This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Henderson Classification: Biography Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/ok.2ADE/1567 Message Board Post: THE SIDNEY ARGUS - HERALD. December 17, 1931. "Anderson All Lit Up".--The first night the juice was turned on, Anderson had a hectic blowout--and I don't mean a measley puncture. The town, the people and part of the animals were electrified. Our town joined the procession of modern cities. Even the sky above resembled the aurora borealis. The people in surrounding towns, never having seen any light in our direction, thought our town was on fire. Three fire-fighting outfits roared into town to help us. They were somewhat chagrined but soon molified with a weiner sandwich apiece, also a cigaret--the brand that is kind to your esophagus--and they soon joined in the festivities. We had a free dance and everybody was so enthused and exhilarated about the lights they danced with such abandon it looked like hugging set to music. We had the Ultramarine band from Omaha, so named from the color of their uniforms. They played "Little Annie Rooney" and several other international airs during the evening. A famous orator traveling incognito disabled his car near our town the same night, so he stayed and orated for us; and he surely eulogized our energy, enterprise and aggressiveness. He said a growing aggregation of such enterprising individuals,surrounded by a cordon of superb suburban satellites, would some day be the axle Iowa industries would revolve on. It couldn't be otherwise. This epochal event puts us miles in advance of surrounding towns, because our electrical system is equippped with every dingus and doodad evolved by the electrical wizards right up to now. Our town was so brilliant the feminine bovines stood around wide-eyed all night munching hay, and the next morning they gave twice their usual amount of lacteal fluid. Hens scratched and monkeyed around and each one laid an egg the first night. The roosters were so sleepy next morning that they forgot to crow until sunup. There were two or three backwoodsy people, the kind who have retarded the coming of the millenium, who didn't take lights. Few non-residents realize the importance of our city. The Anderson academy is turning out embryonic presidents and congresswomen; we boast two immense elevators, one slightly out of repair at present; there are only six stations on the Burlington that ship more grain than we do; we have a garage that receives cars sounding lke corn shellers and sends them out purring like a cat full of cream; our bank is a s solid as the Rock of Gibraltar; a general store that's hard to beat; a postoffice right up to the minute; a restaurant that sports a chef fresh from Paris; a church that would attract attention in New York City. Our wonderful bungalows elicit excited exclamations from strangers. Some people call them idealisitic love nests--only one divorce has been hatched out of them. Our beautiful boulevards are a source of astonishment to the uninitiated; they are as smooth as a velvet carpet and pass by age-old elms and emerald lawns. "When a bigger whoopee party is pulled, Anderson will pull it."--Ralph Henderson.