Newspapers / The Perquimans Weekly (Hertford, … / Sept. 11, 1986, edition 1 / Page 3
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Perspective Reminiscing 2* YEARS AGO Annual Christmas Parade Set Wed., Dec. nth: The Chamber of Commerce has announced that its' annual Christmas parade will be held Wednesday, Dec. 11 at 4 p.m. Bands, floats, surprises and Santa Claus will be featured in the parade. Complete details will be announced later con cerning participants. Mrs. W E. Nel son, chairman of the merchants committee, sponsors of the parade, noted that the 1966 and 1967 festivities were quite successful and said she is looking for the 1968 event to be "the best yet." Chicken Supper J*V To Be Given Away: Mrs. Hilton White, publicity chairman of the Perquimans County Marching Unit, announced to day a fried chicken supper sponsored by the PCMUPC will be held Friday, Octo ber 11th at the Perquimans County High School. A Motorola 20" Color -Television set will be given to the lucky winner. Tickets may be pur chased from any members parents of the Marching Unit. New Hope Choir At Bailey Church: LOCNNC RACK By VIR6MIA wwnt 1MNKAJ 1 i?( UtC 1J7C The choir of New Hope Methodist Church journeyed to Bailey, N.C. Sunday, September 15 where the Rev. Dan E. Meadows is pastor. He is for mer pastor of the New Hope Church. Those making the trip were Mr. and Mrs. Carson Stallings, Mrs. Fred Jones, Jeanette and Darlene Jones, Mrs. James Godfrey, Mr. and Mrs. James Darnell, Mrs. Harvey Butt, Sr., Mrs. Harvey Butt, Jr., Karen Butt, Mrs. Norman Godfrey, Mrs. Charles Perry, Miss Patricia and Margie Banks, Miss Joan Yohn, Tom mie White, Johnny Caddy, Steve Perry, Eugene Killman, Mr. and Mrs. Bobby Jones, Mr. and Mrs. Hoyle Jones and Eddie Miller. Society of friends takes stand on slavery in 1700s The anti-slavery issue was not the only instance in which Thomas Nich olson of Perquimans County placed his pen at the disposal of the Society of Friends. North Carolina Yearly Meeting appointed him to committees charged with writing epistles to Phil adelphia in 1740, 1741, 1743, and 1747; in 1762 he and nine other Friends were directed to draw up epi&tles to Lon don, Philadelphia, and Core Sound. He served as clerk of the Quarterly Meeting until released at his own re quest on August 25, 1744. He tran scribed the' early minutes of the women's meeting of Pasquotank in 1747. Becoming a published author (the first native of Perquimans County know to have achieved such a distinc tion), he wrote "An Answer to the Layman's Treatise on Baptism" printed in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1757 and "An Epistle to Friends in Great Birtain" ( 1762) ; the latter book was recommended to all Friends in the state in 1771. A major writing was his journal, which Friends apparently considered of notable importance. The Monthly Meeting in Perquimans on December 5, 1781, revceiveid an extract out of the Yearly Meeting minutes: "The Quar terly Meetings are directed to pro mote subscriptions for the journal of our Friend Thomas Nicholson and forward them to the Meeting for Suf ferings in Philadelphia." However, publication was not forth coming at the time; it was not until 1900 that portions were printed in "Publications of the Southern History Association." Nicholson was also concerned with education. In 1743 he was on a three man committee appointed to make selections from George Fox's Prim ers "suitable for young persons that are just entering upon learning." He was appointed in 1755 to a committee to oversee the press, making sure that no Friend published any book without permission of Friends' meet ings. On a more domestic scale, Thomas and his brother-in-law Joseph Robin son brought Joseph Jordan from Nansemond County, Virginia, "to teach our children" sometime prior to 1760. Such activities, with numerous oth ers, made Thomas Nicholson one of the most important Quakers in eith teenth-century North Carolina; the age would have described him as a solid, weighty, and public Friend. He became a Friends minister in 1736, and he began in 1739 to sit regu larly in the yearly Meeting. His own local placce of worship was at Little River Meeting House; he was one of the trustees to whom the land for that church was deeded on April 15, 1744. When Little River meeting house re quired enlarging, Thomas was ap pointed with another Friend on January 5, 1758, to take the work un der his care. (Part 13 next week.) Public poll What are you looking forward to . {(bout the Indian Summer Festival ?Ms year? *? - ?? 1? "I am looking forward to the whole "-thing. It's great advertisement for '??'our town and county." ? Billy White, Hertford K" '? "I'm mainly coming for all the cfafts and food." Kathy Matthews, Hertford "I Just hope it will be a good one. It was last year and I hope the weather will be good." William Ainsley, Hertford ^ ^ I "Just the fun of it!" BUI Field, Hertford "I'm looking forward to having a lot of fun." Marie S. Elliott, Hertford 1 "The Fun!" Margaret Riddick, Hertford "To see all the crafts and to buy some Christinas presents. My kids are looking forward to it." Renee Matthews, Hertford Indian Summer Festival: Take a right on Church, and three blocks on Grubb ? No dictionary needed, it's straight from the lip If you've been reading me for very long, you know that I speak straight from the heart and lip. There are gen erally few words in this column that you will have to reach for the diction ary to understand. And, it will stay that way, despite the trend today for a lot of windy jargon. Like you, I'm fed up t the arm pits with mouthfuls of high tech words that not even a Phila delphia lawyer knows what to do with. Just say what you've got to say in plain English and get it over with, the way it was meant to be. Know what I mean? To prove my point about how bad things have gotten with pen and ink these days, just listen to these exam ples of pompous, incomprehensible language: On the door of a government guild ing in Washington, D.C., is the follow ing inscription: "General Services Administration, Region 3, Public Building Service, Building Manage ment Division, Utility Room Custo r e>Y GAIL R06E.R50N EASTERN ECHOES dial." In plain English folks, it means "broom closet." Why in the world couldn't they have just said that in the first place? Of course, we all know how the government is. But then there was the surveyor who made the following report after surveying some land for an athletic field: "It is obvious from the differ ence in relation to the short depth of the property that the contour is such as to preclude any reasonable devel opment potential for active recre ation." In other words, it just ain't no good place to play ball on. Some poor fellow went to his bank to borrow some more money, only to be told that his bad debts were "non performing loans." Airline flight at tendants seek to soothe passengers by describing the life preservers under the seat as "personal flotation de vices." Not to be outdone in formal communication, the government once again shows itself by one particular branch that describes cowboys as "mobile mountain range techni cians." Good Lord. Not in a million years would you fig ure this out on your own: "A carbon ate-laminate bovine protein wafer? that is, a homogenized bovine con tractile fiber on a bipartite farina ceous comestible capsule with a randomized oleaginous germinal ar ray, is better known as a Hamberger, folks. On a sesame seed bun, no less. Course, if you want a cheeseburger, then you need to add a little bacte rially coagulated lactic secretion. And, I'm not sure I copied any of this correctly. The time when you called a spade a spade is gone forever. Today it's a "manually-operated humus excava tor." But, this new trend in bloated lan guage has teased and taunted us de cent folk long enough. Finally, somebody is doing something about it. At last it has been recognized for exactly what it is. . . a public nuisance. More than thirty states have now passed laws requiring the use of plain English in consumer documents. If you don't think such laws are needed, then read this last paragraph to convince yourself as to just what this world is headed for without a bit of language restraint : In high tech lingo, a plain old dog house becomes a canine seclusion habitat. Its roof is a canted precipita tion deflector, its entrance a quadru ped ingress-egress aperture, and listen to this folks... the little doggie's dish is none other than a nutrient up take reservoir. 'Silhouette' books sited as authors favorite When I was in school, one of my fa vorite pasttimes was reading, and my favorite books were ones we called "silhouette" books. Usually bound with a blue cover, these books were biographies of famous people. Rather than painted illustrations or draw ings, these books contained silhou etted illustrations that required the reader to visalize what the pictures should look like. While they were very easy to read, they were informative and entertaining, and within their pages, I learned much about the boy hood of such greats as George Wash ington, Jefferson, and Carver, as well as others. I don't know if such books exist in school libraries today? probably not as so much has changed. What hasn't changed is the excite ment available through books. To me, my early experiences with books were opportunities to visit places I will probably never see and offered an escape from the reality of day to iay life. Unlike television, reading re quired imagination. To be a part of the story, it was necessary to create pictures in the mind of what was be ing presented in words. While I don't read as much now as I would like, the printed word is still very important to me. I am very thankful I came along at a time when learning to read was important and the educational system took time to teach you to do so. In Virginia, Gov. Gerald Baliles, an avid reader, believes reading can be an important step in teaching his state's prison population to function on the outside once they are released. While touring a minimum security prison, the governor noticed a tele vision be each bed. When he inquired of the warden about this practice, he was informed television was a priv ilege and in order for the inmates to watch, they had to use an earplug, which must be earned in various ways. Baliles wondered: "If tele vision is a privilege, why not say that an individual, if he wants television a month, has to read a book a month?" The warden laughed. "Yes, I guess you could, but half these guys can't read." It is a bit surprising the gover nor did not know this. On his way back to Richmond, Ba liles developed an idea for a program to encourage prisoners to learn to read. As motvation, those who learned would receive special consid eration when being screened for pa role. Those able to read will receive consideration for helping teach those who can't. To implement the program, Ba lile's persuaded his state General As sembly to appropriate $1 million for the program. "If it works, you may find a way of breaking the cycle of recidivism," Baliles said. "Many prisoners who are jailed repeatedly can't read and write well enough to function on the outside. If a person can't fill out a job application or follow simple instruc tions, it's unlikely he will be able to obtain or retain employment. So he resorts to the one career option that doesn't require a job application. He commits a crime and goes back to prison? and that's costly to us in terms of tragic consequences as well as just finances." We all know it will take more than teaching prisoners to read to rehabili tate them. But exposing them to the worlds of books is certainly a good idea. Encouraging the use of the mind is commendable and there's no better way to do this than by being able to read and understand what is read. In today's electronic world, there is little to challenge the imagination. In order to be entertained, all is needed is to turn a switch or to flip a button. Books, available to nearly everyone, can play an important role in devel oping the imagination. A note from Gina: me Indian summer Festival is this weekend, and I would like to take this opportunity to say a few words about a lady whom I have come to know and respect in Hertford. Her name is Mary Harrell, and she is the executive director at the cham ber of commerce. Mary is responsi ble for the Indian Summer Festival each fall, and I think that she does a remarkable Job. The festival is an enormous amount of work, and yet I've haven't heard Mary complain about her enor mous task even once. She may get frustrated but she doesn't complain. She begins planning the festival months ahead of time. Forming com mittees, planning activities, and scheduling entertainment are only a few of the never ending Jobs that are involved in planning the event. While we are all enjoying the festi val she is still going to be behind the scenes working to make sure every thing goes well over the weekend. The job of planning the festival is one which is extremely tedious, and many don't realise what is really in volved in pulling off the two day event. Co-ordinating all the entertain ment is hard enough. Mary must make sure that the performers show up at the right times, have the right contract if necessary, and fill every spot on the stage schedule with some new and exciting performance. Making sure the food booths offer a variety is also a job, and the craft booths must also be attended to in the planning. Each booth must be differ ent, and if not different not next to each other in the park. The whole festival is a major un dertaking. Try getting a tug o' war and a beauty contest going at the same time. It's tough. Well I, for one, would like to con gradulate Mary and everyone who is working on the festival for doing such a good job. Everything seems to be under con trol, and the festival is shaping up ni cely. I put my order in for good weather, and I am really looking for ward to my first Indian Summer Fes tival. I'll be there with my camera in hand snapping away. THE PERQUIMANS WEEKLY Established In 1932 Published Each Thursday By The Doily Advance, Elizabeth City, N.C. Second Class Postoge Paid at Hertford, N.C. 27944 USPS 428-080 Gina K. Jepson Editor Carol A. O'Neal Debbie T. Stallings Advertising Manager Circulation Manager ONE YEAR MAIL SUBSCRIPTION RATES In-County Out-Of-County *9.00 40.00 119 West Grubb Street ' P.O. Box 277 Hertford, N.C. 27944 Member North Carolina Pross Association National Newspaper Association North Carolina Association of Community Newspapers
The Perquimans Weekly (Hertford, N.C.)
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Sept. 11, 1986, edition 1
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