Further Adventures of Magnolia Ertle

Visiting with Emma Ertle and hearing her talk about her mother, whom she so resembles, made me laugh. When Magnolia Ertle finished secretarial school in Houston, she went to visit relatives up north and ended up staying with her grandparents for a while in Gary, Indiana. She became a secretary to a steel company executive. Emma said that was a tough job for Magnolia, working with those Yam Dankee hard-nosed managers. One day a manager was arranging steel mill tours for all the employees in Magnolia's division. The rationale seems to have been that the workers would do a better job if they had actually seen the steelmaking process. Magnolia had to create and monitor the sign-up sheet which everyone was required to autograph once they had completed the tour. It was not easy to make sure everyone had done the tour and then signed the sheet. One Friday, Magnolia sent the sheet around for the umpteenth time to track down the last few signatures. As the last signature came in, she realized that although she had had the tour through the mill, witnessing the orange flares and the smell of sulphur (which she described as a whirlwind trip through Hell) she was the only one who had not signed her own sheet. She looked at the heading at the top of the sheet. It asked, "HAVE YOU BEEN THROUGH THE MILL?" A frazzled Magnolia signed her name and wrote beside it, "D*mn right I have!"