Newspapers / The Pilot (Southern Pines, … / Feb. 23, 1961, edition 1 / Page 2
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<v> Page TWO THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23. 1961 ILOT Southern Pines North Carolina “In taking over The Pilot no changes are contemplated. We will try to keep this a good paper. We will try to make a little money lor all concerned. Wherever there seems to be an occasion to use our influence for the public good we will try to do it. treat everybody alike.”—James Boyd, May 23, 1941. And we will Welcome News This week’s announcement that this area will have a formal horse show in April, with plans to make it an annual event, is welcome news. The show will round out a full Spring of equestrian events—a season of activ ities already expanded this year by ad dition of the Sandhills 100-®fcle Ride to the formerly scheduled Hunter Trials and the Stoneybrook races. The horse show is a project of the local horse-owning and horse-training com munity itself and has worlds of ability and experience to draw upon from that community in planning and staging it. Details, or such details as were avail able this week in the early stages of planning for the April 22 event, are in a news story elsewhere in today’s Pilot. The plan to coordinate the show each year with preceding shows at Camden and Aiken; to start in a small way; not to emphasize prize money; and to wel come green horses needing practice in the ring—all this is sensible and will lead, it appears, to success for the event. With the increasing importance of horses in the Sandhills—an amazingly ex tensive activity—it is most fitting to round out the season with an annual horse show. We feel sure it will receive the required community support. Parking, Business and Planning seriously consider the advantages as well as the disadvantages of a downtown busi- We hope that a lessening of parking congestion in the Southern Pines business section will not cause plans for off-street parking to be shelved. A year or two ago, when parking prob lems were acute, there was considerable talk by the council about acquiring a suitable downtown site for off-street parking, before all such sites became un available. There was some investigation but no action and the matter of parking has been dormant, or apparently so, for some time. It is reasonable to believe that the less ening of parking congestion is temporary. The lessening is caused in part by busi nesses moving to outlying areas, a pro cess that is taking place in all towns and cities. Yet we feel confident that the va cant stores in the business section will fill up again and that there will again be downtown parking problems. Assurance that the town council is an ticipating parking problems and is acting in advance to meet them might be a factor in halting the movement of business out of the downtown area. And we hope that businesses go slowly in moving out and ness location. Business section property , owners would do well to modernize and spruce up their buildings as much as possible, to maintain an attractive business area. We will welcome the day when growth of the town and business enterprise will make possible further development of the business section, with razing of some unsightly old structures and construction of new business buildings. It is a handicap not to have an active Chamber of Commerce as an agency in which members of the business commun ity can discuss such matters as those touched on here. The lack of a Chamber throws a greater responsibility for busi ness section planning and development on the Town—the council itself and its Planning Board and Advertising Com mittee, the latter being the closest agen cy the town now has to a Chamber of Commerce. The future of the business section is important. We hope it will not be neg lected. Sophisticated North Carolina ■ ■ "Something else you may not know. “Sophisticated”—an adjective not often applied to North Carolina—was used re cently by an observer of the state in a connection that interested us. The term was used by Thomas H. Col lins, author of two nationally syndicated newspaper columns on the problems of older people, in an interview with Kays Gary of ITie Charlotte Observer. Mr. Col lins was to speak in Charlotte and he is on record as having praised North Caro lina for retirement homes. In fact, he re vealed during the interview that he plans to retire to the state himself some day. The columnist cited often-proclaimed advantages of North Carolina—moun tains, seacoast, moderate climate, acces sibility from New York, Washington and Florida—and then he went on in this novel and interesting vein: “Natives may not know it, but North Carolina is a spohisticated state. This, I think, is because of the marvelous high ways it built ’way back there before most states. Unlike some areas, it doesn’t treat newcomers as ‘furriners’ or treat outsiders with cold business-business detachment. You are quickly accepted. North Carolina, for that, and many other reasons, is known by outsiders as ‘a good address.’ That’s snob appeal, maybe, but it’s true. “It has everything, but keeps moving ahead. There is nothing about the state projecting an image to ridicule . . .” Come to think of it, we believe the gentleman is right. “Sophisticated”—it would take an “out sider” to summon up the courage to couple that word with North Carolina. We can’t imagine a native Tar Heel using it in such a way without embarrassment —which may be a sign of sophistication. North Carolina is not sophisticated in the narrow sense—over-refined, disillus ioned—but it is true that the state does not lend itself to caricature fqr provin cialism or narrowness of outlook or lack of hospitality. It is refreshing to see this point made by an “outsider.” Linking the quality with the state’s road-building program of the twenties (we presume this is what Mr. Collins is talking about) is a novel notion that, on second thought, seems al so to make sense. Real life on the highways surpasses, in action and bloodshed, all the horror shows on theatre screens or on TV. Consider a Saturday accident in this county, that killed one man and injured another so badly that his life was in doubt, though he was still living as this was written Tuesday. Some 200 stitches were taken on this man’s head and face. You wouldn’t believe that, if you heard it on TV. Action? Drama? Here’s a news report of Saturday’s fatal wreck (one speeding car with two passengers): “. . . The car . . . veered from left to right across the highway on a curve and beyond. Out of control for 614 feet alto gether, the car clipped off a utility pole . . . and smashed against a tree National Horror Show ly injured was married with three young children. Could a fictional drama provide more heartbreak than that? With the year not two months old, four persons have been killed in traffic acci dents in Moore County—and every one of these deaths, to judge from the High way Patrol reports on them, would have been easily avoidable. Can the stage offer more than that in the line of tragedy? Consider these figures for the year 1960, remembering each unit is—or was —a living person, and face the fact that they died by violer^ce as terrible as all the shootings, knifings or stranglings in all the horror shows seen on stage, screen or TV during the year: of the car clung to" the tree”^hile ^the County: 17 killed, 192 injur- other part was hurled onward 23 feet against another tree. The, men were thrown 30 feet beyond that . . . They were literally scalped. Many bones were broken in their bodies and their chests were crushed . . .” You couldn’t show that in the movies. Nobody would believe it. People would say it was faked, that no accident could be that bad—aside from the fact that the scene would be too horrible for public exhibition. Yet this scene, in all its horror, was “played” on a Moore County road last week. The man who was killed, says the news story, was a widower with a young child—now an orphan. The man critical- ed. In North Carolina: 1,218 killed, 26,953 injured. In the nation: 38,200 killed, 1,400,000 injured. “The car veered from right to left . . .” How many more times, in county, state, and nation, will these real-life scenes of violence be played out, this year, to end in tragedy that can’t be eliminated by leaving the theatre or turning off the TV? Each of us, at least, can determine here and now, to the best of his ability, to operate an automobile sanely—not to be come an actor in this continuing national horror show. ' “Wow! Say, Boss, Get A Load Of This!” f hi IfA A ■ Si COMMON HERITAGE OF KNOWLEDGE Scientists Have Double Duty One is apt to think of scientists as people apart: cold, dispassionate, all intel lect; quite indifferent to the needs of ordinary men. It might be thought that Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, in ventor of The Bomb, would be the perfect prototype for such a picture. To find that there is much evidence that this is not the case comes as a pleasant surprise. This great scientist is a member of the American Council of Learned ^Societies and two years ago he ad dressed some remarks to his learned colleagues that, in their self-revelation, paint a very different picture from the usual one. The warmth of feeling his words suggest, in his stress on the values of love and friendship and co operation among men, as well as his driving emphasis on the search for knowledge, this is a picture of a man with a heart, as well as a majestic intellect. We print below excerpts from Dr. Oppenheimer’s re marks. Tradition is no less than what makes it possible for us to deal as sentient and thinking beings with our experiences, to cope with our sorrows, to limit and ennoble our joys, to understand what happens to us, to talk to one another, to relate one thing to another, to find the themes which organize experience and give it meaning, to see the rele vance of one thing to another. It is of course what makes us human, and what makes us civil. Human Themes It is typically and decisively the common heritage, that which men do not have to explain to each other; that which in happier days they did explain to their children; that which they can rely on as being present, each in the other’s head and heart. Tra dition has, as such, an assimila ting quality; it points to the likenesses of things; it points to the connection of things; and of course it has also an oversimpli fying quality, since things in fact really are not very alike. It finds the great human themes which run through everything, which we can come back to, which we can recognize, which we can communicate. In very primitive societies, as the anthropologists at least have told us about them, one finds in stances in which the meaning of tradition is to prevent any essen tial novelty, to assimilate one life to another, one generation to another, one season’s cycle to another, so that everything has a place, so that everything is fa miliar. Tradition today has a very different function. In a sense which is relevant to our time, tradition is the matrix which makes discovery, in ah important sense, possible. It is the organ of interpretation, of enrichment and understanding that, in the arts and in the sciences, and even in our com mon ethical life, gives meaning to new discovery. It is the mark, the “cachet Epecnfique”, of the modern Euro pean tradition that has catalized, for reasons that no one has, really been quite clever enough to understand, an immense out pouring and an immense growth of discovery unlike anything which man has known, an un precedented use of the past for the future; an unprecedented en richment of the power to find new things by virtue of the ex tent to which we were in con trol of the old; unprecedented in volume, in weight, in wealth, in scope, and unprecedented, in many ways, in quality also, even if one thinks of the highest days of ancient cultures. The goal of education needs to be rethought. There is need, cer tainly in higher education, to be sure that som'e genuine expedi ence of discovery and rediscov ery is a part of the life of every one who is educated. There is need to be sure that some genu ine appreciation of the gulf that separates knowledge and igno rance exists. Knowledge I say this because only those who have been through such an ex perience are intellectually pre pared to live in a world in which they are surrounded by a world of knowledge, knowledge of which they will largely remain ignorant, prepared to take the vulgar and superficial account of knowledge for the reality. . . In this vast world with its un ceasing change, its great novelty without precedent, not easy to Overlooked Responsibility (Prom The Chatham News) In all the discussions about ed ucation there is one phase that is being almost completely over looked and that is parental re sponsibility. Too “many parents are com pletely disinterested when it comes to their children’s future as regards education. Many don’t want the schools to function as anything other than convenient baby-sitting-facilities. They com plain when their kids are given heavy doses of home work. ’They don’t object when extra-curricu lar activities take up time that should be devoted to study. Additions to the curriculum are objected to as being unneces sary. All too few parents gjve grasp, its great alterations, its great nostalgia for the times v^hen things were simple, more familiar and easier to keep in place, there are yet present for us beautiful and glowing per spectives of understanding and order, more than ever, really, in man’s whole history. The great sciences offer in a most moving way an example of this harmoni zation; on the one hand of change and novelty and disorder, on the other a great and over riding sense of harmony and order. Double Duty We have (as men of learning) a double duty: a duty to be con stant and firm and faithful to what we know, to what is close to us, to our art, our knowledge, our own community, our tradi tion in the sense in which tra dition has been the story of man’s glory, where we live fully as men. To all the rest of the world, with its wonders that we do not know very well, we neetj a sense of hospitality and operv ness, a willingness to make room for the strange, for the thing that does not fit. This is a hard and a double duty. If it is made possible at all, it is because it is moderated by things quite' outside the cog nitive order: by the regard and love we bear one another, which softens the harshness of isola tion, which brings us news and sympathy and understanding of what our fellow (scientists) are doing which binds a human common tie between us and the many, many branches of this growing tree of knowledge. These two parts of our duty make a picture of a common life and an ordered world very dif ferent from any that man has been content to accept: not very easy, not very tranquil, but with a hope of a common life touched and illuminated by community, and by the knowledge of the wjorld and of man. Grains of Sand TraTelling Musicians Our own N. C.'*‘Orchestra on Wheels is in the great tradition. The harpers of olden times and the troubadours travelled the lands, singing for their suppers, and playing wherever they went. But how many know that Mo zart, when a little boy of only six, journeyed hundreds of miles by stagecoach, with his sister, 12, doing stunts, and playing every where, even before royalty? Adeline McCall, who directs the Children’s Division of the North Carolina Symphony, tells about it in her booklet “Sym phony Stories.” “Father Mozart believer in let ting people know about the tal ents of his musical children, and he saw to it that there was pub licity in each city where the chil dren performed. If you had been following these children around from place to plawe, here is one of the advertisements you might have read: "'THE LITTLE GIHL, who is in her twelfth year, will play the most difficult com positions of the greatest masters: THE BOY, who is not yet seven, will perform on the clavecin or harpsi chord: he will play a concer to for the violin, {ind will ac company symphonies on the clavier, the manual or key board being covered with a cloth, with as much facility as if he could see the keys; he will instantly name all notes played at a distance, whether singly or in chords, on the clavier or any other instrument, glass, bell, or clock. He will finally, both on the harpsichord and the organ, improvise as long as may be desired and in any key, thus proving that he is as thoroughly acquainted with the one instrument as the other, great as is the dif ference , between them.'" Maestro Needs a New Pair o' Shoes! Dr. Ben Swalin lost a brand new pair of patent leather shoes in one of the recent stopping- places of the orchestra on their way here. Somebody swiped them. “I guess he just took a shine to them,” said the Maestro. Ugh! Here Come the Sparrows The McElvafes, out near Ni agara, are having sparrow trouble. They have put up blue-bird houses but the English sparrows take over. They have a trap and have carried several loads of the birds in nearer town, (thank you SO much, Mr. and Mrs. McE!) and turned them loose. But each time, later in the day, there is a great twittering and celebra ting out by the bird houses and a furious squawking from the country birds and it’s clear the sparrows are back. Almost before their exaspera ted, unwilling hosts. The Quipless Campaign From Cronkite-Stevenson TV Chat filmed' here during last Fall’s tampaigh: Cronkite wonders if people feel the need for “a little leaven ing of humor in this campaign.” S: Well, I couldn’t live with out it, but I can’t say that I demonstrated that it was indis pensable to victory. C: You think perhaps we’re going to have to depend on the professionals, like Mort Sahl, for our humor in the future? S: If they could all be as good as Mort Sahl, it might be worth while to sacrifice our amateur standing. The PILOT much thought to college for their kids. They don’t want to realize that getting their youngsters in to schools of higher education is no soft snap. When they discover that their little darlings have goofed dur ing high school and can’t gain admittance intp a college or uni versity, they heap the blame on school officials and accept none of it for themselves. Too many hold to the old be lief that getting into a college is a matter of economics. If they can pay the bill, they tell them selves, all else is easy. These par ents should talk with college and university officials who are aging before their time because of the avalanche of applications in the face of small quotas for new students. Published Every Thursday by THE PILOT. Incorporated Southern Pines. North Carolina 1941—JAMES BOYD—1944 Katharine Boyd Editor C. Benedict Associate Editor Dan S. Ray Gen. Mgr. C. G. Council Advertising Mary Scott Newton Business Mary Evelyn de Nissoff Society Composing Room Dixie B. Ray, Michael Valen, Jas per Swearingen, Thomas Mattocks and James C. Morris. Subscription Rates: One Year $4. 6 mos. $2. 3 mos. SI Entered at the Postoffice at South ern Pines, N. C., as second dass mail matter. Member National Editorial Assn, and N. C. Press Assn.
The Pilot (Southern Pines, N.C.)
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Feb. 23, 1961, edition 1
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