Newspapers / Watauga Democrat (Boone, N.C.) / Oct. 10, 1968, edition 1 / Page 4
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WATAUGA DEMOCRAT An Independent Weekly Newspaper ESTABLISHED IN 1888 IN TOP RANKS OF CAROLINA NON-DAILIES In 3 years the Democrat has won 14 State Press Assn. Awards, 8 of them Firsts. This year blue ribbon awards were in General Excellence, Advertising and Typography Published for 45 Years by Robert C. Rivers, Sr. PUBLISHED THURSDAYS BY RIVERS PRINTING COMPANY, INC., OWNER R. C. RIVERS, JR., Editor and Manager JEAN RIVERS. Associate Editor RACHEL A. RIVERS, Managing Editor. SUBSCRIPTION RATES IN NORTH CAROLINA One Year -$3.09 Six Months_$1.80 Four Months_$1.30 OUTSIDE NORTH CAROLINA One Year _ Six Months_ ** Four Months _ BIS 3 8 3 **** **#*««»* raj-dUic ill AQVanCe NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS—In requesting change of address, it is important to mention the OLD, as well as the NEW address. Entered at the postoffice at Boone, N. C., as second class matter, under the act of Congress of March 3, 1879. ^ MEMBER NATIONAL NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION NORTH CAROLINA PRESS ASSOCIATION BOONE, NORTH CAROLINA, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1968 Let There Be Rain C>$ drought in Kansas in 1935 in spired this prayer of William Allen White, late famed editor of the Em poria Gazette: O Lord, in Thy mercy grant us rain and by that we don’t mean a shower. We want to go out and watch the lightning rip across the southwestern sky in hot blue forks as the fat clouds roll in on us. We want to hurry home to close the house with the first fat drops the size of marbles, on a sud denly rising wind, chasing us and plunking on the car hood. We want to scramble all over the house, just as the first sheets descend, frantically slam ming down the windows. O Lord of Hosts, we want to look out of the windows and watch the regiments of close-packed raindrops march diagonally down. We want to hear the gurgle of the gutters under the eaves, and then the sputter of the downspout. God of Israel, Isaac and Jacob, let it come down so hard, let the drops dance so high that the streets and side walks seem covered with a six-inch fog of spatter-drops. Then let it just keep up for a while, and then begin to taper off, and then turn right round and get a lot worse, swishing, pounding, splat tering, pouring, drenching, the thun der coming—Crackity-BAM!—and the lightning flashing so fast and furi ous you can’t tell which flash goes with which peal of thunder. So that all the women will get scared and climb on top cl the beds and scream at you not to get too close to that window. And then, O Jealous God, repeat the whole act about three times, and in the middle of the second time we will climb the attic stairs and put the wash pan under that tiny leak in the roof which usually you can’t even notice in an ordinary rain. And after a couple of hours kind of taper it down, O Lord, to a good steady rain —not a drizzle, but a businesslike one that keeps up until just about dawn and then spits a few drops occasionally during the morning from a gray sky. Kansas is indeed the Promised Land, O Lord, and if it gets a break it will flow with milk and honey. But we can’t live much longer on promises. So in Thine own way and in Thine own time, make up Thy mind, O Lord, and we will bow be fore Thy judgment, and praise Thine everlasting name. Amen. K: r: Dr- Plemmons To Retire we can well understand the concern of the Board of Trustees of Appala chian State University last week, when Dr. Plemmons gave notice of his inten tion to retire from the presidency of the institution next June. “I don’t choose to violate the re tirement age of 65. . . If asked, I will aid the newPresident in any way pos sible, whether on the payroll or not,” he told the board. The community shares the shock of Dr. Plemmons’ announcement. During the 13 years of the Plemmons adminis tration he has seen the College develop into a University and has worked in cessantly and effectively in its tre mendous growth. Believing that the development of the institution is lim ited only by the accommodations pro vided, he has spearheaded the tre mendous development of the physical plant which is moving ahead with breath-taking speed, and has effectively explored every means of contributing to the expansion and up-grading of the instructional staff. We could never have envisioned the accomplishments which have occurred during this rela tively short time. Dr. Plemmons has also become a top figure in the town, thus even further improving the fine relationships be tween the two communities. We congratulate Dr. Plemmons on his tremendous work for the University and for the town and think he has used fine judgment in thinking of him self after an arduous tenure, at least to the extent of having some time for himself and family during the years of his vigor. We congratulate him on his purpose to build a home in Boone, on the slope of the mountain where he can continue to view the sprawling monument to his peerless enterprise. Time For Heroes What makes Monday mornings traditionally hard to bear are the weekend mishaps that seem to preponderate in post-weekend report ing. News analysts seem to have readied little for the Monday papers. The thinking man thus has to alert himself to the fact that much of the space will be filled with police and ac cident wire reports. What we need more of on Monday morn ings are stories like that about Ringo, a mas sive part-St. Bernard dog just named hero of the year. The tale does much to affirm that a loving intelligence govern over even the littlest and most vulnerable of mankind. One morning last April Ringo and his two-year-old playmate Randy wandered three quarters of a mile away from their Texas home. At one point on Pipeline Road there is a hill followed by a blind curve. As a car emerged from the curve, it was met by Ringo, teeth bared. Other cars came and traffic backed up, 40 vehicles deep. If an auto tried to move ahead, Ringo would fling himself against its fenders. Finally one driver, who knew something about dogs, decided to investigate. And sure enough, out of sight of the oncoming drivers, playing in the middle of the road, was little Randy. And not until the driver had carried the youngster to the side of the pavement did Ringo, found by the family when just a pup, abandon his post.—Christian Science Moni tor. Inklin’s In Ink BY RACHEL RIVERS is may oe a nusiaae to oe wen uuormea in this day and age, (or it you regularly plow through the dozens at news magazines, your newspapers and top 00 the day with a glance at television—nervous tension can't be (Sr behind. We used to wonder why some things at the community level take a quick step into the nearest hole and never come out again. There have been—in addition to numerous wonderful developments in Watauga County—a few fine ideas that never caught on. Talking with friends sheds light on the subject and one quickly finds he is in the same bucket. There are the hippies and theyipples— you have to think about that; and then there's massive air and water pollution in the nation': major cities. One can sweat and fiane over that a long time without thinking that these were creeping problems. Just like they are on the small-scale here in Watauga. K you Keep up with the courts system and capital punishment, it's possible to design several arguments, all the while never ex pressing an opinion to a Congressman, who is employed to do your biding. Another goody for midnight awakenings is the morals question, or the lack-of-morals ques tion. And there’s always “what is thisyouiger generation coming to?” It’s a good bet the young people are more worried about that issue than their peers. And you can always get up a case against long-haired boys, whose practice dates back to Moxart, who wore It when all the other man did. If you want to get somebody eise’s five minute look at a Presidential candidate’s day to-day campaign, you can watch the television news each evening. It sometimes makes an attractive sandwich go down like a rock. Then there’s little energy left for that local venture. Freedom Of The Press FROM THE EARLY FILES OF THE DEMOCRAT Democrats Nominate H. E. Deal For Register Of Deeds Sixty Years Ago October 8, 1908 At a meeting of the Democra tic Executive Committee of Wat auga County on Oct. 5th, H. £. Deal was unanimously nom inated as a candidate for Regis ter of Deeds, in pursuance to adjournment of orders of the Democratic County Convention. 'Ul'Ml i.Si i.r*. The dormitory for boys at the A. T. S. is nearing“Completion, and a most splendid building it will be-one of the best so far erected on the school property. The Ladies’ Aid Society of the M. E. Church, South, of Boone has taken upon itself the task of buying, or helping the other churches on the work to buy furniture for the new parsonage. Friend Will Holsclaw of Vilas, was in town Monday for the first time since his extended western tour. Prof. George W. Bacon will open a musical normal at Brushy Fork, on November 2, and will continue for twenty days. Mrs. W.C.Coffey has return ed from a two-weeks visit to her former home at Elkin, Surry County. An agent for an old debt collecting agency of 3t. Louis, has been in town this week, and he seems to have done consider able business here. A man who will not p«y an honest debt should be exposed, and judging by the tactics adopted by this company some people in Wat auga are sure to be exposed and that quickly unless immediate settlements are made. Thirty-Nine Year» Ago October 10,1929 A most enjoyable dinner party was given by theCampfireGlrls last Saturday evening. Friend Roby Adama did The Democrat a kindness Monday when he brought in some very fine, large sweet potatoes, to be served on the humble board of the editor. Mias Mona Greer, of Zion. ▼Ule, who for a long time has been making her home with her imcle, Mr. Milt Greer, in Boone, and doing clerical work will leave next Sunday for Memphis, Term., where she will enter the Baptist Hospital in that city to 'taka training for a nurse. Mr. and Mrs. James Counciil, of Sylva, were weekend visitors to home folks in Boone, and rfr. mained over for a meeting of the directors of the Watauga County Bank, he being ons of the mem. bars, which was held in the off. ice of the preside!* Monday. Mrs. E. N. Hahn was hostess to the members of the Worth, while Club at her attractive horns on last Friday afternoon. Mr. and Mrs. Paul A. Coffey left Tuesday for Washington, where and at intervening points they will spend a vacation of of a week or ten days. The chestnut crop is now on, but is unusually light. The :hinquapins were very abun dant, but the supply is al most exhausted. Fifteen Year$ Ago October 8, 1953 Plans have been completed for the 1953-54 Homecoming at Appalachian High School. The Student Coucil will be host to the visiting team, the high school alumni, the parents, and the entire student body at an in formal dance in the high school auditorium. Plans are proceeding at a sat isfactory pace to provide funds ind transportation to send the Appalachian State Teachers College band to Tampa, Fla., for the November 21 football game between Appalachian and Un iversit erf Tampa, H. W. Wil cox, president of the Chamber of Commerce, said Tuesday. The annual membership drive of the North Carolina Automo bile Dealers Association will be held on October 14 and 15 it was announced today by Association President T. L. Black of Pine hurst. The Rt. Rev. M. George Henry, bushop of the £piscopal Diocese of Western Carolina, will spend Sunday, October 18, in three Watauga County , Epis copal Missions. Clyde R. Greene of Boone, the secretary of the State Republi can Executive Committee, has been named to take temporary charge of the party’s State head quarters in North Wilkes boro in absence of State ChairmanT.E. Story of Wilkesboro. Mrs. S. O. Nicholson, of Winston-Salem, former State editor of the Winston-Salem Journal, spent last week as a guest of Mrs. Rupert Gillett at Blowing Rock. Mrs. Nicholson and Mrs. Gillett paid the Democrat office a delightful call on Saturday afternoon. Just One Thing BT CARL GOERCH Looking through old issues of newspapers dated 1838 (130 years ago) we came across this item that is certainly timely; THE DROUGHT Amidst the universal agitation of political questions, the state of the weather as affecting the crops, and alternately darkening and brightening the prospects of the year to come, occupies the first glance of every eye in the morning, and the last hope of every mind in the even ing. Our summer has been so dry that independent of its blighting effects on everything vegetable, animals can scarcely breathe for all the dust—the mill ponds are nearly all dried up— streams which before were hardly ever known to fail can scarcely urge their sluggish currents, and in many sections scarcely a foot of water in them. The Corn Crops are so totally burned in some parts that a deluge would scarcely bring them to. Not a drop of rain has fallen in nine weeks. A note from The Raleigh Register: Several persons have died suddenly within a few days in New York and in other cities from the effects of drinking cold water while heated. We give this warning in order to help pre vent similar occurences from taking place in North Carolina. Drinking cold water while per spiring is an extremely danger ous thing to do, and should not he attempted under any cir cumstances. AFTER ANOTHER A riddle from the same paper: P H M K O M These letters in their proper place Will show the world and thee, A cause of sorrow and dis grace And a source of misery. The solution will be found by writing the letters on a piece of paper and folding the upper line partly over the lower line of the capitals. Another Item ctf interest: NORTH CAROLINA STATE LOTTERY For the benefit of the Salis bury Academy. To be drawn at Morganton, Burke County, North Carolina. August IS, 1968 One prize, $10,000; one prize, $4,000; one prize, $3,000; one prise, $2,500; and many others. A friend told us this story the other day that is appropriate to this season of the year, A candidate for sheriff in one of the eastern coistoes received only SS votes out of the more than 3,000 cast. The morning af ter the election the defeated candidate came down the street wearing a holster and two big pistols. “What you doing with those pistols?" demanded a bystand er. "You ain't no sheriff.” "Naw," said the also-ran, \“but a fellow who ain’t got no more friends In this coon tor than I get, ought to carry two pistols for Us own pro tection.” KING STREET • iBY ROB RIVERS Mild Or Wild . . . Winter, That It Friday night brought the frost and the chill and the heated houses and continue^ dry and cloudless weather, with no immediate hope of the record drought relinquishing its merciless hold on the land and on the water sources . .. The leaves are reddening and yellow ing and while they now tell us the frost has no proper ties of coloration, we always like their hues better after they’ve had a baptism of the microscopic ice crystals ... In the unlikely event we help bring up another child, he or she will sit on our knee and hear our same tales of the little elf and his paint pot of many colors who builds the bright fires in the tree tops . . . The frost, like the coachman’s horn, heralds the arrival of visitors—the snow and the ice and winter’s furious gales . . . Our correspondent in charge of things in the Pigeon Boost neighborhood, Harvey J. Miller, writes to say the wooly worms, the lowly forecasters of the winter weather are on the move, to denote the arrival of autumn and that the degree of black on the insects reveals we are in for a desperately cold winter Conversely, the Farmers Almanac, century-old volume of weather lore, household hints and jokes, looks in the crystal ball and says the winter this time will be mild, which don’t alter our faith in the worm one whit . We’re supposing he’ll fetch snows and blows and good skiing . . . Reminding us of what a fellow said during a blizzard last winter as he shivered and his dentures rattled like rusty sabers as he shook the snow from his coat . . . “One of the hardest things,” he said, “for a civic-minded person to do is to wish for more and more of this danged stuff, but I’m doing it.” ’ Is It Another Candidate? A Salisbury reader sends us the following from the Evenii^ Post . . . A fellow from Michi gan pulled into a busy gas sta tion the other day and waited for a line of cars to get ser vice ... When finally it was his turn for gas, he asked the attendant: Tve never seen so many bumper stickers in all my life. I know who Wallace is, but who is this ‘Tweetsie’ and what’s he running for?.’ ” Hard Drinking And Status Most folks in this section have traditionally slurped their booze straight from the bottle and looked with disdain on the man who uses a mixer or a chaser . . . In prohibition times the sugar head was usually gulped ^ from a .Mason jar which some*r,.. times made a ring across a devotee’s nose . . . The Mont gomery Journal writing on drinking habits links up “fancy folks” with Scotch drinking . .. It says it has confirmation from a leading distiller and adds, “Seventy per cent of Scotch drinkers are under 50 years old, 52 per cent have attended college, 72 per cent earn more than $8,000 a year and 53 per cent sip it off the rocks . . . It adds the following pithy com ments: “Well, we made our own survey of the drinkers of the product of the Alabama woods, moonshine ... It shows that the drinkers erf busthead are between the ages of 14 and 84, none of them are pseudo intellectuals, 100 per cent pay only one-fourth the price of their booze as scotch drinkers, 98 per cent drink it out of the bottle and all of them get a sight drunker, than the educated, rich, fancy pants, high-falutin,Scotch drinking crowd, who Earl Long said ‘pumps perfume under their arms/ “ Devoured The Democrats The Chapel Hill Weekly re minds us erf an occurrence we used to hear discussed when we worked in Canon City, Colo., not far from the State prison walls, In connection with a news item from Boulder . .. There University erf Colorado students voted to rename their union grill In honor of Alfred E. Packer, the only man ever to be con victed of cannibalism in United States history ... The student resolution said the grill “has consistently strived to attain the high standards exemplified by the life of Mr. Packer/' . . . Packer was convicted in Lake City, Colo, in 1883 of havir« killed and eaten parts of five companions caught with him in a mountainous snowfall while they were prospecting for gold • . . A Democratic judge was said to have sentenced Packer with these words: “There were only seven Democrats in Hns dale County and you, Alfred Packer ate five of them. I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until you are dead, dead, dead/' Big Punkin M. C. Brown of Rout* 2, bring. u> i mammoth sweat potato punkin (we know some eay pumpkin) which will supply us pie filling for many moons ... The behemoth at the punkin pitch would doubtless weigh thirty or forty pounds end Mr. Brown says it grew Mg on a "Damoentie Tina.” . . . Wn' are much obliged . . . Also we appreciate the drinking water we’ve been given ... Mrs. How ard Dancy, who works at the Democrat, brings a jug for the office coffee urn. Bill Rush, comes to work lugging a couple of gallons, while Allen Gragg, Mrs. Earl Teague and our Rachel have been generous with good spring and deep well water from private sources . ..These gifts of cool, clear water are especially cherished in the days when city water just isn’t “fit ten.” Uncle Pinkney HIS PALAVERIN’S DEAK MISTER.EDITOR; , , , Ea t>o6little/ that claims the only good Democrat is one that’s out of office and barred from voting, told the fellers at the country store Saturday night the Democrats was now trying to run the only Guvernment in the history of the world that was losing two wars at the same time. He allowed the only thing the Administration was handling worse than the Vietnam War Ed come to the meeting with a pocketful of newspaper clip pings and he was riled up be cause he had saw where the perfessional pore has formed the National Welfare Rights Or ganization. The feller that heads up this new welfare union said it was started because the pore needed a new voice, Ed report ed. The feller said the civil rights movement weren’t mov ing and the War on Poverty was being lost. One of the aims of the NWRO, Ed said, was sit-ins at all the places that has to do with giv ing tax money away. The rea son these pore want to break up the welfare system is that less than 10 million of the 200 million people in this country is on welfare, and they say at least 30 million needed Guv ernment aid. The trouble is, the pore union says, not enough people knows their rights. The NWRO will hold free classes to explain to folks where and how to git welfare. At the same time, Ed said, welfare services was growing faster than any part of the coun try’s economy. In the last four year, his newspaper clipping said, the average monthly wel fare aid to a family of four in New York City has jumped from $196 to $272, the cost has gone from $416 million a month to more than $1 billion, and 200 000 names has been added to the welfare rolls in the past year, in spite of the fact they was more than 250,000 jobs in New York City going beggirqf. He said he had said it at a session at the store last month and he would say it again. The only hope the Democrats got to stay in office was to git a ma jority of the voters on relief and they was coming pritty close to it now. None of them folks was going to bite the hand that feeds 'em, was Ed’s words. Mister Editor, when Ed de clares war on the Democrats he is so loaded with reports and statics the rest of the fellers can’t git up much of a offensive. Several times Clem Webster at the Great Society butted in but Ed turned his heerii« aid off and kept right on going. ' (Continued on page five)
Watauga Democrat (Boone, N.C.)
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Oct. 10, 1968, edition 1
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