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UTAH PRESS ASSOCIATION Firemen accepted as his description of them, 'The Red Roar Boys' and highway patrolmen were identified as 'The Brown Bonnet Brigade,' his reaction to their Smoky-the-Bear hats. To describe a group of Indians who over-imbibed 'fire water' and became involved in an auto accident, he resorted to historical terminology of his church, invoking readers' laughter with the term 'loaded Lamanites.' Even his wife, high school classmate Marjorie (Marge) Powell, whom he married March 22, 1943, had an alias when she appeared in his column - 'the dove.' Years later, reminiscing about 'Reaper Cussions,' its writer said a vicious reaction to his first effort prompted fears of "a fat lip and a fat suit for what I was 'libel' to write." But after a brief interruption while its author regained courage, the column appeared again and he produced one-a-week for 30 years. "Though I've had a few uncomfortable misses," he recalled, "I've never been clipped in the lip or caught in the courts." If anything, he grew bolder with age and once referred to a volatile and unsigned letter as "a bunch of vicious rubbish by some literate but misinformed slob with an axe to grind . . . but the gutless wonder wanted to use my axe." Always quick to let readers express themelves, he added, "If the fellow wants his letter printed, he can come identify himself." Appended to the end of one missive in which a reader had roundly chastized him was this editor's note: "Isn't it wonderful that in this country, everyone can have a voice?" Incredulous upon reading it, the 'Rat' literally "blew his stack" in 1974 when the State Highway Department was exploring construction of Interstate 70 and offered alternatives to building a highway through Sevier Valley. So incensed was he that he labelled its author 'an unmitigated bureaucratic idiot' and warned readers they wouldn't believe it. "Rebuild the D&RG Railroad lines and shuttle cars and trucks from Sevier to Salina on flat cars and Pullman coaches," 506 |
