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Wow does time really fly. It's time once again for our early renewal campaign. You can take $1.50 off of your annual subscription by using the coupon on the top of page 2. Please clip out the coupon and mail it in along with your payment and we will get you updated in the system. Please make sure that your mailing label is attached to the coupon.

In the near future, we will be mailing our renewal notices to all who have not yet renewed. All subscriptions are due by May 1 of each year. If by chance your renewal notice and your payment cross in the mail, please don't worry, it takes us a short time to get caught up with all of the mailed renewals.

Considering that you can't even get a cup of coffee for less than a dollar these days, we think paying 80 cents for a newspaper loaded with local news is a pretty good deal. To top it off, when you are done reading the paper, you can use it to wash your windows, wrap presents, line bird cages or better yet, recycle it so that we can keep printing on recycled paper like we have for many many years.

The County Press is committed to making this a better newspaper than ever, and as always we welcome any and all comments. Unfortunately, we do not have the manpower to be at every event at all times and hope you understand. When we do a nice job we like to hear from you and when we don't measure up we know we will hear from you be it a phone call or a letter.

For the past 110 years, this newspaper has served the public, and I for one would like to say thank you. Thank you to our advertisers who have been so loyal and most importantly, thank you the readers.

I would like to wish Forest Lake Cleaners a great big Happy Anniversary. Lisa who owns and operates Forest Lake Cleaners, is celebrating her second year in her current location behind White Castle, and she is also celebrating her 24th year in the business. I know what you are saying, so what? a lot of businesses have anniversaries. That's very true, but Lisa at Forest Lake Cleaners has been very active in many wonderful charitable events right here in Chisago Lakes. She is currently working with Recycled Wardrobes, cleaning prom dresses for girls who can't afford new dresses. Lisa is a terrific person and I wish her many, many years of success. Stop by and wish her happy anniversary, she has some great deals going to help celebrate.

Last Sunday, if you remember, the weather was absolutely glorious. Temps were in the mid 60's with abundant sunshine. My son and I were even out in our yard playing baseball in our shorts and t-shirts.

Since there were no snow mounds to trudge through, we decided to take a walk around our property line. We have a small drainage creek behind our house that basically flows during the spring and then dries up. The creek was flowing on Sunday, and we decided to follow it to Chisago Lake to observe where it enters the lake. I, being a fisherman, and my son, being someone who likes to amuse his old man by going along fishing, we like to monitor the lakes. Every time it rains, we get a little excited with the possibility of raising the lake levels.

Anyway, when we were down on the ice, my son noticed a couple of huge bags of garbage just lying about 30 feet off shore. Upon further inspection, we found two industrial size garbage bags full of beer bottles and other ice house necessities. It looks like someone was cleaning out their ice house and made an effort to take the trash off the lake. But the bags were ripped so the person(s) must have just left them there.

We decided to head back home and get some new garbage bags and proceeded to pick up about 300 beer cans and bottles. My 10 year-old son was just beside himself. He kept asking how can someone just leave all this junk on the ice? I really didn't have a response other than some people are just plain lazy. With that, I proceeded to ask him if he would ever consider littering the lakes, and he replied "No dad, never ever". On our way back home, he turns to me and asks "Can we do this every year?" I shook his hand and said, "I promise."

I know that I am just rambling on, but if you were that person that left the garbage on the south side of Chisago Lake, you are welcome. You also should be ashamed. If you are one of the many, many people whom I have seen picking up the lakes, I thank you, my son thanks you, and the community thanks you.

The local Veterans would like to remind you that if you would like a memorial brick installed in Memorial Park in Lindstrom, the deadline is approaching. Please see the letter to the editor in this edition.

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