Newspapers / The New Bern Mirror … / Nov. 13, 1959, edition 1 / Page 1
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Everybody is a soft touch for something, and our strongest weak ness happens to be any kid who is out trying to sell the Grit. Invariably, when he approaches us, we see in him the little boy we used to be. And, to this very day it is painful to remember the dis dainful looks and curt refusals you had to endure before someone came along who was willing to part with a nickel. Forty years ago of thereabouts the well-known Willilamsport, Pa., weekly was much bulkier than the edition that now sells for three times that much. There were sev eral sections, and as an added in ducement you got a colored por trait of a President or somebody else quite important that was suit able for framing. Here was a newspaper that had everything. Covered rather prompt ly with words and photographs were all the current events of na tional scope, and tossed in for good measure were pictures of two-head ed cows, cats mothering a litter of orphaned puppies, and sundry oth er freakish things in the realm of nature. There was a special section de voted to fiction, and a full page of poems old and new. Editorials were pertinent and timely, and the com ic strips were slanted to appeal to children from eight to eighty. A nickel in those days looked as big as a county biscuit to the emp- >ty-pocket lads we grew up with, and was as hard to come by as a four-leaf clover in the middle of Neuse river. ■ Looking back, nickels must have been pretty precious to grown folks too. This or else just about everybody we tried to sell a Grit to was tighter than a girdle two sizes too small at the conclusion of a dinner of stewed chicken and dumplings. Peddling Cloverine salve or flow er seeds to the neighbors was a picnic compared with disposing of a dozen copies or two of the Grit. Before you got rid of the last threadbare copy, you were certain to trudge all over town. Included on the beat we staked out was the Union Station at the corner of Queen and Hancock streets. Counting the curious loaf ers who congregated there to see who was coming to town on a train and who was leaving, you could figure on soliciting a lot of folks there. Unfortunately, train passengers didn’t exhibit the slightest interest in reading. As for the village loit erers on hand, they were there to see the sights, including the trim feminine ankles displayed. No newspaper, most especially the Grit, could compete with the face and figure of a pretty girl who had just come to town. Later, with our typical lack of juvenile shrewdness, we became a salesman for the Literary Digest. This publication was even harder to sell than the Grit. For one thing, it cost a whole dime and its appeal was aimed at intellectuals. There weren’t many intellectuals in New Bern, we discovered, and be sides the citizens who qualified were dime squeezers with moths snoozing in their pocketbooks. No doubt about it, the Literary Digest was very high class. It also' was less than honest, or woefully inaccurate in it political prognosti cations. For month and months the magazine predicted that Alf Lon don would beat the pants off of Franklin D. Roosevelt in his bid for another term in the White House. A map of the United States was printed each week, with so-called up-to-the-minute figures obtained by a couldn’t-miss Literary Digest poll that was being taken from coast to coast. A moronic monkey or a goose on The NEW BERN Pi 5 Per VOLUME 2 NEW BERN, N. C., FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1959 NUMBER 33 TALKING IT OVER—Robert L. Pugh and R. C. O’Bryan are quite enthusiastic as they discuss plans for the Neuse Basin Scouters’ Recognition Banquet to be held Monday night at the New Bern Recreation Center. Community lead ers like these men are giving Scouting great support here. —Photo by Billy Benners. Rachel Mundine's Success Carries Her to Santa Land It’s a right far piece from New port in Carteret county to. Green land’s icy mountains in the frozen north. However, shy and remark ably modest Rachel Mundine has covered the full distance as she makes her climb to fame in the entertainment world. New Bernians will have no trou ble recalling that she made her stage debut in the Yuletide Revue here, even as many another young ster who had hopes of theatrical success and saw those hopes come true. Rachel didn’t have much brass— considered by some a must in show business—but she does have talent. This is evident when she played “Twelfth Street Rag” so vigorously in her first Revue appearance that the surprised piano almost bounc ed from the stage. , For an encore, and in other Re vue appearances during the years following, she demonstrated equal ability as an organist, and made it clear to delighted audiences at tending edition of the charity show that she could present the most in tricate classic with the same pro ficiency that her boogey-woogey and Dixieland numbers revealed. Her versatility as an organist and pianist isn’t the whole story at that. While living at Newport she had exceptional results as a choir director, and is well versed in sacred music. In fact, it isn’t oft en that one finds a musician whose interests are broader. As for the old adage that most good musicians are temperamental, this doesn’t ap ply in the least to Rachel. Since turning professional and heading for New York, she has played various engagements in good spots above the Mason-Dixon the loose wouldn’t have done a worse job of fortune telling. Roose velt swamped Landon — sweeping 46 of the 48 states—and the liter ary Digest was 'so discredited and laughed at that it folded up. But the Grit is still around, and we buy it for the sake of the boy who sells it and the boy we used to be, a long time ago. REVUE GRADUATE line. Just completed was a highly successful seven-month run at the Sheraton-McAlpin hotel, located at the corner of 34th street and Broadway. There she doubled with piano and organ, and drew a considerable following of folks who differ wide ly in their taste for music. Rachel, in the course of a performance, has the knack of appealing to ev eryone in hearing distance with one song or another. Her reputation as a sure-fire audience-pleaser has spread far be yond the metropolitan area. That’s why, last Saturday, she left Mc Guire Air Force Base for Thuie Air Force Base in Greenland. There she will play a full month’s engagement at the Thule Officers club. Someone else with less ambition, and less determination to achieve perfection in their chosen field, wouldn’t be interested in further study. But Rachel isn’t one to rest on her laurels. When she returns to New York from Greenland her present plans are to resume voice and drama study at the Charles Lowe school. Piano, organ, voice and drama— that’s quite a big order for this diminutive young lady. However, with her boundless energy and zest for conquering anything that chal lenges her, she is apt to make a name for herself in all categories. She still remembers quite fondly her Yuletide Revue and subsequent appearances, and keeps tab on the charity show. To her, you New Bernians are the kindest audience she has ever worked before, and she looks forward to the day when (Continued on back page]
The New Bern Mirror (New Bern, N.C.)
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Nov. 13, 1959, edition 1
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