065
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Title
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065
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Transcription
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RAY F. MAGNUSON
To leave my boyhood home, and matriculate at the College of Agriculture, was a beginning of a new life. I was familiar with the College, I had taken a short course in MOTORS, in the winter of 1925, but I knew that this would be different, this meant defining a goal for my future. I felt lost, and the need of help. Whether it be by chance or design, I will never know, but I was to find a person before I reached Lincoln, that helped me define my goals.
On July 3rd. 1927, it rained all day and most of the night. We were just getting started in the grain harvest. When the sun came up on July 4th. there was not a cloud in the sky, but the ground was so wet that there was no possibility that it would dry out enough for us to get into the field that day. Dad suggested that we take time out and attend the celebration at the Agricultural experiment station in Ardmore S. D. Ardmore was only 30 miles from home, but the roads were so muddy that it took us more than two hours to drive it.
In 1927 President Coolidge had his summer White House in the Black Hills, and the Coolidges were present at the celebration. On the platform, with the Coolidges was an entertainer by the name of Ray Magnuson, who delighted the President and the crowd with his banjo playing and his singing.
I was to see this man Ray Magnuson again, sitting across the aisle from me on Old 42, the passenger train that I boarded the night before at Crawford. The traumatic experience of the previous day left me feeling very much alone. I needed to talk with some one who might help me get my mind off my problems. I finally got up courage enough to cross the aisle and introduce myself. I didn't remember the man's name, but I knew where I had seen him, and it didn't take us long to find something to talk about.
Ray had finished his sophomore year at Brookings S. D. and was on his way to Ames Iowa to get his degree in Agricultural Economics. He was going to stop off in Lincoln and investigate the Economics Department in Nebraska.
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Rights
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Metzger Memories
