March-April issue coming up and I can hardly believe it Middle
of March it will be one year already that the magazine is with its
new owner and we still have problems in many areas and we ask that
you folks bear with us but we really feel things are perkin’
along better than those first few months.
The Show Reports are really coming in and we’re trying to
get them all in the magazines as fast as possible. This goes for
the stories also had a few letters inquiring why a story wasn’t
in Nov. Dec. or Jan. Feb. issue when it had been sent in around
October – have patience, please we’ll do the best we can, but
we cannot put more in than goes in the ordered number of pages for
each issue.
And don’t forget Fellows, please if you take both magazines
– and have been sent an extra September-October Gas Engine Magazine
-we’ll be most happy to get it back as we are in dire need of
them.
I hope you all had a Blessed and Happy Holiday Season and are
thriving on the New Year – our Holidays were not so pleasant this
year as my Hubby had a heart attack December 17 and was
hospitalized for three weeks – he is home now and progressing
nicely, but it surely threw everything into a tailspin – and I know
many of you will be able to understand how harried our Vacation
Days were this year. Ed had been shoveling snow quite awhile, as he
has done in all years past, but something went wrong – but
we’ll not dwell on that now as we are looking forward eagerly
to his complete recovery and we are very grateful that it
wasn’t much worse. We believe that ‘all things work
together for good to those that believe in God, and obey his
commandments’. So we are truly seeking the Blessing that comes
from all adversities. We have much to be thankful for and look
ahead to each new day.
We have a lot of Reports in this issue, and a few letters so
I’m going on to them as I know you folks are always interested
in hearing from fellow readers.
From Fred Gertje, Orofino, Idaho comes the following letter:
‘On page 34 of Sept. Oct. Iron Men Album is a picture of a
Reeves C-C steam engine pulling 10 grain binders. I am wondering if
this is a Paul Bunyan setup. I have run grain binders a lot in my
time, and I therefore have some comments to make.
A grain binder is a machine that must cut square corners to
prevent running over standing grain, and this can only be done with
one binder pulled by horses or small tractor. To use such a large
outfit, it would be necessary to take one binder and cut a path up
and down each corner of a large field so the outfit could turn the
corner in round fashion. Having bound out the corners, it would be
necessary to haul those sheaves off the field so they would not be
run over.
Another matter that puzzles me is how did a binder operator
signal the helmsman to stop when necessary if he were very far back
from the engine. As every veteran binder operator knows, it is
necessary to stop now and then to re-thread the twine or tighten a
draper or for other reasons. I do not believe it would be practical
to run such an outfit, as no two binders would need attention at
the same moment. I noticed that these binders were all right hand.
In my lifetime I only saw one binder in use that was right hand, as
the operators here wanted to go around the field the same way the
plows went. Here in the West we used push binders some, but they
were not too popular as they were much rougher on the sheaves than
the pull binders, shelling out grain if it was too ripe.’
GLENN HALL, 1620 Sunset, Apt. 226, Waukegan, Illinois 60085 is
in the process of restoring an 18 HP Buffalo Pitts steam engine. He
would be most happy to hear from any of the readers as to what were
the original colors of this engine.
From R. W. SHAW, 179 Trafalgar Street, Goderich, Ontario, Canada
comes this most interesting bit of information and it is
entitled:
‘BIGGEST LITTLE CHURCH IN THE WORLD’ IS IN CANADA
Alongside the famed Dinosaur Trail, four miles west of
Drumheller, Alberta, Canada stands the ‘biggest little church
in the world’.
The tiny shrine measures only 12 x 7 feet, yet it is complete in
every detail, from 17-foot steeple to miniature stained-glass
windows.
The quaint little chapel claims to be ‘the biggest’,
since it can hold 20,000 people a year six at a time! Best of all,
travellers are provided with their own self-service sermons. Just
push a button, and representatives of 10 different religious
denominations automatically deliver a three-minute sermon.
