Reigning Over the Reins

Faulty headline noted

Kennedy camp reigns in Bloomberg adviser Kevin Sheekey’s Senate seat lobbying efforts

(Headline on a New York Daily News article)

Oops. That should be "reins", not "reigns." Reins are the long straps on a horse's bridle that a rider uses to guide and control the horse. When a rider reins in a horse, he brings it to a stop, as the Kennedy camp would like to do with Kevin Sheekey.

A monarch reigns. After all the recent talk about the Kennedy dynasty and the entitlement to public office that the Kennedys supposedly feel, I wonder if the headline writer made a Freudian slip.

The NY Daily News article tells of efforts to "muzzle" Kevin Sheekey, who is described as New York City Mayor Bloomberg's "pitbull." Caroline Kennedy's advisers are afraid that Sheekey's high-pressure advocacy is hurting her bid for Hillary Clinton's soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat. The advisers are trying to rein in Sheekey's efforts.

Perhaps the headline writer didn't read Zane Grey westerns as a child. In Grey's fiction, cowboys reined in their horses nearly as often as they pulled out their guns. An example:

The cowboy reined in his horse, listened a moment, then swung down out of the saddle. He raised a cautioning hand to the others, then slipped into the gloom and disappeared.

(from page 54 of Desert Gold by Zane Grey)

On the frontiers of Zane Grey fiction, it didn't rain much. If anyone reigned, it was the cowboys. They had firm control of the reins.

Telephone Service in 1950

A phone in every home, Bell urged

I pulled a few National Geographic magazines from 1950 off the shelf and looked through them this evening.

It was interesting to see the ads that Bell Telephone System was running. I noticed two frequent themes: 1) We're a big company, so you can count on good service, and 2) If you don't have a telephone, you need to get one.

Here are the texts of two persuasive ads of the second sort:

Big Value At Low Cost

The telephone is a big bargain in security, convenience and good times for every member of the family. Just in the steps it saves, it more than pays for itself. Its value in emergencies is often beyond price. Day and night, every day, the telephone is at your service. And the cost is only pennies per call.

Advertisement by the Bell Telephone System, in The National Geographic Magazine, January 1950.

Service That Never Sleeps . . . Whatever the need or the hour, the telephone is on the job -- ready to take you where you want to go, quickly and dependably. Telephone service is one of the few services available twenty-four hours a day -- weekdays, Sundays and holidays. Yet the cost is small -- within reach of all . . . Bell Telephone Service

Advertisement by the Bell Telephone System, in The National Geographic Magazine, February 1950.

In 1950 -- the year of these ads --  62% of American households had telephone service (source). Most of those households were served by party lines.  Many of the rural party lines were owned by small locally-owned telephone companies that had no affiliation with Bell at all.

The Bell ads show sleek black desk telephones with rotary dials, but the telephones I remember from the 1950s had crank handles. We didn't have telephones with dials in rural Rock County, Nebraska, until the mid-1960s.

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Related:
Prairie Bluestem: Rural Party Line Remembered

Best Wishes for a Happy Christmas

And a healthy and prosperous New Year!

Dear friends,

It's Christmas, whether or not the preparations are complete. What a relief!

For me, it's been a very busy season. I'm tired and a little frazzled, but I'm looking forward to attending a Christmas church service, exchanging gifts, cooking a nice family dinner, and then a quiet Christmas afternoon of conversation, movies, and games.

And there will be sweet memories of dear family members and friends and the Christmas celebrations of other years. How could we ever forget them?

When I look back at the last year, one of the highlights for me has been Prairie Bluestem and its readers. I've enjoyed your comments and e-mails.

I've known some of you for many years, and I've only recently met some of you through the blog. Old friend or new, I appreciate your company as we go down the road.

May God bless you this Christmas. As Tiny Tim put it, "God bless us every one!"

Genevieve

You might enjoy the Christmas series I wrote a few years ago: Ghosts of Christmas Past.

Icy Roads

Schools cancelled

The recent ice storm was persistent. On three successive nights, a new layer of freezing rain fell. School was cancelled for three days in a row.

To be precise, during the last week before Christmas, school was held on Monday and school is planned for Friday (tomorrow). It will be a wild day with the kids super-excited for Christmas. I'm glad I won't be there.

Ugh, Norovirus

Down and out with stomach flu

I've had an violent case of stomach flu. I suppose it is norovirus.

It started about 48 hours ago, in the evening. I was sick all night long. Dennis went to town yesterday morning and got me a bottle of Emetrol. I took most of it yesterday. It seemed to help more than the ancient Nausene tablets we had on hand.

I stayed home from work yesterday, and today was my day off, so I stayed home again today. I've been lying around the house, still recuperating. I do feel much better, though hardly back to normal.

I suppose I picked up the virus at work, probably from handling money. It truly is filthy lucre. I remember that I ate a cookie in the break room without washing my hands. Ack! I won't make that mistake again.

In fact, the cookies could have been where I caught it. Someone with dirty hands could have been groping around in the cookie tin. Yuck!

According to the websites, I may still be contagious up to a week after I start feeling better. There's no way I can stay home from work that long, so I will wash my hands carefully and often to prevent spreading the virus. Dennis and Isaac haven't caught it from me yet, and I hope no one else will.

Moral of this story: Wash, wash, wash your hands -- and suspect other people of not washing.