2A THE NEWS-JOURNAL Raeford, N.C.
October 9,2002
Viewpoints
On cotton bales, billy goats and overeating
My minister has a children’s ser
mon every Sunday. He has a child to
bring an object and he develops a
sermon from that object. This past
Sunday a child brought an object that
completely baffled him.
Now if you challenge him on his
lack of knowledge on the object he
will deny it. As I have told him in the
pa.st, the truth will stand alone. Since
I always tell the truth about him, take
my next few sentences as the gospel.
The object the child sprang on him
was a miniature bale of cotton, the
kind that can be purchased in a craft
store. Now I realize that Ohio is not a
cotton state; in fact, it is a Buckeye
state. I have no idea what a buckeye
is, but I know it is not a bale of cotton.
Therefore I can excuse him for his
lack of knowledge about agriculture.
It was plumb shameful. Some of the
farmers had tears in their eyes. After
all, Hoke County is cotton country.
In all fairness I can forgive him
■V/
A View from
the Country
Raz Autry
because he has many fine qualities,
although he thinks milk is produced
by the grocery store. His lack of
knowledge about agriculture reminds
me of the inexperienced preacher
who was conducting his first fu
neral. He solemnly pointed to the
body in the coffin and declared,
“What we have here is only a shell.
The nut is already gone.”
*****
I get some odd requests at my
peach orchard. A lady stopped in last
week and wanted me to go with her
daughter to the tax office and de
mand that they reduce her taxes on a
new house she had just built. I tried
to explain that I didn’t think the tax
office would listen to me. She is still
insisting, but if those in the tax office
see me coming it will be to get my own
taxes redueed, which I think is impos
sible.
We have a lot of fun at the orchard.
A lady wanted to look at my goats.
First she wanted to know why I had
goats. I explained that the children
enjoyed looking at them. As we ap
proached the pen she exclaimed as one
did before, “Oh, are you going to have
a lot of baby goats?”
I replied, “If I do you will witness
one of the greatest miracles in your
lifetime. All of those goats are males. I
have one plug horse, a fixed-up cat and
five fixed-up goats. They all are only
good for one thing and this is to eat.
I can see why folks think the goats
are pregnant. They are a fine example
of what is happening to a great major
ity of the American people. They eat
too much. Enough said.
Top 10 list can make one mn for the hills
I will have a place in the mountains
for you to hide, my friend Ben Jones
told me the other day. You are going
to need it!
Jones had learned that I have writ
ten an article about North Carolina’s
top 10 literary figures for the Novem
ber issue of Our State Magazine.
Jones believes that when the maga
zine hits the newsstands in a couple of
weeks, lots of people are going to
attack me for leaving their favorite
author off the lop 10 list.
Making a list of the best or greatest
anything often causes controversy.
Indeed, many people question the
value of such lists. They are products
of particular limes. They are subjec
tive and personal, reflecting only the
ideas of a single person or ot a se
lected group. At best they are imper
fect. At worst, they can be misleading
and harmful.
Here in North Carolina such lists
run counter to a strong tradition in the
literary community of mutual support
and non-competitiveness. Most North
Carolina authors will decline invita
tions to identify the best of their col
leagues.
So why, you might ask, did I get
involved in such a project?
There are lots of reasons. I think
the development and publication of
such lists forces us to think about our
own preferences. It makes us define
what we mean by good writing and
good writers. It gives us a chance to
hold up examples of North Carolin
ians whose writing commands our
} One on One
D. G. Martin
)
respect and invites pleasurable or
provocative reading.
I will not “scoop” my article in
the upcoming literary issue of Our
State Magazine by listing all of the
selections. (If 1 did, I might have to
take Ben Jones’ offer of sanctuary
even earlier than we had planned.)
But I will share one interesting
conclusion.
Although there have been many
fine North Carolina writers in the
past, the work of only one of them
remains universally accepted as a
part of the body of American litera
ture that is widely read and appreci
ated today.
That writer is Thomas Wolfe. ^
Although Wolfe s(Wlds out among
all the rest, there are so many other
important North Carolina writers,
that the selection of the remainder of
the list from these great writers re
ally is an impossible task.
If you share my interest in North
Carolina writers, you ought to con
sider a visit to the North Carolina
Literary Hall of Fame at Weymouth
in Southern Pines.
I n the former study room of James
Boyd, you can find information about
many of our great authors — and
displaysof personal memorabilia and
Letters to Editor policy
The News Journal welcomes Letters to the Editor and encourages readers
to express their opinions.
Letters must be signed and include an address and phone number. The
street address and phone number will not be published, but are required so we
may verify authenticity. The name of the writer and, in some cases, the town
the writer is from will be published at the end of the letter.
We reserve the right to edit letters for grammar, as well as those that exceed
300 words. We will not publish letters that we consider to be in poor taste or
slanderous. In some cases we may add an editor’s note as a postscript when
we believe a correction, explanation or amplification is warranted. We may
also, at our discretion, limit the number of times an individual writer may
submit a letter for publication.
photos.
Beginning in 10%, the first induct
ees were James Boyd, Charles W.
Chesnutt, Jonathan Daniels, Inglis
Fletcher, Paul Green, Bernice Kelly
Harris, 0. Henry, George Moses
Horton, Randall Jarrell, Gerald
Johnson, Guy Owen, Thad Stem, Jr.,
RichardWalser, Manly Wade Wellman
and Thomas Wolfe.
Subsequently the following writers
were inducted: Harriet Jacobs, Joseph
Mitchell, Sam Ragan, John Ehle,
FrancesGray Patton, laruis Rubin, John
Charles McNeill, Pauli Murray, Wilma
Dykeman, John Hope Franklin,
Jonathan Williams, A.R. Ammons,
Helen Bevington, Olive TilfordDargan,
Burke Davis, and Robert Ruark.
The best time for you to visit the
North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame
will be Sunday, October 20, at 2 p.m.
Here is why: At that time the Hall of
Fame will conduct a ceremony to in
duct five more great North Carolina
writers: Elizabeth Spencer, Reynolds
Price, Glen Rounds, Legette Blythe,
and Christian Reid.
The ceremony is open to the public
without charge, and there will be a
reception after the ceremony in the
gardens at Weymouth, where you can
meet some of these important writers,
their families, and others, like you and
me, who are proud of our states writing
tradition.
Weymouth is located at 555 East
Connectieut Avenue, on the east side
of Southern Pines. The Hall of Fame
induction ceremony is sponsored by
the North Carolina Writers Network
(919-967-9540) and the Weymouth
Center for the Arts and Humanities
(910- 692-6261). For extensive infor
mation and photos of the writers in the
Hall of Fame, visit the web site of the
Writers Network, http://ncwriters.org/
lhof.htm.
D.G. Martin is Carolinas Director
of the Trust for Public Land, a national
conservation organization that pre
serves land for people. UNC - TVs North
Carolina Bookwatch, hosted by Mar
tin, will return to the air soon.
L:*j> .
h/T r '
- cy
Democrats schedule unity banquet Saturday
This column is dedicated to mat
ters involving Hoke’spolitical race of
2002. Candidates and campaign staff
who wi.sh to announce fund-raisers,
rallies and other events, should con
tact The News-Journal editor, Pat
Allen Wilson. Those announcement
will be included in this space only.
The Democrat Party is having a
Hoke County Unity Banquet Satur
day, October 12 at West Hoke Middle
School.
Democrat candidates wi 11 be show
cased, according to Democratic Party
Chairman Dooie Leach. Those in
clude local office seekers: commis
sioner candidates Charles Daniels, Bill
Cameron and Jean Powell and sheriff’s
candidate Hubert Peterkin; also, Vera
Hollingsworth, clerk of court nomi
nee who has no opposition in the
November 5 general election.
The Democratic nominee for the
8th Congressional District, Chris
Kouri, will also attend and be hon
ored.
Leach said there will be “a very
patriotic theme” with the intent to
rebuild unity inthecommunity.“We’ll
have a patriotic theme, sing the Star
Spangled Banner, say the Pledge of
Allegiance; it’s going to be a real feel
good night.”
Government
meetings listed
Listed here are the regularly sched
uled Hoke and Raeford meetings.
Meeting dates and times may be
changed due to holidays and other
conflicts.
County
The board of commissioners meets
the first and third Mondays of each
month at 7:30 p.m. Public input ses
sions are held immediately after busi
ness is conducted during the first-of-
the-month meetings.
The planning commission meets
the second Thursday at 7 p.m. The
board of adjustment meets the first
Wednesday at 7 p.m.
County meetings are conducted in
the commissioners’ meeting room of
the Pratt Building at 227 North Main
Street.
The board of elections meets the
second Tuesday of the month at 5
p.m. in the board of elections office in
the Pratt Building.
The Raeford/Hoke Economic De
velopment Board meets the second
Tuesday of each month at 8 a.m. inthe
Depot (Chamber of Commerce Build
ing)-
The Hoke County board of educa
tion meets the second Tuesday of
each month at 7 p.m.
The phone number for county of
fices is 875-8751.
City
Listed here are the regularly sched
uled City of Raeford governmental
meetings.
Meeting dates and times may be
changed due to holidays and other
conflicts. (September’s meeting has
been rescheduled to September 10
due to the Labor Day holiday.)
City of Raeford council meetings
are held the first Monday of each
month at 7:30 p.m. However, this,
month’s meeting will be held the sec
ond Monday, September 12, at the
usual time.
Board of adjustment and planning
board meetings are held when there
are matters before the boards to be
addressed.
The planning board meets the third
Tuesday at 6 p.m., and the board of
adjustment meets the second Monday
at 6 p.m.
Political
Lines
The event is not just for Democrats
but is open to the public. A $ 10 dona
tion is asked to cover the costs of the
event, Leach said. There will be en
tertainment and the meal will be an
old-fashioned pig pickin’, he said.
No tickets are being sold but for
more information, Leach may be
called at 875-4277 or you may con
tact any of the Democratic candi
dates.
The event is scheduled for 6:30-
9:30 p.m.
The iNeWS
-Journal
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