Newspapers / West Craven Highlights (Vanceboro, … / June 10, 1982, edition 1 / Page 2
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Page 2, West Craven Highlights, June 10,1982 Full Circle By Jonathan Phillips Special Correspondent It all comes full circle. It makes me feel sorry for people who are concerned with being in style because what is in style goes ’round in circles, like a dog chasing its tail. They go around and around, but they never quite catch up with it. What was in style years ago goes out, and the stylish folks wouldn’t be seen with it. Then it comes back, years later, like the mummy busting out of the tomb for another round of terror. These swings of fashion must indeed strike terror into the hearts of those who try to keep up with them. I don’t, at least partly because I couldn’t if I wanted to. As far as I can tell, you just wake up one day and walk out the door, and suddenly everyone is wearing Hawaiian shirts, or knickers, or whatever, with no advance warning. It makes you wonder who decides these things, and how they get the word around, and why I am not on the mailing list. It also makes you think the people who decide what’s in are not very clever. Theycan’tseem to think of anything new, so as I said, they reach to the past to revive old fads. Paint stains They used to say the oldest kid never had to wear hand-me-downs. Wrong. At least if the oldest kid has an uncle who used to wear the same sizes, and there is no one else of similar build within the family to compete for line’s throwaways. I was the sole recipient, in my high school days, of a number of Uncle Bill’s old shirts, with button-down collars and those little rings on the back that people loved to pull off from the seat behind you. These shirts provided great amusement to the less charitable of my classmates, who referred to them as “redneck shirts” and to their wearer as a “grit.” The old shirts and I persisted, however, and I was wearing one the day I met Country Club Cooper in 1977. Without warning. Country Club Cooper whipped out 10 bucks and literally tried to buy the shirt right off my back. “Cooper, it’s an ancient shirt,” I said. “I use it for a work shirt. It’s got little green paint stains on it.” “I don’t care,” said Country Club. “They’re coming in style, and you can’t get ’em around here.” Not even the fact that I am at least three sizes larger than Country Club Cooper deterred him. In a move that would have made Uncle Bill proud, I sold the thing. It had come full circle, and brought a tidy profit along for the ride. Surf punks In Virginia Beach, bored middle class kids with nothing better to do become “surf punks.” What surf punks do besides surf and listen to loud music is any body’s guess, except for one thing. Surf punks ride up and down the boardwalk on “beach cruisers/’ which are heavy-duty single-speed bicycles. The fashion is apparently beginning to spread south, even if the bikes aren’t. I am not a surf punk, but for several years have used an old restored, stripped-down Schwinn bicycle for around-town transportation. Many people, most on ten-speeds, have made fun of this machine, even when I pointed out that there aren’t a great many large hills in these parts requiring a lot of gears to negotiate. You can guess the rest. A would-be surf punk recently stopped me on the street, asking for technical details on my much-maligned mud bike. Seems it would make a good beach cruiser. Fashion had come full circle once more, riding a rehabilitated Schwinn. Army pants and narrow ties The moral? Throw noth ingout. The man who saved his narrow ties from the fifties now has an avant- garde closet. The baggy army pants in style among radicals in the Vietnam era got me called a slob when I wore them last year. Now, at leaston college campuses, the olive drab is in again. > It’s tough to stay a slob these days. /SSk Grover Lancaster Lancaster Appointed To Task Force Grover C. Lancaster of Vanceboro, president of the N.C. Association of County Commissioners, and Wayne Hooper of Cullowee, a Jackson County commissioner were appointed by Gov. Hunt to a task force which will undertake to hnd ways to finance about $600 million for public school construction. The task force is to consider bond financing, a tax increase or other revenue alternatives. Its recommendations are to be reported by Dec. 1 and would be available to the 1983 session. According to Hunt the panel was created now because of questions over whether the state’s traditional route of large bond issues to finance school construction should be continued. Since 1953, the state has passed large bond referendums to support school construction in local districts about every 10 years. The 1973 Bond proceeds have been spent and North Carolina still has many children attending obsolete, overcrowded or inadequate schools. C. D. Spangler of Charlotte, president of Spangler Construction Co. and board chairman of Bank of North Carolina was chosen by Hunt as task force chairman. Also named to the panel were John G. Medlin Jr. of Winston-Salem, president of Wachovia Bank & Trust Co.; Richard H. Jenrette of New York City, a North Carolina native and chairman of the board of the Wall Street firm of Donaldson, Lufkin, and Jenrette; W. Roger Soles of Greensboro, president of Jefferson Pilot Corp.; Leslie N. Boney Jr., a Wilmington architect; William S. Lee of Charlotte, president of Duke Power Co.; William J. Kennedy of Durham, chief executive officer of N. C. Mutual Insurance Co.; and Jan 0. Johnson of Hickory, a manager for General Electric Corp. Clifford S. Winslow, chairman of the Perquimans County board; Dorothy Kearns of High Point, past president of the N. C. Schools Boards Association; and Vernon Malone of the Wake County board were local school board members chosen to serve. Hearing Postponed Honorable Walter B. Jones, Chairman of the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, has announced postponement of the Manteo, North Carolina, hearing of the possible disposal of decommissioned nuclear submarines in the Atlantic Ocean. The hearing had been scheduled for Friday, June 11. Jones noted that the House of Representatives is now scheduled to take key votes on the first concurrent budget resolution late next week. “ Most members of Congress share my view that it is essential that we be in Washington to cast our votes on the budget. Everyone originally anticipated that the budget would have been disposed of long before the day of the hearing but, as reported in the press, thus far the House has been unable to pass previous budget proposals.” The Committee remains highly interested in investigating this issue. Jones indicated that the hearing will be rescheduled later this year but noted that a specific date has not been set. I Vanceboro and New Bern area Residents call 638-8566 for Fire and Rescue Service Most poor folks can’t afford to keep up with changing fashion. My advice, for what it’s worth, is to keep wearing what you’re wearing and doing what you’re doing. Keep it up for awhile, and before you know it you’ll be riding the quest of the fashion wave. I’ll be right beside you, on a single-speed bike, wearing Army pants and one of Uncle Bill’s old shirts. Costs Reduced RALEIGH-A report to the North Carolina General Assembly by Transportation Secretary W. R. “Bill” Roberson, Jr., reveals that the State Transportation Department has achieved cost reductions of more than $37 million. The report documents nearly $40 million in cost reductions from July 1981 through March of this year. During the last General Assembly session. Governor Jim Hunt committed the department to a cost reduction program of at least $20 million per year. Secretary Roberson noted that as a result of this program, “We are stretching the tax dollar as far as we can in meeting the transportation needs of the state.” The report showed that 527 positions had been eliminated since the beginning of the fiscal year (July 1, 1981) resulting in a reduction of $7.9 million in salaries and fringe benefits. In addition, 1,063 “frozen” (unfilled) positions in the Division of Highways resulted in cost reductions of $5.6 million. Roberson, in his report, also said that his department and the Department of Corrections have worked out arrangements for 2000 inmates to be available for highway work. Minimum custody prisoners are identified as comprising 1,152 of the total with the remaining 848 being medium custody inmates. The inmate labor cost for the fiscal year is $2.6 million. The inmates are assigned to such activities as pavement patching, maintenance of unpaved shoulders, clearing out drainage pipes and ditches, cutting of vegetation and litter pick-up. ■i Highlights to subscribe to this weekly newspaper just fill out the form below and send to P.O. Box 404, Vanceboro, N.C. 28586 Name Add ress City State Zip I wish to subscribe to the West Craven Highlights for: One Year *6.00 Sales Tax .24 *6.24 Please make check out to the West Craven Highlights. You will go on the mailing list immediately. West Craven HIGHLIGHTS Craven County’s Family Weekly Newspaper R.L. Cannon, Jr. Publisher Business Manager Christine Hill Office Manager Betty Daugherty News Edith Hodges Mike Hodges Circulation Sharon Buck Production Jeff Greenberg Writer Photographer P.O. Box 404, Main Street, Across from the Post Office Vanceboro. North Carolina 28586 Phone: (919) 244-0780, (919) 244-0508 PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY Second Class Postage Paid at Vanceboro, N.C. 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West Craven Highlights (Vanceboro, N.C.)
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June 10, 1982, edition 1
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