To the Editor:
Hi, Sue.  Madonna Kerber here.  We don't live in Victoria but have many friends and relatives there, and we get your great paper.  Cy grew up in Chanhas-sen and we will likely be moving to Chan sometime soon this year as we downsize.  We attend Father Bob's Friday Masses at the homes of parishioners.
Enclosed is an article in regard to our nine-week trip to Africa to help start an orphanage and demonstrate using solar ovens for cooking.  I don't know if you would be interested in putting this in the Gazette, but in case it would work out, here it is.
Madonna Kerber
Excelsior, Minnesota

To the Editor:
Just a note to tell you to keep inform-ing us, giving us humor, and, in general, doing a great job.  This time a lot of youngsters will discover the fishhook in the flower in the KleinBank bunny color-ing contest.  Enclosed is my check for another year.  Happy writing.
Betty Goetz, Waconia, Minnesota

To the Editor:
I'm leaving one of these days soon, as soon as my son in law can book a flight for me.  Will visit daughter Joanne and husband Dan who moved to South Carolina last October.  I will be gone until right after Easter.  Hope to be back in time to get my May column written for the Gazette.
Ethel Ausink
Victoria Senior Citizen

To the Editor:
There are several ways to help pre-vent fraud in 2006, ways you might not have thought of. 
Whether approached on the street, at the door, or by telephone, do not talk to strangers.  When making major financial decisions, get several opinions from trust-ed family members and advisors.
Do not sign legal papers or make an investment that you don't understand or that seems unusual.  Don't carry your Social Security card of checkbook in pub-lic.  Keep your wallet in your front pocket or in a hidden secure pouch.
Don't keep your purse, checkbook, briefcase, laptop, or other personal financial information in the car.  Mail checks inside the post office.  Shred all financial documents with a cross-cut shredder.
Hire only licensed contractors that you have checked out with the Better Business Bureau.  Do not do business with door to door solicitors or those asking for a lot of money in advance.
Do not withdraw money from your bank at the suggestion of a stranger who claims you have won the lottery, found a lot of money, or claims to be a bank official.
Mike Fahey, Carver County Attorney
Chaska, Minnesota

To the Editor:
I never found the fishhook.  I never spent much time looking for it.  I let Kay Meuwissen find it for me.
I felt like a smitten kitten when I was late for my cousin Betty Fink's funeral Mass in Victoria.
On St. Patrick's Day I planted 22 pots of canna bulbs, which are getting an early start in my warm chamber, small as it is.
Enclosed find payment for Gazettes for my brother Father Fred and for me.  Recently Father Fred listed the names of all the Franciscans from Minnesota who joined our Sacred Heart Province founded 150 years ago.  Six are/were from Victoria; namely two Diethelms, two Schmiegs, and two Schneiders.
I wish waiters and waitresses in some of our area restaurants would try to give some class to the eating places by dress-ing neatly.  I hate being waited on by people in shorts.  No class.
Sincerely,
Father Conran Schneider, OFM
Chaska, Minnesota

To the Editor:
Congratulations to Papa Eric Hanson, Grandpa and Grandma Kelly and Margaret Hanson, and Great Grandma Margery Hanson on the little addition to the family.  I can still see Eric and his sister Lisa wearing pigtails and his sister playing in the backyard at their Grandma Margery's.  We were backyard neighbors to Margery and Carl and Sadie the pooch.
I saw a lot of rabbits in our old neigh-borhood and groundhogs and deer, too.  Now all I see are squirrels and rabbits.  Lots of squirrels.  There are at least five squirrel nests in the trees across from the apartment building where I live.
I saw the fishhook on page 4 in the flower in the KleinBank ad.  Happy Memorial Day.
Kay Meuwissen, Chaska, Minnesota

To the Editor:
This is regarding the editor's column in the April issue of the Gazette.  As time goes on, the cowboy sometimes finds himself speaking just a smidge earlier than his brain is allowed to enter the con-versation. 
Naturally, people don't like to lose, especially any well adjusted successful person such as yourself.  But if ten people were to taste a batch of your rabbit stew and then taste the cowboy's rabbit stew, and if, let's say, six were to prefer my rabbit stew, you are right that would not really prove too much -- except the fact that mine is better.  In the words of some famous person somewhere, "Don't confuse me with the facts.  My mind is made up!!"
Best regards from your moderately thick-skinned friend.
Cowboy Tom
Victoria, Minnesota
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