We celebrated Thanksgiving this past week. The annual
celebration of too much food and football that has given way to the equally
American pass times of shopping and bargain hunting.

Thanksgiving has been, for the most part, on the fourth
Thursday of November since 1863. The holiday was uniformly set on this date by
act of Pres. Abraham Lincoln. Prior to that states that observed the holiday,
mostly in the north and New England regions, each proclaimed their own
thanksgiving holiday sometime in the fall.

Many of the southern states didn’t have such a holiday
but I don’t think this is why they fought the American Civil War.

For one year, during the Great Depression, they moved the
holiday forward one week.

Even by the depression era Thanksgiving marked the start
of the Christmas shopping season. In 1939 business interests lobbied to move
Thanksgiving forward to extend the shopping season. Franklin Roosevelt approved
the move with hopes it would help restore the American economy.

Instead he just angered the people. In fact, Roosevelt
must have assumed the date change wouldn’t be popular. He didn’t announce the
change until October, just weeks before the new holiday.

The early holiday was known as “Franksgiving”
rather than Thanksgiving. Many Americans celebrated at the regular date and the
holiday shopping didn’t pick up until after the fourth Thursday of November.

Even if the public was against the holiday move it might
have been made permanent, if it had worked.

The amount of money spent on holiday gifts in 1939 was
about the same as anticipated. The shoppers didn’t spend more just because the
holiday shopping season was longer.

Which brings me to my question about our modern Black
Friday hysteria. Does anyone spend more just because the stores open earlier
and run bizarre advertisements? The wise consumer budgets what they can spend
on holiday gifts and spends accordingly. The longer hours and sales shouldn’t
increase sales but may move the spending to earlier in the season.

But it seems the Black Friday hysteria has become as much
a part of the Thanksgiving tradition as holding the event on the fourth
Thursday of Thanksgiving. I wouldn’t anticipate any more efforts to move the
holiday or curtail retail promotions.

We Americans take our holidays and shopping too seriously
for that type of government interference.

Jamestown is seldom on the cutting edge of technology
even in the field of transportation.

The first traffic light in the world was installed
outside Parliament in Jolly Old England in 1868. The illumination for this traffic
light was a gas flame. A year later, the thing exploded and at least injured
the Bobby that was patrolling the area.

The first traffic light on this side of the pond was
installed in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1912. This one was lit with electric
lights so at least it didn’t explode. These early designs had only the red and
green colors. Evidently, yellow hadn’t been invented yet.

The first three-colored traffic lights hit the streets of
the United States in 1922. However, I don’t think it was one of this advanced
design that Jamestown installed in the fall of 1926.

Evidently, this new device was causing some confusion
among the early motorists in the area. The Jamestown police chief asked the
Jamestown Alert to run an article about the rules associated with a traffic
light.

“Motorists must stop whenever the signal facing them says
‘Stop,’” the article said. “They can move forward when it says ‘Go.’”

Gosh, you would have thought people could have figured
that out on their own.

The advent of cars and trucks as the principle means of
transportation had to be a learning curve for everyone involved. Most of the
old traffic rules, such as don’t ride through the streets faster than a trot,
had to be thrown out and new rules for the motorized world had to be installed.
Traffic rules meant to limit incidents that would spook horses now had to
include car horns and the roar of an engine.

The same article that described the rules of the road
concerning traffic lights reminded drivers that the city ordinances required
they “sound their horn and look back when exiting a parking spot.”

Being an early motorist in Jamestown had to be a
challenge. Pavement was virtually unheard of and even the gravel roads were
limited. The technology of the cars of the 1920s required the driver to be as
much mechanic as wheel man. I’m sure that more than one early car owner
wondered whether the new fangled contraption was really a step up from the
horse and buggy.

Especially when they had to deal with the new invention,
at least as far as Jamestown was concerned, of the traffic light. And then
there were those difficult instructions like “Stop” and “Go.”

Royalty doesn’t come to Jamestown, North Dakota, often.

Back in July of 1926, we got a visit from the Crown
Prince and Princess of Sweden. At least for a few minutes.

Prince Gustaus Adolphus and his wife Princess Louise made
a stop at the Jamestown Depot on the evening of July 1, 1926. And Jamestown was
ready for them.

The train rolled into the depot in the evening. The royal
couple was greeted by a group of singers, identified in the paper only as a
Jamestown male quartet, singing the Swedish National Anthem. This was followed
by Mayor C.B. Buckley, making what was termed a humorous speech asking the
royal couple to spend a few days in town enjoying the sites.

It was considered humorous because it was just a whistle
stop while the train was replenished with water and coal before continuing west
towards Yellowstone National Park.

The Prince addressed the crowd here in Jamestown in
Swedish. There at least a few from the old country who probably enjoyed the
words of encouragement from the old country royal family.

Evidently the newspaper reporter didn’t speak Swedish,
whatever the comments by Gustaus they didn’t make it into the newspaper.

Prince Gustaus was what is referred to as a Crown Prince.
This means he is the direct heir to the thrown in his country. Other royal
descendants can be called a prince or princess but only the Crown Prince is
just waiting around for the old man to die so they can become king.

Gustaus had a long wait. He was already 42-years-old when
he visited Jamestown. It wasn’t until 1950, when he was 67, that the position
of King finally opened up.

In the meantime Gustaus had married twice. After his
first wife, Princess Margaret, died he married Lady Louise. Both were
descendants of the British Royal Family.
In fact the children of his first wife and Lady Louise were all
considered great grandchildren of the English Queen Victoria.

Which had to make for a complicated family gathering at
Thanksgiving.

The histories say that King Gustaus, he reigned from 1950
until his death in 1973, was a popular king. In fact, his popularity is
probably responsible for the new Swedish Constitution retaining a monarchy.

And he was popular in Jamestown. An estimated 3,000
people gathered at the depot on that July evening. A lot were probably of
Swedish descent but many had to just be gathered to see some royalty.

After all, it wasn’t often that Crown Prince and Princess
paid a visit to Jamestown. Even if it was just for water and coal.

The residents of Jamestown have always had a soft spot in
their hearts for dogs.

One of the most notable early canines was Ponto, a
bulldog that made his home with the railroad crews at the depot in the early
days of Jamestown.

Ponto was known to growl and snarl at any dog that passed
by the railroad offices. This made him a little less than popular with the
local populace. According to the Jamestown Alert, on at least three separate
occasions, Ponto was the subject of poisoning efforts.

He must have had a pretty tough system. Strychnine was
readily available back then.

His disposition must have been legendary in Jamestown.
The paper even mentioned when a farm dog, in town with his owner, took a bone
from Ponto “without getting chewed into sausage meat.”

He must have caught the bulldog on a good day.

Ponto even made his mark in theatre.

According to one story, he accompanied some of the
railroad men to a dog menagerie at one of the local theatres. As the trained
dogs came on stage Ponto left his seat in the audience, paid for by his
railroad crew friends, and jumped on stage and disrupted the entire show.

This got Ponto, and his friends, kicked out of the
theatre.

Not wanting to miss the show. The railroad gang paid
another admission for themselves and Ponto, and got in again. This time they
had balcony seats away from the stage.

As soon as the show started, Ponto slipped away from the
group, ran down the balcony stairs and was back creating havoc on stage in a
matter of moments.

Ponto had a legendary life of a railroad dog in
Jamestown. He even accompanied crews when they went out to repair tracks. Ponto
died at about six-years-of-age when his back was broken when he was struck by a
caboose on one of those repair trips.

I thought of these stories because I’ve been thinking
about dogs a lot lately.

It came about when I was writing about some of the
hardest working dogs in this region. The dogs trained by Service Dogs for
America at Jud. I recently wrote a book about the dogs and the people they
help.

It was one of the most rewarding creative efforts I have
ever undertaken.

This Saturday, Nov. 5, I’ll be signing copies of that
book at Babb’s Coffee House in downtown Jamestown from 1 to 3 p.m. All proceeds
from the sale of the book go to further the efforts of Service Dogs for
America.

They will even have a dog along to show the skills of a trained
service dog. In fact, the dog will be signing copies as well.

Although I don’t think he will be disrupting live theatre
while he’s in Jamestown.