Backlog? What backlog? Courts were busy in 1976

In January of 1976, La Crosse District Attorney Ed Nix complained that the county courts were being clogged with too many cases waiting to be resolved.  But a committee of the county bar association studied the complaint, and found the backlog only existed in traffic court, where about one thousand cases were pending.  There was a minority report suggesting that Nix was partly right, that there were about 200 lingering criminal cases in Branch 2 when he became D-A the previous year, but those had been cleared up. 
 
Local government watchers could keep an eye on La Crosse City Hall without having to leave their homes.  U-W-L began broadcasting TV coverage of La Crosse city council meetings live on Teleprompter cable channel 4, adding visuals to the existing public radio broadcasts of the twice-monthly meetings.  Those council sessions would often last until midnight or later. 
 
And Reader’s Digest magazine was getting credit for helping Americans…digest.  An article in the magazine touting the health benefits of bran cereal apparently led the sales of bran products to double nationwide in less than two years.  Before that magazine report, the only popular variety of bran cereal in stores was raisin bran.  Now that was a scoop…or maybe two scoops, 41 years ago, 1976.