In Our Community

Murder at Midnight was a series produced by KFI, Los Angeles, and syndicated in 1946. It featured tales of the supernatural and macabre by radio's top writers and performers. Elspeth Eric, Mercedes McCambridge, Berry Kroeger, Betty Caine, Carl Frank, Barry Hopkins and Lawson Zerbe were Murder at Midnight regulars. The stories were wild tales of death and the uncanny—of severed hands coming to life, of death appearing as a man in a black beard. It told of “the witching hour... when night is darkest, our fears the strongest, our strength at its lowest ebb. Midnight—when the grave gapes open and death strikes! Thus comes Murder at Midnight.” This show tried to do what Inner Sanctum did so memorably on the networks; the stories were often the equal of Inner Sanctum yarns, but the format wasn't in the same ballpark. Writers included Robert Newman, an older Inner Sanctum alumnus, Joseph Ruscoll of Mollé Mystery Theater, Max Ehrlich of Suspense, and William Morwood of Bulldog Drummond. Charles Paul contributed the creepy organ music; the director was Anton M. Leader, and the sinister-voiced narrator whose voice dripped “MURRR-DERRR–A-A-ATTT MIDNIGHT!” was none other than Raymond Morgan, a former Long Island minster who had given up the cloth for the excitement of radio.

​Listen to AM 1370 KDTH’s Big Broadcast heard every Sunday night from 6 to midnight, and you might hear the organ music ringing in Murder at Midnight.

Helping other veterans
​over the holidays​

The holidays are here, and for many veterans they won’t be very merry. It’s one struggle after the other, and the holidays just bring additional burdens.

There are presents to buy for the kids, there is the weekly dilemma of how to maneuver the rising costs of groceries, etc. We want to step in, but sometimes the needs seem endless and we don’t know if or how we can help.

But, we can. Even a small effort on our part can go a long way to helping fellow veterans make the holidays a little less of a struggle.

If you’re a member of a veterans group, like the American Legion or Disabled American Veterans, you’re in a perfect position to give some real assistance to other veterans.

Here are some ideas to get you started, either as part of a group or individually:

Call Voluntary Services at the closest VA medical center and ask what you can do. You might be asked to run the parking lot shuttle and bring veterans from their car to the door. You might be asked to do one-on-one visits with patients who don’t have friends or relatives to stop by. You might be asked to read to patients with vision problems. If your group is big enough (as well as having a good budget), you might want to host a holiday party for a whole ward, with food, drinks and presents for each patient. Hint: You can seek donations from the community to defray the cost of purchases.

Take a local veteran and family under your wing and ask what they need, whether it’s meals, presents for the kids, a warm pair of boots or some home repairs.

Work a shift at a homeless shelter that serves a large population of veterans. You might be cooking, serving meals at the tables or helping veterans find warm winter gear among the donated coats and gloves.

Whatever you do, your help will have an impact.

​© 2025 King Features Synd., Inc.

Something Lasting Beyond
​the Temporary

I think of some of the things I’ve owned and enjoyed over the years. I had a plastic model rocket as a child. I can sort of picture it and sort of not. I wish I still had it, but I don’t. I had a pet turtle that got lost. I eventually found it under my toy tractor. The turtle’s long gone and so is the tractor. I also had a portable tape recorder that I enjoyed and a nine-transistor portable radio, too. Both are gone. As an adult, I’ve owned a couple of dozen cars or more; I wish I had kept count. They’re gone too.

The country school I attended is no more. The high school I attended was torn down. The farmyard I spent years on is now a field.

I’ve had a lot of stuff over the years, but most of it is no more. Nothing material lasts. It seems so important when we have it, but it doesn’t last.

I got to thinking about this when reading something one of my favorite authors, J. C. Ryle, wrote over a hundred years ago, but it is as true today as the day he wrote it. “Hurry, bustle, and business hem you in on every side. I can well believe you are sometimes tempted to think that this world is everything, and the body is all that is worth caring for. But resist the temptation and cast it behind you. Say to yourself every morning when you rise and every night when you lie down, ‘This world is passing away. The life that I now live is not all. There is something besides business and money and pleasure and commerce and trade. There is a life to come!’”

Those of us who believe the words of Jesus embrace His teaching about this life to come, that at some point He will come back to earth and stop history as we know it. Eventually, He taught, there will be a new heaven and a new earth. How ironic that the material world won’t last forever, but what we call the spiritual realm will last forever.

We live in a material world that God created and wants us to enjoy and make the most of it. But we’re also to live with eternity in mind. A proper perspective on both the temporary material and the eternal spiritual helps us live life to the full.

​“Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Colossians 3:2).

Every autumn I have a tree service come and do deep root fertilization for my 54-year-old Silver Maple. This is done to enhance the tree with renewed health and vigor. This is important to me. The contractor building new houses in this area in 1970 put some kind of tree in the front yard of each house. Over the years we have planted several trees in our yard.

Our three children were 7, 9, and 15 when we moved into our new house. I mention this because we had no neighbors behind us and there was a creek nearby so our children would bring home trees from the creek and want us to plant them in the back yard. Other neighbors were doing this so we did plant their little trees for them. Neither I nor my husband was from a farm community. We knew nothing about trees.

Oh! Yes! We learned fast. They had brought home a Weeping Willow that was getting big. It had to go or it would have taken over our whole back yard. After that the box elder had to go because we had found out about those nuisance bugs. The fern they brought home got ruined when a bad storm tore it out of the ground. There were probably a few more trees dug up but we did add two ash trees to the back yard. We enjoyed them for many years. One was a Green Ash and the other was a Golden Ash. But we lost them to a city wide Ash Tree disease whereby they had to come down. But there is still one hard maple in the back yard that we planted 40 years ago. And my Silver Maple in the front yard is still beautiful.

​Also, one more thing I might mention about my two remaining maple trees is the fact that squirrels love to make their nests in these trees. It seems that squirrels can for tell the coming winter weather. If their nests are built high in the tree that means it will be a more server winter than usual. If the nests are built lower in the trees, the winter will not be too beastly! Another clue to a bad winter is the fact that if the squirrel’s tails are extra bushy in autumn beware of the coming winter. Incidently, these facts came from The Farmer’s Almanac, so if you notice any of these facts this autumn get your shovels and snow blower’s ready for a lot of outdoor activity

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