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Page TWO THE PILOT—Southern Pines, North Carolina THURSDAY, JULY 4, 1963 Southern Pines ILOT North Carolina FINALE “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 for all concerned. Wherever there seems to an occasion to use our influence for the public good we will try to do it. And we will treat everybody alike.”—James Boyd, May 23, 1941. Can The Blood Program Be Saved? A news story elsewhere in today’s Pilot relates the shocking failure of the Red Cross blood program in Moore County —a failure than can result in the loss of this practical, sensible and economi cal method of meeting the blood needs of this county’s hospital patients. A big factor in the failure, it appears, is the irresponsibility of persons who sign “pledge cards,” promising to donate a pint of blood to replace a pint used by some relative or friend. Only 40 per cent of the persons making these pledges actually show up and make good on their promise, when the bloodmobile comes to their community. Blood that costs patients $20 or more per pint in some hospitals elsewhere is free to persons in both the hospitals in Moore County, because of the Red Cross program. The whole system operates on gener osity, responsibility and plain, old-fash ioned neighborliness. We cannot believe that the people of Moore County are losing these qualities as steadily as the blood program has been getting behind in its quota, year after year. The time for Moore County residents to wake up to what loss of the Red Cross blood program will mean is now —no+ after it has been withdrawn be cause the county failed to meet its obli gations. It can be saved, if the people of the county respond with generous donations, when the bloodmobile visits Carthage next Monday and Southern Pines on Tuesday, and at each of the subsequent visits in the seven Moore towns to which it returns twice each year. Most Rewarding ‘Right’ Of All The “Job Opportunities” category in the various fields of racial relations under consideration by the recently formed local Good Neighbor Council is one which, we think, could become especially r^ warding and challenging to the communi ty- Any town, by general agreement of establishments involved, can open its stores, restaurants, theatres and other such facilities to Negroes overnight--but the matter of admitting Negroes to kinds of work from which they have traditional ly been barred is a longer-range proposi tion. Yet, of all the varied moves than can be made in a community to assure the acceptance of Negroes as first class citizens, the opening of employment op portunities would seem to be the most rewarding for Negroes, both emotionally and practically. Certainly no aspect of the civil rights drive more surely makes clear the re sponsibilities that go with rights than does the widening of the Negro’s field of employment. The knowledge that jobs heretofore closed are available will give young people new ambition to complete or extend their schooling or other train- ing. Real progress in this field of race re lations will keep at home, to the great benefit of the community both economi cally and socially, those more ambitious and more talented Negro young people who have been leaving the South in droves for many years. The name “Good Neighbor Council” was coined by Governor Sanford last January when, noting that the American Negro was freed from slavery a century previously, he made his eloquent “obser vation for a second century,” saying in part: “The time has come for American citizens to . . . quit unfair discrimina tions and to give the Negro a full chance to earn a decent living for his family and to contribute to higher standards for himself and for all men . . . We can do this. We should do this ... We will do it because it is honest and fair to give all men and women their best chance in life.” As we pointed out, this is no overnight matter. Yet we feel certain that there are types of employment in which some pro gress in hiring Negroes could be shown soon locally, with a wide measure of public acceptance. Spraying — The Council Should Reconsider We note with distaste and regret that the town this week began its summer in secticide spraying. During the years this pro^am has been in effect. The Pilot has voiced its objec tions on three grounds: 1. We can’t prove it, but we don’t see how regular breathing of a fine mist of fuel oil, including an insecticide whose long-range effects on human beings re main largely unknown, would not be injurious to health, especially for infants and the numerous persons in this area with respiratory ailments. 2. We question the right of any public or private agency to pollute the air. The case is not comparable to fluoridation of the water supply, to which it is some times compared. Nobody has to drink treated water. But anybody living in town is forced to breath the oil-insecticide fumes unless (as some residents actually do) they leave town while the mist is in Great Effort By Devoted People Last week we went to the Folk Festival in Asheville. It was a great effort carried out by a very small band of devoted people, to whom this State has every reason to be grateful. For it was a remark ably fine achievement in bringing to gether so many of those who have kept alive this mountain music. The performers included ancient ballad- singers with their dulcimers, one a very old lady fiddler, who grinned as she sawed away, fingers flying nimbly, hair wild like a small merry witch. There were the old-timers and the newer ones, singers, guitar and banjo players, right up to the star of folk-music, Pete Seegar. And there was a girl, Judy Collins, of Denver, Colorado, on the same program, who sang to charm the heart out of a stone. These two alone made the long trip across the state—and would have made a trip ten times as long—^worthwhile. Their songs were the rare jewels of folk music and they sang and played their guitars — Seegar’s was a big 12- stringer—with skill and exquisite under standing. The saddest of laments for lost love, the spiciest ballads were given the full treatment. Your hair rose on your head to hear Seegar sing his “Give me a hammer of justice,” and when Judy slitted her long smudgy eyes, flung back her dark chestnut head and, with a slap of her guitar and twang on the strings, soared into the crazy jigtune of mountain homelife it was, as the youngsters say, COOL WATER. GOOD BREAD, APPLE DUMPLINGS Hot Nights Bring Old Memories the air. 3. Regardless of health threat, the oil- insecticide spray is just downright un pleasant, with its nauseous odor permeat ing the normally sweet night air for hours. Persons unwilling to breathe the adulterated air are driven from cool porches back into hot houses which, if one is to escape the spray, must be closed up tight when ventilation is most need ed. There is also a practical traffic hazard on spray-clouded streets. That’s the case, as we see it. We know from past years that a number of persons in town agree. Many others don’t. We do think that the council, especially in view of the past year’s nation-wide revelations in the abuse of insecticides and the threat this abuse poses to both human beings and wildlife, should take a long and careful look at this municipal policy that may, some day, be the occas ion for serious regrets. “sumpin!” That the well-spring of this music, rising overseas, flowed from the cold mist of the British Isles to find a home in the softer cloudbanks of the Smokies is a wonderfully lucky thing for this nation. A good deal of the renewed interest in folksongs can be traced to this man Pete Seegar. Brought up in the North, he went to Harvard and then took off, tramping the country, singing wherever he went. It was not until we heard some of his own compositions that we realized the source of the deep feeling, the heart break, in his music. It is profoundly in terpretive of the time through which he has lived. His wanderings took him to hobo camps, soup kitchens, “depressed areas.” He heard the stories of the people on relief. He picked up songs and he made his own: a music of protest, of re volt, a crying out against injustice. See gar’s record cannot convey the strength of his personality. There is about him, apart from his fine voice and his in tegrity as an artist, a belief in the mess age of these songs that has tremendous impact. Pete Seegar is more than a ballad-sing er, great as he is in that role. His music places him among the understanding people, the people with pity in their hearts who want to help, who want—as his own words sing it — to “bring love among the brothers and sisters all over this land.” Insomnia, anyone? Could be. these warm nights. A way to get the bet ter of it is embodied in ex cerpts, printed below, from a delightful book, "Mrs. Apple- yard's Year;" author Louise Andrews Kent. Published in 1955. it has charmed and ex cited readers old oryoung, sleepy or not sleepy. Though Mrs. A.'s thoughts, on the hot nights, have a distinctly New England iflavor, (maple leaves, elms, sleighbells, Rhode Island johnny cake) much that she remembers about her childhood will be shared by most old-timers. MRS. A. REMEMBERS On those hot nights when sleep is always just around the corner, Mrs. Appleyard likes to say over Henley’s ‘‘Ballade in Hot Weath er,” that list of cool refreshing things that begins: Fountains that frisk and sprin kle The moss they overspill; Pools that the breezes crinkle; The wheel beside the mill With its wet, weedy frill; Wind shadows in the wheat, A water cart in the street . . . Suddenly one June night—one of those nights when leaves rustle like hot silk—she remembered that watering carts had vanished. How many years ago was it that the last one visited the corner of Blackthorn Road and paused in the shade of the trailing elm branches for its morning drink? Ten? Fifteen? Mrs. Appleyard could not remember but she knew how cool the water sounded as it splashed and gurgled into the empty tank. How placid the driver was as he read the paper in the shade! He never hurried away even after he had turned off the water and detached the limp and drip ping canvas hose from the tap. He was old and slow, with a droop ing moustache as white and drooping and shaggy as his horse. He had blue eyes as faded and misty as the blue paint of his cart —that blue of ancient wheelbar rows that have stood for years in sun and rain. Children would sit on the curb stone and hold their bare toes un der the dribble of the sprinkler. Sometimes a lucky one would be permitted to mount the seat be side the driver and, as the horse ambled off with a lurch and a rumble of wheels, be allowed to pull the string that started the fans of cool stinging spray. How refreshing it sounded as it turn ed the glaring white dust to slimy, gray mud and trickled into the gutter making little worms of moisture in the dryness! What a wave of cool damp air it sent into sun-parched rooms! Improved Away The watering cart has been improved away along with waist lines with stiff belts around them and pins in the back that caught unwary fingers, French pugs, leg- o’-mutton sleeves, porter-house steak for breakfast, sleighbells and lambrequins. There were old ladies then and they wore lace caps. Thrift and generosity were both virtues and could live in the same house. If a man’s egg was boiled too long, he could slam the door and go to breakfast at his club. His wife would be crying at home as a de cent woman should, not hurry ing in town to manage her little Tea and Gift Shop. When she dried her tears she would think up something he would like for sup per. Perhaps it would be Rhode Island Johnny cake (or hush pup pies—Ed.). It might be a deep- dish apple pie with hard sauce. A slice of bread made from whole wheat and served with powdered maple sugar and thick cream had a very soothing effect on some temperaments. In the days of the watering cart no one had thought of mak ing bread out of plaster of Paris and of slicing it to the thickness of a folded bathtowel. It did not taste like a bathtowel either. No one had discovered that sulphur and arsenic improve the flavor of apples. For placating angry hus bands there were dried-apple turnovers, without sulphur, and fresh apple dumplings, without arsenate of lead, and with cara mel sauce. Perhaps, lulled by that melliiluous sound, "caramel sauce," Mrs. Appleyard fell asleep about then. Anyway, this is the end of the quota tion. Sot the time being: more to come, it is hoped. Mean time: may Pilot readers en joy good sleeping these warmish ("ish"?) nights! The Public Speaking Sen. Goldwater—The Man Who Can't Stop Talking To the Editor: The video track of TV is in variably kind to the well set up Junior Senator from Arizona, who so ardently desires to become President of the United States. But, alas, too often the audio track reveals the mental vacuity that afflicts so many compulsive talkers. On June 27, NBCTV showed a smiling Goldwater being welcom ed by a shouting, banner-waving crowd of Young Republicans in convention at San Francisco, sev eral hundred at least, maybe a thousand of them. It was a recep tion to gladden the heart of a candidate—except for a most un fortunate coincidence. Just a few days before the same NBCTV had shown a million Germans accord ing President Kennedy the most tumultuous welcome ever given a foreigner on German soil. The champion talker of Arizona could not resist the temptation to say a few words. He opened his mouth—and this is what I un derstand him to say: “President Kennedy is running around Europe right now. We have a lot of problems here at home. I think he ought to stay home and tend to his job.” This is the candidate who al ready is the darling of the fascist wing of the Republican Party, the John Birchers and their ilk. He must be conceded a fair chance to win the Republican nomina tion one year from now over abler men such as Rockefeller, Romney, Scranton. Somehow I am reminded of a dialogue be tween a worried citizen and the local Justice of the Peace. Citizen: “Judge, I need your help—it’s about my wife.” J.P.: “What’s the matter with your wife?” Citizen: “Judge, that woman, she talk, and she talk, and she talk—she don’t never stop talkin’.” J.P.: “What does she talk about?” Citizen: “Judge, she don’t say.” DONALD G. HERRING Southern Pines Assembly Praised For Communist Speaker Ban To the Editor: I was amazed to read the edi torial entitled “Unfortunate Bill.” I beg to submit my opinion of the prompt action of the General As sembly. I believe that it is fortun ate that we have men serving in that body who are so quick to recognize that we do not need “known communists” on any pro gram at our state-supported ed ucational institutions. To them, it did not appear necessary to “debate” the issue. It seems to me that it is high time that we invite some Ameri can citizens to speak on the meaning of Americanism, our Flag and the Flag Code, and also require that much time be spent Biography, Mountain Style Up in Tom Wolfe’s^ country, where they write long, long books about folks’ lives, a ballad- singer put it into four lines. Pappy loved Mammy, Mammy loved men, Pappy’s in the graveyard. Mammy’s in the pen. Mountain High Jinks There was singing up at Ashe ville last week at the Folksong Festival: there was singing and playing and there was dancing, too. Another thing that lent va riety: the performers were of aU ages. There was an old old man from way back in the coves who sang ballads,, playing a quick-step ac companiment skillfully on his guitar. And then, when an encore was called for, he hopped up and danced to his own music. It was something to see him strumming away on the big gui tar, his nimble feet twinkling in and out to the jig-tune, never pausing, never missing a note or a step. Heel-toe, he’d go, with a slip and a long slide on the strings. He’d whirl around a bit dizzily but slowly and always with a se date carriage, always in perfect time and he kept on and on. He seemed hardly even out of breath when he finally came to the end with a strumming chord on the guitar and a little bow. The audi ence gave him a big hand. The others who danced also went on and on and though they were young folks their dancing was so strenuous you thought they’d drop in their tracks. This was the dance team of 20 youngsters, teen-agers from the school at Henderson. They called it a “clog-dance,” but it out-stomped and out-jump ed any clogging we ever saw. Dancing at the terrific tempo set by a hoe-down played by guitar, banjo, and fiddle, that kept up a lightning pace, the dancers stamped out a thunderous rhythm, the lead boy calling the figures for the drill of whirls, capers, turns, marching figures, finally linking arms across the entire stage—all without varying for an instant the pounding deaf ening beat. It was great dancing carried out with the eclat and precision of professionals. An extraordinarily fine per formance. As, in its way, so also was the little old ballad-singer’s. And all, the dancers and the players, old and young, full of the joy of themselves and of the music. Wrong Vowel Being up in the Smokies recall ed old times and one thing and another. There was the time Tom Wolfe consumed two whole big hotel dinners, just the same courses, one right after the other —and hardly realized it; hardly stopped talking. There was the time he talked all night long, tell ing one of the stories he later wrote, almost word for word. There was the time James Boyd offered to the mighty mountain eer a suggestion that exaspera ted him more than a little. Wolfe’s great novel: “Of Time and The River” had just been published and Boyd was congrat ulating him. “It’s a fine book,” he said, “but you ought to have called it: “Of Tom and The River.” No Time Pete Seegar, best folk-song singer we ever heard or hope to hear, was asked at the Asheville Festival why so many of the songs were about unrequited love. Pete’s answer: “Maybe it’s be cause when the love is requited, folks are too busy to sing.” THE PILOT Published Every Thursday by THE PILOT, Incorporated Southern Pines, North Carolina 1941—JAMES BOYD—1944 on the study of the Constitution of the United States and the Dec laration of Independence, both in High Schools and College courses. May there be an AMERICAN FLAG flying outside every home in our town on this Thursday* July 4th! BERTHA M. McNEILL Southern Pines Katharine Boyd Editor C. Benedict Associate Editor Dan S. Ray Gen. Mgr. C. G. Council Advertising Bessie C. Smith Advertising Mary Scott Newton Business Mary Evelyn de Nissoff Society Composing Room Dixie B. Ray, Michael Valen, Thomas Mattocks, J. E. Pate, Sr., Charles Weatherspoon, Clyde Phipps. SIMPLE LIFE BEST Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury—^to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unas suming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind. —ALBERT EINSTEIN Subscription Rales Moore County One Year $4.00 Outside Moore County One Year $5.00 Second-class Postage paid at Southern Pines, N. C. Member National Editorial Assn, and N. C. Press Assn.
The Pilot (Southern Pines, N.C.)
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July 4, 1963, edition 1
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