Flogging A Dead Horse
We’re still hoping that there
can be some communication
between the Transylvania
County Board of Commissioners
and the Brevard Board of
Aldermen without having to
wait for the results of another
election year.
Gentlemen, it is the welfare of
the city and of the county which
is at stake, not personal whims,
nor political party. You are the
persons entrusted with the job of
spending the local tax money,
with operating local govern
ment, and with setting the stage
for future progress.
As an example, on Monday
night the Town of Rosman and
the county commissioners are
getting together at the regular
commission meeting to discuss
means of applying for a chunk of
the $63 million-plus alloted to
N.C. by the federal government
for community development.
This money is available for a
broad range of community
development activities in
cluding expanded economic
opportunities, low-income
houses and others.
Applications for these funds
must beat an April IS deadline.
We think that Brevard, as well
as Rosman and the county,
should have a part in getting
hold of these funds. We’d like to
see the city represented at this
meeting. It should be.
There are other areas which
need city-county cooperation,
something which does appear
hopeless after last Monday
night’s Board of Aldermen
meeting in which tempers did
flare over proposals of con
tinued joint city-county building
inspection.
We feel like we’re flogging a
dead horse, but, Gentlemen,
please talk.
A Light In The Fog
Perhaps in all history no piece
of legislation has mired down in
the muck of misinformation as
has the proposed Equal Eights
Amendment to the Constitution.
We’ve seen ERA called
everything from the “slavery
act” to the “erring reason act.”
Millions of dollars and other
millions of words have fought it
bitterly.
In such a foggy atmosphere
the only hope of any clarity is to
go back to read the proposed
amendment.
Here it is:
“Section 1 — Equality of
rights under the law shall not be
denied or abridged by the United
States, or by any state on ac
count of sex.
“Section 2 — The Congress
shall have the power to enforce
by appropriate legislation the
provisions of this article.
“Section 3 — This amendment
shall take effect two years after
the date of ratification.”
That’s it. No, nothing about
forced labor, nothing about
slavery — just about granting
equal opportunity to men and to
women.
What, may we ask, is unfair
about that?
It’s Jaycee Month
On Friday night at Brevard
College, the Jaycees honored the
Outstanding Young Man of the
year, to receive the John I.
Anderson Distinguished Service
Award.
The DSA went to Chuck
Bradley, a realtor. Other
finalists were Walter “Tinker”
Siniard, a police detective, and
Peter P. D’Angona, an Olin
employe. All were justifiably
lauded for their work.
Somehow the recipient
symbolizes all of the Jaycee
organization for us; utilizing his
youthful vigor for the good of the
community, for the county,
state, nation, and for all of us.
The Jaycees, we’ve found,
constitute the most active
organization in the county, with
their efforts showing up in
alcohol education, work with
handicapped, low-income
housing, youth involvement,
their own personal develop
ment, and other areas.
And their Christmas House
which served around 250 low
income families in the county,
was truly a momentous and a
most successful undertaking.
This has been proclaimed
Jaycee month in Brevard by
Mayor Charles Campbell. This
is a most deserved recognition.
The community is grateful to
you, men.
I The Transylvania Times
| 100 Broad Street Brevard, N. C. 28712
The Transylvania Pioneer, established 1867; The French Broad Voice, established
1888; The Brevard Hustler, established 1891; The Sylvan Valley News (later
Brevard News), established 1896; The Times, established 1931; Consolidated 1932.
A STATE AND NATIONAL PRIZE-WINNING NEWSPAPER
I PUBLISHED MONDAY, THURSDAY
ED M. ANDERSON—Publisher—1941-1958
JOHN I. ANDERSON-Editor-Gen. Mgr.-1941-1974
MRS. ED M. ANDERSON, Publisher
CLYDE K. OSBORNE—Editor
BILL NORRIS, Assoc. Ed. and Adv. Mgr.
MRS. MARTHA STAMEY Office Mgr.
DOROTHY W. OSBORNE, Women’s Ed.
ESTON PHILLIPS, Printing Dept. Head
GORDON BYRD, Prod. Foreman
D. C. WILSON, Printer T
DAVID METCALF, Compositor
PAM OWEN, Teletype Setter
CINDY BYRD, Teletype Setter
JULIE LINDGREN, Clerk-Typist
SUBSCRIPTION RATES PER YEAR
Inside the County—$12 year Outside the County $15.00
$8 Six Months $9.00 Six Months
I
MEMBER OF
National Editorial Association
North Carolina Press Association
mmmmmm
|OU 'Transylvan/a ''Time
-—by garle k<§. _
a </>
Vhe red house- at 412. Frobart
street rests on the hand
hewn Iocjs of The. oldest house
in Brevard. Lfiander Gash
built his "trading post there,
about If50. After the Civ/)
War ruined the. Trading,
The house was I eased 'to
W.TMoore as a hotel. The
'"Fed House. " was later used
■for the Fitch Taylors' mis
s/on school, the forerunner
of Brevard College.
Folkways And Folkspeech
Sugar Mt. Tale Crystalizes
By
ROGERS WHITENER
There is a tendency to think
of folklore as something only
of the distant past, preserved
through generations by way of
custom and tradition. Actually
it is still being created every
day by the circulation of
stories, songs, sayings, and
other materials by specific
groups of people.
Some of the contemporary
folklore is just as fascinating
as that of the past. A case in
point is a story heard in a
number of versions in recent
months about how Sugar
Mountain, now the site of a
southern Appalachian ski
resort, got its name.
Supposedly the legend grew
out of continued questions by
flatland skiers about the
origin of the name: “Did the
mountain people tap maple
trees on the slopes for sugar?
Was it because sunlight on the
mountain top made .the snow
look like sugar?”
Employees, faced with such
questions on a day-to-day
basis, eventually came up
with a tongue-in-cheek
response that might vary with
the storyteller.
“Oh, no, Ma’am, that’s not
how the name came about.
Fact is it comes from what
was once the finest sugar mine
in these mountains. See that
cleared section up the
mountainside where the ski
lift operates? Well, that used
to be the route of a narrow
guage track that wait dear to
the top of the mountain where
the mine was located.
“Several times a week
they’d run what they called
the sugar cart up to the mine,
fill it up, and then run it back
down the mountain. People
knew what days it operated,
end they’d come from miles
around with their pokes and
buckets to' pick up their
sweetnin’—saved them the
trouble of boiling down mapfe
—See Sugar, Page 3A
EDITORIAL PAGE
•f
THE TRANSYLVANIA TIMES
(Editor’s Note: Letters mast be brief, signed typed or written
legibly on one side of paper. We reserve the right to reject, edit,
or condense. Letters should be received by The limes by
Monday mornings.)
Dear Mr. Osborne:
In regard to your open letter
in the Times last week, I
would like to say that we
people of See-Off Community
agree with you whole
heartedly about the roads in
Transylvania County. For
several years we have signed
petition after petition and
some of us even made a
special trip to Sylva some ten
years ago to ask for help on
getting See-Off Road paved.
There are around 60 year
round residents on See-Off
Mtn. plus many summer
residents and at long last our
road is in the process of get
ting paved.
Anyone going out of the
County to neighboring
counties certainly doesn’t
need a sign saying he is en
tering another county as the
feel and condition of the roads
tell the difference.
And I would like to say we
will back you one hundred per
cent on anything that can be
said or done to help get
Transylvania County better
roads, and I personally would
like to say thanks for all the
publicity and support you
have given see-Off Com
munity.
Sincerely,
Lula H. Johnson
Route 1, See-Off Mtn.
Brevard, N.C. 28712
January 8, 1975
To the Editor
Transylvania Times
Brevard North Crolina
Dear Sir,
Not only was the recent
(January 6) letter about the
Equal Rights Amendment
thought provoking, it raises
many questions.
Who are “frustrated men
haters”? Who wants father,
brother, husband, son in a
“slavery class”. Who wants
sons “in hot water war combat
in bathrooms”? (What an odd
picture of family life thdt
sentence presents unless all
children are growing up with
His and Hers bathrooms.) If
insurance rates are based
solely on sex, why should a
young man pay more?
Why should men be
“dragged out to complete
industry quotas”? What, by
the way, are these quotas?
(Not only are unemployment
figures on the rise, industry is
not nearly as automated as it
could be.) What Social
Security benefits are
available to widowers with
dependent children?
Already there are many
women working in order to
pay a share of family ex
penses. Too, there are many
women working, like it or not
because they are, for
whatever reason, financial
head of household.
Some of them may prefer
the role of stay-at-home wife
and mother. But ought we not
to ask ourselves, how many
wives and mothers, not
working outside the home, are
only one heart beat away from
welfare? Even a relatively
young man may have n heart
attack, may die.
“Equal goes all the way”,
but there is more than one way
to correct an inequality. Given
that 10 is two times 5, we do
not have to settle for 10 minus
5 is equal to S. We can also say
10 is equal to 5 plus 5. So,
having it so good, not hating
men, let us have the Equal
Rights Amendment and,
keeping what we have, extend
those benefits to men.
Cordially,
Mary Yourd
1he Old 107rm
Prime Time
Pollster Challenges 6Image9 of Aged
S ■ ' - ' £
By Bernard E. Nash
Executive Director, NRTA-AARP
While conducting his recent
survey of American attitudes
toward aging, the distinguished
pollster Louis Harris discovered
several curious and somewhat
disconcerting tendencies:
• Most adults under age 65
tend to view their elders as “un
alert, physically inert, narrow
minded, ineffective, sexually fin
ished old people rotting away in
poor health without proper med
Bernard Nash
ical care and
without enough
money to live
on.”
• Many old
er people have
been so “brain
washed by soci
ety and its prevailing image of
old age that their “net assess
ment of (their fellow) senior
citizens ... is essentially the
same” as that held by younger
adults.
• However, when questioned
in depth about their personal
situations, many of these same
old people expressed a far more
positive opinion of themselves
as individuals, of their dose as
sociates, and of their ability to
cope with their present circum
stances.
In other words, no matter
what our age group, we seemed
to be telling Mr. Harris that
we’ll get by, but we’re not too
sure about the other fellow
when he’s no longer young.
Whether this is an echo of Dar
winism with its “survival of the
fittest” philosophy, or a modern
reflection of American self-re
liance and rugged individualism
is a question scholars could de
bate for years to come.
Of far more immediate sig
nificance, however, is the ex
tent to which the American
image of aging—and, of course,
of our older citizens—has
changed for the better during
the last decade or so. I should
point out that, while the sur
vey dealt with the image rather
than the reality of aging, reality
is often influenced—and some
times changed—by images and
attitudes in the same way that
attitudes are often modified as
the reality itself changes.
If the Harris survey had been
conducted ten years ago—which
would have placed the inter
viewers out in the field prior to
the passage of Medicare—I
think the negative attitudes of
younger adults toward old peo
ple would have been even
stronger than in the current
pool. What’s more, the older
people polled would still have
thought poorly of their peers—
and probably of themselves as
well!
Since the Harris study is the
first of its kind, there are no
statistics available to support
my speculations. However, those
of us whb have spent years
working with and on behalf of
our older citizens have ob
served firsthand these changes
taking place.
Through the Associations I
represent and other organiza
tions (such as the National
Council on Aging which com
missioned the survey), older
Americans are becoming more
cohesively aware of their own
growing importance and poten
tial. This applies to them as
individuals and as an increas
ingly active political force.
"In a society which will be
aging dramatically in the next
decade,” warns Mr. Harris, deal
ing with our older population
only in terms of the
image held ^
a highly
that older Americans are tired
of being counted out before
their time, and are fast losing
patience with policies and peo
ple who would prevent them
from continuing to take part in
and contribute to the society
their labors helped build.
“By a thumping and nearly
unanimous 86 percent,” reports
Mr. Harris, “a smashing major
ity of mature citizens say—and
wish the Establishment would
only hear it—that nobody 5
should be forced to retire be- 3
cause of age if he wants to '•
continue working and is still j
able to do a good job.
In another ten years, perhaps
a similar survey will be under*
taken. If present trends con
tinue, we can fairly safely ex
pect that the image of older
people held by younger adults
will be considerably more posi
tive than today, and the self
image of older Americans even
more favorable.
We are fast approaching the
time when aging workers will
no longer sit still for rules that
exile them from the world of
work for no other reason than
that they have reached an arbi
trarily chosen age which be
comes lower and lower each
year.
If the key to a better life for
millions of aging Americans lies
in eliminating mandatory retire
ment practices-while retain
ing the beneficial voluntary as
pects of retirement—then we
had best begin these changes
immediately. After all, we all
grow older and the policies we
|
i
are the rules by
live tomorrow.
“Talk to a man about hip
self and he’ll listen for hour?.”