Kinfolks & Others Interested: The subject of dynamiting tree stumps having crept into Davenport genealogy, I seek Nevada Jack's forbearance in my relating a stump story. Back in the early 1950s I bought an upstate Illinois weekly newspaper named the Tiskilwa Chief and thereby found myself regarded as a fool by the folks in Tiskilwa who thought I paid way too much for the one-horse, lame at that, country weekly newspaper with less than 600 circulation. Along with the paper I assumed the reputation of my predecessor and the assumption that I, like he, was devoid of common sense. Whatever, Tiskilwawans' opinion was, said predecessor went on to be a full Professor at the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, from whence he retired and is since dead. My predecessor, who we shall call Ward, for that was his first name, was a city fellow by birth and raising, had got into country weekly publishing and editing because it was idealized among journalism aficionados back in those Depression-WWII days. I was told that Ward had difficulty driving a nail and was totally nonplused when it came to understanding the differences between screwdrivers. Whatever, home-wise Ward had a fairly large stump of a long dead oak in his large front yard and, being a Better Homes & Gardens (it was going strong back then) reader and landscape oriented, the stump's presence as an eye sore irritated him daily as he drove or walked past it. Irritated to the point of wanting it gone, he decided to remove it. He asked around, got quotes from some of the locals--all of whom didn't hesitate to take advantage of his ignorance in their pricing (I encountered the same consideration), and elected to dig out the stump himself. The locals then happily gave him advice freely. Dig out around it, they said, then break it loose with dynamite, and then pull it out with a tractor. Made sense to Ward, so he dug out around the stump to where it looked like only the tap root remained, and, having been instructed as to the amount of dynamite needed (a small charge, no more than a stick or so) and the art of placing and setting off a charge, he was ready to go--in the presence of large crowd of locals, all back a safe distance--they thought. Ward waved a red flag to indicate that he was ready to set off the charge (the locals had really done a job on him), when Gib Johnson, local jack of all trades and master of most them, had a twinge of conscience. "Better move your car," Gib yelled. Ward's car was sitting in his driveway, no more than 20 feet from the stump. Ward dropped his red flag, thanked Gib, and moved his car to the street in front of a next door neighbor, 100 to 120 feet away. Just in front of his increasing crowd of spectators. Ward waved the red flag again. Everyone stuck the fingers in their ears, and Ward pushed the plunger down. There was a blast and the stump came free. Clear out of the hole and his yard and dropped right on top of his car 100 feet or so away, scaring the Hell out of a number of the locals who were spectating nearby. Either Ward had used stronger dynamite than he thought or he had placed the charge wrong, for he needed no tractor to drag the stump out afterwards. He didn't total the car, but he had little headroom left. That wasn't the best Ward story. All houses in Tiskilwa were on septic tanks, which had to be pumped out from time to time. Ward's house was in low lying area and had a leaky lid on his septic tank, and the miasmas of the long, hot summers tended make things a bit stinky. There was a party for Ward's wife's Church group on a fine summer evening, and the septic tank aroma was getting inside the house. Ward took it on himself to do something about the stink. Believe it or not, he thought of burning a match, a common remedy, only he used a burning newspaper, and he took the lid off the septic tank. It was the biggest methane explosion in the history of Tiskilwa and what it did in blow backing the sewer system into Ward's house and to the lady occupant of the throne at the time, is still recounted with hilarity in the Bureau Valley. I was a dull tool humor-wise compared to Ward. I built the Tiskilwa Chief into the Bureau Valley Chief and 5,000 countywide circulation before I moved on to metropolitan dailies with the Scripps-Howard Newspapers. Today, the Bureau Valley Chief is still in Tiskilwa, circulation 650, including me. The locals surely have stories about me, but I doubt if I exceeded Ward in anecdotes. John Scott Davenport Holmdel, NJ