* And So They Say: Clarence Spencer: “They told us this was going to be a wet year, so it better begin pretty soon.” Blackie Randall: “The only news I know is about myself, and I won’t tell that stuff.” Red Hagan: “I couldn’t be any more Irish if I had been born in Ireland.” Clark Stocking: “If you are born right at midnight like I was, you can celebrate on two days.”

* And So They Say: Bill Gouldman: “If I had known that Warren Miller was such a good cook, I’d have had him cooking instead of shooting snooker.” Viola Balderston: “I’m going to quit work so that I can go fishing with my husband.” Ed Riffel: “I’ve been farming all my life and I still don’t know anything about it.” Dave Oyer: “When the Stockton delegation cheered at the game Friday night, the roof of the Palco gym rose two feet in the air.”

* And So They Say: Dean King: “I found a shark’s tooth Sunday, but that isn’t news as the woods are full of them.” Red Hagan: “Lee Phelps put out two flags on Washington’s birthday. The big one he said was for George’s birthday and the little one, for mine.” Paul Marshall: “I was a member of the first Boy Scout troop in Stockton—and that was a long time ago.”

* And So They Say: Mary Jo Robinson: “If Wilbur had bought me a Valentine, I’d have known for sure that he had been up to something.” City manager Harper: “I think the new engine down at the power plant should be installed and operating by May.” Bill Bedore: “The soles of my boots are worn out from turning the corners too fast.” Larry Dix: “We’ve tried rain dances and everything, but still can’t get any moisture.”

* And So They Say: Lucille Scott: “My husband usually remembers our wedding anniversary as it falls on Valentine’s Day.” Francis Eshler: “If I’d buy my wife a Valentine, she’d wonder what I had been up to.” George Ostmeyer: “Sometimes a person just has to admit he’s not as young as he was. Mary Fix: “We shouldn’t have much trouble remembering our license tag number, it’s seven-eleven.” Ralph Burlin: “This is a wonderfully nice day, but what we’d like to see is a nice nasty rainy day.”

* And So They Say: Ig Gross: “It’s hard not to know anything, but it’s not impossible.” Velma Bedore: “I do my duty, and that is all I do.” Kenneth Medley: “When I grunt, I am not ignoring you.” Harold Maddy: “It was a pure, simple accident when I shot the Chief of Police in the back with the water hose.”

* And So They Say: Irwin Wright (Eugene, Ore.): “I think Bud Lytle makes the best bread of anyone in the world.” Brad Waller (age 6, watching his mother cook and was asked by her when she was cutting down a recipe, how much half of three-fourths of a cup was): “I don’t know, I haven’t studied cooking yet.” Bill Gouldman: “If Jim Chastain would play better pool, we’d win more games.” Harry Butler: “Usually when I buy a bargain, I figure on getting stung. But once in a while, I get a pleasant surprise.”

* And So They Say: Milt Boethin: “Well, I really should be doing something even if I do the wrong thing.” Nellie Kern: “Bill’s birthday parties are like the Rooks County Free Fair. They get bigger and better every year.” Clark Stocking: “All I did over the weekend was feed the squirrels.” Judge Gilbert: “I’m back, but I won’t say I’m back to work.” Doyle Cook: “If I didn’t have anything to do but gripe about the kids and criticize the teenagers, I think I’d spend part of that time trying to do something for them or making the town a better place for them to live in.”

* And So They Say: Mary Stewart: “I am scared to death every time I go to a basketball game, but they always come out all right. Lillian Stithem: “I’m not saying which anniversary of my 39th birthday this is.” Jo Carmichael: “If there are no such things as flying saucers, they’ve certainly got an awful lot of pictures of them to be nothing.” Doyle Cook: “I don’t know why I should take down our Christmas decorations until everyone else has theirs down.”

SPOTLIGHTING THE YEAR…1966 * And So They Say: Alan Stewart: “We’ve really made some progress. We’re putting in some glass in our back door which has been out for 15 years.” Lawrence Conyac: “I’ve learned never to open my mouth in front of a reporter.” Dave Oyer: “I’m washing the store windowstoseeifIcan’tget it to rain.” Adaline Zoller: “I wonder if I could be stupid.