* And So They Say: Mary Jo Robinson: “If Wilbur had bought me a Valentine, I’d have known for sure that he had been up to something.” City manager Harper: “I think the new engine down at the power plant should be installed and operating by May.” Bill Bedore: “The soles of my boots are worn out from turning the corners too fast.” Larry Dix: “We’ve tried rain dances and everything, but still can’t get any moisture.”

* And So They Say: Lucille Scott: “My husband usually remembers our wedding anniversary as it falls on Valentine’s Day.” Francis Eshler: “If I’d buy my wife a Valentine, she’d wonder what I had been up to.” George Ostmeyer: “Sometimes a person just has to admit he’s not as young as he was. Mary Fix: “We shouldn’t have much trouble remembering our license tag number, it’s seven-eleven.” Ralph Burlin: “This is a wonderfully nice day, but what we’d like to see is a nice nasty rainy day.”

* And So They Say: Ig Gross: “It’s hard not to know anything, but it’s not impossible.” Velma Bedore: “I do my duty, and that is all I do.” Kenneth Medley: “When I grunt, I am not ignoring you.” Harold Maddy: “It was a pure, simple accident when I shot the Chief of Police in the back with the water hose.”

* And So They Say: Irwin Wright (Eugene, Ore.): “I think Bud Lytle makes the best bread of anyone in the world.” Brad Waller (age 6, watching his mother cook and was asked by her when she was cutting down a recipe, how much half of three-fourths of a cup was): “I don’t know, I haven’t studied cooking yet.” Bill Gouldman: “If Jim Chastain would play better pool, we’d win more games.” Harry Butler: “Usually when I buy a bargain, I figure on getting stung. But once in a while, I get a pleasant surprise.”

* And So They Say: Milt Boethin: “Well, I really should be doing something even if I do the wrong thing.” Nellie Kern: “Bill’s birthday parties are like the Rooks County Free Fair. They get bigger and better every year.” Clark Stocking: “All I did over the weekend was feed the squirrels.” Judge Gilbert: “I’m back, but I won’t say I’m back to work.” Doyle Cook: “If I didn’t have anything to do but gripe about the kids and criticize the teenagers, I think I’d spend part of that time trying to do something for them or making the town a better place for them to live in.”

* And So They Say: Mary Stewart: “I am scared to death every time I go to a basketball game, but they always come out all right. Lillian Stithem: “I’m not saying which anniversary of my 39th birthday this is.” Jo Carmichael: “If there are no such things as flying saucers, they’ve certainly got an awful lot of pictures of them to be nothing.” Doyle Cook: “I don’t know why I should take down our Christmas decorations until everyone else has theirs down.”

SPOTLIGHTING THE YEAR…1966 * And So They Say: Alan Stewart: “We’ve really made some progress. We’re putting in some glass in our back door which has been out for 15 years.” Lawrence Conyac: “I’ve learned never to open my mouth in front of a reporter.” Dave Oyer: “I’m washing the store windowstoseeifIcan’tget it to rain.” Adaline Zoller: “I wonder if I could be stupid.

SPOTLIGHTING THE YEAR…1966 * And So They Say: Ollie Ochampaugh: “I’ll be glad when the weeks get straightened out and Monday starts coming on Monday again.” Bob Osborn (to Timmy Miller): We’re sorry you have to go back to Vietnam, but we all feel a lot safer with you there.” Floyd Fix: “It was an hour and 40 minutes by air from Los Angeles to Denver and over 60 degrees difference in temperature.” Bobby Norton: “Stockton has the best street department in this part of the state. This is the only town I know of where they make much of an effort to clean the snow off the streets.” Chuck Hageman: “I was surprised to read in the Salina Journal that I was building Tudor Manor in Plainville.

SPOTLIGHTING THE YEAR…1966 * And So They Say: Elton Smith: “I’m not taking credit for the snow, but I’m not disclaiming it either.” Harry Butler: “I wish I had the names of all the people who were wanting a big snow and see how many are complaining now.” Lionel Carter: “I think that UFO which Ed Riffel saw was just George Riffel and his little grandson out hunting coyotes at night in the pickup.” Jess Riffe: “This is the best snow we have had in a lot of years.” Frank Mitchell: “I’d take credit for the snow—only no one would believe me.” * A black Angus calf belonging to Robert Kriley had died and a 1963 Mercury belonging to Earl Turnbull was damaged to the extent of about $450.00 to the front as a result of an encounter on Christmas night on Highway 183 south of Stockton. The calf had walked on the highway and Earl’s son-inlaw, Joe Denson, who had been driving the car, had not seen it in time to stop.

* And So They Say: Esta Riseley: “Cleaning off the Buford Tudor corner was the best Christmas present Chuck Hageman could give the neighbors.” Kenneth Cooper: There are some people who don’t know a fence from a gate.” Mrs. Pansy Coolbaugh: “I was certainly thrilled the other day to get a Christmas card from one of my pupils of 61 years ago, who now lives in California. She had read of our 60th wedding anniversary in the Record.” Howard Wanamaker: “The last time Christmas fell on a Sunday was in 1955, and it won’t happen again until 1977.”