7/12/2006 – Editorials

By Richard Peterson


Minnewaukan will observe its 125th anniversary in 2008. I don’t know of any activities planned, but something likely will happen if we’re still here.

The dollar and a quarter word for a 125th anniversary is "quasquicentennial."

Just for your information, Oberon will observe its quasquicentennial in 2009. Leeds, York and Knox will celebrate in 2011, Brinsmade in

2014 and Esmond and Maddock in 2026.

Information about towns in the eastern portion of the county is sketchy, but there were businesses at Warwick in 1906, which would probably make its quasquicentennial in 2031.

Fort Totten, the oldest settlement in Benson County, was established in 1867. That means Fort Totten’s quasquicentennial was in 1992 and the community will be observing its sesquicentennial (150th) in 2017 and its septaquintaquinquecentennial (175th) anniversary in 2042.

Good thing I won’t be around for that one because I can’t pronounce it.


Speaking of history, Myrna Lyng, writing in the Traill County Tribune at Mayville, told of a Mr. Lederer, who collected student bloopers from teachers across the US. Lederer put all the bloopers together to present a history of the world. Here it is:

"The inhabitants of ancient Egypt were called mummies. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have lived elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cultivated by irritation. The Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube. The Pyramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain.


One of their children, Cain, once asked, "Am I my brother’s son?" God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob, son of Isaac, stole his brother’s birth mark.


"Afterward, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the Ten Commandments. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fought the Philatelists, a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David’s sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines.


Achilles appears in ‘The Iliad,’ by Homer. Homer also wrote ‘The Oddity,’ in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on his journey. Actually Homer was not written by Homer, but by another man of that name.

"In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled biscuits, and threw java. The reward to the victor was a coral wreath.



"In midevil times, most of the people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the time was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and also wrote literature.

"The Renaissance was an age in which more individuals felt the value of their human being. Martin Luther was nailed to the church door in Wittenberg for selling papal indulgences. He died a horrible death, being excommunicated by a bull. It was the painter Donatello’s interest in the female nude that made him the father of the Renaissance. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries.


"The government of England was a limited mockery. Henry VIII found walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee. Queen Elizabeth was the ‘Virgin Queen.’ As a queen she was a success. When Elizabeth exposed herself before her troops, they all shouted, ‘Hurrah.’ Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo.

"The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shake-spear.

Shakespear never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He lived at Windsor with his merry wives, writing tragedies, comedies and errors. In one of his plays, Hamlet rations out his situation by relieving himself in a long soliloquy. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Writing at the same time as Shakespear was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote ‘Donkey Hote.’ The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote ‘Paradise Lost.’ Then his wife died and he wrote ‘Paradise Regained.’ "

Well, that takes us up to the time when Columbus invented America.

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