St. Swithin's Day - Tomorrow is St Swithin’s Day and, if ancient rhymes be correct, neither a day of drip nor dry will do this city any good. For, say the traditional lines, rain on July 15 means rain for 40 straight days, while drought on July 15 means drought for a string of 40. "St Swithin's day if thou dost rain, For forty days it will remain; St. Swithin’s day if thou be fair, For forty days 'twill rain nae mair." So reads the old poem written by a fellow or fellows who dived into hiding after leaving the catchy tune to humanity. Nobody knows what St. Swithin’s part is in all this rain making and unmaking. According to Page 7,844 of the World Book Encyclopedia, Swithin was a faithful advisor to Egbert, king of the West Saxons in the 800s. Bishop of Winchester, England, Swithin was made a saint about 100 years later...

The face of Middletown glowed under a thin veil of white this morning. Crystals of snow last night fluffed onto the city and instead of loosening into streamlets of dark, dirt-drawing water, they huddled together and clung to the rooftops, trees and the ground. It was not the first snowfall of the season, but it was the first that left some of itself behind. The Christmas season, which annually starts the day after Thanksgiving, opened in proper form. The one and a half inches of snow were enough to inspire Christmas shopping but not enough to impede downtown driving. Santa Claus, however, was grounded. The red-clad fellow, who makes his annual trip to Middletown by plane rather than sleigh, found the skies unwelcome to flying and had to be picked up in Dayton by a representative of the Retail Merchants Assn. and motored to Middletown...