Griffin daily news. (Griffin, Ga.) 1924-current, November 21, 1973, Page Page 21, Image 21

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Funding for the digitization of this title was provided by the 2016 Spalding County SPLOST via the Flint River Regional Library System.

Newspaper Page TextVisit to Arlington cemetery Life, death, president’s grave By Ira Berkow ARLINGTON, VA - (NEA) — I visited the President Kennedy gravesite recently, on a late fall day that was soft and beautiful, a day similar to the one in Chicago on November 22, 10 years ago, when I learned of the We're Gonna Take The Day Off So that all our folks V& ’ can be 7r at home with their families on THANKSGIVING DAY Both Our Stores At 131 East Solomon Street and 1477 Mclntosh Road WILL BE CLOSED TOMORROW!! But Well Be Open Next Day With That Delicious COLONEL SANDERS' RECIPE Kmtadty fried CALL US-COME SEE US. i NATION’S NO. 1 DRUG PROBLEM ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ Based on studies by the Na- ♦ tional Commission on Mari- ♦ juana and Drug Abuse— ♦ ♦ Percentage of people J surveyed reporting ♦ use within past ♦ seven days ♦ Youths Adults ♦ Alcoholic beverages 24% 53% ♦ 'Tobacco, ♦ cigarettes 17% 38% « Proprietary 4 sedatives, J tranquilizers, ♦ stimulants 6% 7% ♦ Marijuana 14% 16% ♦ LSD, other ♦ hallucinogens 4.8% 4.6% J Glue, other ♦ inhalants 6.4% 2.1% ♦ Cocaine 1.5% 3.2% ♦ Heroin 0.6% 1.3% ♦ J Says the Commission: “Alcohol ♦ dependence is without question > the most serious drug prob- ♦ lem in this country today.” ♦ ♦ — 9,000,000 ALCOHOLICS ♦ : AN EPIDEMIC WHICH CANNOT t BE CONTROLLED THROUGH A t MORE WIDESPREAD t DISTRIBUTION ♦ of the ! CAUSE ♦ ♦ ♦ VOTE VO ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ a matter of ♦ : Dollars And Sense ♦ ———— ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ : Statistics From H.E.W. Report anil U.S. News and World Report ♦ ♦ ♦ ; Paid Political Adv. By COPE assassination. It was now late afternoon of a sunny, shirtsleeve day. The small white headstones rolled over the Arlington Na tional Cemetery hills. Each headstone had a shadow. They looked like two sets of pearls, one white, one black, strung endlessly. I saw one young squirrel scratchingly chase another up, down and around a tree; suddenly, playfully, they reversed the chase. On the winding walk up the hill to where President Kennedy is buried, a couple walked in front of me, sometimes crunching underfoot fallen leaves that scampered, like the squirrels, in the mellow breeze. I overheard the girl say ab sently, “What a great day. It’s so good to be alive — not many more days like it. before the snows come.’’ I had never been to the Kennedy gravesite before, even though I had been to Washington many times in the past several years. Tombs and their equivalent hold lit tle fascination for me. And I did not need to visit the cemetery to recall the monstrous day when the President of the United States had his head blown open by a bullet. I think the day scarred all of us who can remember it. regardless of our personal thoughts of the man himself. (1 do wonder, though, about the after-effects on people like those cheerleaders at the Sidney Lanier High School in Montgomery. Ala., who did cheers and cartwheels through the halls when they heard the news that after noon, and of their parents who attended a party at the country club that night.) The President’s murder was at least a desecration of the country’s highest office. Most of us believed that such a thing could never really happen here, that assassina tions occurred in faraway, uncivil places — banana re publics. Other presidents, of course, had been killed in the United States. But they were in dif ferent times, in different places, in effect. McKinley was the last previous presi dent assassinated, over 60 years before President Ken nedy, when the staple of to day, the automobile, had barely been invented. Sixty years for a young country like America may seem like 600 years to its citizens. It did to me. There is no headstone at President Kennedy’s grave. There is a flame set in broad stones; there are also three plaques on the stones. The plaques give the dates for the birth and death of the Presi dent, 1917-1963, and for his unnamed still-born daughter (August 23, 1956), and for a son, Patrick, who lived for one month in the summer of 1963. Patrick’s grave had been moved here from a site in commentary Boston. Only a month before his own death, President Kennedy quietly visited Patrick’s grave. He said to an accompanying friend, Ken O’Donnell, ‘‘The boy seems so alone here.” There was a chill in the air now. Perhaps it was the growing coolness of the day dying in shadows. Perhaps it was the bleak knowledge that I, too, will die and be buried coldly in cold ground. In the end, when one visits the gravesite, the over-riding thought is not that of the death of a President, nor the death of a rich, graceful, youthful John Fitzgerald Kennedy, nor the death of what might have been. The thought is simply of death, the vulnerability and mor tality of man. One thinks not so much of the cruelty of mankind — in the symbol of one man, Lee Harvey Oswald — but of the cruelty and in difference of the gods that permit death. I had similar thoughts looking at other headstones here, headstones that bore the names of the obscurely interred. I had ambivalent feelings about President Kennedy when he was alive. I liked his vig-ah, as he pronounced it in his Harvard brogue. 1 liked his ability to laugh at himself (in front of friends he asked himself during the 1960 Presidential campaign, im personating a reporter, “All right, Horatio Alger, just what makes you think you ought to be President?”). He could publicly admit he was wrong, as he did after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. I did not like his response to ’Army reservists — I was one — who had been called to active duty, in the 1962 Berlin crisis. We were not sent home as soon as the crisis was resolved. The reservists com plained it was unfair. Presi dent Kennedy replied, “Life is unfair.” How terribly, awfully true, as it turned out for him, too. And I thought it silly he man stuff for him to run around in the rain, as photos showed, without wearing a hat. My ideal president was one who had enough sense to come in out of the rain — or at least strike up an umbrella. And he was sup posed to be man with a sense of history! Had he never read of William Henry Harrison, ninth president of the United States? Harrison read his in augural address for one hour and forty-five minutes in a downpour. He too was hat less. He caught cold and died 30 days later. Some thought President Kennedy brought a new ebullience to the nation and that, as James Reston of the New York Times wrote, a promise of better things was killed with him. Despite the broodings and despair from more assassina tions, from racial battles and warfare and political corrup tions in the past 10 years, there remains a lambent flame within us: Could any one doubt on that recent soft, beautiful fall day, now grow ing shadowy and chill, that it surely was a great day to be alive? “Oh look,” said a middle aged woman carrying a small camera, “someone placed a white carnation on the President’s grave.” And nearby, two rascally squir rels went crashing after each other through a clump of dead leaves. (NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN.) CARD OF THANKS The family of little Robert Dwayne Williams would like to thank the many people who was so nice to us during our time of sorrow. To the ones who brought food, sent flowers and cards we say thank you. And for each visit you made our sorrow a little lighter. A special thanks to the staff at the Griffin Spalding County Emergency room, and the ambulance service. Dr. Alex P. Jones, Rev. Charles Robison, Orchard Hill Baptist Church and Pittman Rawls Furneral Home. May God bless each one is our prayer. Mother: Mrs. Nancy Williams Brother: Ray Smith and Grandparents Mr. & Mrs. Ben Clifford FRIDAY MORNING, NOV. 22, 1963 By Ralph Novak A prominent Washington politician, former Senate ma jority secretary Bobby Baker, is embroiled in charges of conflict of interest. A controversy over the sale of American wheat to the Soviet Union is raging. W American officials in South Vietnam profess "a mood of hopefulness and cautious op timism” in the wake of the coup in which South Viet namese President Ngo Dinh Diem died, reports the Wash ington Post. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, returning from a tour of South Vietnam, says the situation there is “encouraging ." Jack Paar fans are looking forward to tonight, when Liberace and a boxer named Cassius Clay will visit Paar's program. Television viewers also can see 77 Sunset Strip, The Farmer's Daughter, Mr. Novak, Dr. Kildare, Burke's Law and The Twilight Zone among the evening's scheduled shows. After- | JSAULS »•*** | SALE ij ~ .a i Ladies’ Ladies’ Boys’ 1 | SHOES Dresses PANTS i g Approximately 100 Prs. One Here ■ One There - Come Early, u/a'’' 8 !! S S Slip-Ons-Ties-Heels They Are Going. Machine Washable « M Odds And Ends s lzes 7To 12 S? S 8 r—™™. Values To $7.00 .X I SOOO SCOO SHOO I i # ■■ # ® L V L § gl “ II II ■■ 1 g I* sooo * sloos I JACKETS Slle U “ POLOS Sale *I M I $ 3; BOYS’ - SIZES 10-12-14 GIRLS’ - SIZES 4 TO 14 / $ I VEST «-*r s aS ll g Winterwear Really Good Buys! | ovi'otc SALVAGE TABLE I B OR I It 1U values To 15 00 t snoo s4oo snoo | I “■ / “ I - j | II —! M—g | ALL SALES FINAL- NO EXCHANGES OR REFUNDS PLEASE | Page 21 — Griffin Daily News Wednesday, November 21, 1973 || B ® 1 I Ss V ■ ■ * - • si The civil rights bill inspired by the new black activism remains bogged down in Con gress, trapped in the House Rules committee The Com mittee s chairman, Rep Howard W Smith (D-Va.) has just announced that he will take his time in processing the bill because “the Supreme Court laid down a law that things should be done with deliberate speed and I'm a law-abiding citizen " mW w KSf v ‘ 7 J*** vi A Prince George's Country, Maryland, teen-ager, has just been found dead, apparently as a result of sniffing glue. John Nance Garner, twice U.S. vice president, is celebrating his 95th birthday. Ground beef is selling for 49 cents a pound, sirloin steak for $1.09 a pound in an Anchorage, Alaska Washing ton supermarket. The Boston Celtics, led by Bill Russell, and the Los Angeles Lakers, led by Elgin Baylor and Jerry West, lead the two divisions of the Na tional Basketball Association. But a poll of the nation's sports editors has shown that baseball is still Americas number one sport, far ahead of pro football. Though there are rumors that he will be drafted for the presidential nomination at the 1964 Republican convention, attorney Richard M. Nixon says he "cannot conceive of circumstances under which that would happen.” While Nixon is working on business for a soft drink company client, however, New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller is entering the Pennsylvania 1964 presidential primary. IBBWB • • • ■ ■ Mb rr llm The stock market is setting out to recover from a poor Thursday that saw the Dow- Jones industrial average drop nearly 10 points, to 732.65. The United States and the Soviet Union are in the midst of bitter argument over inci dents on the Berlin autobahn, and Soviet premier Nikita Hr ' -M#nß Ofc? . 4? Khrushchev is in a blustering mood. Congress is voting to raise the national debt ceiling to $315 billion. People planning to take in a movie are choosing among such films as "The Wheeler Dealers,” “Take Her, She’s Mine," “Lawrence of Arabia,” "Under the Yum-Yum Tree," and “How the West Was Won." Weather reports predict a mild day in Honolulu, with a high in the low 80s. In Fair banks, Alaska, it is 30 degrees below zero and sun ny. In Little Rock, the tem perature is in the high 60s and it is raining. In Dallas, skies are clearing from an overnight drizzle and it will be a warm, bright day, perfect weather for President Kennedy's motorcade through the city in the early afternoon. (NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN.)

Georgia Historic Newspapers

Griffin daily news. (Griffin, Ga.) 1924-current, November 21, 1973, Page Page 21, Image 21