Written by Joel Klaassen Wednesday, 01 August 2007 10:41

The 77th annual Marion County Fair is in the books. It did its job and brought the rain again, even though the dates changed.

It had its highlights—the parade, 4-H events, a better carnival (according to my grandsons) and the annual favorite demolition derby.

The demo derby has a life of its own. It is very well run and packs in fans from far and wide.

Here’s a tip for the Lions Club. Sell caps and visors to the people in the east bleachers who forget to bring one or don’t have one.

The boys wanted to sit in the third row, so we got the mud in our laps several times—which they thought was cool. One flying missile knocked off my sunglasses into the grass below.

I have now seen the movie “The Adventures of Shark...

Read more: Fair brings rain despite new dates

Written by Joel Klaassen Wednesday, 25 July 2007 07:30

Last week when I wrote about the “Ice Road Truckers” TV show I was going to segue into a little story about life in a mobile home in our early years of marriage. I didn’t have room, so it goes here.

When we lived in Lawrence in the late ’60s, early ’70s we didn’t feel we could afford to buy an $11,000 house so opted for a $5,300 mobile home, which many young couples did in those days.

Seemed like we always had problems with something. Plastic faucet handles would strip out, and then it took a pliers to open and close the faucets.

Ours had a kitchen in front and the bathroom and laundry were in the back. That made for a drain line from the kitchen sink that was about 50 feet long.

One weekend the kitchen sink plugged up...

Read more: Adventures in a mobile home

Written by Joel Klaassen Wednesday, 18 July 2007 09:37

I have many readers who often tell me about things they think is column material. And I appreciate their interest and input. Three tips I received this week deserve mention.

Glenn Goertz told me about an unusual lightning strike on a tree across from the middle school. I went and checked it out. Usually the tree is split apart when a bolt hits, but this baby bolt caused a thin strip of bark to be missing all of the way down one branch to the trunk to the ground.

Agnes Steinert of Hutchin­son called to tell me that our word puzzle didn’t match the answers this past week. Ooops.

And Jan Amstutz told me about a 6-year-old girl who was competing in a talent show in England that has Simon Cowell as one of the judges. She sang...

Read more: Reader tips sometimes make it in

Written by Joel Klaassen Wednesday, 11 July 2007 08:38

We published a book of old photos contributed by our readers for the Hillsboro community in 2004. It was well received and we are now under way with a similar book for Marion to be released later this year. It takes about 300 photos to make a book like this. To date we have received many interesting photos from our Marion readers, but still need many more pre-1955 pictures to make a nice book of memories for long-time residents as well as those newer to the community.

We’re sure many photos exist in scrapbooks and boxes all around town and would be a treasure for years to come in hardcover book format for the Marion community.

Our own Dick Varenhorst is a history buff himself and is someone you may contact if you have photos to...

Read more: If you have photos, we need them