Newspapers / The New Bern Mirror … / June 18, 1971, edition 1 / Page 1
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MtmSnm (Hmsttig Htbrarg The NEW BERN PUBLIIHID WIIKLY IN THB mART 0I> lASnilN NORTH CAROLINA St Per Copy VOLUME 14 NEW BERN, N. C., FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 1971 NUMBER 14 Several years have passed since Paul Harvey penned lines you’ll read in this column to day. Because of ttieir ex cellence, and continuing timely nature, we otter them to you for diougjitful perusal. BY PAUL HARVEY Youngster, let me tell you what it was like in ttie Old Country. Once, milkin’ an old cow in the back bamlot, I got tired of her swattin’ me in tiie face wlU> a tall full of coddeburrs. So, widi a piece of binder twine I tied her tall to my leg. I hadn’t gone around die bam but about four times before I realized my mistake. We had fun in the Old Coun try, ttiough. We played darts with a corn cob. I had teree chicken feath ers in one end and a nail in the other. But if I picked the wrong target, like the sugar sack draining cottage cheese on the clothes line. Mom would likely thump me on the head with her thimble finger. So we didn’t have much of what you’d call juvenile crimeln the Old Country. Oh, every farm boy hadtotry smokin’ corn silk or grape vine once—until he gota mouth ful of toasted ants—or until he got caught and got stropped. And gro/^nr might All ttie apple basket with the best onet on top. But we didn’t concentrate on teamin’ die tricks of a trade, we learned the trade. And stealing things or hurt ing people was almost unheard of in the Old Country. Religion and education were all so mixed up together when I was a boy you couldn’t tell where one left off and the other began. Patriotism was tauedit in every school class every day. Our national heroes were honored, almost revered. Political speeches and reli gious sermons and civic cele brations always rang with pa triotic fervor. Soldiers were somebody. Civil servants were servants, not masters. Freeloadlng was a disgrace. Ice cream was homemade. And marriage wasforever... in the Old Country. A boy or girl could play alone in a public park on a summer ni^t and nobody worried. Or they could play together and no body whisper^. A farmer could plant anything he liked anyplace he wanted on Ills own land. Folks who work ed harder were rewarded for it, so everybody worked hard er. Most everybody had one idea about life; to leave the wood- pile a little higher thanhefound it. And most everybody did. We had no card-carrying Communists; we hiui Cross- carrying Christians... in the Old Country. We told dialect jokes and everybody laughed, because all of us were "mostly something else’’ in the Old Country. You ask me why 1 don’t go back. Seeing as how I liked it so much, why don’t 1 go back to the Old Country? I can’t. It isn’t there anymore. I am a displaced person, thouipi I never left my home land. 1 am a native-born Ameri can. I never left my cmuitry. A FELLOW WITH A POLE, UP A LAZY STREAM, CAN CATCH A FISH, OR MOSTLY DREAM. —Photo by Theodore Baxter.
The New Bern Mirror (New Bern, N.C.)
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June 18, 1971, edition 1
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