Few New Bernians in their day to day existence lead colorful lives. They may dream of high adventure, glittering fame, or romantic inter ludes in far-off places, but always they must come back to reality. Back to the reality, that is, of shopping for groceries with a thin wallet, getting their shoes half- soled, washing and ironing, paying ' the overdue light bill, and strug gling with a cold that won’t wear off. Local wives, particularly, are acutely aware of their monotonous routine, especially if small chil dren have then anchored within the four walls of their home. Firmly imbedded in the average woman’s mind is the notion that Her husband hast all the best of it when it comes to living interesting ly. “You get to see a lot more peo ple,’’ she complains at breakfast, “while I’m stuck here in this house all day long.” What she doesn’t realize, or won’t admit, is the fact that quite a few of the people seen by her husband befoi'e sundown mky be folks that he would rather not see. Dealing with the public isn’t all sw'eetness and light. Besides, most of his friends are just as dull as he is, while striving to ignore his •enemies doesn’t prevent him from acquiring ulcers. Perhaps the awareness that-our lives are more or less colorless is the reason we have injected colors into our conversation. Repeatedly and without thinking, one color or another crops up m our descriptive phras^. ^ Almost imailimously in our mo ments of dejection we describe our selves as feeling “blue.” How this way of putting it came about might be hard to fathom. Offhand, blue is a color that could hardly be termed depressing. Certainly God demonstrated his preference for it by placing it in the sky above us and in the sea that covers much of our globe. More logical as a descriptive phrase than our habit of feeling blue is to say that we are in the “pink” of condition. It is a biologi cal fact that pinkness of com plexion is associated with good health. Not many of us past baby hood are pink of cheek, but we do recognize this characteristic as a symbol of vitality. Whenever we observe our neigh bors or others coveting a posses sion belonging to someone else, we invariably say they are “green” with envy. This too is an expres sion that would appear to be rath er hazy in origin. Then of course we use green to describe a person who is immature or a novice in any line of endeavor. Green in Na ture’s world around us at least in dicates life, so being green as a human it seems to this oldster has advantages over being wise but withei'ed. To describe a person who is lacking in intestinal fortitude, it is almost inevitable that we de scribe him as being “yellow.” Teen agers don’t use the phrase very often, we’ll admit. They prefer to say that timid souls are “chicken” but their parents still cling to yel low when they want to infer or blurt right out that there’s an ab sence of spunk in someone’s in nards. If you’re apprehensive about what lies ahead with the morrow, you no doubt say that the future looks “black.” That’s what other New Bernians says, and it’s doubt ful that you’re one of the rare ex ceptions. On the other hand, if you’re op timistic over an expected turn of events, you’ll take cognizance of the fact that the future looki “rosy.” And any opportunity that is of favorable proportions isn’t called other than a “golden” oppor- The NEW BERN ^ niED WEEKLY ’“ART OF I \ VOLUME 2 NEW BERN, N. C., FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1959 READY TO PERFOR] bers of Scout Tr06|)t an- Church. As about' the Merit Bad^ ous troops and patToIs.—Photo by Buly Benners7J-: ,., l What Is Marriage Picture in New Bern, Craven County? There’s a lot of talk these days about teen-age marriages, but how prevalent are these youthful hitch- ings in New Bern and Craven coun ty? Determined to find the answers to these and other questions deal ing with the local marital picture. The Mirror has delved for hours into the official records. Then, armed with a big batch of statistics, we went about the busi ness of converting these statistics into percentages that readers could digest easily. The figures may or may not surprise you, but at least all guessing has been eliminated. You might be slightly disturbed to learn that during the first nine months of 1959 over half of the brides who ankled to the altar in New Bern and Craven county were in truth teen-agers. To put it another way, out of 326 weddings performed the feminine participant in the splicing was un der 20 on no less than 176 occa sions. The teen-age brides were in tunity. Shame on you, if you get mad oc casionally. But assuming that you do, like other New Bernians, you’ll say later than you saw “red.” This expression with the notion that bulls are angered when they get a glimpse of red. Actually, bulls are color blind, so in their case at least the expression is meaning less. Like we said at the outset, life for most of us may be colorless, and colorful personalities are cer tainly few and far between. How ever, what we lack in brilliant shades and hues is made up for by tlie things we say. the majority to the tune of 54 per cent. On the other hand—or the other finger if it happens to be a double ring ceremony—-only 18 percent of the 326 grooms were teen-agers. There were just 59, so the teen-age grooms were outnumbered three to one by brides in the same age bracket. Less than 17 percent of the mar riages—to be exact, 54—^presented a situation in which both the bride and groom were teen-agers. So de spite the high frequency of teen age brides, there were probably far fewer completely teen-age mar riages than the average citizen thought were occurring. There were a small number of marriages, of course, that didn’t oc cur in New Bern and Craven coun ty and were naturally not included in the figures. A few couples, aim ing at a quick and simplified cere mony, journeyed to South Carolina. Upon arriving they discovered that marriage regulations in the Palmet to State have been tightened con siderably. Among other things, they were confronted with an unexpected 24- hour “waiting period” and the nec essity of submitting a birth certi ficate or other proof of age. About the only* advantage to be gained under the new law, if it could be called an advantage, was avoiding a physical examination and a blood test. Teen-agers didn’t provide all the interesting statistics we were able to dig up in records at the Register of Deeds office here. For exam ple we learned through diligent pencil wielding that 83 percent o£ the New Bern and Craven county grooms this year have been older than their, respective brides. Only 14 wives—less than five percent—out of the 326 brides in alt were older than their husbands. In 41 of the marriages—^which fig ures slightly over 12 percent— both parties were the same age. You shouldn’t be too discouraged if you’re getting along in years, and still have a yen to get mar ried. Our survey revealed that 29 women and 37 men who were 40 or older embarked upon the sea of matrimony. In fact, five of the brides and 13 of the grooms were 60 or older. Al though it was not the most talked about marriage involvin^i elderly participants in New Bern and Crav en, the honors for seniority go to Theorpheus ’Tripp of , yanceboro and Carrie Gray Rin^ld of Bridgeton. He was a dapper 89 and his bride a very happy 63. (ContinuMl on back Mool ■i

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