PRESS ASSOCIATION MtM Every Thursday at RmM. N. C. 28376 119 W. El wood Avenue Subscription Rate* la Adeeace Per Year - 85.00 6 Months -12.75 3 Moaths-Sl.SO PAUL DICKSON Publisher-Editor SAM C.MORRIS General Manner LAURIE TELFAIR Reporter MRS. PAUL DICKSON Society Editor Sccund n?u hoitsf* fud >1 Histoid. N. C. "They laughed when I sat down to play," used to be the catch line on an advertisement which ran in national magazines for many years. It was from a company which offered to teach one to play the piano by correspondence, and they must have been able to do it, too, for they did keep on running the ad, year after year. The line frequently occurs to me as I sit down to this typewriter to try to say something sensible, or at least thought-provoking in this space. Many editors are really very smart, and do a great deal of research and thinking on the subjects that should be on our minds from day to day, so that their comments do make sense and do get us to thinking. Some are not as smart as they would like to appear to be. Funny thing, though, but they are also doing a job, if they can just get the reader to read what they write, for then he will take the initiative and tell himself that so and so doesn't know what he's talking about, or he ought to be ashamed of himself. If this reader gets to thinking and expressing himself about the subject then the writer has accomplished something. What to think is the reader's business, but getting him started to figuring out his own attitude is often worthwhile and where editorial writers can make a contribution, in my opinion. Politicians use two phrases to get them going, usually. They either "point with pride" to something they or their constituents have accomplished, or they "view with alarm" the actions of foreigners, the other party, or the people somewhere else. Editors quite often take the same stance, and often go a step further and outline what should be done by some group or political entity, and this is fine as long as there is reaction, either in agreement or disagreement. This week I am going to be laughing as I get up as well as when I sat down. The following story of the late Edmond Harding of Washington, N.C., has been reprinted in several papers lately, and is typical of this great humorist, I'd say. 1 hope you'll get a chuckle from it too. Mrs. George Wood, now deceased, of Chowan County, had a mule who was named Horace. One evening she called up Dr. Satterfield in Edenton and said to him, "Doctor, Horace is sick, and I wish you would come and take a look at him." Dr. Satterfield said, "Oh, Fannie Lamb, it's after six o'clock, and I'm eating supper. Give him a dose of mineral oil, and if he isn't all right in the morning, phone me, and I'll come take a look at him." "How'U I give it to him?" she inquired. "Through a funnel." "But he might bite me," she protested. "Oh, Fannie Lamb-You're a farm woman and you ought to know about these things. Give it to him through the other end." So Fannie Lamb went out to the barn, and there stood Horace, with his head held down, moaning and groaning. She looked around for a funnel but the nearest thing she could see to one was her Uncle Bill's fox hunting horn hanging on the wall. A beautiful goldplated instrument with gold tassels hanging from it. She took the horn and affixed it properly. Horace paid no attention. Then she reached up on the shelf where medicines for the farm animals were kept. But instead of picking up the mineral oil, she picked up a bottle of turpentine, and she poured a liberal dose into the horn. Horace raised his head with a sudden jerk. He let out a yell that could have been heard a mile away. He reared up on his hind legs, brought his front legs down, knocked out the side of the barn, jumped a five-foot fence, and started down the road at a mad gallop. Now Horace was in pain, so every few jumps he made, the horn would blow. All the dogs in the neighborhood knew that when the horn was blowing, it meant that Uncle Bill was going fox hunting, so out on the highway they went, close behind Horace. It was a marvelous sight. First, Horace-running at top speed, the hunting horn in a most unusual position, the mellow notes issuing therefrom, the tassels waving, and the dogs barking joyously. They passed by the home of Old Man Harvey Hogan, who was sitting on his front porch. He hadn't drawn a sober breath in 1 5 years, and he gazed in fascinated amazement at the sight that unfolded itself before his eyes. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Incidentally, he is now head man in Alcoholics Anonymous in the Albemarle section of the state. By this time it was good and dark. Horace and the dogs were approaching the Inland Waterway. The bridge tender heard the horn blowing and figured that a boat was approaching, so he hurriedly went out and uncrunked the bridge. Horace went overboard and was drowned. The dogs also went into the water, but they swam out without much difficulty. Now it so happened that the bridge tender was running for sheriff of 'howun County, but he only managed to poll seven votes. The people figured that a man who didn't know the difference between a mule with a horn up his rear and a boat coming down the Inland Waterway, wasn't fit to hold any public office in Chowan County. s Rural First Call 875-4242 The way wrmijLA watches ? moon HighI? ywM think h was aopnething great* By LAURIE TELFAIR ? I Think We Must Collect Children We're the only people 1 know of who can go to a bar mitzvah with one kid and leave with five. Our young neighbor invited us to his bar mitzvah and we took our older daughter. We arrived for the ceremony with one child and left with five, three of whom were total strangers. It seems that the three were attending without their parents and needed to ride to the reception. Those, plus the younger sister of the bar mitzvah boy and our own made five. It was no trouble, and we were happy to do it, of course, but the entire somewhat confusing affair was symptomatic of the way we seem to attract children, much like a magnet or, more accurately, like the way a cat seems to gravitate to the lap of the person who hates cats. One night last week our girls came in and asked permission to sleep outside on a neighbor's porch (it was during the monsoons). It seemed safe enough, so we said ok. Along about 11 pjn., as I was Puppy Creek Philosopher Dear editar: According to the syndicated columnists in all the newspapers I've gotten hold of lately, the big issue in the 1972 Presidential election will be economics, a fairly safe prediction in view of the fact economics has been the main issue in elections since elections were invented. In commenting on the current economic situation, one columnist, after citing the alarming rate of inflation, unemployment, deficit spending, etc., with the national budge over - shot by 25 billion dollars, said "something is wrong when the government's chiet financial officers can t come within 8 or 10 billion dollars of estimating how much the government will spend." I don't know anything about such matters as the rate of inflation, the economic index or the cost ? of - living index, all I've got out here is a thermometer that's two or three degrees off and a rain gauge with the markings too rusty to read, although I can tell you whether it's hot or cold outside and whether I need a rain or not. But what interested me was that columnist's not being able to understand how the government can't come within 8 or 10 billion dollars of estimating how much it will spend in the next 12 months. It's easy. For example, at the start of the year how was I to know my hot water heater was going out two months after the warranty ran out, and how could Washington know it was going to have to pay for vaccinating 2 million horses against sleeping sickness at S4 a shot? I didn't know the transmission on my car was going to fall apart at a cost of SI39, any more than Washington knew that Lockheed was going to tap it for 250 million dollars. And so it goes. If it's not one thing it's another. Anybody with kids and appliances, like a government with 200 million citizens, is in for 12 months of unanticlpatable expense. Maybe that columnist can sit down at the start of the year and tell you what's going to happen to him in a financial sort of way, but me and Washington have never been able to figure it out. Which one of your presses is going to break down next? Yours faithfully, J.A. taking a bath, our seven year ? old and a friend came in the living room an