(In observance of National Newspaper Month, I have asked Buford P. Inkster, publisher/editor of the Cornfield Weekly Sheller, to write a guest column. Mr. Inkster is reputed to be Iowa’s oldest active newspaper publisher.)

What a year 2018 has been, folks! Why, I can’t remember a harvest season this wet in all my years, and there’s been a few of them.

I was talking with Pastor Bjork from the Lutheran Church a few weeks ago. He told me he drove past Pete Thompson’s place one Sunday afternoon this summer and saw him baling hay. The reverend flagged Pete down and asked, “Don’t you know that the Lord made the world in six days and rested on the seventh?”

“Yep,” Pete responded as he looked at the clouds in the west, “I know all about that, but He got done and I didn’t.”

We normally don’t have much of a crime problem here in Cornfield, but there was a burglary at Nels and Jennie Olson’s house a few weeks ago. According to the rumor mill, Jennie woke up Nels and whispered, “Wake up, Nels, there’s a burglar in the kitchen and I think he’s eating the rest of that casserole I served for supper.” Nels rolled over and said, “Go back to sleep. I’ll bury him in the morning.”

Down at the Lotsabull Cafe the other day, Hiney Hinderks was grumbling about his new son-in-law. Seems the boy lacks ambition. He’s so lazy, Hiney says, he won’t go to a ball game until the second inning. That way he doesn’t have to stand for the National Anthem.

Hiney told us that Johnnie and Gertie Hook’s son has been kicked out of medical school over at Iowa City. Gertie claims it’s because the boy’s handwriting is too good.

Thelma Sue Godfrey, the waitress at the Lotsabull, was telling us her eight-year-old daughter asked her about sex the other day. Thelma Sue says she sat her down and said, “All right, Sweetie, I’ll tell you about sex. It leads to housework!”

Bennie Baker told us earlier this week that one of his childhood dreams has finally come true. “When my mother combed my hair when I was a kid,” Ben said, “I used to wish I didn’t have any.”

The gang at the café surprised me with a birthday cake last week. They asked for a speech so I stood up and said, “Old age is when you don’t care where your wife goes as long as you don’t have to go with her.” Wouldn’t you know, Thelma Sue told my wife, Ida, what I said and now I’m in the dog house.

Ida’s been a good wife over the years but when she gets upset she can become historical. No, I don’t mean hysterical; I mean historical. She keeps bringing up the past.

At breakfast the other day Ida said, “You know, Buford, you were a lot more gallant when I was a gal.” I put an end to that discussion. “Yep,” I said, “and you were more buoyant when I was a boy!”

Last spring I interviewed Homer Peters who was celebrating his 99th birthday. I asked him if he remembered the first girl he ever kissed. “Shoot,” Homer chuckled, “I can’t even remember the last girl I kissed.”

Frank Uteck stopped by the office recently to tell me he had given up fishing for golf. He says that when he lies about golf he doesn’t have to show anybody anything.

Received a lovely picture postcard the local funeral director, Jake Morton, yesterday. He is vacationing in Louisiana. I’m not sure I like the way he signed it, though: “Eventually yours.”

Hank and Marie Simpson’s grandson, Skippy, is a senior at Harvard this fall. He worked for Hank down at the filling station this summer. A tourist stopped by one afternoon and asked him if any big men had ever been born in Cornfield. “Nope,” Skippy replied, “the best we ever do here are babies.”

Barney Zimmerman, our local implement dealer, tells us he has a new tractor on the lot. It has no seat and no steering wheel. Barney says it’s for the farmer who has lost his rear and doesn’t know which way to turn.

Well, that’s what’s on my mind this week. So long from Cornfield, Iowa, where Fern Olson always pours the coffee, Hilka Houck serves the punch and a good time is had by all.