The Time Capsule: Readers respond to boycott, today’s music

 Maybe the most interesting part of putting a column out is what comes back.  An example has to do with the article suggesting a boycott of Smucker’s because a company representative rejected my request that Folgers help cover the cost of saving the coffee pot water tower.  This resulted in reactions from as far away as Sioux Falls. A reader there sent the text of a message he proposed I send to Smucker’s. It’s pretty clever, offering to put the word “Folgers” on the restored tower in exchange for $20,000. Not so good is his pencil drawing of the coffeepot tower next to a row of plywood cutouts of little people wearing Swedish costumes.  He has holes where the faces are so visitors can stand behind, put their heads through, and have their picture taken.                

In the original column I wrote that I wasn’t likely to join the boycott as one of the companies owned by Smucker’s, along with Folgers, is Hungry Jack. The cause is good, but I’m not sure I want to give up their buttermilk pancakes and honey-maple syrup. Two readers said Bisquick was just as good. Another suggested I learn to like the little rolled-up Swedish pancakes distributed by the hundreds at the annual Maypole Raising. They’re served with something called lingonberries.  

The pancake ideas are filed along with the one for little plywood people with big holes in their heads.  

Also received was a postcard from a lady saying the next time she bought jelly she was going with Welches. This is the sort of thing that’ll have Smucker’s begging us to take their money. I’m holding these suggestions and notes of support for a couple of weeks to see if there are more, then plan to mail them all to Richard K. Smucker. Richard makes about $5 million a year as C.E.O. If he has a sense of humor he’ll get a laugh out of this. If he doesn’t he’ll probably file suit.  Either way, I’ll let you know.

A remarkable letter followed a column in which I made a comparison between the music of today and that of the past. One of our regular readers from Emerson could write a book on the subject. His home must have records stacked to the ceiling.  The letter tells of a collection that includes virtually every record made between 1930 and 1975. His computerized master list has over 170,000 entries. He not only has the songs, he seems to know something about most of them (example: “Arthur Godfrey,” he writes, “hated the ‘Too Fat Polka’ even though the song went to #1”).  I had no idea Arthur disliked the song. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve even heard it. Is that the one that went: “I don’t want her, you can have her,” and so on? If so I’m with Arthur. 

Regardless, this guy knew what was on the flip side, who wrote it and when, and so much other trivia of this sort he’d qualify as a musical encyclopedia.  

His letter makes him seem like a fun guy, maybe the sort who’d have his picture taken looking through the hole in the head of our plywood silhouette of a Swedish accordion player.  

I’d print his name, but he’s not in the phone book so I couldn’t call for permission. 

Roy Marshall is a local historian and columnist for the Red Oak Express. He can be contacted at news@redoakexpress.com.