Adams County Makes the News - Council Leader #4

The Council Leader
Ivan M. Durrell, Editor and Publisher
COUNCIL VALLEY FIRST, THE WORLD AFTERWARDS
Council, Washington County, Idaho

September 17, 1909
SCHOOL WILL START

Owing to some misunderstanding, school did not commence last Monday as we stated last week. However, everything is straightened up now and the school house doors will be open next Monday morning with the teachers ready to commence their work in earnest.

LOCAL ITEMS, 1909

Electric Bitters will cure that tired feeling. Council Drug Co.

Buy red apple envelopes at the Leader

Walter Yockey, representing the Ohio Match Company, was in Council this week prospecting for timber for match making.

We still have a few boxes of fine eating apples at Cool’s.

Hauk Beier is in the valley this week purchasing supplies for his sheep camp.

For good fat hens at 50 cents, call at Conways.

I have a full line of seed grain, which I will sell at the lowest price consistent with good business. Remember, if you sow poor seed, you will harvest a poor crop. I have No. 1 seed. Come and see it. Fred Cool

October 1, 1909
ISSUE NO. 52

This issue closes the Leader’s first year of publication in Council. Commencing with a little three-column quarto, the Leader has grown to a six-column folio, or in other words, it has doubled in size. While we have not doubled our capital by any means, we have lived and enjoyed a fair patronage for which we are very greatly obliged to our patrons.

It is our honest intention and earnest endeavor to publish a local paper that would be a credit to the town and vicinity. Whether we have accomplished that end or not we will leave to our readers, but we have tried and we hope that we have.

We have kept out of politics and intend to do so in the future, but if anybody wishes to use the columns of the Leader for political purposes, they may do so by signing their names to the article. We do not deem it wise for a paper in a small town to try to tell his neighbors what to do.

When we arrived in Council a little over a year ago we will frankly admit that we did not think much of the place. But the longer we stayed the better we liked the town and such is the case today. We sincerely believe that Council has the makings of as good and prosperous a town as one would wish to live in. With the support of the people, we will do all we can for the welfare and development of Council Valley.
Ivan M. Durell, Editor.

April 8, 1910
FADS AND FANCIES IN DRESS

The shawl is now one of the most important articles of dress in Paris.

Unfinished fabrics such as homespun and hopsack basket weaves are popular as novelties.

Sleeves made up in a series of flounces are among the prettiest conceits in dancing frocks.

While skirts may be pleated, they do not express fullness. In Paris there are under-tapes to hold them down.

The sharp-pointed waist is seen now and then in ultra-fashionable costumes, but it is still too radical to be exploited freely.

May 5, 1910
A NEW INDUSTRY

There has been some talk recently about a large sawmill being located at Council. Expert Lumberman D.F. Seerey of Ogden, Utah has been sent here to make an examination of timber and of the possibilities of driving the river from West Fork to Council. Mr. Seerey returned from the timber the first of the week and expressed himself as being much surprised to find so large a body of timber of good quality and so very accessible to market that has not been secured by some large timber company. According to Mr. Seerey’s estimate, there is between 30 and 40 million feet of excellent saw timber within 15 to 20 miles of Council. This timber can all be driven down the river to Council at a very small expense to a good mill site right at the edge of town. A sawmill and planing mill are badly needed at this place and such an enterprise would not only be a money-maker for the investor, but would be a great benefit to the entire valley. Most of the timber is already mature, and the Forest Service is anxious to dispose of it.

July 15, 1910

NO SHORT RAILROAD IN THE WEST CAN COMPARE

No short railroad in the west can compare with the P. & I. N. in the smoothness of its roadway. This is the unanimous opinion of everyone who goes over the road. Never in the history of the railroad has the passenger traffic been so heavy as at this time. It seems that the entire city of Weiser as well as Boise and other neighboring towns are going over the P. & I. N. railway to some one of the numerous beautiful resorts on that line.

compiled by Eberle Umbach

"Video Kills The Super-8 Star"

[L.E. takes a look at home movies as they relate forward in time to love affairs. Enjoy!]

Video Kills The Super-8 Star


Close your eyes. Are your eyes still
closed? Is it me you see
on the wall or stretched
bed sheet behind
your eyelids? Super-8
black & white, right? Bouncing
too fast, so fast it hurts, like life and
sex a little sometimes, huh? A foreign film
incomprehensible, or

barely so, and carsick. That’s me,
see, cute dress and knee socks, sitting
on the horsey. That’s me, crying
laughing, running from the camera,
running toward the camera running from
the camera. That’s me, reading my
poems at fill in the name of the S.F.
coffeehouse or smoky small room in Berlin
“Focus, focus!” Fuck, do you see
how the image freezes, edges
burn? That ain’t me. That’s
what I call ducks

in the machinery, or time-lapsed
lasagne—a delicacy these video vegetarians
and their digital offspring, if you think
about it, will never enjoy. The

taste, a searing memory, you

over-underestimate me, shrink
crunch
and utter
quack.

L.E. Leone
© 2010

“On the Road”

Happy Monday, all! I was going to post a “Monday Morning Blues” video—a few folks on the road trip mentioned how much they liked those—but unfortunately, my left arm is probably best allowed to rest for another day or two in hopes of clearing up this muscle pull. If all goes well, I should have a blues song video up either Thursday or Friday.

In the meantime, & speaking of my recent road trip, I’ve been thinking a lot about “road writing;” & so I thought I’d share a video featuring Mr. Road Trip himself, Jack Kerouac. I first read On the Road well over 30 years ago, & reading the novel was a truly riveting experience. Of course, given some of the self-destructive habits of my ill-spent youth, I focused on aspects of the book that seemed to justify those same habits. There’s no question that Kerouac’s writing has its weaknesses: his unabashed glorification of drug use & his sexism are two big ones—there’s a certain amount of silliness to his vision as well. But having said that, I believe he’s still a writer to be reckoned with in terms of style, voice, the manner of assimilating & recounting experience, & the overall U.S. landscape, both physical & spiritual.

When I speak about poetry & music, this reading from On the Road with Steve Allen on piano (yes, that Steve Allen!) always comes to mind. Hope you enjoy it, too.



Today's post on Alcools is a one line poem by Apollinaire called "Chantre." The original French reads: "Et l'unique cordeau des trompettes marines" For my English version, check out Alcools!

Photo of the Week 4/4/10

The Weiser River, north of Council, ID - Friday April 2nd

Please check out today's post at The Days of Wine & Roses; it's a prose poem called "Love Song #57."

More Dad's Photos!

NOTE: In my haste to get this posted, I neglected to notice that there is no "Sepia Saturday" as such this week! But hope you enjoy the pix anyway.

Happy Saturday everybody—I’m a bit late posting this, but am still dealing with the results of a “freak” injury that happened last Monday. In short: yes, it is possible to injure yourself while reading in bed, especially if the reading is done on an air mattress!

& as my father always used to say, “It’s hard to fly on one wing” (tho he meant something very different from a muscle pull when he said that!), but here’s my Sepia Saturday post at last (see note at top!). As some of you know, I recently concluded a cross-country road trip during which I visited my mother in Massachusetts. Much to my delight, & much to the benefit of upcoming Sepia Saturday posts, my mother gave me three old photo albums while I was there—two of my father’s, & one of her family. My father’s albums date from the 1930s, while my mom’s dates from the ‘teens & 20s!

I’m starting out with images from one of my father’s albums—this one has a number of images from the time when he worked in Townsend, VT for the Civilian Conservation Corps in the mid 1930s—in fact, I plan on using some of the CCC images for next week’s post. But for today, I thought I’d show three images of my dad—as a “card” (as my mother would say), hamming it up, barefoot & in a sport coat; sitting in his apartment holding the very photo album from which these photos are taken; & as a CCC worker. These three images sum up a lot about him—tho I must say, he was a snappier dresser in the 1930s than he was in later life.

By the way, those of you who are interested about the CCC—to my mind, a great program, & one that could be copied to the general profit these days, given the unemployment rates & the major infrastructure problems facing the country—I’d recommend reading Jacqueline T. Lynch’s post “CCC Company 1156 – Chicopee, Mass” on her excellent New England Travels blog—Jacqueline is one of the bloggers I had a chance to meet on my cross-country odyssey.

Hope you enjoy the pix!

“Time”

A beautiful song for your Friday, & one that has played—& continues to play, if now mostly just inside my head—as part of my “poetic soundtrack.” To read some of my thoughts about Tom Waits’ song time, shuffle on over to Just a Song!

“Personal Poem #9”

Good morning, folks, & a happy Thursday to you all. Here’s some good news to everyone who was sad to see the Weekly Poem go away—I’ll be featuring poems twice a month, probably on the first Thursday & final Friday of each month.

This month we’ll look at a couple of poems by one of my very favorite poets, Ted Berrigan. “Personal Poem #9” is a relatively early piece, but it shows a number of Berrigan’s characteristics: his delight in the personal, the “mundane” details of everyday life; the conversational tone mixed with a rapid movement thru the lines; his ability to ground a poem in a real sense of place. Of course, the fact that Berrigan mentions the town where I was born (Bellows Falls, VT) particularly endears this poem to me!

Hope you enjoy it too!


Personal Poem #9

It’s 8:54 a.m. in Brooklyn it’s the 26th of July
and it’s probably 8:54 in Manhattan but I’m
in Brooklyn I’m eating English muffins and drinking
Pepsi and I’m thinking of how Brooklyn is New
York City too          how odd          I usually think of it
as something all its own like Bellows Falls like
Little Chute          like Uijongbu
                                                          I never thought
on the Williamsburg Bridge I’d come so much to Brooklyn
just to see lawyers and cops who don’t even carry guns
taking my wife away and bringing her back
                                                                                        No
and I never thought Dick would be back at Gude’s
beard shaved off long hair cut and Carol reading
his books when we were playing cribbage and watching
the sun come up over the Navy Yard a-
cross the river
                            I think I was thinking
when I was ahead I’d be somewhere like Perry Street
erudite dazzling slim and badly-loved
contemplating my new book of poetry
to be printed in simple type on old brown paper
feminine marvelous and tough

Ted Berrigan