Newspapers / The Yancey Journal (Burnsville, … / Jan. 29, 1959, edition 1 / Page 2
Part of The Yancey Journal (Burnsville, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
THE YANCEY RECORD Established July, 1936 . ARNE T and THEN A FOX CO-PUBLISHERS A EDITORS r. I BROWN SHOP MANAGER . Published Every Thursday By YANCEY PUBLISHING COMPANY _ A Partnership Second Class Mail Privilege* Authorized at Burnsville, «. C. THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 1959 NUMBER TWENTY-THREE SUB. RATE SLOO PER YEAR , , •S- - : : » ' LV -Overlook OnJLife- 1 By WARREN S. REEVE ‘ . Ths Idea of “Overlook” is taken from the Overlooks prorUM for j viewing panoramas along the Blue Ridge Parkway. • -1 There is a book on the mar ket entitled “Fires On The Plain’’, which is the translation of a best seller in the Japanese language, by Shohei Oka. It was reported to be, literarily, the best novel to co.-.e out of the war experiences of| a Japanese; and, read agree that, .though it is not I a big oook nor one that is going to be included among the classics of world literature, it is never theless in the artistry of its constiuctvon and in the origi nality of some of its observations not at all an insignificant piece of writing. It is a thriller; it evokes ones pity; and it is horri ble. I would not recommend it to every reader of fiction. Some could “take it”, and some could’t. ‘— It is the experience of a soldier in the Philippines in 1945 after Japan had surrendered when the remnant of Japanese troops were being chased by our American soldiers into thb hills and jungles. There they wandered around foraging for food, of which there was practically none 7 to be found, till finally, exhaus March of Dimes Will * Step-Up Virus Studies ill • „ In ''jt PRObING FOR BREAK-THROUGH in virus research, Drs. Helen Van Vunakis, left, and James L. Barlow work in the Albany,- N. Y , labera to-ries of the New York State Department of Health. The doctors are separating a basic nucleic substance from the protein of the .virus, *% working under a March of Dimes grant from the National Foundation. Expansion of Yuus studies \f a major part of 1959 March of Dimas . aimed Toward Greater Victories in polio, arthritis, birth dofects. March of Dimes funds in 1959 will be used for breaking new medical scientific ground in the history-making virus research program of, the National Foundation. i In fact, the virus research' program of the National Foun dation already is the largest of its kind in existence. Scientists under National Foundation grants have made some of the most creative med ical advances of our time. They have blazed new trails not only in the fields of polio and polio prevention but also in the whole realm of medical knowledge. Among these scientific mile stones are: important break throughs in knowledge of en cephalitis (sleeping sickness);' important data on how insects transmit disease to man; the first successful method-of grow ing polio virus in nonnervous tissue, without which the Salk vaccine could not have been created; discovery of a whole group of heretofore unknown viruses, called ECHO viruses, ■ome of which are harmful to man; basic facts about the na ivue of viruses, normal and ab normal cells and nucleic acid, which has been called the “auto matic pilot of life.” Some of these discoveries have an importance to medical science comparable to atomic energy’s importance to physics. National Foundation research grantees have received world recognition with Nobel prizes. Their explor ations have pushed medical sci ence ahead with riant strides. -» Over $34,000,000 has been au- —1 : i.s=a» ted by starvation and disease, the most of them died. The books gives us the picture of the bestiality of men without any Christian faith when they a.-e in the last extremities of a strug gle for life. The chief character of the story Tamura is his name survived the death march only . for the reason that when he finally was at the end of strength and resources, he “blacked out", and while unconscious was picked up by American troops and nur sed back to health in an American field hospital. In character and idealism, and in morality, this man is depicted as being “aj notch” better than many of his' comrades. But even they many of them when they were living in a peaceful and well ordered society at home were not the brutes that war turned them in to, but were relatively decent, useful members of* their commun ity and nation. We would have considered them, could we have known them, as, on the whole deserving to be called civilized :— I thorized by the National Foun : dation for research since 1838. Current virus projects include exploring the damage inflicted on the unborn children of moth ers attacked by newly discov ered viruses; the possibility of viruses as a cause of arthritis; and effects of epidemics of the new viral agents that swept two states in ■1957. The theme for this January's March of Dimes is “Toward Greater Victories." The organ ization that made prevention of paralytic polio possible now is ready to begin attacks on other crippling diseases. Initial new goals are arthritis and birth de fects. In these and other areas the role of the virus will be explored. At the same time sci entists wil: attempt to find out about latent viruses that may be responsible for illness ana disability many years after they first enter the body. The National Foundation has reached a stage in virology where the chemical composition and structure of the virus is well enough knowmfor the virus to be taken apart and for viruses to be used as tools to discover how dells act, grow and repro duce. Much of what science can do today in a virus laboratory is the result of research sponsored in the past by the March of Dimes. • , """mmmmKmmE! bbe-t. j 1 taken out of poace?ul„.prosperous surroundings and thrust'into the hideous mple strom of combat and . carnage, all the worst instincts within them were ahd the vestiges of what goodness they had were drowned out, and they herama, fiendish like animals at bay. I say, therefore, that the picture is gruesome, . ana not every one should read this book. But *Q|ne people should/ This 'Tamura the chief char acter in the book, is .really the author/himself, I judge. As aj boy, be had evidently had con- ’ tact with the Christian religion J Whether he had gone for a ■ while to a protestant Sunday School, or whether he had been under the • tutelage of Roman Catholic missionaries, is not stated. As he grew into adoles cence and young •manhood, he abancfoned Christianity, telling himself that it was not consis tent with . modern scientific thought. For a substitute, he sought to construct for himself a philisophy of life 'more agree able to his tasts Let me qttote his own words about this: ' J r (‘An agnostic education had separated me from What I then came to regard as childish de lusions, and I had begun to evolve a ‘system’ that combined conformity to social demands and conventions, on the one hand, with a type of personal hedonism, on the other. (“rfe donism. I may explain, is the name given to that view of life according to which one makes it his aim to get the most enjoy ment out of life. The intelligent I pursuit of happiness and plea sure describes the hedonist philosophy ). In Japan, before the war,’ there were any number, of nice people for whom the com bination. of hedonism and social conformity were the basic prin ciples of thought and conduct. In fris experience as describ ed in “Fires On The Plain, the author finds that this was an inadequate philosophy of life,. Under the awful stress of war, and when one was crawling day and night on the brink of an nihilation, the “system" otoka down, and many a man had nothing to put in its place. Just a vestige of Christian influence stuck in Tamura’s mind, and put him, as I suggested, “a notch” higher in morality and aspiration than most of his comrades. His views of God and of what we Christians be lieve to be the truth about life ’and salvation and eternity were pathetically inadequate, to be sure, and were vitiated by vaga ries of thought and fancy. Yet there was enough validity in his outlook to save him from the worst offences against decency and purity. For one thing, he had s sense of guilt, and from the Christian point-. of view, an honest awareness of guilt is the first step in direction of salvation. Tamura, had moreover, a faint and ill-defined aspiration, perhaps even a modicum of faith, that he might come at last to some kind of Identification with the Supreme- Being. After he had got back to Tokyo and was able to ponder ihe meaning of things, he put his feelings after faith in the form of conjectures:' ‘‘IF I was beloved of God. . . . 1 -“ IF (when I ‘blacked out’) it was Christ who smote me (in order, that I might be rescued by American troops and thus saved from myself) .... “IF (in this coma and in the new consciousness into which I awaked) this was a transfigu ration of Christ Himself “IF Christ had indeed for my sake alone been sent down . . . to the Philippines “Then glory be to God." / With those words the book comes to a close. After I had finished reading it, I too put questions to myself. Would Tamura (or Oka the author) have proved himself a braver, nobler man during those fierce days in the Philippines if in his youth he had by the Christian faith Instead of rejecting It? Would the story have been different If the men describ ed had been Americans instead of Japanese? My answer to the latter query is that some among the Americana would have shown themselves noble; some would have given their lives for their mates. In the story as Oka nar-| rates it, there was scarcely a man who was brave in the sense of being truly unselfish towards his companions. It seemed that trot tantwv jtar*Mp The Hermit Os Bald Mountain By: J. B. King Egfhaps very few of us have ever heard of David Greer, the Hermit pf Bald Mountain. Os Course this' was a long time ago, early in 1800 to be _ exact when he came to Yancey from Buncombe county. H e arrived in Buncombe county in 1798, from where no one knows, and found lodging in the home of Colonel David Vance, the first Clerk of ( Coust for Buncombe county. While living in the Vairce home I Greer fell in love with one of the daughters of Colonel Vance who, according to reports, was a'Very* lovely young lady. However, Miss Vance could not return his-affections and Greer, full of disappointments and irked by turn of events, took him self and all his belongings, to Bald Mountain, a lonely and rug ged peak on the North Carolina' Tennessee boundary line not far from Burnsville. Her e he set up his home in a cave close to a bold spring near the top of the moun tain. Greer was a well educated man and -spent most of his time, when not hunting- ana fishing, reading and writing. Most of his writings was on the subject -of" religion and government. It was, perhaps, fr.om his study and writings on govecanHsntf that caused him to' set up his own laws for the rule of Bald Mountain',-which he con sirred his own personal property? Any person who went on or near this mountain had to abide by. the laws set up for his rugged domain. One time the tax collector sent Greer word that he owed tthe county 75c pole tax and sent him word that he would fee in the next week to attend to the matter. Instead of paying" the tax on his next trip to the county seat he attacked the courthouse with rocks and drove all the offi cials from the building. He then took his gun and went back to the mountain. Not long after this event a man by the name of Holland Higgins, -who lived y» thi<i aectiop. of the county, was hunting on tne moun tain and killed a deer. The fact that any man would invite his private domain and kill his game enraged Greer so much that "he shot Higgins down in his tracks. For this crime he. was arrested and -tried for murder. However, the jury found that he was insane and him of the charge. Greer then went back to his j mountain complaining of the in-1 justice fate had always brought i him. A few months later Greer de ’ cided to abandon his cave; so he ■ every one put his own escape i ahead of saving the life of a i "buddy”. If the men described ) had been Americans —a cross section of American soldiery I : expect that among them there j might have been some who would ; have behaved no better than 1 the Japanese. But I am confident r that there would also have c been 'some who would have let • themselves die in sacrifice for a t companion. .. > The tragedy of “Fires On The Plain” goes back ultimately to the fact that when these men ; were boys and young men, living i in days of peace, they did not I find a faith worthy of living and dying for. They either had not heard of Christianity at all, or if they had, they had been Indif ferent' to i f , perhaps even to hos tile to it. If they were Buddhists or adherents of some Shinto cult, their moral collapse in the days of their suffering is a testi mony of the inadequacy of such religious' belief as they had. It emphasizes the terrifying urgency of seeking after the Lord while He may be found and calling upon Him while He is near. Perhaps’ we American Christians will some day have to answer to- God for the apathy we have about taking Christ and His salvation to the people of other lands. The conclusion of the book, which I have already quoted, is its brightest spot. I cannot think that the author could even tentatively say “Glory be to God” unless the . statements of faith which he- put in conjectural form were not. the nucleus of a real faith springing from his inmost j heart. I like to hope that they represent his faltering steps in the direction of a Savior who said, “film that cometh tb Me I will in no wise cast out.” went to the Tennessee, side -of the Bald and there he built for himself a small log cabin Here He started his writings again. He wrote, had published and distributed a booklet In'which he tried to justify himself for the killing of Hlgglnsr However, this did not work because the friends* cf Higgins continued to show their displeasure in more ways than one. Some of his enemies found great pleasure in sending bullets crashing through his cabin at all times of th e day or night. It is said that Greer lived on Bald Mountain for 32 years and ‘believed that it was given to each man to e n act hia_own laws and live according to them. One day Greer had an argu ment with a man from Tennessee by the name of Tompkins and as a result of this, argument he 0 made threats that he would shoot Tompkins on sight. Os course Tompkins, knowing the nature .and violence of Greer, was very much- concerned and alarmed about these threats. After con sulting with his friends he de cided to take the law into his own hanjls. He got his rifle and went out to meet Greer. The two met on a mountain tfail and when ( they met Tompkins, without any hesitation shot Greer and killed him. Tompkins was never convict ed for this killing because the people generally knew the violent nature of the Hermit of the ‘ Mountain and figured he got what he deserved. Greer made a great impression on the country around Bald Mountain and many stories, grew, up about him, most of which were probably untrye. Card of thanks We wish to express our thanks for the kindness ajj,d sympathy, shown us during the illness and death of our beloved husband, i father and grandfather. Mrs. R. A. Bailey and family' - SAVINGS I •HVEBETTER-IMPROVEMW/ V REMODELING ' REPAIRING Want To Modernize Your Home ... Add A Room .»». Make Needed Repairs? Let’s get together soon on your plans for Home Im provement. Now is the time to make those inside changes—it increases value and pro vides comfort. No job too Big-No job too small. Call us for a Free estimate. B. B. Penland & Son Co, Dial - MU S-MBB BURNSVILLE, N. C. 4, V 4 il 4 JJ| I Ln NEW 1959 /Hg” CHEVROLETS iWI No Obligation! WWa Nothing to Buy I .1 —u-.. «». RMBMHWmnI I Get an entrg blank at Western Auto today! CONTEST IS OPEN TO ANY RESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 1G YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER BY JANUARY 22, 1959, EXCEPT EMPLOYEES OF WESTERN AUTO SUPPLY CO., ITS ADVERTISING AGENCIES, WESTERN AUTO DEALERS AND THEIR IMMEDIATE FAMILIES. ENTRIES MUST BE MADE ON OFFICIAL ENTRY BLANKS OBTAINED THROUGH WESTERN AUTO STORE OR FROM ENTRY BLANK COUPON SALE ON FLYER. EACH - ENTRY MUST BE DEPOSITED IN A WESTERN AUTO CONTEST ENTRY BOX, AND MUST BE VALIDATED BY STORE PERSONNEL FINAL WINNERS WILL DE DETER MINED BY AN IMPARTIAL DRAWING, AND NOTIFIED APPROXIMATELY FOUR WEEKS AFTER CONTEST CLOSES. A LIST OF WINNERS WILL EE SENT ON RE ’ QUEST ACCOMPANIED BY A STAMPED, SELF-ADDRESS ED ENVELOPE TO WESTERN AUTO, 2107 GRAND AVE., KANSAS CITY, MO. THIS CONTEST IS SUBJECT TO FED i- - - , ERAL, STATE AND LOCAL REGULATIONS. TAXES, IF ANY, ARE NOT INCLUDED I^ r PRIZES. CONTEST CLOSES MARCH 31, 1959 ’ * Jr— , * ' ■: ' * < Our Giant Discount Sale Ends Saturday, January 31 ' j •\ . r • •' * * <t . 1 , •' ’ Western Auto Associate Store . BURNSVILLE, N. C i wur re array ityiUttV eo lftsa
The Yancey Journal (Burnsville, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Jan. 29, 1959, edition 1
2
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75