TAUGA DEMOCRAT |
>3rj ^ f ,!l
SHED EVERY THURSDAY 1Y RIVERS PRINTING COMPANY
R. C. RIVERS. JR., PUBLISHER
... . T_ L H
Weekly New* pa per
Emhlidhal la HSR Puhiiahad lot U fwri by the late Boburt C Rivera. Sr.
%''■* 7^7 SUBSCRIPTION RATES I
In Watauga County: One year, $2 00; six munthi, *180; four month*. $1 00; Outside Witiuu County:
•One year7 g2.90; six months, $175; four Boot*J. »1»
! NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS—In requesting change of address. it If important to mention tke 01 J)
- - u.
I»hM at the poatoffice at Room. N. C., aa seoend class ^
Entered at the paatafflee at Boone, N. C., an townd elaaa mail matter, under the act «t Congress el
March 1, 1879
. m- x ikj **%;*
> "The baaia of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first objective should be
to knap that right, and wore It left to me to decide whether we should nave a government withuet
newspapers, or ngwspaM1 * without government, I should not besitats a moment to ehonoe the latter.
•»
BOONE, NORTH CAROLINA, THURSDAY. JANUARY 10, 1967
Hurley Boom Seen
Those who have wondered what would
have happened to the local farm economy
If the bur ley tobacco industry hadn't
aprunf up locally, will be furthar heart
ened to know that as the aalc of filter
tlpa grows, so grows the market for bur
ley weed. •
Burley, which amounts to about 28%
of U. S. tobacco production, is heavier
bodied and carries a more authoritive
flavor than the paler flue-cured leaf. Cig
arette makers have found that the flavor
from the mild, bright leaf can hardly pen
etrate the filter in the popular filter tips,
so they're mixing in more of the stronger
leaf so's a satisfacory taste msy emerge
from the filter.
As s consequence the demsnd for bur
ley is going up along with the sales of the
filter cigarettes, and the price for the
weed is soaring too. In fact, a correspond
ent to the Wall Street Journal says that
a shortage of burley is likely to ensue if
the sale of the new filters continues to
mount.
Prices of weed in Boone and elsewhere
have hit new highs. Many averages are
reported in the mid-sixties, or 30% above
the Federal price support level. And ths
price pattern has changed, we learn, the
tops and the bottom leaves bringing pretty
close to the same price in many instances.
A report from Lexington lays "demand
1* *o heavy on the auction floor that auc
tioneer* are, in effect, rationing tobacco
to cigarette company buyers. Some ware
house executives admit ordering their
auctioneers to engage in this practice."
So good is the burley sales structure
right now that there is feeling in the
industry that the acreage cutback should
be relaxed during the 1957 growing sea
son. But the majority of the growers are
urging the Agriculture Department to
leave the quota system unchanged, it is
■ said.
Anyway, /he burley market continues
to aid the local farm economy, and the
news that even brighter dayJ are ahead
for the burley grower is satisfying.
A Good Citizen
In the death of J. L. Quails the city
loses her most venerable Retired retail
merchant and one of her best and most
progressive citizens. <
As a builder of one of the important
business blocks in the shopping district,
as a leader in religious and civic affairs,
and as a forthright and generous gentle
man, Mr. Quails contributed in large pro
portion to the general welfare of thi
community and of her people.
Giving And Getting
t ?r flf-l^'mr ' f*' '*
A child born the fame day me Maro»>
of Dimes offically came into being would
be one day leu than 19 years old as the
1057 campaign for polio funds opened
January 2.
In that relatively brief span a way of
I preventing polio—the Salk vaccine—has
been made possible by the generosity of
j the American people, and in a little more
than the last year and a half of this time
Tardy Tax Listing
Mr. Ivy Wilson, the county tax super
visor, wonders why it is that folks don't
want to list their property for taxes, ac
cording to the statute and in the time
set forth.
We've wondered too, why it is that so
many, even those of us who live almost
in the shadow of the courthouse, wait till
'1 the last minute to list, or expect the offi
cials to carry forward the last year's fig
ures without our showing up at all.
1 After all, it's the law that property be
listed durfiig January, and Mr. Wilson
and the other officials would greatly ap
preciate the taxpayers taking care of this
duty. It would ease the official work a
good deal, and at the same time citizens
would have one more chore worked off
when the first of the month comes.
OV«r H million ennaren nave drii vacci
nated.
But the irony if that the teenager men
tioned above probably reached hia 19th
birthday still un vaccina ted. For the truth
ia that considerably less than hall of the
nation's teenagers have taken advantage
of the Salk vaccine.
No invention of science Can force people
to avail themselves of the blessed pro
tection of the polio vaccine—only a vig
orous, cooperative educational program
can extend a true umbrella of protection
over America's youngsters and young
adults. And. for another thing, no method
now known can fully undo the ravages
caused by polio of the past, and, for that
matter, of the present.
We must give to the 1957 March of
Dimes to supply fuel for the work that
still needs to be done—the research, the
patients who still desperately need our
aid, the specialized training of badly
needed polio experts; and we must get
ourselves and our families fully protected
against polio with three properly spaced
shots of Salk vaccine.
Let's finish the polio job this January
by giving generously and by getting vac
cinated. Let's finish the job the way it
was started—together. Oive to the March
of Dimes—get vaccinated.
How To Hang Trousers
(Winston-Satan Sentinel)
Morris A. Breen ol Fulton, N. y„ may
have filled a great void in the life of the
male by inventing a way to hang trousers
up by the waist.
There has been considerable research
along this line, but the failure* have been
nearly 100 per cent The old wire clothes
hanger has always been the best excuse
a man had for not hanging up his pants.
First you have to get the cuffs together
in the left hand, then you let the watot
ot the breeches fall quickly from the right
hand ao as not to spill everything from
the pockets. Next you thread the two legs
through the wire, then you hold the hanger
under your chin while you get the creases
just right at the fold—an impossible task
of course. After everything ia finished
you find that those things in the pockets
are ao heavy they pull the pants off the
hanger.
j&'• Jc The more recent type clamp hanger that
fits on the cuffs to fairly common, but
this to no improvement over hanging your
panta by the cuffs from the top dreaaer
drawer, In fact, the dreaaer drawer to.
usually much easier to una man me nang-(
er. Of course, a dresser used for a hanger*
isn't much good for anything else.
There is also something on the market
called a valet rack, ranging from $12 up
ward. This is a wooden frame over which
you drape your pants—again having got
ten the cuffs together and aten that the
* crease is right at the fold. You can also
hang a coat over the pants. In fact, you
can hang so many things on it that a pair
of pants can easily get lost for • week.
Aside from that, the contraption doesn't
serve any purpose that a good heavy high
• backed chair won't serve.
Mr. Breen's new hanger, according to
reports, is designed so the pants can be
hung from the waist, the same way they
are wom. There is no risk of losing things
out of the pockets, no bother about creases,
no danger of the pants sliding off to the
floor. The invention should make Mr.
Breen wealthy and save this country many
valuable man hours that could better be
used for sleeping.
, ^ rr'T* 'J
n'.'i:
WHO'LL CONTROL IBM?
By Paul Iter dottier
'
;
ssr • i " h
Stretch's Sketches
By "STRETCH" ROLLINS
The Buaineu There*a No Buainett Like
PEOPLE WHO ARE bitten by the acting but
often sentence themselves paradoxically to a
life of privation and obscurity
—the anthithesis of the fame
and riches to which they *»•
B pire.
■K Driven by an insatiable
I hunger for public recognition
■k of their talent and person
■ ality, many become the vio
I tims of their own over-essess
ment of these attributes. Jt
. |H is doubtful that anyone ever
t . embarked upon an acting ca
reer who did m>t see viaiona of eventual stardom
and adoration. Show business does not attract
those who are content with mediocrity, but
thouaands are forced, either by circumstances or
their own limitations, to settle for it.
Many are lured along the greasepaint trail as
the quickest road to easy money. But this con
cept repeatedly has been labeled a fallacy by
thoee who have traveled the road. Hard wort,
heartbreak, and frequent unemployment char
acterize the career of the Thespian, they main
tain. And there aren't enough "big breaks" to
go around.
Even those who have attained the top rung
•re often unhappy. "People want to know,"
Jackie Gleason la quoted as saying, "why 1 take
on more and more things, why I make my life
so difficult. Well, I remember bow I used to
walk down Sixth Avenue and nobody recognized
me or Mid hello to me—and 1 walked real alow.
Now everybody knows me."
"A (tar can enchant million*," uid Walter
Winchell, "intensify emotions and amass great
treasures without gaining essential emotional
comfort. An unknown strolling in the park
frequently has a deeper sense of serenity than
the famous who inhabit the peaks of golden
mountains."
IT'S OPEN SEASON for making cracks about
old movie* being shown on television. Last Sat
urday I saw a Ken Maynard western in which a
very young-looking Gene Autry snd a slim and
handsome Smiley Burnette merely fronted a
string band playing for the ranch house dance.
Their names were not even mentioned.
Some of those TV movies are so old they
must have been made by 18th Century-Fox!
SOURCE MATERIAL—Researchers for th«
movie. "The Ten Commandments," studied over
2,000 reference book*, reports a Hollywood
columnist.
He neglected to mention whether one of them
happened to be the Book of Exodus.
"WE GET THE IDEA that Hollywood's the
place where fools rush In where angels fear to
wed," paraphrases Billy Arthur on the movie
land brand of matrimony.
Yeah. Much "I do" amout nothing, huh?
From Early Democrat Files
Sixty Years Ago
January 14, lttl.
J. L. Hayes and J. C. Ray are off on a trip
to Raleigh. The; attended the inauguration of
the Governor on the 12th.
Died at her home at the Grandfather Hotel
last Sunday, Hr». Irvin Calloway. Lagrlppe ia
uid to have been the cause of her death.
We are Indeed aorry to state that Col. John
F. Morphew of Marion, whose serious 1 lines* we
mentioned in our last issue, died at his home last
Friday He was reared la Watauga and
Aahe counties where most ot his relatives now
live.
11m great absorbing question that overshadows
everything of a'public nature in North Carolina ia
l*e ejection of a United States Senator, whether
it will be Jeter Pritchard or someone else. We
are still disposed to bet on Pritchard The signs
of the times indicate that fusion between the
Populist and Republicans is still very much
alive. The silver sentiment cuts no figure where
office and boodle present themselves. There is
no doubt ot Pritchard*s success.
CapL Coffey will leave soon for South Caro
lina to jolh T. F. Coffey, who is already there
with horses and mules.
Dr. Brooks of Ashe county got bis dwelling
burned • few days ago.
Mr. Jeff Davis, la, we are glad to say, slowly
improving from fever.
Pork seems to be more plentiful than usual,
but 1* selling very low.
Thirty-Nine Year» Ago
Jeanary It, Kit.
The ice on the dam at the power plant is
reported to be three feet thick and almost or
quite as thick on the pond near the gymnasium in
Boom.
Many of the weUa in different parta of the
vlllafe are practically dry, owing to the acareity
of rain of late.
Rev. J. Horton Atkins snd family of Foecoe will
leeve the Utter part of this week fer New York,
where they will remain for a month or more.
Mr. Richard Gragg and daughter, Jjllas Mary
Anna, left last week (or Lenoir, Mr. Gragg having
•old hia holding! here to W. D. Farthing.
Rev l(. L. Carpenter, the beloved palter of
the Luthern Churches on .this charge (or a num
ber of year*, died at hia' old home in Lincoln
county yesterday after many months of suffer
ing with cancer of the face . . .
Our daily mail from Boone to Lenoir which
has been somewhat disturbed for the past few
weeka, by (topping off at Blowing Rock over
night and coming down the next morning, has
again been put on its former schedule. It now
leaves Boone at 7:10 a. m. and returns aome time
at night. It ia t|uite an undertaking for the
contractor.
The State Food Administration haa let con
tracta (or the printing of 400,000 home Instruc
tion cards to be distributed to each household
in the State. . . . The card calls for a porkless
day each week ia addition to meatless and
wheat)ess days, and for a meatless and wheatless
meal each day Mr. Hoover, on one aide of the
card, faankly and impressively presents the food
situation as It I*.
Fifteen Yeart Ago
Jaaaary t, IMS.
Carroll Columbus Adams, one of the town's
most venerable citizens, died at the home of a
daughter, Mrs. Jeaaie McGwire, Wednesday morn
lng. Mr. Adams had been critically ill for a
long time and Ms demiae was net unexpected. . .
Watauga county motorists will be rationed
56 tires and 47 tube* for automolUas, motor
cycles, trucks and buses during the month at
January, according to an announcement by the
office of price administratis* in Washington
last Thursday.
The office of production management has ban
ned all aales at new automobiles and the supply
priorities and allocations board approved an
OPM plan to halt production of these vehiciea
"within a few weeka."
Mrs. A. D. Blair of near Boom suffered a
paralytic stroke last rrlday and it was aaid tost
Wednesday that the estimable lady had not yet
regained aoy use of ber left aide. . . .
Mr. Itoy Wilson, well-known citisen of Skw
ville, is seriously ill at Watauga Hospital with
KING STREET'
f- ▼ W • % By ROB RIVERS
THE LONG WHISKERS .. MAT BE COMING BACK
Eroia bo leas an authority than the straight-laced Wall Street
Journal comes the news that the sleeping beards, so common
a few decades ago, are on the way back, and the managing ed
itor of the Barber's Journal admits "beards are back in vogue."
.. ■ The tentorial publication says that no,Was than 200,900 sets
of chin whiskers are being pampered and combed and caressed
by the wearers in the United States, which is a considerable
Increase over a couple of years ago. . . The Gillette Co., on the
other hand, says that 90 million men shave 'em off, with blade
or motor. . L. S. Trusty of U>s Angeles, barber school dean,
doesn't like the notion of be whiskered men. and sayr "TTiis is
a fast age, and beards take time to trim. .. . Abo they are not
sanitary, always catching flying particles and such."
RAZORS. MOTORS . . THEY DIDN'T HAVE EM
A big crap el whiskers or a handle-bar mustaeio
used to flourish, no doubt, because it was quite a chore
to gat rid of the beard. . . Before the advent of safety
rasors and the power-driven mowers, ta say nothing
of hot tap tovater, the problem of maintaining a smooth
face was not a small one. ... This, no doubt, had a lot
to do with lotting the whiskers thrive. . . . And we
couldn't go along with the psychiatrist who believes
that "the growing of a heard represents modern man's
attempt to regain his once dominant poeition in society
over woman."
THE CENTENNIAL .. LAID AWAY THE BLADES
During Watauga county's centennial, most of the fellows
around town grew whiskers, in greater or less degree, as a
publicty stunt, and reminded us of the days when smooth
faces were rare when our hardy forebears gathered. .. . Squire
W. L. Bryan always wore a well-tailored beard, William T.
Blair, John H. Norris, John S. Stanbury were among the others
who let the whiskers grow, while the late Rev. S. E. Gragg
was the last man we saw who had a full beard. . . Mustaches
were plentiful a few years ago. Some of those who were them
were Capt. Lovill, J. L. Winkler, the Professors Dougherty,
John F. Hardin, B. J. Councill, J. D. (Crack) Councill, Bob
Rivers, James W. Bryan and others. . . Most of these, however,
came to trim their mustaches to such an extent that there
wasn't a set of the old handle bar type left in the community'
when we can first remember. . . . Anyway, the whiskers are
on the way back, and the male being the lazier of the species,
many will welcome a no-shave program. . . . But most win
retain the comfort and cleanliness of every-day lathering or
buzzing, as the case may be, rather than to cozy to a Vandyke,
Sforza, an ear-to-ear Presbter, a Shenandoah, a Guelph, or
maybe just a plain set of hill>billy whiskers, which might be
named the Pink Baldwin.
"MIGHT GO ON SOIL BANK," SAYS BURLEY GROWER
We questioned a,town farmer on his burley-growing
operation. He said the price was good, the quality of
the weed flnp, and *11. M said be was going toi itfC"
rajsin' the stuff ami was "going oik the soil bank." . . .
He explained Uut by the time the crop was shared with
the tenant, the owner's receipts would be better just
to quit growing the weed. . . . And we'd hasten to
agree that at the same price, it would be less stress
and strain not to produce tlian to be bothered.
GOLDEN BRLLS . . RING IN CHRISTMAS
Forest Wilson brought in a bunch of forsythia just before
Christmas, and we found we had the little golden bells bloom
ing In our own back yard at year's end, fully three months ahead
of time. . . . Just before Christmas week, we also noted the
fish worms, floated out by the rain. . . . They doubtless went
deep the middle of last week though, when the mercury plum
meted to winter's new low, killed the spring flowers and re
minded that winter can't stay around the corner longer than
the first of the year .. even in Boone.
So This Is New York
By NORTH CALLAHAN
Several years ago I (topped 1
drinking coffee and became a re-1
gular tea drinker, so I was some-1
what disturbed when 1 read in a '
new book on arthritis that by im
bibing this Utter pleasant bever
age, on* ran the risk of ending
up with Joints ao dry that he
might well become a beat-over
arthritic who couldn't even bobble
to the tea table. So 1 asked the
Tea Council of the U. S. A. Inc
what they had to say in regard to
Mid statements In the book. They
said plenty.
Lea Kates, director of consum
er services, let loose a blast that
could be heard from here to Cey
lon. "We find," she said after ob
taining a copy oI the book, "that
the man who offers a new method
for curing arthritis Is not a doc
tor ... his theory la refreshingly
simple. It is a lubrication Job of
the Joints ... but unfortunately,
his knowledge of the chemistry of
food Is lenity. One example is his
statement that among modern
beverages, tee la most drying to
tM oils of the Joint and skin litv
lugs because of It* tannic acid
contentl . . . even well-read lay
men no longer confuse tea'* tan
nin* with tannic add."
Mies Kates obligingly enclosed
mm material compiled by bona
fide doctors sliest tea. But first,
an imposing-looking kia<Hua ta
veala that than are three primary
kinds el toe: tmm. Mask and
M the w«sM ^S^htoT
India. PahietaCL Ceylon. Formosa.
»idoaesls, Central Afrtsa aad
Virginia I once came upon some
delicious spiced tea named Con
stant Comment, presumably so
named because of the resultant
chatter.) The contents of tea are
tannin, caffeine, protein bodies,
gummy matters and sugar. Ap
parently the higher up on the
mountains the tea grows, the
tastier it is—so just think what
the celeAial variety win be I
Tea, next to water, Is the most
consumed beverage in the world,
avers Henry J. Klaunberg, Ph. D.
To appreciate fully the cultural
value of the beverage, one has
only to think of the social and
literary teas around the country,
says Dr. S. 0. Waife of the In
diana University Medical School,
who also points out that the mum
figures in such popular titles as
"Tea for Two," "Tea and Sym
pathy" and "The Tea House of the
August Moon." Aside from any
sugar or cream added, to* has no
calorie value and therefore does
not add weight, states this auth
ority. He reminds us that a Chin
ese philosopher. Chin-wig, In
mo B. C. built a fire from tea
branches. Some of the leaves ac
cidentally fell Into the boiling
water and thus the drink, tea,
originated.
Dr. John C. Krantz of the Uni
versity of Maryland says tea In
*a• a■ mm ■ — i a I miJIb i 1 -*■ *
CItIMI RM!DUI AlACiliy, DnpitMH
splslts. facilitates association of
idea—and occasionally disturbs
sleep The caffeine In tea help*
headache* Dr Phillips Prohmaa
says that tea "induces a state of
mwertougnew midway between
(CMttaM* m pete sight)