RISE IN JUVENILE DRUG CASES ALARMING

I see where juvenile drug cases are increasing, and I can't understand why.
Kids with half a brain can surely see what this does to their mentality. It
can't be because of peer pressure, although there is some of this. Anyone
who wants to be an athlete, a musician or a scientist must realize this
will mar their future.

I realize when you are young you feel nothing can harm you. It's when you
gain in age you gain in knowledge. As so many writers have said in the
past, it's too bad we don't have the knowledge of old age when we are young
and have the health that goes with youth - and the ability to walk and run.
I fear our nursing homes and mental facilities will be overloaded with
those who follow.

a.. My cat Molly has now captured and destroyed 14 mice. She hides by the
kitchen door and calmly waits until one bravely makes it from the basement
to her food. Molly is inclined to bring the mice, still alive, into the
living room and let them run. She pounces on them and pats them along,
urging them to run. When you have an old house, the mice will find a way
in, and with Molly, a way out.

Molly likes to brush her teeth in the morning. I keep a brush in a glass on
the bathroom wash basin, and she climbs up and starts chewing. After a few
seconds, she jumps down. It may be a way to get rid of mouse breath.

a.. In 1880 the Marietta Chair Co. employed 500 men; Nye Stove Co., 40-50
men; Knox Boat Yard, 25 men; Strecker Brothers, 20 men; and Marietta
Manufacturing, 50 men.

There were three tanneries, three wagon works, three flour mills, two small
oil refineries, several brick yards, a stogie factory, a planing mill, 16
churches, 45 teachers in local schools and five railroads.

Wages averaged $1 a day and they began at 40 cents. Saloons had free
lunches between 9-11 a.m. Factories had a 15-minute intermission, and many
men came for the free lunch. They could get a 22 ounce glass of beer and a
meal. (Although they paid 10 cents a day for lunch and called it free, it
was better than carrying a lunch pail.)

a.. The oil boom in this area had some effect on the town and its future.
In 1814, while boring for salt water near Caldwell on Duck Creek, oil was
struck and several wells flowed in that area as a result. The men drilling
were disgusted as they just wanted salt brine. They had no use for oil.

Dr. Hildreth, a Marietta physician and scientist, was a man of vision and a
genius, for he visited the Duck Creek well and said, "The oil can be used
for profit and a demand will make it used in work shops, and it will soon
be used for lighting the streets in Marietta and Ohio cities." He felt it
was a product of nature and that there were vast quantities stored in the
ground. People didn't realize how accurate his ideas were, and they did
nothing about the oil. If they had listened, Marietta would have gone down
in history as the first place oil was discovered in this country. Instead
that credit went to Titusville, Pa.

Chemists began to separate the light from the heavier parts and kerosene
lamps were created as a result. Refineries sprang up, and there was such a
demand that there was an actual shortage in 1865.

The Civil War had its effect on the oil industry, and as a result there was
a lull.

In 1861 a new field was opened up by members of the Marietta Bucket Factory
on Cow Run. They had leased the land 10 miles from the Ohio River. There
was a productive gas well which had been used for several years for heating
and lighting purposes in the area. A well drilled near here produced 50
barrels of oil a day and this was the beginning of the Cow Run Oil Field,
which up to 1900 had produced a million barrels of oil from one square mile.