JO was quite a job for any Operator that caught it. In the days when there was passenger service through here, JO (The Telegraph Call Letters for Junction City, J-O, pronounced "Jay-Oh") turned in to a "meat grinder" type of job.

Soo's main line to the Twin Cities---looking straight ahead---crossed the "Valley Line" of the Milwaukee Road, which crosses left to right in the photo. The "Valley", as it was called, ran from New Lisbon, Wisconsin, all the way up to Star Lake (even farther at one time) through Babcock, Wisconsin Rapids, Rudolph, Mosinee, Rothschild, Schofield, Wausau, Brokaw, Merrill, Tomahawk to Woodruff-Minoqua. By the time of this photo, the Milwaukee had cut the line to Minoqua back to Heafford Junction, and was on the eve of entering their 3rd Bankruptcy.

My Uncle Dean worked a relief job here in the early days of WWII before he was drafted. Dad and Uncle Keith drove up here to see Dean, my Uncle Dean's advice to Dad was "You don't wanna work here, Squirt".

Mind you, at that point in time, JO had Baggage Handlers yet, that moved a prodigous amount of baggage wagons from the Soo Line side of the platform (the direction we're looking, which is west towards Marshfield) to the Milwaukee Road side of this platform, the side towards us. The Soo and the Milwaukee transferred a lot of Mail, Express, Baggage and LCL between each other here.

Dad got here on relief in 1944. By that time, the Baggage Handlers were all fighting Tojo or Hitler, and the Operator here got to do EVERYTHING---sell tickets, move the baggage wagons, separate mail, baggage, express and LCL, copy train orders, activate the crossing signals for the Milwaukee Road crossing Highway 10 (out of sight to the right), check yard for both railroads and do interchange reports of cars moving between the Soo and the Milwaukee Road here.

Hard to believe such a buccolic-looking spot could be such a bee-hive of activity.

In parking baggage wagons alongside the track on either railroad's platforms. the person doing so had to make DARNED certain he had them in the right spot, or the Baggagemen would throw off their burden onto the GROUND with no thought at all. From what I gather, it common practice to park one loaded and one empty baggage wagon side by side; one to be unloaded and the other for the incoming burden. Often, they would unload one and fill BOTH back up!

Coupled to this was that both Milwaukee Road and Soo Line passenger trains were on tight scheduling. The Trainmen were in a hurry to get going and they harped and harped on the poor schlub assigned to this task to "Go FASTER! C'Mon, We Gotta Get Going!!!!" Considering when Dad worked here, most train crews at the time had collective seniority of 250 years, because the younger men were off fighting the war. They didn't help to do any of this work, simply stood there watching and complaining of the slowness and the ineptness of the person working his butt off doing EVERYTHING except cleaning toilets (there never was a toilet at JO).

Dad never said much, except one time when he got sick of the crotchety old man that was the Conductor on the Milwaukee Road's NORTHWOODS HIAWATHA, who, forever, stood by complaining at the operator doing this work that, "If y' delay this train, I'll turn y' in!" He'd keep this up until Dad finally had enough, and the exchange supposedly went like this:

MILWAUKEE ROAD CONDUCTOR:

"Need t' get a faster man in here! I'll turn y' in if y' delay us agin."

DAD:

"Well, I could use some help around here. There's just too damned much to do. Say.......do YOU wanna help me instead of standin' there talkin' smart!???"

With that, the conductor spun on his heel and walked off, saying over his shoulder, "Turn y' in! Turn y' in!"

At the time of this photo, Dad was here again, as the Traveling Agent for the Soo. JO was closed up forever on October 31, 1975. Certain things never really changed in some respects. The Soo and the Milwaukee interchanged a lot of freight here. At the time this photo was raken, Dad had about 2 years left as the Traveling Agent on the Greenwood Line. Dad would come to JO in the morning to check yard, which consisted of taking down the car numbers of the cars shoved on the east and west wye tracks; the west wye is visible here, and if there were cars on it they would poke out from the left side of the depot back by that white building close to the left of the depot (That is the Junction City Midland Co-op). Both wye tracks and the Milwaukee main line crossed highway 10; often, the cars going to the Soo Line would extend down to those bulk oil tanks in the distance and the Highway 10 crossing would be cut with cars on the north side of Highway 10 for the Soo as well.

Soo made their delivery to the Milwaukee long after Dad had been here, and it was a never-ending source of frustration for Dad when the Chief Train Dispatcher would HOUND Dad to find out what cars had gone to the Milwaukee at JO.

Folks, JO looked as bad on the inside as it does on the outside, but there were no passenger trains here any longer. I was inside the Depot many times when I rode with Dad on the job.

I swear the Milwaukee Road train order signal, that stood on this side on the "Tower", came down in the spring of 1977. That was a story in itself, too. I had talked Dad in to getting one of the blades off of it. Dad knew in advance when the Signal Crew from the Milwaukee Road would be in JO to take that signal down. Dad knew that if he talked with the guys, he could get one of the heads for nothing.

On the day they took that signal down, the Milwaukee signal crew got to JO EARLY. Dad got here around 9 a.m., and just as he turned down the concrete platform that had once held passengers waiting to board Milwaukee Road trains, the signal crew, who had tied a rope 3/4ths of the way up the signal, and them tied it to the trailer hitch of their truck, stretching it tight, finished cutting the signal off at the base with an Aceteleyne Torch, and fell that signal, tree-like.

It fell towards the photographer's position in this photo, falling across the Milwaukee track and breaking up in to many pieces. The blades were destroyed, so much for that.

Keith

Dateline: Marshfield, Wisconsin

          July 22, 2006

Keith adds some more commentary for your historical edification...

Some personal memories of Junction City for your enjoyment. Mike Polsgrove, I hate to tell you that all of this is too early or too late for your era. Sorry about that.

Junction City has loomed large in my family's history. Uncle Vinal "Peanuts" Prentice caught relief there, as did Uncle Dean, Dad and my Grandfather as Soo employees. "JO" (The telegraph call letters for Junction City and always referred to as "Jay-Oh" by everyone including train crews) was always a beehive of activity so long as Soo Line operated passenger trains. JO was port to Milwaukee Road trains to and from New Lisbon; consequently, JO was an un-advertised connection via Milwaukee Road to New Lisbon to Milwaukee and Chicago. Soo passenger trains #'s 2 and 18 would load up with passengers at Marshfield, the majority which would get off at JO to transfer to the Milwaukee to go south from JO to New Lisbon and a connection to the Milwaukee's speedsters going to Milwaukee and Chicago.

Many residents of Marshfield old enough to remember those days will tell you that the fastest way to Chicago was the Soo to JO, and the NORTHWOODS HIAWATHA to New Lisbon, then to Milwaukee and Chicago on the AFTERNOON HIAWATHA.

I really couldn't tell you the first time Dad set foot inside the Depot at JO; I think it may have been when Uncle Dean was relieving there in 1940.

Uncle Dean told Dad, "You don't wanna work here, squirt."

JO was a "meat grinder" type job, and you dealt with two often-grumpy train dispatchers---- one Soo, one Milwaukee Road, both of whom thought their railroad owned rights over the other over the diamond there.

The operator at JO sold a LOT of Tickets, copied train orders for both railroads, checked yard, which amounted to keeping track of the cars interchanged between the Soo and the Milwaukee, and the Soo man at JO also acted as the Milwaukee Road representative there and made Customer Calls to Milwaukee Road customers. The operator also handled the east siding switch for the generously long passing siding at JO in the days before remote controlled power switches. When Dad relived at JO in 1944, there was no electricity there yet, it was still all kerosene lanterns---including the one at the top of the Soo's generously tall Train Order Signal!

It was the job of the Op to keep all those kerosene lamps filled with oil, lit, and the wicks trimmed.

And trying to light that lamp at the top of the Train Order Signal was traumatic enough that Dad never forgot that----but he never enjoyed heights, either.

And JO had a very tall train order signal. JO sat in an odd place----at the leveling off of a hill coming westwards from Stevens Point, at the bottom of a sag going eastwards. One or the other necessitated that tall train order signal.

Milwaukee Road's TO Signal was about 3/4ths the height of the Soo's.

At one time, Soo Line had Baggage Handlers at JO----I believe they were in place when Dad visited Uncle Dean working there in the days before World War II. Soo and Milwaukee passed large amounts of LCL, Baggage and Express between one another------look at a Paul Larson photo taken of JO just after WWII and you'll see something like 6 or 7 baggage wagons parked up next to the "Soo Line Side" of the JO Depot. According to Dad, there was something like 12 or more wagons at JO for handling all the transfer between the Soo and the Milwaukee Road.

Early on, right across from JO's distinctive Depot, there had been a Freight House. I've never seen a photograph of it, nor can I tell you how big it was. I gather from the way Dad talked that the Freight House was still in JO and in use when he first relieved at JO in 1944. When Dad caught a relief assignment at JO after WWII, I think the Freight House was gone, but the track that served it, almost a 1/2 mile in length, remained, and part of it still remains under CN today.

Business in JO for the Soo was mostly Interchange Freight Cars to the Milwaukee, LCL and Mail and the transfer of those with the Milwaukee. Soo had a spur that came off the "East Pocket Track" and ran in to the Grasshorn Creamery, part of which still stands today. I can't tell you how much business the Soo did with Grasshorn; I note for you here that Milwaukee Road Employee Time Tables going back in to the 1920's make note that certain classes of their Steam Power (and later diesel locomotives) were "Not To Be Used On The Grasshorn Spur", which means to me that the Milwaukee got in to service Grasshorn. JO, even though given birth by the Wisconsin Central and their expansion westward in 1872, was a Milwaukee Road town.

In short, Soo had almost no local business in JO. Later on, when JO was closed up as an Agency and JO was added to my Dad's Traveling Agency, there was a Gentleman (I use the term loosely) that unloaded lumber off the Soo House track at JO, but that was it until the Junction City Midland Coop built a Fertilizer Plant next to the Grasshorn Creamery building in 1976. Occasionally, Soo would get three tank cars of gas or fuel oil loaded out on the Grasshorn Spur from the Koch Pipline Tank Farm east of JO on Highway 10, product that had sat too long and had gone "bad" and had to be shipped back to the refineries in the Chicago area for re-refining.

(Say what you want about Pipelines, but they can only ship it one way, not two.)

But carload petroleum products going back to the refinery didn't start happening until the mid-1970's, and it only occurred once a year, maybe twice, at the most.

Interchange between the Soo and the Milwaukee was quite heavy. The majority of the traffic was Pulpwood and Chemicals destined for the Paper Mills on the Milwaukee Road----Mosinee, Rothschild and Brokaw. Soo got back mostly empties----I vividly recall empty DM&IR Pulpwood Gons and empty UTLX tank cars coming back to the Soo, with some carload Market Pulp in box cars on occasion.

The jewel of JO was the Soo Depot. From the first time I ever laid eyes on it, the place looked shot. It hadn't received any paint on it's exterior since who knows when, and the weathered boards only served to make JO look even worse.

Later, when Junction City was appended to Dad's Traveling Agency with the Soo, I enjoyed the rare privilege to get inside the place, where, I found out, it looked as bad inside as it did outside. The place was completely shot.

One did not open the waiting room door to the outside on the Soo Line side of the Depot, for fear of NEVER getting it closed again. The floor had heaved out of level that bad. Later on, around 1979, I happened to be riding along with Dad one chilly fall morning and found when we let ourselves in on the Milwaukee Road side of the Depot, that someone had opened the door on the Soo Line side---------and LEFT it that way! There it was, standing WIDE open; how long it had been that way nobody really knew, or if it had been the Section Crew that had opened it and left it that way. Dad and I got it shut and locked, though, but not without Dad going in to "Full Panic" mode beforehand.

The floor was completely heaved out of shape. Right in front of the Telegraph Desk there was a significant HUMP in the wooden floor, one that resulted in someone---possibly the retired Agent---fitting a four-square wooden office chair with fixed legs with glass insulators on the bottom of the legs. I never figured out why, because the office had a nice office chair on casters.

However, as one could say, Wisdom comes to one frightfully.

Dad and I used to stop at the Junction City Grocery after picking up the US Mail for the Depot from the JO Post Office (Soo maintained a lock box there until 1980) and grab a little snack, often, a Twinkie and a pint of Half & Half or regular milk. While Dad went through the Interchange reports, we would eat. A "working Breakfast" so to speak.

Dad always used that wooden chair with the glass insulators fitted to the bottom of the legs; I say in the caster-equipped office chair. To use that chair, you fought a losing battle trying to balance on the hump in the floor. You were either jammed against the Telegraph Desk or holding on to the desk for dear life because the office chair wanted to sail across the office, being more-or-less launched ship-like off that hump in the floor.

This particular morning, I thought I had myself balanced pretty well on that hump in that wheeled office chair. As I picked up my Hostess Zinger to my mouth,..............zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzooooooooooooooooooooooooooooommmm, and I headed pell-mell towards the oil heater. I ended up parked next to the heater, Zinger in one hand, milk in the other, with an unbelieving look on my face.

All Dad said was, "Don't feel bad. I hit the heater once".

Though there was very little Soo Line left in the building---right after closing the Agency the Soo unceremoniously ripped out everything connected with communications in the building and took out just about all company forms and paperwork---there was a prodigious amount of Milwaukee Road paperwork left behind, all stored neatly on a large, high shelf in the freight room. There were STACKS of unused and unissued Milwaukee Road Empty Car Slip Bills, Switch Lists, unused Demurrage books, you-name-it, stored in there, many issued within WEEKS of one another, and it seemed the reason the forms were issued was because the name of one of the Milwaukee officials listed at the bottom had changed.

The Freight Room also had the only nearly-level floor in the entirety of the Depot. It had never been heated unlike the rest of the building and wasn't as prone to the effects of heat and frost.

To Rob Schoneman: There were NO bathroom facilities at JO. Well, that isn't quite correct, there WAS a piece of galvanized rain gutter under the freight platform at the rear of the freight room that found it's way outside under the freight platform that was used for the urinary function. For the sit down function, you had to go to either the Parakeet Bar, Emil & Rita's Hiawatha Bar, or Chet & Irene's Sportsman's Bar to effect the sit-down mode.

JO was small, folks. Get 20 people in the area that passed itself off as the "Waiting Room" and you had a crowd, and, consider that, during the depths of WWII when Dad relieved there, you had LOTS of traveling folk.......Dad was witness on more occasions than one to people jammed in the waiting room and spilling out BOTH doors onto the platforms.

As from what I'm aware, the Waiting Room was originally the entire portion from Freight Room to the towered office. Soo Line partitioned off a section ahead of the freight room and made it in to a Warm Room, for storage of goods that needed to be kept above freezing, things like baby chicks, baby ducks, bees, etc. The Soo added a small door on the Soo Line Side (or west side if you prefer) and a bunker for holding coal for stoking the stove that was there to keep the warm room, well, warm.

It was the responsibility of the Operator to shovel coal in to the bunker and to stoke that stove.

The famed Tower on the JO Depot was, supposedly, originally planned to house the Wisconsin Central's Train Dispatchers, although, so far as I know, it was never used for anything, except, perhaps, some records storage and the storage of dust. Soo Line would later paint the tower widows over when JO got the Soo's 1920's paint scheme of Cream walls, Red Trim and black window frames. That had to be the last time JO was painted.

There were two ways to access the Tower----from a Trap Door in the ceiling of the Office, and from the Freight Room. There was a ladder nailed to the office wall that led to that trap door, but you needed a fairly good-sized ladder to reach it! As I recall, the trap door was next to the chimney, and the ladder access was attached to the wall also next to the chimney.

Dad always said he was "going to take you up there someday" but it never came to pass. I never pushed the issue, either.

That chimney that rises above the back of the tower started 10 feet above the floor in the office. Two stoves belched into it, the office stove and the waiting room stove. When Dad first worked at JO, all three stoves were still coal. When I first saw it, JO was served by two oil stoves, only one of which, the Office Stove, that worked, and "worked" is stretching it a bit.

In the wintertime, the Office stove BAKED you body from your belt upwards. Everything else FROZE. If you sat down, you got the odd result of having a baking head while everything else was cold.

Soo Line and Milwaukee Road accessed the building together, so, consequently, there were double switch locks, one Soo, one Milwaukee, on the Milwaukee Road side (or East if you prefer) of the Depot, locked through the door hasp with a thick piece of steel, crudely holed on each end for the switch lock hasps to fit through. As simple as this sounds---respective railroad employee uses the respective lock; when you leave, fit the lock bar through the door hasp and lock it back up-----some dunderheaded Milwaukee Road employee used ONLY the Milwaukee Road lock through the Door hasp and left the Soo Line lock and hasp bar hanging. When Dad showed up the next day, he couldn't get in except by using the Soo Line side waiting room door, which entailed something like hiring David Copperfield to get the door shut again when he left. I think Dad had to enlist Carl Whittaker's Brother Jim, the JO Section Foreman for the Soo, and his two section hand goof-offs, to help him get that door shut again.

Consequently, Dad was issued a Milwaukee Road switchkey after this happened, although I don't recall him ever having to use it.

Dad relieved at JO in the midst of WWII, and the Baggage Handlers that HAD been there before the war were gone, off to war, never, so far as I know, to return. Their job fell on the Operator, the person already over-loaded with station work.

I don't know how many times I've recounted this story, but it is always worth retelling:

The Crew of the Milwaukee Road's NORTHWOODS HIAWATHA was high on the Seniority Roles. Dad once said that he wouldn't have been surprised if the total amount of years between the men that operated the train was a collective 250 years. Included was an Ebeneezer Scrooge-type Conductor, forever in a foul mood, that would scuttle down the platform at JO, yelling at the hapless Soo Operator that, "If y' don' hurryup, I'll turn y' in fer delayin' this train!" The NORTHWOODS had a tight schedule to keep going south to New Lisbon to connect with the "Big" Hiawatha; coming back north the schedule was no where near as tight, but, then, the crew of the NORTHWOODS could smell tie-up time in Wausau near so, although they didn't beat it so fast going home, they still wanted to get tied-up and off duty slightly faster that yesterday.

Which is interesting in it's own right, because the NORTHWOODS functioned as an all-stops local. They were even slowing to pick up cans of Milk at nearly every crossing on it's route.

There was a trick to the LCL, Baggage and Express Transfer at JO----you had to pre-spot the baggage wagons at just about the place the Baggage and RPO cars would stop, one loaded and one empty, next to each other, so that the Baggagemen could simply throw off the incoming and load the outgoing. MANY were the occasions that you spotted a HEAPED Baggage Wagon for transfer and had a HEAPED Baggage Wagon when the whole process was over---and, most likely, they reloaded the loaded baggage wagon after they unloaded it.

It wasn't just Milwaukee Road; Soo tossed off an awful lot themselves.

AND, you'd better get the spots for the baggage wagons right, or the baggagemen would simply thrown the incoming to JO RIGHT ON THE GROUND.

Soo men, though, would try to help out their counterpart operator. Milwaukee Road wouldn't lift a finger, and you had that grumpy Conductor of the NORTHWOODS constantly in your face telling you, "I'll turn y' in!".

One day, Dad simply had enough. That Milwaukee Conductor made the remark, "Need a faster man here! Can't delay this train or I'll turn y' in!"

Dad said, "Well, there's an awful lot to do here and I could use some help. Say---do YOU wanna help me?"

With that, the Milwaukee conductor spun on his heel, and scuttled back towards the Smoker, saying over his shoulder, "I'll turn y' in! Turn y' in!"

Nothing ever came of it, however.

It was also the Operator's job at JO to control the Crossing Signals for the Milwaukee Road crossing of US Highway 10 in JO north of the Depot. The case for that control still hung on the wall of the JO Depot when I first set foot in the place in 1975, and was still there when they tore the depot down in 1980.

As I've mentioned, the Op at JO was overworked, and once, Dad was busily selling tickets when he became aware of the pound of a Steam Locomotive air pump.

OOPS. The NORTHWOODS had arrived, but Dad had not turned on the crossing signals! Vaguely aware of the time, Dad got too involved in selling tickets and forgot to keep watch for the NORTHWOODS.

Well, it wasn't the first time that happened, although God was with the thoughtless Op that missed turning the signals on. The NORTHWOODS came in to JO at a fairly respectable clip from the north, doing the Bigger Mainline HAIWATHA's proud---even if they were drawn by stream-styled 10-wheelers.

In the fall of 1977 or the spring of 1978 (doggonit if I can remember) the Milwaukee Road removed their train order signal at JO. Dad had known this was coming some time before it happened, and I think I had him talked in to saving one of the signal heads. Dad got to Jo one morning to find a Milwaukee Road Signal Crew at JO, their truck in the "parking lot" across their tracks at the Parakeet Bar with a rope tied to the bumper of the truck, stretched tight and tied to the train order signal about 3/4ths the way up the mast. An employee was on his hands and knees with an Acetylene torch cutting the base. Just as Dad turned the Soo Line auto on to what had been the Milwaukee passenger platform, the base was cut off and the signal was felled, tree-like, across the Milwaukee tracks where upon it disintegrated when it hit. So much for saving one of the signal heads.

It wasn't very long after that, that some Junction City youths broke out some windows in the office bay and the Soo had to put plywood over the openings. As long as that Milwaukee TO Signal stood, people thought there was still someone inside.

It was a real tragedy when JO was torn down. I missed that, thankfully. But, Dad got his hands on the forged-on-site SQUARE nails that held JO together. I think I still have some around here, somewhere.

JO, like the C&NW Marshfield Depot, should have been saved, just because of it's one-of-a- kind status. Alas, it didn't work that way, and the whole of us are less rich because of it's passing. The place reeked of history, complete with the smells associated with a depot, the combination of creosote, carbon paper and oils.

Keith

--------------------

> Hi Keith,
>
> I really enjoyed your post about the Junction City depot!
>
> During 1973-74, I often drove up from Madison to take photos of the
> GBW and Nekoosa Papers Alcos in the Wisconsin Rapids area, the many
> Soo units at Stevens Point, and the Soo & CNW units at Marshfield.
> Being a depot buff, I always checked out the depots that were still
> standing in the area, including Junction City. As you know, "JO" was
> open continuous until its final years, when it was open 7:00-4:00
> weekdays. I never was able to go inside the depot, but your
> interesting post was a wonderful description. I remember the Milwaukee
> Road train order signal...every time I'd pull into Junction City in my
> trusty old Volkswagon Beetle, and see the TO signal, I'd say to myself,
> "Great, the depot's still open!".
>
> I agree with you, "JO" and CNW at Marshfield should have been saved.
> Both were very unique architecture, at least for Wisconsin.
>
> Verne Brummel,
> Fitchburg,WI

--------------------

LaVerne:

Well, I guess, if everything that should have gotten saved had been, there wouldn't be room for anything else and, most likely, there wouldn't be any money left to keep the saved stuff in good repair.

Still, those two Depots really should have been kept. Their historical value was incalculatable.

One thing to add to my JO piece:

This next bit gets me in trouble with BOTH die-hard Soo Line and Milwaukee Road fans.

Lists and bills of cars set out by the Soo or the Milwaukee were left inside the JO Depot. There was a "desk-shelf" on the wall next to the door leading outside, and that was where paperwork was left for the Agent. Lists, bills, etc.

Invariably, the trainmen would leave the door open, often for the entire time their train was at JO working, didn't matter what weather, either. It could be a blizzard, tornado, raining buckets, it didn't matter. Whoever was at JO doing work would let themselves in the Depot and leave the door wide open until they left.

Consequently, in the late summer/early fall when flying vermin start looking for warmer spots to "winter" in, you never knew what to expect to find flying around in the office, "invited" in by the open waiting room door.

It was ONE encounter in the JO Office that led Dad to add an extra piece of equipment to the Soo Line Auto----a Raid Wasp & Hornet Killer.

Now, I need you all to understand that Dad simply HATED anything that flew or crawled, and had the ability to sting or bite. Imagine, if you will, how simply animated and determined Dad got when something as simple as a House Fly got in our home. Multiply that times 14, and you get the response to finding something more testy and dangerous as a LARGE Hornet, mad as hell being cooped up in the Office at JO trying to get out, only to bang in to the window numerous times, making it even more angry.

Now, realize I am NOT poking fun at Dad. I have immense respect for Wasps, Hornets and Honey Bees--------all which have uncertain tempers at best. I understand Dad's animated reaction, I only found humor in it because of the animated way he reacted.

Of course, there is more humor in it when it involved something in our home, like a Spider. Even though, at the time, Dad fogging the apartment up with a "bomb" in his vested quest to eradicate the insect could have killed Mother, Dad or Me, to watch the process and the over-reaction was funnier than anything on TV at the time.

Personally, when there are Honey Bees, Wasps or Hornets anywhere close, I am not.

So, after one "Close Encounter With The Stinging Kind" in the office at JO, Dad found that Raid had introduced a Wasp & Hornet "bomb" that used to do it's work VERY well, and with enough pressure behind the poison it shot out to keep one safely out of harm's way.

I was witness to this twice----once with a large Bumble Bee, once with a Hornet. The Hornet rather resembled a B-17 Flying Fortress dragging over the field it was going to land on.

In both cases, Dad had preceeded me in to the Office, and both times Dad nearly knocked me over as he turned and RAN back out to the Soo Line Auto to retrieve his Raid Wasp & Hornet killer out of the trunk. As Dad ran out to the Soo Line Auto, his terse instructions were "DON'T GO IN THE OFFICE!! THERE'S A HORNET IN THERE!!"

Dad had a kind of "panache`" when using that bomb, sort of looking like he was exhibiting proper form when spraying for the Olympic Flying Insect Kill Event. He even had a certain "satisfied" look on his face as he took aim and "zapped" (as Dad called it) the Flying Vermin.

And this killer from Raid REALLY worked. I am cause to remember that Hornet----the one I've described looking like a B-17 dragging the landing strip in England----flying in to the stream emitted from that bomb and heading STRAIGHT TO THE OFFICE FLOOR. Almost no kicking, no extra buzzing, DEAD.

There were the only two incidents I was witness to. Dad always claimed that he had to play "exterminator" two or three times per week in the late summer/early fall season at JO.

Hazards of the job, I guess.

Keith