably, has been the most disastrous development of contemporary industrialized agriculture and its high-cost efficiency. We remember a character on local television news, with greedy-looking facial features, who had invested in sandhill ranch land with the intention of converting it to row-crop and then selling it as irrigated farmland at an inflated price.