"I got my first driver's license for 25 cents at the bank.  There was no road test in those days.  There was no written test.  Life was so simple and good then.  People were not greedy.  We're seeing today that there is no free lunch.  We pay dearly for every convenience.  We usually give up something for convenience."

On the Model A
"When the Model A came out it was a self-starter, and it had a gas gauge, and a speedometer.  It could go maybe 55 or something like that.  It had a shift and my dad never drove any more.  The Model A came out in about 1928 or 1929.  I was born in 1918 so I was about ten years old. 
"We thought a Model A was really an improvement over the Model T.  The Model T only had low and high.  The Model A had low, second, and high and it was quite a bit faster and it looked a lot nicer."

On beet fields.
"Two summers I worked in the beet fields.  I must have been about 15 or 16.  One summer I got 10 cents an hour, and another summer I got 12 1/2 cents because I was supposed to lead a little bit.  There were adults out there too.
"The sugar factory was in Chaska.  The beet fields were mostly around Waconia where I hoed.  The only beet field around Victoria that I remember was down by what is Park Drive today, between the railroad tracks and what is Highway 5.
"There were two jobs in the beet fields, hoeing and thinning.  If you were a thinner we crawled on our hands and knees for 10 hours a day.  And you remember talk about the hot dry years of the '30's?  Well, that's the way it was.  We thinned the beets by hand after the hoers went through.  The thinners were behind the hoers.
"At that time you could buy cigarettes for 10 cents a pack, but the better Luckies were 15 cents, so you had to hoe or thin an hour and a half to get the better cigarettes, and of course everybody smoked.  Just the guys smoked.  The girls were smarter."

On presidents.
"My favorite president was Harry Truman.  He was the president and he was the one that said the buck stops here and it did!  He was one of the last presidents who really had a backbone.  Our presidents today are getting so wimpy.  When you looked at Truman you knew he was a man.
"He had a very hard time after the Second World War.  He was also the guy who said let's drop the bomb on Hiroshima.  I wasn't in the South Pacific -- I was in Europe -- but I'm going to tell you, if you think the atomic bomb cost lives, that's nothing compared to what it could have cost, what it would have cost if we had to invade the mainland.
"There were some not in favor of what Truman did, but I always say if there wasn't a Pearl Harbor there wouldn't have been a Hiroshima or a Nagasaki.  Those Japanese would have stopped at nothing else.  If you talk to people my age you get pretty much the same story, and not just from veterans."

On farmland.
"Mary and I moved to Victoria in 1952 and we started out with 73.2 acres.  In about 1975 we sold 35 acres to Wayne Bongard.   Jerry Schrempp built our new house on Bavaria Road in 1978, and we sold another ten acres and the old farm buildings in 1979 to Ray Flygare.  Later, Wayne Bongard sold his acreage to Jim McMahon.  Now I hear McMahon is selling or has sold.  People are turning into millionaires today.
"I've been asked how I feel about other people out by me becoming millionaires when they sell their land and if I'm sorry I sold back then.  I say what would an 82-year old man do with a million dollars?  I live fine today.  And Mary and I were able to travel to Las Vegas and Phoenix whenever we wanted to go there.  The main thing is to do what you like to do and live like you want to live."

On cattle.
"But it was not easy to sell my cattle.  I decided in September of 1959 to sell the cattle, and at first I was happy I didn't have to do the chores.  I had the corn to pick and the fields to plow.  By December I wasn't happy.  And it was worse by January.
"Mary said you better go to the doctor and find out what's wrong.  I was depressed.  And I said to Mary I don't have to go to the doctor to find out what's wrong.  I miss my cattle, I said.
"So in spring I went and bought a small herd to fatten up, and I sold them in the fall and then I was over it.  If that's in you, it's not easy to get out.  You get so you don't ever feel like eating.  Then I still wound up with another whole barn full of cattle.  I bought and sold.  I fattened steers for butcher, all kinds of cattle stuff, and then I was happy."

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