t
Co-Operation — A Familiar Word
Co-operation that's probably the most often used and most
kicked around word in the vocabulary of all of us in the Valley
tooay. And whether we shorten it to Co-op and tack a capital
lgtter on it. or whether we take the Webster variety of the word,
there's not a one of us but needs to examine our thoughts and find
out just what we mean by that word co-operation.
In the years of our pioneering great-greats, that word was the
essence of the expressed daily life of these frontiersmen. They
may not have wrapped it up in such a high sounding phrase, they
probably didn't even think much about it—they just lived it.
In the days when frontiers were being pushed westward, the
man who failed to co-operate, who prided himself on his rugged in
dividualism and his ability to shift for himself, was looked upon as
mighty peculiar, and he often came to find himself an outcast
when he did attempt to mingle with a group.
They needed co-operation to settle the frontier countries of
the 1800's. Men and women banded together to move ahead in
groups, united against a common danger. Once the chosen spot
for their new home was reached, men worked as a unit to raise
shelter against wind, and rain and cold.
One after another, houses were raised and finished, and while
men worked together in their building, women worked in com
munity gatherings to perform the everyday tasks of cooking and
sewing and washing.
They took those tasks in common as a matter of course. If
they thought of it at all they'd have said it was “getting along to
gether,” and they'd have stared in surprise if anyone had suggested
to them there was anything unusual in a people's working and liv
ing together to drag civilization forward to another outpost.
That’s the way America’s frontiers were pushed west to the
Pacific, north to the scattered islands Of Puget Sound and south to
the spot where the boundaries of Texas and California meet the
limits of Mexico. People co-operated and worked together to push
America ahead.
Alaska's pioneering frontiersmen were decades later, and while
no one would ever call it an easy task to chip a homesite from this
frosty wilderness, still it must have been almost a Sunday School
picnic in comparison with what some of those early-day home
builders fought and died for.
Alaska was pioneered by homebuilders during an age of
mechanized wonders. Giant dozer-equipped tractors cleared land
in a matter of hours, where the axe and mattock of those earlier
pioneers would have taken weeks. Every modern convenience
known to man was turned to this Twentieth Century job of hewing
out America’s last frontier into a land of homes.
But man’s close association with the mechanical gadgets of
his time had marked him. We traded the birthright of our ability
to “get along with folks,” to co-operate, for a mess of iron monsters.
We came to look upon the machine as one means of getting ahead
of our neighbor in this business of earning a living.
We of the Valley, for all we chatter of co-operation a dozen
times daily in our conversation, have forgotten much that those
pioneering ancestors of ours knew about how to work with people.
Our thinking has gotten bogged down in a mudhole of “I’s”
and “me’s.” We’ve lost the “we” and “us” thinking that we must
have in the Valley, if we are to build a truly progressive future
in Matanuska.
Now the Frontiersman is not advocating a discarding of ma
chines and a return to work with our hands. We believe that a
man is entitled to make a living in the easiest and most progressive
way possible. What we do advocate is getting out of the rut in our
thinking that the use of gadgets seems to have brought to us.
We need to throw away the idea that the machines we own
must make us a bigger living than our neighbor, so that we .can
use the money we make to buy bigger and better machines to
earn us a bigger living next year.
We need to return to a simpler living, and we need to learn
again how to “get along with folks.” Cometition is fine; we believe
in it. But more than that, we believe in holding out a hand to help
along the man who’s a bit farther down than we are. Pull him up
to your level, then race with him if you must, but don’t step on his
fingers on your way up.
Whether we call it co-operation or whether we shorten the
word and use the capital, let’s learn to think of what we do mean
b£ that word in the Valley. And then let’s try to think out for our
selves just what that word ought to mean, and strive together
for that goal.
Co-operation is a word we all know, and it’s probably some
thing that was beyond the vocabulary of most of those early pio
neers we've discussed here. But we need to remember that they
lived it, while we here don’t even have a speaking acquaintance
with it in our daily lives.
Valley FRONTIERSMAN
Published each Wednesday and Saturdty
Palmer, Alaska
Printed in Anchorage plant of Anchorage Daily Times
JL
Viola Daniels .Editor
No printed material in the Valley Frontiersman may be re
produced except by permission of the editor.
Subscription rates.75c month
<
Delivered by carrier in Palmer. Mailed to all points in
Alaska and the United States.
—and Speaking
Of Potatoes . . .
And speaking of potatoes and
potato harvests, here's a little
piece of news. In Berlin, Ger
many. among their other trou
bles, it seems that potatoes are
interfering with the course of
true love.
You don't believe it? Well, it
has happened this way. In or
der to lind space to plant pota
toes—the basic food of the Ger
mans these days—the spacious
parks, and shady spots of lovers'
lane have been plowed up and
potatoes planted.
"Who ever heard of walking
hand-in-hand and waxing ro
matic—in a potato patch. That's
the complaint of the German
youth these days.
Not only do they have no more
lovers’ lanes in which to roam,
but the park benches have been
torn out and are serving as fire
wood.
Usually, a young German girl
knows her boy friend is well
taken with her when he whis
pers: "Dear, let’s plant our gar
den together.” And you may be
sure the garden will contain—
you guessed it, potatoes.
Church Services
This Week . . .
ST. JOHN’S LUTHERAN
CHURCH
W. A. Zeile, Pastor
Sunday
Morning worship, 9 a. in.
Sunday School, 10 a.m.
Lutheran Hour, 12:30 p. m. (Sta
tion KFQD)
Holy Communion is celebrated
on the last Sunday of.every
second month.
UNITED PROTESTANT
CHURCH
Victor I. Alfsen, Pastor
Sunday
Sunday School, 10 a. m.
Morning Worship, 11 a. m.
Young People’s Service, 7 p. m.
Evening Service, 8 p. m.
Friday
Prayer Meeting, 7:30 p. m.
ST. MICHAEL’S CATHOLIC
CHURCH
Rev. James A. Snead, Pastor
Sunday
Mass, 10 a. m.
Confessions heard before Mass
Sodality Communion held the
first Sunday of each month.
I
IT'S YOUR MISTAKE}If
you butt into a conversation
which doesn't concern you,
don't be surprised at a snub.
BROWNIE BEAR'
CANDIES
MADE FRESH DAILY
BY LOUNSBURY CANDIES
Along Potato Row in the Valley
tmr
mm
This familiar scene of potalo harvesting was witnessed through
out the Valley during the past few weeks. The fall inspection
has fortunately turned up no new diseases, but the seed potato
crop appears to be about half of the normal yield this year.
Normally, a Valley crop will yield eight tons to the acre, but
seed fields this year will produce anly 550 tons from 134 acres.
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