OPINIONS,
Organizational skills go lacking in many rational adults
Someone recently brought up
the topic of being organized.
They alluded to the tact that I
must be very organized in order
to get my articles and features
prepared for the paper. I
laughed out loud. If there is one
thinglam not it is organized. I
don't have time to be organized.
I gave birth to three, but
eventually ended up raising
seven children who all lived to
become teenagers. I have just
enough gray matter left to
function successfully on a daily
basis. There is ho room left to
discover the wonderful world of
being organized.
My system of organization is
simple. If I know where it is,
then I am organized. For
instance, we have Lived here for
six months. My Large pantry
contains a number of boxes as
yet unpacked. The Large boxes
contain big stuff. The smalt
boxes contain Little stuff. The
big ones are stacked together, as
are the little ones. They are
organized, right?
My husband did not see the
need to mark the contents on
each box. "It's all our stuff," he
said. He's real organized too.
Now, moving right along.
Let's look at the chest of
drawers and bedroom closet.
When all else fails stuff those
suckers full. The top two
drawers ofthe chest are for
Some
passmg
f/lOMgT^S
HELEN K.
OUTLAND
"under things". One contains
what I wear in case I end up in
the hospital. (My mother taught
me that.) The other contains
what I wear when I am giving a
117- pound dog a bath.
The closet has clothes
hanging in it. They aren't
hanging in order of season,
color, matching, or occasion.
For heaven sakes, I don't want
to take the fun out of the chaos
of getting dressed at the last
minute. The bottom of the closet
is for shoes. I know they are
there. There is a big pile of
them. The same search system
works for the shoes as it does
for the clothes hanging above.
Now, let's explore the
kitchen. One cabinet has plates,
cereal bowls, saucers, and bread
plates in it. That's the way it
should be. A cereal bowl can
balance two dinner plates very
well. I swear. Then there is the
cabinet with the canned goods
in it.
There are the cans with the
white stuff in them, the ones
with the green stuff in them, the
cans with the yellow stuff in
them, so on and so forth. Grab
one of each and you have a
balanced meal. Just try not to
knock over the paper cup with
all the pennies in it Ignore the
fingernail polish remover. It
isn't a condiment
The cabinet under the sink
contains the cleaning stuff.
There is a can of Pledge and a
bottle of Texize. You can pour
the Texize on a cloth, give the
countertop, chair rails, and the
legs of the table a good swipe
and "I have worked so hard all
day" smells like an honest
statement apd organization.
Last but not least is my desk.
One pile of papers has that stuff
in it from the fax. One pile has
that stuff in it h*om my folder
down stairs. Another pile has
my notes from interviews over
the last six months. Lets' see. So
and so said, "The well being of
national security is falling
victim to the bickering between
congress and the military."
Next page: "However, the
eighteen hour girdle has proven
to provide the most long term
support without causing a
stroke." That, by the way, is a
complete lie. The lack of blood
supply to the legs will make
your toenails fall off. I don't
have time to be organized.
Community
Caiemiar
Thursday -8/16
ALBEMARLE ARTtST LEAGUE
The newly formed Albemarle Artist League
will hold its sixth meeting Thursday, Aug. 16,
from 7-9p.m. at the Chowan County Agricul
tural Center, North Granville St., Edenton.
Artists with the love of oil, watercolor, pastels
and acrylic painting are invited to join the
group. For more info, call 482-1759.
Saturday -8/18
VFW DANCE PLANNED
VFW Post 7312, located three miles west of
Sunbury in Gates County, will host a dance
featuring the Mallory Buck Band, Aug. 18, 9
p.m. until midnight.
Tuesday - 8/21
REPUBLICAN WOMEN'S LUNCHEON
The Albemarle Republican Woman's Club
will meet at Creekside Restaurant "dutch
treat" on Tuesday, Aug. 21, at noon. Guest
speaker will be Lynn Hurdle-Winslow, dean
of the COA Chowan County Center. Please
plan to attend as she will be sharing info
about the needs of students at the college.
FRiENDS OF THE UBRARY GATHERiNG
The Friends of the Library Book Club will
meet at the Shepard-Pruden Library in
Edenton Aug. 21 at 3:30 p.m.
NAACP PLANS MEETING
The Chowan County Branch of the NAACP
will meet on Tuesday, Aug. 21, at the Provi
dence Missionary Baptist Church. The
meeting will start at 7 p.m.
SAtUNG LESSONS OFFERED
Sailing lessons will be offered by the
Edenton Sailing Club beginning Tuesday,
Aug. 21 at 7:30 p.m. Classes are open to high
school students through senior citizens and
will be held at the Edenton Municipal Bldg.
Questions? Call Gil Burroughs at 482-2624.
Upcoming Events
BBQ CH!CKEN D!NNER
The Chowan Middle School PTA will host a
BBQ Chicken Dinner on Saturday, Aug. 25,
from 4-6:30 p.m. (see banner on page 1-A)
OVtC LEAGUE TO MEET
The Edenton-Chowan Civic League will
meet at the Fannie A. Parker Woman's Club
on Monday, Aug. 27, at 6:30 p.m.
ALBEMARLE CHORALE
A pre-season meeting of the Albemarle
Chorale will be held Monday, Aug. 27, at 7
p.m. in the Parish House of St. Paul's Episco
pal Church, 101 Gale St., Edenton. New, old
and prospective members are invited to
attend. Plans for the coming season will be
presented. If you cannot make the planning
meeting, please join us on Sept. 10 at 6:30 p.m.
in the Parish House as we begin our regular
Monday evening rehearsal schedule.
Ballantine is certainly no JFK
RALEIGH - This week's winner of the
Profile in Courage Award goes to Sen.
Patrick Ballantine, the Senate minority
leader from Wilmington.
Ballantine, like Republicans in both the
House and Senate, is opposed to the Demo
crats' package of tax hikes to balance the
budget.
To his credit, Ballantine, unlike House
Republicans, has a list of propo$ed cuts that
would close the budget deficit. To his dis
the funds given to the Public School Forum
to run the Teaching Fellows program, or to a
Smart Start agency, or to a volunteer fire
department or a community charity. Lord
knows, it could even be a Bush-like grant to a
faith-based agency. In many of these cases,
this money is probably spent on public work
that is performed by the private sector.
Sounds pretty Republican to me.
Will Ballantine please stand up and tell us
which private agencies he would cut so we
credit, the list is weak, vague
and simplistic.
Ballantine proposes, for
example, to save $48.2 million
by cutting 10 percent of the
state's payments to private
agencies. He also proposes to
cut 25 percent of the adminis
trators in local schools who
are paid by the state. That
wmild save $23 million.
m Nor?/?
Caro/ma
PAUL
0'C(^U^)R
i can decide if we want to
back his proposal?
"No. That's ridiculous,"
he said at a press conference
in which he criticized —
heck, he blasted - Gov. Mike
Easley for a lack of leader
ship. "Why should we hang
ourselves out and say we're
going to cut this and this
and this... And they'll (the
That may sound great, but
isn't it a bit simplistic to say that he'd cut 25
percent without listing who would be axed?
It would be, but Ballantine names posi
tions. He says he'd cut assistant and deputy
assistants, and that would equal $25 million.
This would be a fairly serious proposal if
accompanied with a statement from the
Fiscal Research Division with regard to the
potential savings and with a study saying
that these jobs are not needed. He presents
only an alternative Iredell County newsletter
to support his pitch that the jobs are not
needed.
When it comes to the private agenices, that
$48.2 million looks tempting.
It's only 10 percent of the total aid.
But what is that 10 percent? What pro
grams? What services? Ask Ballantine, and
he sounds as if he doesn't know. And if he
does, he isn't telling.
This money to private agencies could be
groups' leaders) be calling
us... It's ridiculous for us to name individual
programs. We know we can find 10 percent
but the Democrats refuse to listen."
Now, that's real courage! The kind that
Harvard's John F. Kennedy School seeks
when it presents the Profiles in Courage
awards.
Blast the Democrats for proposing to raise
taxes. Blast Easley for proposing to raise
taxes without saying which taxes. Then
suggest that money can be saved by cutting
programs that you won't even name.
That's not only cowardly, it's hypocritical.
Democrats have done a lousy job of leading
this year, but at least they named the taxes
they want to raise. Ballantine doesn't want a
tax increase, but he won't name the pro
grams he would cut to spare us that tax
increase.
To quote former Texas Sen. Lloyd Benson:
"Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."
Railway travel
fun, if you can
get connected
Have you
been follow
ing the
travels of the
"Great
Leader" of
North Korea,
Kim Chong
il, as he
made his
One
on
One
D.G.
MARTIN
way by tram
from his homeland to Moscow and back
again?
The "Great Leader" is afraid to travel by
air. So a special armor-clad train carried him
and his party over the Trans-Siberian rail
road line.
One of the reasons this train trip made
news is that very few people use trains
anymore for business travel. They surely
don't in North Carolina.
It has been a long time since most of us
have found it convenient to use the railroad
to get us around in North Carolina.
In fact, most North Carolinians have never
ridden on a regular passenger train.
Passenger trains seldom provide us with a
realistic travel option.
But things changed for me last week when I
found I needed to travel from the Durham
Chapel Hill area to Charlotte. I make the trip
a lot - usually by driving by myself down 1-85,
making it in about two and one-half hours if
the traffic isn't too bad and I don't make any
stops.
It isn't a bad trip. I can listen to the radio.
Or, if I have some extra time, I can stop at one
of the great "home cooking" places to eat that
I have discovered working on a series of
magazine articles for "Our State Magazine."
But last week I needed some free time to
look over some papers to prepare me for my
first day on a new job with the Trust for
Public Land in Charlotte. Of course, I
couldn't review the papers and drive at the
same time. Conveniently, a morning passen
ger train between Raleigh and Charlotte
leaves Durham about 7:30 a.m. and arrives in
Charlotte a little more than three hours later.
I arrived at the Durham Station just as the
train was pulling up. The conductor mo
tioned me on. I asked him if I could buy a
ticket on board
"Sure," he said, " but it will cost you a little
extra."
"A little extra" meant about twice as much
as the $19 regular one-way ticket. But 1 paid
cheerfully, glad to have barely made the train.
And I was even happier when I took a seat
and found it bigger than a regular airline
seat, much bigger, in fact, with lots of leg
room. I spread out my papers and reviewed
See MARTIN Page 11 B
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THE CHOWAN HEI^LD
(USPS 106-380)
Telephone: (252) 482-4418
What can new census tell us about NC?
BY DR. M!KE WALDEN
Periodically, it's worthwhile
to make an assessment of one's
situation. Businesess do this
all the time, and many house
holds do the same when they
apply for a loan or pay taxes.
We can make a similar as
sessment of our state from the
new data recently released
from the 2000 Census. We can
then decide what kind of pic-^
tut e of North Carolina the num
bers paint.
! %M
) DEODE
There are two ways to use
the Census data. One way com
pares North Carolina's num
bers to the national numbers.
The' second way studies
^trends in North Carolina's
numbers from previous years.
Let's first compare North
NOTICE TO OUR READERS
If you have something you would like to get off
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Herald. All letters must include your current
address, telephone number and signature of the
writer. Deadline for the letters is 12 noon Friday
prior to each week's publication. <
Carolina to the nation. On one
of the most important num
bers, the average income of
households, it appears North
Carolina falls short Average
income in North \
Carolina is 8% lower*H!an
the national average.
Yet there are two caveats to
this comparison. First, the
cost-of-living has been mea
sured to be 5% to 10% lower in
North Carolina, so if this is ac
curate, a household doesn't re
quire as much income in North
Carolina to achieve the same
standard of living as in the na
tion. Second, North Carolina's
ratio has been rising. In 1990,
household income in North
Carolina was 11% lower than
in the nation, and in 1980 it was
14% less.
North Carolinians also work
in different industries than
national workers. Percentage
wise, more North Carolinians
work in agriculture, construc
tion, and manufacturing and
fewer work in trade and ser
vices. There are also more
Tarheels, relatively speaking,
changing jobs t^an in the na
tion. This li^Mly reflects the
dynamic nawbe of North
Carolina's economy.
A higher percentage of North
Carolina families have both
parents working in the labor
force compared to the nation.
The North Carolina poverty
rate is also higher than the na
tional poverty rate. But, North
Carolina workers spend less
time commuting to work than
the average national worker.
So, these are some key num
bers from the 2000 Census oh
See CENSUS On Page 11 B