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PUBLISHED WEEKLY
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VOLUME 16
NEW BERN, N. C. 28560, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1973
NUMBER 33
Writing about Jake Long last
week we were forced to admit
that no amount of prying cotdd
get him to reveal his age. One
thing we knew, our memories of
the retired Sudan Temple
employee go back to earliest
childhood.
Thanks to one of our long-time
readers, Muse McCotter, the
truth has come out. Muse says
Dr. Joe Rhem, who fathers
Sudan, hired Jake as a yard boy
at his home in 1912, and we
figure he is 78 years young.
John Beaman, whose en
thusiasm for scribblings no
stalgic rivals a June bug’s in
tense interest in a watermelon
rind, was really turned on by
our recent refence to Kentucl^
miner Floyd COllins and the
tearful ballard his tragic death
inspired.
Always eager to engage us in
a duel of recollections, Beaman
insisted on rendering the sad
song in its entirety as we walked
down Broad Street, ac
companied by one of his law
partners, bo^sh but sagacious
Norman Kellum.
Being a Baptist, John
naturally sings loud. Any
comment beyond this about his
vocalizing would have to be
uncomplimentary. So un
nerving was the outburst to a
passing New Jersey motorist
that he almost totaled his
vehicle.
For an encore, Beaman came
iq) with The Letter Edge in
Black, and couldn’t hide his
disappointment when we
matched him word for word.
How many of our readers
[ >ushing 60 or older recall the
ines, which follow?
I was standing by the window
yesterday morning, without a
thought of worry or a care,
when I saw the postman coming
up the pathway, with such a
happy smile and jolly air....He
rang the bell and whistled as he
waited, then he said, “Good
morning to you. Jack.’’ But he
little knew the sorrow that he
brought me, when he handed
me a letter edged in black.
With tremUing hands I took
the letter from him, opened it
and this is what it said,^ “Come
home, my boy, your poor old
father nekis you, come home,
my boy, your dear old mother’s
dead. The last words that your
mother ever uttered, ‘Tell my
boy I want him to come back.’
My eyes are dim, my poor old
heart is breaking, as I’m
writing you this letter edged in
Uack.
-^++ +
Yesterday was when the John
Wright Stanley house, now
andwred on George Street as
part of the Tryon Palace
complex, experienced its first
transplant.
Originally it stood at the
corner of Middle and New,
facing Middle. It was moved up
New and turned so it faced the
First Presbyterian Church,
after the land on which it was
located was procured to build
New Bern’s present Federal
(Continued on page 8)
READY FOR HALLOWEEN
—Photo by Billy Behn^i^s'