aiie ?arren teorb
Published Every Wednesday By
Record Printing Company
P O Box 70. Warrenton N C 27589
HOWARD F JONES
Editor
GRACE W JONES
President
KAY HORNER
News Editor
ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE
IN WARRENTON NORTH CAROLINA. UNDER THE LAWS OF CONGRESS
Second Class Poslaoe Paid At Warrenton, N C
SUBSCRIPTION RATES:
In Warren and
adjoining counties
$8 00 Per Year
$5 00 Si* Months
Elsewhere
S10 OOPer Year
$6 00 Six Months
Concept Is Good
Another seed for cultural
enrichment was planted in
local soil in the recent unveil
ing of plans for an expansion
program at Lakeland Cul
tural Arts Center in Little
ton. If nurtured to fruition, the
seed promises to greatly en
hance the development of
talent in the performing and
visual arts among young peo
ple of this area.
The expansion program is
centered on the creation of a
performing arts school which
was a goal of the center from
its inception eight years ago.
To be called the Julian
Allsbrook Pavilion in memory
of the late state senator from
Roanoke Rapids who was a
supporter of the arts and,
specifically, lakeland, the
school will offer early training
in music, dance, drama and
art.
With $109,000 from the
North Carolina General
Assembly, the center plans
extensive renovation of ex
isting buildings for a summer
arts camp and arts training
for 400 students from Warren
County and four other public
school systems as well as
area private schools.
Dormitory space for 75
students, five teachers and
five counselors and facilities
for three dance studios, two
studios for music and paint
ing, a drama arts room,
recreation room, art gal
lery and offices will result
from the renovations.
The expansion will no doubt
allow local talent heretofore
untapped and undeveloped to
more nearly realize its
potential.
Lakeland's director, Mark
Taylor, and the 24-member
board of trustees are to be
commended for taking posi
tive steps to enhance the
cultural development of our
people who have in the past
been required to travel many
miles for training in the arts
or to do without.
We who shall reap the
harvest of a nearby school for
performing and visual arts
would do well to foster its
development by responding
favorably to the request for
donations of materials and
cash for the renovation pro
gram and by encouraging our
young people to take advan
tage of the center's offerings.
Time To Talk Sense
In The Southern Pines Pilot
When President Reagan sent
his 86-87 budget to Congress last
week the reaction was swift and
predictable ?from both
Democrats and Republicans
came the word that it was unac
ceptable.
Surely the president could
not have expected the Congress
to buy a budget which calls for
an increase of 14 percent in
defense spending now and 40
percent over three years and at
the same time wiping out or
severely cutting long
established programs for
people.
But obviously this president
regards the military-industrial
complex as holy and other pro
grams that benefit the poor, the
aged, and the average citizen as
intolerable nuisances.
He will not consider any
restoration of the unwise tax
cuts of 1981, but he will consider
selling off the private develop
ers some of the nation's natural
resources such as federal oil
reserves, timberlands, national
parks and other facilities owned
by the people.
Eliminated in the president's
budget, which still calls for the
third largest deficit in history,
As far back as 1707 an eminent
surgeon suggested that
physicians' watches should have
a second hand for taking a
patient's pulse, notes National
Geographic.
are such things as student loans,
Amtrak, weather forecasting,
the extension services and other
things which have long served
the people. Other services would
be cut.
Everybody recognizes that the
record-setting budget deficits
must be cut and eventually
eliminated, but no one yet has
had the guts enough to point out
that the deficits are solely
because of the dangerous and
unwarranted arms race in which
this country is engaged. At some
point the Congress must come to
its senses and say that this
outrage cannot continue and the
military-industrial complex
must be curbed.
The president's budget has no
chance in its present form of
making any progress in the
current congress, but both
congress and the president
should at least begin facing
reality and start talking sense to
the American people.
Courthouse Squares
IT SEEMS LIKE "THE
OLDER I GET, THE
FARTHER DOWN "THE
FLOOR DROPS WHEN
I BEND OVER. ,
COUHTY
CLTQK
The Warren County Scene
Footprints of a lone traveler chart their course along the
crossties of this local stretch of railroad to make a duo of tracks
in the snow last week.
(Staff Photo by Dianne T. Rod well)
Caroline Commentary
Jay
Jenkins
A Favorite Ploy
One of the most effective lob
byists in the North Carolina
General Assembly over the last
half-century, now retired, was a
notorious tightwad who didn't
like to spend a nickle of his
clients' money on a legislator.
So this lobbyist would time his
appearance in the Hotel Sir
Walter in Raleigh, then the
home-away-from-home of most
of the lawmakers, for around 9 p.
m., well past the normal supper
time hour. Then he'd repeatedly
and jovially inquire, "Have you
eaten?"
After the inevitable "Yes,"
the lobbyist would say, "Sorry, I
wanted you to be my guest. Well,
some other time." But two
young legislators, well aware of
the lobbyist's tactics, strolled in
to the lobby one night working
toothpicks in their mouths as a
trap.
Eyeing the toothpicks, the lob
byist said, "Boys, sorry you've
already eaten, I wanted to buy
you a steak."
"Let's go," the legislators said
in unison, and headed for the cof
fee shop where they ordered the
most expensive beef on the
menu. They reported later that
Looking Back Into The Record
February 22, 1946
The solution of our industrial
disorders, reconversion delays
and inflation, in the opinion of
Henry Ford, II, president of Ford
Motor Company, is work and
vastly increased production.
The N. M. Palmer home in
south Warrenton, the property of
John B. Palmer, has been pur
chased by William W. Taylor, Jr.
Mr. Calhoon, former manager
of Calhoun's Bakery here, is
spending several days at Hotel
Warren, en route from Cali
fornia.
February 4,19C1
Whether or not Warren County
participates in the surplus food
program announced in Raleigh
last week by Governor Terry
Sanford is a matter to be deter
mined by the Board of County
Commissioners, Julian Farrar,
welfare superintendent, said
yesterday.
Randolph Rooker of Anchor
age, Alaska is visiting relatives
here this week.
Billy Lanier, Jr. attended a
hardware convention in Charlotte
on Tuesday and Wednesday of
this week.
February 19, 1976
The Warrenton Historic
District has been nominated for
inclusion in the National Register
of Historic Places by Larry E.
Tise, state historic preservation
officer.
The last vestige of the Selective
Service System, under which
thousands of young Warren Coun
ty men registered for military
service on their 18th birthdays,
has become a peacetime casual
ty here.
The small office of a country
physician in Wise will be spared
the ravages of time and restored
as a tribute to the late Dr.
Thomas J. Holt.
the lobbyist had only coffee and
a wan smile.
The recollection was prompted
by the decision of the Legisla
tive Ethics and Lobbying Com
mittee to recommend legislation
that would make it "illegal for
lawmakers to accept gifts of any
value from a paid lobbyist. They
still could accept a meal or
basketball tickets.
As an image-polisher, the step
would be a good one. But its
overall effect on voting patterns
would be negligible, primarily
because paperweights, tie-tacs
and calendars don't swing
ballots.
Another recommendation
would ban as lobbyists legisla
tors business and law partners
and their spouses. That one may
be a tad too broad. If the wife of
a legislator's law partner, for
example, wanted to sign on as a
paid lobbyist for the Sierra Club,
what's so bad about that?
But overall, the ethics com
mittee is performing a useful
function by examining the rela
tionship between lawmakers and
lobbyists. It can make one solid
contribution by following
through on its intention to close
the loopholes in the law govern
ing expense reports by lobbyists.
And here a sometime critic of
the General Assembly, who
watched from ringside for some
40 years, would like to offer an
opinion that its 170 members are
neither less honest nor more
venal than any other compar
able cross-section of the North
Carolina population.
Few other public bodies in the
state, and none in the private
sector, are subjected to the
same intense scrutiny, day-by
day and hour-by-hour, by the
eagle-eyed media as are the
legislators while they are in
session. Despite the unrelenting
pressure, the competing in
terests and the partisanship,
they do a creditable job.
.That s why a sizeable number
of Tar Heels hope the next item
on the study agenda will be a
concerted effort to make the
procedural changes necessary to
halt the trend toward a General
Assembly of fulltime, profes
sional legislators. In import
ance, that issue dwarfs the one
concerning lobbyists.
The world's best frankincense
grows in the narrow strip of
desert plateau that borders the
mountains of Oman's Dhofar
Kay
Horner
Trojan Women
Greensboro native Leo Snow is the product of three generations of
women who, with quiet dignity, survived "broken promises and hard
times."
He is also the product of a black woman his great-grandmother met
in a South Carolina cotton field in 1904, a woman whose life was inex
tricably linked with the lives of those in his own family for more than
60 years.
The story of those years is found in Snow's recently-published
"Southern Dreams and Trojan Women," an historical portrait in
novel form.
Anchoring the novel are two real-life events?a shooting by a
deranged and angry neighbor in Greensboro on Christmas Eve, 1947
that left Snow's grandfather and aunt dead and his mother paralyzed,
and the suicide of Snow's father in 1958.
The seeds for Snow's novel are planted in 1960, when young Todd,
as he is named in the novel, journeys with black Mayzelle, now in
her seventies, to the mountaintop cemetery where his father and
grandfather are buried.
"You a young boy," Mayzelle begins, "and right now you treat me
pretty polite, but the day might come when you just pass me off as
some old black woman what told you stories like them fairy tales that
your momma told. I hope you never forget what I'm gonna tell you
today. I don't have no school learning. What I learned was from my
Ila's (Todd's grandmother's) books, my momma's love, and a good
ear for listenin'. Now it's your turn to listen. Mind me good. Nobody
is ever gonna tell you this again."
Then Mayzelle tells the family history, a history of events and emo
tions that shaped the lives of women who took what life gave them?in
South Carolina cotton fields, in North Carolina cotton mills, and in
the Great Depression?and survived.
Among the prized possession's of Todd's Grandmother Ila was "The
Trojan Women," a Greek play by Euripides.
"The land of the Trojans is burned and ravaged by events beyond
the control of the mothers and wives," Snow writes. "Yet the victims
conquer their conquerers by showing a stronger spirit. Ila could iden
tify with that."
"Southern Dreams and Trojan Women" is a poignant recounting
of how that spirit got stronger and stronger with each generation
through six decades.
In 1983, Snow, a history and philosophy teacher at Freedom High
School in Morganton, self-published 2,000 copies of his novel. Almost
all were sold by Snow himself.
I^ter, '.he book was offered to Winston-Salem publisher John F.
Blair for reprint, but so impressed was the publisher with the novel
that he released it this past fall in a completely revised and expand
ed edition.
Rich with people, places and times familiar to North Carolinians,
"Southern Dreams and Trojan Women" is rewarding reading from
an insightful native son, and recommended reading for those for
whom the past is never far away.
"Southern Dreams and Trojan Women." by Leo Snow, John F. Blair.
Publisher. Winston-Salem. 329pages $16.50.
Mary
Catherine
Harris
Early Cookbook
One Warren County resident called on the carpet Macon native and
novelist Reynolds Price for his note in an article in this month's issue
of Southern Living magazine that there were no cookbooks in the
1930's and 40's. Mrs. T. M. Aycock of Elberon telephoned to describe
one such early aid to homemakers which was written by Mrs. Sarah
Elliott of Oxford and published in 1870. Mrs. Aycock's neighbor, Mrs.
M. C. Duke, offered her copy of the book for review.
The book's broad title, "Mrs. Elliott's Housewife," does not belie
its contents, for it contains more than "practical receipts in cookery."
Closer examination uncovers numerous tidbits which relate to mat
ters outside the kitchen and which speak to those of us who more than
100 years later dabble in the culinary art with the help of conveniences
undreamed in the 1800's.
The author, resting on 20 years of experience in presiding over a
household and overseeing fairs and feasts for church and charity,
begins the 347-page volume with an expose on the influence of woman
in society and the home, moves to a preliminary on outfitting the kit
chen, then guides the reader step-by-step through recipes (receipts)
for various food categories and ends with instructions on caring for
the sick. Sprinkled among the contents of each chapter are words of
wisdom, most with religious overtones, on every subject imaginable.
In choosing servants, the author encourages one to "avoid all that
are known to be given to open bad habits, tattling from house to kit
chen, using bad language, indulging in intoxicating drinks, and the
awful practice of snuff rubbing."
The reader concludes from the meat recipes that nothing, but
nothing, was considered inedible in 1870. One notable entry is a recipe
for opossum, which the author singles out as a "favorite dish with
Chapel Hill students in olden times."
Everyday vegetables are joined by poke-root sprouts, salsify and
cymbling, among others not so familiar. And anyone who thinks
batter-fried vegetables are a new wrinkle on the food scene is as
mistaken as Reynolds Price. The book suggests Fried Cucumbers.
Cooks of earlier days may have gone lacking in the conveniences
of the modern kitchen, but as a rule the diners were not so deprived.
In a wedding supper designed for 100 guests, the meat offerings alone
include a 25-pound roast turkey along with two additional turkey
dishes, roast pig, stuffed ham, a pair of large ducks, chicken salad
from 10 chickens, saddle of mutton, round of spiced beef, dishes of
beef tongue, baked chickens and pickled oysters.
Cures for gluttony and other ailments are at hand in Mrs. Elliott's
book. Her Nutritious Composition for the sick calls for equal quan
tities of sage and cocoa mixed with sweet milk and boiling water, with
sugar and nutmeg added to taste.
In spite of the questionable delectibility of certain of the baser foods,
all in all, the author-home economist gives advice pertinent to today's
homemaker as well as to those of several generations ago.
Considering that I consulted three different cookbooks and took ad
vantage of running water, refrigeration, electric oooktop and oven,
and microwave in preparation of last Sunday's dinner, my hat is off
to anyone who could produce a digestible dish in 1870 or 1030, with
or without a cookbook.