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Page 2, West Craven Highlights, May 26,19^3
Requiem
For A
Royal
By JONATHAN PHILLIPS
Mega-Columnist
Ironic is the word for it.
I sit now at the keyboard of an IBM
Displaywriter office computer system,
equipped with Textpack Six. It is, at least if you
believe IBM, perhaps the most sophisticated
word processing/office computer system of its
type.
This machine is used by day at the Center for
Coastal and Environmental Studies to produce
reports on everything from the breeding habits of
Tilefish to mathematical equations for
describing shorelines.
This machine is used by night and weekend for
CCES employees (one, at least) to write letters
and newspaper columns.
This fancy, expensive machine (this is where
the irony comes in) is now being used to write a
semi-sentimental column precipitated by a news
item that the “old-fashioned” manual typewriter
is truly on its way out.
A news item this week reported that the last
manual typewriter to be made in America
“clanked” off the Smith-Corona assembly line.
Obviously, this is not the beginning and the
end. That came long ago. We are getting pretty
doggone close to the end of the end. So, even as I
pound away at the green-screen contraption that
helped bring about the demise of the manual
typewriter, I give a salute to every Royal,
Remingfton, and Smith-Corona that ever spit out
a Vanceboro Town Council story, term paper for
English Comp, or thanrk-you note to Aunt Jesebel.
I used to be in Vanceboro and hear Shirley
Bryan say, jokingly, that all I was good for was
pounding a typewriter.
Seeing as how I was getting out of full-time
journalism, I guess neither of us realized how
right he really was. My new jobs have seemingly
required about as much time at computer
keyboards as the old ones did at typewriters.
So when you get right down to it. I’ve made a
living at the keyboard just about since I’ve made
a living at all.
And I’ve seen some great machines in my day.
There is that Royal portable my parents gave
me for Christmas seven or eight years ago. It is a
small, light, manual that can go anywhere. Now,
after so many hours at the Displaywriter it feels
like you need hammers to work its stubborn keys.
But that little monster served me well covering
high school basketball games all over Central
N.C. for the Raleigh Times, and in many other
cases where there were no IBM’s to sneak in and
use.
For pure dependability and functional utility
(not to mention certain mechanical aesthetic
qualities that are missing from word processors)
it is hard to top the massive black-bodied
Remingtons and Royals that were put out maybe
30 years ago.
A little oil here and there and these beauties
could go on forever. I had one at the Washington
Daily News, where the computers have since
taken over, and at the Highlights, even though
toward the end of my. regular work there I
grudgingly began using the computer typesetter
at times.
I’ll bet dollars to Dunkin Donuts both those rigs
could still beat a deadline.
Many
Roads
By LELA BARROW
In the span of life everyone has to make a
decision. Sometimes it is very hard to choose
which road to follow. In olden times there were
not so many roads, but there were many paths
that could easily lead you in the wrong direction.
Today there are many roads with numbers
telling you where they lead to. Thoroughfares
across the country North-South-East-West. But
to get to a certain place you have to choose the
right road.
I had to make the decision once which was
extremely hard; whether to marry or stay with
my mother. My father died-my mother’s sister
who was twelve years older than mother, and an
invalid, had come to live with us; a cousin was also
living with us. I was in love with Ed Barrow and I
was twenty-five years old. I had to decide which
road was best for all of us.
I chose the right road to marriage, home and
happiness. My aunt died the next year and
mother lived with her girls-the last twenty-five
months she was with Ed and me, and she loved
him as her son. We should be very sure of all
decisions we make.
Especially to choose the right road in our
spiritual lives, the wrong road leads to
destruction, unhappiness and death. The right,
road leads to happiness and to God and Life.
The Book of Ruth tells us of the famine in Judah
that caused Elimelech and his wife, Naomi, to
emigrate to Moab with their two sons, who
married Moabite women, Ruth and Orpah. At
the end of ten years the father and sons had died ^
and the three women were left widows. Naomi
decided to return to her home, Bethlehem, and to
her people.She and Ruth and Orpah went forth
on the journey to return to Judah.
On the way, we mightsay “at the turning of the
road”, Naomi said to them, "Go, return to your
mother’s house, the Lord deal kindly with you, as
ye have dealt with the dead and with me.”
She kissed them and they wept; saying we will
return with thee to thy people. Naomi said; “Turn
again, my daughters, go your way-I am old”.
This was where the turning point in the road
came to mean so much to two lovely women. The
decision Orpah made was to go back to her
people, and to her gods. A broken tie of
friendship and a person unheard of since the
parting.
Ruth said to Naomi, “Entreat me not to leave
thee, thy people shall be my people, and thy God,
my God. Nothing but death shall part thee and
me.” Boaz, a man of wealth and a kinsman of
Elimebeth purchased Naomi’s land and-married
Ruth. She had a son named Obed; who was the
father of Jesse, the father of David, the king a
lineal descendant of Jesus.
Ruth made the right decision and has been a
loyal, noted person through the years. Read the
book-Ruth.
Let us keep our minds free from envy, hatred
and malice that we may have love, peace and joy.
Then perfect love and friendship reigns
throughout eternity.
* * « If »>
-Not...that. I._.compIam about video. display.
One Day Title Service To
For a $25 Fee
RALEIGH—Effective July 1,1983, a twenty-
five dollar fee will be charged to motorists and
dealers wanting one-day title service, the North
Carolina Department of Transportation’s
(NCDOT’s) Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV)
has announced.
The 1983 General Assembly authorized the
twenty-five dollar fee to accommodate motorists
and dealers wanting instant title service. The
five-dollar fee charged for regular title
processing will remain the same.
“The one-day title service is in response to
requests by dealers and motorists for instant title
processing,” said DMV Commissioner R.W.
Wilkins Jr. The normal turnaround time for
terminals and computer outposts. This littlelBM
even has a button I can press and it will
automatically check my entire story for spelling
errors.
And it was at a terminal in the Y.H. Kim Social
Science lab at East Carolina where a certain
graduate student captured my heart as I tried to
explain multiple regressions that she was
pretending not to know.
But it is not all wine and roses in the age of the
silicon chip. My royal portable could never send
three months of effort into electronic oblivion, as
an anonymous operator at the ECU computing
center once did.
And the Highlights’ sturdy Remington could
never “burp” a story off a floppy disk and into
computer never-never land 10 minutes before
deadline, as a VDT at the New River Valley"
Bureau of the Roanoke Times once did, exposing
me to the unrivalled wrath of a city editor.
So for a man who lives (admittedly in abject
poverty) by the keyboard there will always be a
soft spot for the manual typewriter.
And for those times where the power is off or
there’s not an outlet in sight or the software is
going haywire* there is always the Royal
portable, waiting patiently in the corner with its
sledgehamiTier keys,..
Become Effective July 1
regular title processing is two weeks if the
application is in order. If problems arise and the
application has to be returned to the motorists or
dealers, then it takes longer than two weeks to
process the title,” he continued.
Present plans are to operate the one-day title
service at the Raleigh office on 1100 New Bern
Avenue and later expand to the Charlotte offices
at 3206 Freedom Drive in the Freedom Mall and
at 6058 East Independence Boulevard.
For more information on the one-day title
service, motorists should contact Gonzalie Rivers
at (919) 733-7462 or write Vehicle Services,
DMV, 1100 New Bern Avenue, Raleigh, N.C.
27697.
^'1'
HIGHLIGHTS
Craven County’s Family Weekly Newspaper
R.L. Cannon, Jr. Sharon Buck ^*****' Hodges
•Publisher Production
Business Manager
Christine Hill Carrl* L«e McVicker
Office Manager Tranaportar
^Circulation
Mike Hodges
Circulation
John McLawhorn
Sports
P.O. Box 404, Main Street, Across from the Post Office
Vanceboro, North Caroiina 28586
Phone: (919) 244-0780, (919) 244-0508
PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY
Second Class Postage Paid at Vanceboro, N.C.
(Permit entered March 1,1978)
SUBSCRIPTION PRICES
Single Copy 2OS
1 Year Subscripdon $6.24
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(USPS 41.2-110)
(Payable in advance. Subscribers desiring their Highlights
terminated at expiration should notify us of this intention,
otherwise we will consider it their wish to continue to receive
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“'•■'-’wraerr,