The Sarpy County Agriculturist rang in 1930 with a blunt but timeless new year message: You were a disappointment last year, do better this time.
Here’s a message from the brand new year, courtesy the Sarpy County Agriculturalist,
January 1930:
This is A. D. 1930 Broadcasting. Hello everybody out there, Happy New Year. I may be mighty young, but I have a bunch of good ideas I’d like to put across to you folks, right now, when the time is ripe. During the short time I’ve been here, I’ve checked pretty carefully, the record of A. D. 1929, and honestly folks, I had to blush; in fact, my face got as pink as my newborn toes. Why it doesn’t seem possible that such a worthless record could be left by anyone.
Now I’m not much on the ‘preachy’ stuff, but honestly, aren’t you ashamed of the A. D. 1929 record? Look at it! Wasted moments, which mounted into hours, days, and weeks of sheer idleness. Mis-spent efforts, which with a little prudent planning could have been diverted into channels of success. Golden opportunities slipped through careless fingers– opportunities which may never come again. Broken friendships, which by the mere use of a little whole-hearted charity, or a kind word of forgiveness at the right moment, could have stayed Simon-pure. Oh! A hundred things of mischance, and every one of them avoidable.
Well, let us forget the failures of A. D. 1929 and see if the record of A. D. 1930 can be made to show up better when my successor takes over the ‘mike’ in ’31. Shall we make resolutions? Certainly, we shall and will make resolutions–bigger and better ones. There is an old German song which recites, ‘Resolutions, yes we make them, not to keep them, but to break them,’ but that is only a song and does not recite the fact. We make resolutions to keep them and believe me, this year we are going to keep the biggest one of all and here it is: ‘I resolve to keep all of the resolutions which I have already made, faithfully and well.’
“Now my dear folks, if you will just cooperate with me in keeping this record straight, I will certainly appreciate it. I want to stand before the ‘mike’ on December 31st, 1930, and challenge my successor to equal the record I have made when I was announcing the doings of men under the name and title of ‘A. D. 1930.’
