The Time Capsule: Updates from around the county

 This week we’ll do a couple of news items we should have carried last month, but got busy and put it off. First, a current event from Grant:  

Betty Schuler, who lives near there, was the topic of a column two or three years ago. We noted she had been selected winner of the Fourth of July Bathing Beauty Pageant held at Crystal Lake amusement park in Cass County. I have a photo of her taken shortly after she won this title in 1940. She was then 16. You can do the math. Betty sends word that this summer, with a vacation trip approaching, she bought a new swimsuit. Apparently she’s a typical woman, thinking she needs a new one every 70 years or so.  

I said if she’d send me a glossy print of this one I’d get it in the paper. I didn’t clear this with our editor, who may think the Express isn’t ready. If so, there’s Sports Illustrated.

We also have a development for those who follow lutefisk cycles.   

I saw a lump of it in the frozen food section of a local grocery last month and asked the lad at the meat counter if it sold in the summer.  He said of late, sales had been brisk. I wouldn’t have expected this in August, so checked the other store. Sales perhaps weren’t as lively, but they have lutefisk in stock. When I asked at the meat counter I was told it moves, even in warm weather. There must be those who consume the stuff year around, something I can’t comprehend. Do they perhaps fix it on the grill? I really don’t know.  

While we’re on the subject of delicacies, Einer Almgood apparently had his usual bumper crop of zucchini. Blessedly, he’s brought me only four, each the size of a walrus. I don’t know if he lets them all get that big, or just those he deposits late at night on unguarded picnic tables.   

In Stanton there is a new, bright lights city marquee at the north edge of town. It features highly visible graphics which, although constantly changing, repeat the same message over and again. Anyone choosing to watch all day will be reminded 1,440 times that he or she has arrived at the home of the World’s Largest Swedish Coffee Pot. Displayed along with the caption is, oddly, a likeness of the other water tower.

The sign reminds me of an incident a year or so ago. I was doing a volunteer day at the Swedish History Center. A young couple accompanied by a mature lady stopped and asked for directions to the famous coffee pot. Twenty minutes later they returned, seemingly disappointed. The young man’s grandmother had journeyed from Sweden and he and his wife had driven her across three states on a trip that included a stop at the world’s biggest Swedish coffee pot. They found a fraud. He said he’d seen the world’s largest hamburger, which weighed over 700 pounds and was made of real ground beef (if true, this would have been an entire steer). He claimed to have been in Philadelphia a few years ago and took a picture of a 26-foot-long hot dog, which was the real thing (two hogs and 30 chickens). It was covered with real mustard. On their way to Montgomery County they stopped in Sac City to see what’s billed as the world’s largest popcorn ball, which is made of real popcorn.  

What he found in Stanton was the world’s biggest hoax. “That thing,” he said, “never has made a cup of coffee and never will.” He laughed when he said this, and I’m sure he was joking, but left without dropping any money in the jar.

Maybe if the tower is saved and the legs shortened someone will figure out a way to actually brew 40,000 gallons of Butternut.  Red Green could do it.  

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