PAGE 2 — Smoke Signals, Wednesday, September 17, 1975
Destitution
By Ricky Winstead
In speaking on the pros and cons of destitution it
should be made clear that the meaning of destitution has
changed to some degree in these days of three cars in
every garage and half a cow in every freezer.
When one thinks of the necessities of life they think of
food, shelter and happiness. At least that is what used to
be thought of as necessities. There is no need to
recognize the necessities that exist for the average
individual of today. These so called necessities are
owned by all, the haves, and to a lesser degree, the have-
nots.
Man is the only living breathing creature that lives
with the knowledge that he will die.
Yet with this knowledge man sets his goals so low. The
goal which has dominated mankind ever since the first
values were placed on any person or object. Most people
never really stop to think about what they’re doing and
what is going to eventually happen. Most people work
and work and spend and save and then they die. What
can they say when they are lying on death’s bed, about
their life? They have no insights about life or death or
anything else because they had to be at work at eight,
home at five, in bed at eleven and with the family on
week-ends. A man spends seventy or eighty years
fulfilling obligations to someone else and then he dies.
There’s got to be more to it than that and one day
someone who finds some free time and has the ability to
think past materialism is going to find out what it is.
Forced Religion?
By NELSON NICHOLS
Forcing religion on another
person is proliably the most
counter-productive activity you
could engage in. The more you
force, the more the victim
resists.
I sympathize with the suffering
Christian who must see us
savages commit our souls to hell.
I see him laboring much like one
feeding a snake. Forcing food
down a snake’s throat is an un
pleasant task at the least. The
snake doesn’t like it either.
EDITOR
Mike Patterson
ASSISTANT EDITOR
Nancy Sullivan
STAFF
Richard Hambleton
John Hill
Teresa Martin
Nelson Nichols
Frank Ranker
Allen Ross
Louis Saunders
David Shuford
Ricky Winstead
ADVISOR
Marianne Jackson
I am in the position of the
snake. My present life is not at
stake. Quite possibly I will sur
vive this month without Wed
nesday chapel. Yet someone here
at Chowan disagrees. However
important religion is to me and
my after life I do not enjoy the
idea of having to endure it
against my will.
Being dragged into chapel
every Wednesday and compelled
to sit in seat D-7 is not saving my
soul or even teaching me any
lesson. Chaplain Taylor’s ser
mon, "Every Day, New” was
mostly disregarded, the call to
worship largely ignored and
the scripture lesson generally
forgotten. Chapel may have been
inspirational and educational but
simply because it was forced on
me I was unreceptive to its
message.
I come closer to God singing
“Morning Has Broken”, while
cutting the grass than in a
crowded room full of people who
wish they were somewhere else.
Lifer a ry
A/l us/ngs
By PROF. ROBERT G. MULDER
As we begin the 128th year in the life
of Chowan College, we do so with many
new faces, including staff, faculty, and
particularly student body. Hundreds
are being subjected for the first time to
the surroundings and personality of an
institution which has stood the test of
time since before Abraham Lincoln
went to the White House and Mark
Twain ever piloted a Mississippi
steamboat.
To those seasoned souls who have
been around a few years, and including
those returning sophomores, Chowan
College already means many different
things. She is a beautiful college in this
rural North Carolina county, a fount of
education for others, simply a job for
some perhaps, or a place of fun and
fellowship in its various shadings.
Whatever she is to the many people
who court her, Chowan College stands
eagerly awaiting a fresh array of faces
each fall anxious to become something
meaningful to those who come to her.
What will the 1975 group find as it
departs upon the Chowan adventure —
a good academic experience, a
satisfying relationship with other
Chowanians, or a disappointment
which could result in a totally negative
attitude toward everything for which
the name Chowan stands.
The answer to this question may not
be found in the college itself.
Moreover, within the grasp of each
individual lies the potentiality of
molding for himself a good or a bad
experience. Of course, other factors
are involved and there will always be
some victims of circumstance. Yet, the
college itself has never created an
enemy, never cast a negative thought,
and never destroyed a single individual
as she has ministered to the masses
through these hundred-plus years.
People within the structure could
possibly have done that to be sure. But
these are only humans working within
the framework of their own in
terpretation of what Chowan should
really be. None of these who serve are
infallible, none are perfect, and when
Chowan has erred, she has done so
through the weaknesses of those
humans who have come to her.
It is for us, then, the present group of
Chowanians, to guard carefully the
Spirit of so noble an institution, to tread
softly where negation abounds, and to
think positively whenever her
reputation is at stake.
What will she give to us in the days
that lie ahead? Only time may teU, but
we all may rest assured that much of
what she gives to us this year will be
determined by what we ourselves give
to Chowan.
This may come as a surprise to some
of our readers, but there are actually
many Chowanians who miss this
campus when school is not in session.
We met several this summer while
living in Virginia Beach — along the
crowded streets or on the beach — and
one universal statement might be
expected before each visit ended. It
sounded something like this: “I really
miss Chowan — didn’t think I would
but I wish I were there now.”
So it goes and, furthermore, I have
stacks of letters from former students
all of them saying in essence the same
thing.
WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT? If
school were to open officially on a
certain Sunday, there are those who
would arrive here on Friday or
Saturday. It’s happened before and
will again. Some just can’t wait.
And more recently two of last May’s
graduates spent the weekend on our
campus — the entire weekend. They
arrived at noon on Friday and left at
noon on Monday. That’s a real
weekend. When they left they
remarked: “I wish I didn’t have to
leave — when is Chowan going to
become a four-year school?”
AW the Pretty Ladies
By RICKY WINSTEAD
All of the ladies look down their noses
putting on an act in prearranged poses.
Acting fragile as thinnest glass,
surrounded by the cold felt as they pass.
Let not my ambition mock their world of dreams
with them the star, their lives the theme.
Values consisting of painted eyes and colored cheek;
using all artificial weapons to make oppositions meek.
To catch a glance and turn cold as ice
is the nature of these ladies all sugar and spice.
To cut short any advance, to kill a young man’s mirtb,
the value of these ladies is of very UtUe worth.
Tranquil
By LLOYD LEE
Feeling free in mind
And thought,
Feeling high as all men
sought.
Mentality express a quest
for sensation,
Expells the wave of true
vibrations.
Inner thoughts Deep
impression,
Discover the realm
of true perception.
Your inner self released
you see.
Will find true happiness
with harmony.
Peace in mind is will
at heart.
Release aggressions
then peace may start.