This Newsletter (January 1995)

This post is part of a series of editorials written by Bert Walsh during his tenure as president and past president of the Shasta Historical Society. Readers are advised that his humor is often irreverent and rarely politically correct. 

Click here for the table of contents for the entire collection of his editorials.

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We have had a peek at a letter from Bob Stone of the Sacramento Canyon turnpike Stones) questioning the validity of a claim that the first woman to set foot on the summit of Mt. Shasta was Mrs. N. H. Eddy, on September 9, 1856. Bob points out that the first of three Eddy children was born on October 7, 1856, and marvels at Mrs. Eddy's stamina. Thank heaven the letter was not addressed to  us. I don't feel that we could have provided a reasonable historic or medical opinion.

Your mind is like a parachute. It's useless if it is not open.

Wayne and I have a secret pal and it's fair to say that without her contributions, the content of this newsletter would be even more incomprehensible to a normal person. 

The way it works is like this: I write down everything we think ought to be said, plus some nonsense to fill up the blank space. Then Wayne keyboards it into the machine with the screen, and puts little boxes and cartoons around the important stuff so the reader knows what to read. After that the machine prints the thing out and then the real work begins. At this point someone has to go over the whole thing and frown a lot and put in all the periods, commas, colons, and semicolons that are necessary to give meaning to everything we said.

Sometimes the spelling has to be corrected too. And then as a final touch we take out and add apostrophes--and I'm blessed if I know why. Changing those little marks around doesn't make things any easier to understand. They must be like neckties. People use 'em even though they are of no earthly use. Using apostrophes is like riding a bicycle--if you get it right the first time then you never forget how. On the other hand, I have problems with apostrophes, neckties, bicycles, skunks, and sometimes even horses. Oh! (",:/?':-")--Thank goodness for our secret pal!

--BTW

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The "secret pal" was none other than Madge, his wife, who among other things, wielded a mean read pencil while still keeping his humor intact.