Newspapers / The Pilot (Southern Pines, … / Nov. 24, 1955, edition 1 / Page 2
Part of The Pilot (Southern Pines, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
PAGE TWO THE PILOT—Southern Pines, North Caiolina THURSDAY. NOVEMBER 24, 1955 ILOT North Carolina Southern Pines “In t.nir.ing over The Pilot no changes are contemplated. We will try to keep this a good paper. We will try to make a little money for all concerned. Where there seems to be an occa- siBn to use our influence for the public good wo will try to do it. And we will treat every y alike.”—James Boyd, May 23, 1941. ^ ^ Thanksgiving Then, Now, and Always It has always seemed to us possible that when Voltaire said: “If there were no God, it would have been necessary to invent him,” he was thinking of Thanksgiving. Not, of course, of the American festival, of which he could know nothing, but of giving thanks. There is a funda mental gratitude in men’s hearts that, at cer tain times, wells up and makes it necessary, ab solutely necessary, to say thank you. To most, we believe, the experience comes when—in that lovely phrase, so deep with meaning—“communing with nature.” “The world is too much with us; Late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.” So spake Wordsworth, apostle of na ture, voicing his inner need. Through the ages, it has been to nature that men have turned fcr inspiration, for sustenance and help in dark est hour. “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,” sang the psalmist. It has been through nature that men have sought, and sometimes found, truth and light. Sometimes they have sought deliberately, leaving the busy world to go into the wilderness; sofnetimes what they have found has come without conscious effort, when alone, close to the earth, under the wide sky; has come in a strange awakening, bringing strength and peace and hope. And after has come the need to express, somehow, to someone, the sense of humble gratitude. When the first Americans rowed their long boats along the quiet sand-dunes of Cape Cod, they gave thanks for having found a safe haven. After surviving the first grim winter, they saw the bounteous harvest from their meager plantings of seeds and the corn the frightened Indians had left behind and they knew that starvation no longer threatened. '■‘The face of things was changed,” wrote Gov ernor Bradford,” and they fell on their knees’ and gave thanks.” It is a curious phrase. Was Bradford referring to the mvaterial “face of things,” and only to that? The words suggest a sudden awaken ing, a looking around, as they rested that day, on the wonder and beauty of the fair land about them. I There will always be individual thanksgiv ing; for the safe voyage, for release from ill ness, storm and trial. There will be the man made gifts, created by the extraordinary im aginative and inventive powers of human be ings, over which to wonder and give praise, there will be heartfelt gratitude for things un seen: for courage and kindnes, love, and friends. But when we say, with Voltaire, that God would have had to be invented, we are thinking of a gratitude that is simpler, yet per haps more profound, perhaps, too, more primi tive and universal. Poets know it. When Browning captured the unearthly quality of early morning as his Pippa sang: “The year’s at the spring; The day’s at the morn; Morning’s at seven; The hillside’s dew-pearled”; the climax followed inevitably; “God’s in his heaven. All’s right with the world.” In this soft countryside of Carolina, when does this incomprehensible thing come, this strange awakening? It may come any time. With the sight of the dark, strong limb of a pine curving against a lemon sky; it may come as eyes are lifted to the green tops, shining like silver in the morning sun. Or it may not be the pines, the glory of our Sandhills, but instead those misjudged gnomes, the scrub-oaks, marching in fall in their bronze armor across a hillside, with banners flying. It may be the ten der green spears of the first daffodils, striking up through the dark moist earth, that catch the breath with their promise, and the feel and the smell of that spring ground under foot. Or it may be the down-dropping call of the wood- thrush in the dogwood tree. Says the old hymn: “All good gifts around us Are sent from heaven above. Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord, For all His love.” No Cause For Alarm It is reported by persons working with the effort to obtain pledges for the Presbyterian College endowment fund that some residents of Southern Pines think that (1) the town will be asked to furnish financial support or contri butions to the college from its treasury and (2) if the college locates here, taxes will be raised and possibly water and sewer service rates will be increased. Both of these beliefs or allegations must be classed in the category of unfounded rumor. In the first place there is no legal sanction for the town to give away the citizens’ tax money to a college or anything else. The Weymouth Heights site proposed for the college very nearly adjoins the location of the town water tanks—so that running a main to the edge of the campus would be no great un dertaking. Sewer lines also are readily avail able to serve the property. And the college, like the town at large, would benefit from water system and sewer system improvements that are envisaged in bond issues on which the people are expected to vote early next year. These improvements are needed and expected regardless of whether the college comes hehe. The town would not be expected to furnish water and sewer service, except to the edge of the campus. Once connected to the water and sewer systems, the college would be a revenue- producer for those departments. Such a large water user as the college prob- A Great Occasion It will be a great occasion in the realm of high school sports when the Southern Pines Blue Knights meet Western North Carolina’s Clemmons High School of Winston-Salem here Thanksgiving night for the State six-man football championship. Participation in the State six-man finals is a well-deserved honor for the local boys. Th^ are a great team—^perhaps the finest six-man aggregation ever produced in the history of the sport in this state. In winning the Eastern championship last Friday night, the Blue Knights bowled over a squad that was said to outweigh them an ave rage of 20 pounds per man and that had aver aged 60 points per game throughout an unbeav- en season this year. Skill, determination and that extra margin of alertnes and persistence that marks champions everywhere brought home the victory for Southern Pines. The team’s top quality is, of course, a reflec tion of their expert coaching. While they are the most modest of men. Head Coach Irie Leon-, ard and his assistant, W. A. Leonard, deserve, along with the team, recognition for their achievements. The town is proud of the Blue Knights and we know we are speaking for the town in wish ing them all good fortune in their Thanksgiv ing night game. We are confident they can re tain the State Championship title they won at Winston-Salem last year. Grains of Sand BY GOVERNOR HODGES ably could be given a rate lower than any now existing in Southern Pines. And it is quite pos sible that this rate would be reflected across all the other rates for local users of various amounts of water—thus making possible a downward revision of everyone’s water bills and sewer-service charges. The city manager sees such a development as likely and, in any case, says that he doesn’t see how the college could result in anything but at least a break even proposition for the to\Vn in provision of essential services. A business-like administration in town hall is the key to all such problems. No industry or college or other activity coming to a town will ever adversely affect basic tax, sewer or water rates if the people see to it that a business-like approach is taken to the growth of the town. If a town opens up new streets without curb and gutter, lays sub-standard water mains, starts new projects without means of financing them and speculates by installing water mains to undeveloped property on which there is no prospect of water revenue—then, if these and other things are done at town hall, there is rea son for taxpayers to worry. The present admin istration has prohibited these and other finan cial hazardous municipal policies and therefore we are confident that the municipal service needs of the college could be met without hard ship, and very likely with benefit, to the pock- etbook of the local taxpayer. Appeal To Common Sense For the second successive year, motorists of the nation are being asked to give special thought to safe driving on December 1 which again has been designated “S-D Day” by the President’s Committee for Traffic Safety. The purpose is to hold deaths and injuries to the lowest possible level for a 24-hour period. Even good and law-abiding drivers tend to shelve thinking about the nation’s traffic acci dent problem, perhaps because it is such a nightmare. The mythical man from Mars, gaz ing down at the United States from his rocket platform or what have you, would see 58 million motor veliicles zipping on their chosen courses, piloted at various times by some 72 million drivers. That the chosen courses frequently con flict, smashing up the vehicles and their occu pants, seems inevitable. But what the bird’s eye view does not take into consideration is that each of the 72 million drivers presumably has a brain that can, if he will use it, keep him and his vehicle from destruction. That is what S-D Day is about—asking people to “use their heads” about driving all day De cember 1. And, having done that, to wake up to the lives and property they might save if they similarly used their brains about driving all through the year. Biggest GRAIN GRAINS takes a big jump right into the middle of the advertising field, this week, to wit: The Queen’s Own Scots Guards military band and pipes are com ing to North Carolina, and, Scots wha’hae or wha’haint wi’ ’Wallace bled, don’t miss ’em. This reporter is still slightly hoarse from yelling at the show we saw in New York’s Madison Square Garden. And that was several weeks ago, too. We can see that our throat is just about going to be in shape to yell again —and conk out again—by the time they come to these parts. The dates are: December 1, in Charlotte, and December 2, in Ra leigh. Probably, there’ll be news of the Charlotte affair in that town’s papers soon. All we know now is that Donald McDonald, (soon to bd known as The Mac donald), who is a member of the staff of the Charlotte News, got the bands to come. If anyone craves immediate information, suggest they call him. At Raleigh, the show will be at the Coliseum, for details see ad in this issue. GRAINS hopes and believes there will be a lot of Moore County Scots at one or both those shows, yelling with all the other Scots. Including the dancers who let out the wildest yells of all. Yes, there are dancers, too. And perfect wonders. "White Man Much Crazy" Last week Don Herring, Pat Stratton’s father, sent us a clip ping from the Jackson, Miss., paper, which that paper had clip ped ttom an Oklahoma paper, (nobody giving any names). So now, below, a good tale travels still farthur: In the course of a contest on farm conservation, the Oklahoma paper offered a prize for the best caption to a photograph showing a dilapidated, abandoned farm house on an eroded hillside. First prize was won by a Cherokee In dian who wrote: “Picture show white man crazy. Make big tepee, plow high, water wash, wind blow soil, grass all gone. And squaw gone, pap oose, too. No grub, no pig, no corn, no hay, no cow, no pony. “Indian no plow land. Keep' grass. Buffalo eat grass. Indian eat buffalo. Indian make tepee, moccasin, too. Indian no make terrace, no make dam. No give dam. All time eat. No hunt job. No hitch hike. No ask relief. Great Spirit make grass. Indian no want anything. White man much crazy.” Embattled Pappy ■ So Bert Premo wins the not- quite $64,000 prize for giving the best captions to the series of baby pictures in The Pilot. (You understand, of course, that the only reason he didn’t win $64,- 000 was because he stopped short at the $32,000 . . . for tax reasons). Bert’s captions lead one to think. These captions, are on the military side. Decidedly, we’d say: “Alert! Attack! Engage! Mopup! Withdrawal-” Is that one of these war hang overs you hear about? Or maybe just the result of contemplating, or even sometimes trying to in terfere with, the activities of his new daughter. And deciding not EVER to let her get the jump on him. Keep your guard up, pappy! The Unlikely Coke Coca-cola figured oddly in our experience one day last week. And figured twice. First time was driving through the outskirts of Greensboro. Way up the street we saw approach ing a tall dark female figure that we at first took to be an Indian. She seemed to be wearing a feather standing straight up on top of her head. On closer view Thanksgiving Day Proclaimed Following is Gov. Luther H. Hodges’ Thanksgiving Day proclamation: WHEREAS, it is one of the best-loved traditions of Americans that we set aside each year in November one day when we pause in our labors and return thanks for aU the blessings bestowed upon us; and WHEREAS, in 1621 Governor Bradford set aside a day of thanksgiving in- order that the Pilgrims might thank Almighty' Providence for a good harvest; in 1789 George Washington, the first President of the United States, received a joint resolution from both houses of congress requesting that he recommend to the people a day of public thanksgiving and prayer; and in 1863 Abraham Lincoln by proclamation invited his feUow-citizens to set aside the last Thursday in November as a day of thanksgiving and praise; and WHEREAS, during this Thanksgiving season, many religious organizations are placing a special emphasis upon a people-to- people sharing of American abundance as a means of evidencing gratitude to God for the many blessings He has bestowed upon our Nation; and thereby demonstrating the traditional ftiendship and compassion of Americans for those less fortunate than our selves; and WHEREAS, “Now is a time of peace. Now is a time of drawing close. The crops garnered, the last row ploughed. The husbander stands in the heavy sun And watches the purple hills Painted with the quick hand of Indian summer. Autumn has climbed the mountains And quilted the still hills with colors - - With Indian-corn colors. And the great quiet hand of God Lies on the lemd. And we draw close around the restless fire - - In thanksgiving. I proclaim this a day of Thanksgiving A day for prayer A day to acknowledge the blessed rewards Of a bountiful land. A day for men to lift their eyes in thanks And see in the white air the face of God.” THEREFORE, I, Luther H. Hodges, Governor of North Carolina, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 24, a legal holiday in North Carolina and request all the citizens of our State, with their families and friends, render hearty thanks to Almighty God for all His benefits on Thursday, November 24, 1955. Insofar as possible, where there are services of Thanksgiving in our churches, you are urged to attend these services as an expression of your gratitude. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of North Carolina to be affixed. DONE at the City of Raleigh this sixteenth day of November in the year of our Lord, Nineteen Hundred and Fifty-five. LUTHER H. HODGES, Governor. The Public Speaking ESPECIALLY NOW Turkeys Now And Then This is the time to think about turkeys. It’s the time to eat them, too. But we take it for granted everybody knows about that part of it. Whereas actually thinking is something else. Perhaps, in view of what comes after the thinking, too, some peo ple may consider it a morbid oc- never ones to adopt things from “the foreigners” Ss they called the inhabitants of France, Spain and other continental countries, in rather uppity tones. More like ly, it seems to us, that the turkey was brought over to England straight from the original source by Drake, Hawkins, Cavendish cupation That great big beautiful i the rest of those great Brit- bird in his fine bronze plum^e,iish mariners of old. (Some called gobbling away for dear life. For (them by a different name. Per- dear life. An unfortunate phrase All that strident, urgent, gobbling does him little good except to draw attention to him as the fatal day approaches. Resolutely, let thoughts be turned in another direction. Way back to the ancestors of the pot- bound birds of today. In fact, to a time when their destiny was envisioned by one of our greatest men as something altogether dif ferent. Benjamin Franklin said that this nation should never have chosen the bald eagle as its na tional bird; it should have chosen the turkey. As you might know, Mr. Franklin had excellent reasons. At least up to a certain point. He said that the turkey was a truly national bird—^he was talking about the wild turkey, of course —whereas you. could find eagles all over the place, even, he might have added, iru the emblems of several other nations. Here’s what he wrote someone about the idea in 1784: “I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country. Like those among men who live by Sharping and commandos would cover we were surprised to see that the Robbing, he is generally poor and feather was in reality a coca-cola bottle. Down the street she came, walking composedly along the crowded sidewalk, the filled bot tle riding steadily along up there on her head. There was some thing regal about, it; something rather weird, too, in the lack of interest shown by the folks on the street. They took this com bining of old and new—the sub stitution of a coke bottle lor the old-timey basket of yams, or the older-timey cocoanuts—as if they were quite used to it. Second coke that day was the one the garage man pWed into the corroded battery of the old Ford station-wagon of a young friend of ours. ■We didn’t see it but we trust her. . . because of her delighted excitement when the Ccir “started to run right off”, and, too, be cause of who she is. . . . daughter of beloved Bill Polk, late editor of the Greensboro Daily News. Bill would have a daughter whose car’s battery used a coke to get started. often very lousy. The turkey is a much more respectable bird and withal a true original Native of America.” Real American Franklin is, as you would ex pect, on strong ground when he says the turkey is the true Amer ican. He might have gone farther and said that he’s the original North American. But that’s, of course, what lie really meant; North America was • the only America the colonists thought much about in those days. America’s native ’wild turkey lives in North America almost exclusively. That’s not the bird we eat, actually, but it was the one Franklin was talking about. The bird that goes on the Thanks giving Dinnertable is a descen dant of a small turkey who came originally from Mexico. That Mexican turkey, says our E. B. Sciencebook, was taken to Spain by the returning Conquistadores and from there spread all over Europe going, then, from Europe to England to grace Christmas boards from then on. haps all.) Anyway, you can picture Sir Francis swaggering in, puffing his strange tobacco, to dump one of the lovely fat bronze turkey- trophies at the feet of his Queen. (Was it Dr. Johnson who said: “A belch well off the stomach was not considered amiss in the days of Good Queen Bess.”? No need to murmur a polite “P’rdon me,” after turkey and fixings in those days). To go on. the turkeys we eat now—and praise be—are de scended from those Mexican birds who went to England and then came back over here in roundabout immigration. Like the folks who also came from over there, they have multiplied. Audubon's Beauty But that’s not the turkey Franklin was talking about. He meant the wild one, Audubon’s long-legged, high-headed, bronze beauty. And both those gentle men would have rejoiced in fur ther statistics on the present stat us of their favorite. Wild turkeys had been heavi ly shot and almost decimated be fore the Government—^why do people ALWAYS cuss the Gov ernment?—stepped in and took a hand in their preservation. A Wildlife Service Booklet of 1952 says there were about 390,000 wild turkeys in existence at that time, living in 25 different states. We hope they keep them. Maybe they ought to reconsider that pro vision of the law allowing hunt ers to take pot shots at turkeys roosting or on the ground. It’s the only bird that is allowed to be shot before it takes to flight. And, being so big and so slow, and so fine—is that fair? “Operation Comeback,” is restocking the land, planting feed for the birds, and the bird refuges being push ed by the Audubon Society is in creasing the wild turkey popula tion. But slowly. A situation for the conservationists to keep on watching. Subversive Ben? As we reread Ben Franklin’s words, we feel, for one thing, how extremely lucky it is that he said them when he did. In those revolutionary times, you could doubtless get away with talk like Leave Eggs Alone! To the Editor: What’s so wrong about egg shells that Cornell can’t abide them? A bit unpredictable to be sure, but so is .cellophane and al so an abomination, I agree, next to baker’s bread. And now eggs! Yes, I’ll join Keep Your Shells On, Inc. in re ply to your query in “Grains of Sand” last week. I had been get ting some small comfort from the assurance that they couldn’t ruin eggs. I was sure that eggs were safe because of the sheRs, you see. I had it all figured out. Eggs don’t* like air. They get stale if a crack lets some in. And an egg has an unmistakable way of mak ing its staleness known. So—no one would dream of puncturing the shell to inject any little old tenderizer, emulsifier, stabilizer, or enricher. Mark my words, once you de prive eggs of their coat of ar mour, they will be an easy prey for all kinds of “progress.” As to what will go into them, your guess is as good as mine. There are niore’n 200 chemicals con cerned with food to choose from knowledge on anyone’s part as to how few of them are harmless. What next? Bacon, beyond any doubt. I recall some lines from one of the late Struthers Burt’s poems, “Pack Trip: Suite” —: “One will invent a song some day Of ivory and emerald mood. And other men on pipes will play The smell of bacon in a wood.” No one would enjoy reading another such poem better than 1. But I am skeptical that it will be written. In a few years no one will fry bacon anywhere, in the woods or kitchenette. If anyone should have willpower to hunt up such an antique as a frying- pan and power of concentration enough to keep the strips of ba con lying comparatively flat and to turn them at just the right time so they’ll be a crisp golden brown, he won’t be able to buy any strips of bacon. AU he can buy will be cellophane packages of Handy Bite-Size Bits, Pre- Cooked and Pre-Digested. And a capsule will be attached inside, to be pressed so that some chemical or other will be released which wilKheat the contents “Instant ly.” Advertised as “Odorless,” there’ll be no good old frying ba con smell, nor good old bacon taste either! Since the originator of Keep Your Shells On, Inc. remains anonymous, I take it for granted that this is to be an underground resistance movement, and there fore sign myself— KYSO days. Such talk from a leading statesman, decrying the national bird and actually calling him “lousy”! “Un-American” is the mildest epithet that would be ap- ^ plied to its author. Come to think of it, we don’t know that we would relish the idea of being represented by a creature whose chief virtue, ac cording to Franklin, was that he was “respectable.” ’Who wants to be respectable? 'Who wants to be “sharping and robbing,” either? True enough. But there’s that esthetic side: the great swooping, f soaring, screeching eagle, bird of ■ the mountain peaks and the thin air, bird no one would even dream of putting into a pot. There you come back to it: the inevitable, fatal attraction of the gobbler to the pot. Ben, of course, was an eminently practical man^ all for the useful. He was the original know-hower. And in every conceivable direction. A ■What a man! But this preoccupa tion with the uses of the turkey may have led him astray. And there’s this awful thought. If the turkey had been made the national bird, how about Thanks giving Dinner? Wouldn’t it have been unpatriotic, if not irreverent, to eat him? We wonder. The British were that with safety. But not nowa- The PILOT Published Every Thursday by THE PILOT, Incorporated Southern Pines. North Carolina 1941—JAMES BOYD—1944 Katharine Boyd Editor C. Benedict News Editor Dan S. Ray Gen. Mgr. C. G. Council Advertising Mary Scott New,ton Business . Bessie Cameron Smith Society Composing Room Lochamy McLean, Dixie B. Ray, Michael Valen, Jasper Swearingen Subscription Rates: One Year $4. 6 mos. $2; 3 mos. $1 Entered at the Postoffice at South ern Pines, N. C., as second class mail matter Member National Editorial Assn. < and N. C; Press Assn.
The Pilot (Southern Pines, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Nov. 24, 1955, edition 1
2
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75