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President Carter will discuss
energy crisis tonight in a
revival of the presidential
fireside chat.
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“Usually folks pick as models
for their lives people who are
just like they are — only more
so.”
It s different in Plains
PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — The hoopla that
followed Jimmy Carter’s rise to the
presidency has turned into headaches
for some of the 683 folks in his home
town.
Even before Carter’s victory in
November, plans were in the works for
the souvenir shops that have been
popping up here like peanuts, which
most of them use for themes.
Boze Godwin, Plains’ mayor pro-tern
and pharmacist, said the constantly
increasing tourist trade has been a boon
professionally, but a bane personally.
“From a business point of view, I’ve
enjoyed it,” he said while taking a
newcomer’s money for a postcard.
“From a personal point of view... well
. . . it’s taken me away from my
family.”
Tourists are everywhere, even on a
gloomy day after a winter storm
dumped two inches of snow on the once
quiet roads around the President’s
home.
The first business a visitor sees when
coining into Plains from Americus, site
of the nearest motel, is a souvenir shop
owned by Peanuts From Plains Inc.
It could be a little cool
around the fireside chat
WASHINGTON (AP) - After 33
years another president who doesn’t
like the name “Fireside Chat” is going
to make one.
When President Carter goes on
television tonight (10 p.m. EST) a lot of
people who used to gather around their
AtwaterKents to listen to Franklin De
lano Roosevelt will be trying to explain
to the TV generation what a fireside
chat is. Or was.
Consider this a primer.
Other presidents have gone on the air
to address the American people
directly. But the fireside chat belonged
to Roosevelt.
He didn’t like the name, which was
DAILY NEWS
Daily Since 1872
Cold rough on roads
Road conditions in Griffin and
Spalding County have been damaged by
freezing temperatures and ice.
Bobby Gatlin, street superintendent
in Griffin, said surface treatment roads
(old roads which have been maintained
but not repaved) have suffered the
worst damage in the city.
“When temperatures get cold
enough, the pavement in these roads
bucks and cracks,” he said.
“We also have a lot of potholes. The
Manager V. H. Thompson said the
agreement setting up the shop was
closed before Carter won the presiden
cy.
Thompson sells sacks of peanuts,
peanut candy, Carter campaign but
tons, maps of Plains and, sometimes,
gasoline. His business is just across
Bond Street from Billy Carter’s service
station — the most written-about,
photographed, two-pump station in the
country.
“We are pumping less gas now than
before he (Carter) was elected,”
Thompson said. By late Tuesday af
ternoon, his business had done 114.88
worth of gasoline sales. The biggest day
since November, he added, was sll2 in
gasoline.
Otherwise, Thompson said, his
tourist-oriented peanut trade was doing
well.
But across the street, at Billy’s
station, cars with out-ofstate license
plates lined up, vaguely reminiscent of
the gasoline shortage of a couple of
years ago. With a fillup, motorists get a
receipt showing they bought gasoline at
a station owned by the brother of the
GRIFFIN
Griffin, Ga., 30223, Wednesday Afternoon, February 2,1977
foisted on his “radio reports to the
nation” by newspapers of the time.
Biographer Robert Sherwood says
Roosevelt thought it was corny.
And FDR himself once declared that
the press would call his talk a fireside
chat, even if it was delivered on the
hottest day of July.
During the 1976 campaign, Carter
often said he planned to resurrect the
fireside chat. But once in office, press
secretary Jody Powell said a search
was on for another phrase.
Roosevelt delivered 26 fireside chats
in 12 years. Each time, the talk dealt
with a single subject, an issue of the
moment he felt needed explanation.
damage has been so extensive that we
haven’t been able to estimate a total.”
He added that though there is a lot of
damage, most of the roads are usable.
To complicate matters, Spalding
Concrete Company, the city’s supplier
of asphalt, is shutdown because of the
natural gas shortage.
“It will be 10 to 14 days before we can
get asphalt to repair the damage to the
roads,” said Gatlin. “Now we’re hoping
to get by until we can get some asphalt
President.
Across Church Street, railroad tracks
and Main Street is the town’s grocery,
but to find a loaf of bread you have to go
to the back of the store — the front has
been taken over by souvenirs.
Other than the obvious — souvenirs,
bus tours and signs — there are other
effects of Carter’s presidency in this
tiny town.
Telephone subscribers now can dial
their own long distance calls. A city
sewer system is nearly complete, and
plans call for it to run out to a yet-to-be
built welcome center at a University of
Georgia agricultural experiment
station just outside of town.
There, Godwin said, tourists will be
able to park their cars and take a
shuttle bus into Plains — easing a
critical parking space problem in the
town.
But other problems still plague
Plains.
“The City Council used to meet once a
month,” Godwin said. “Lately, we’ve
been meeting almost once a week to
tackle the troubles of being the
President’s home town.”
Eight days after he was inaugurated
president, on March 12,1933, Roosevelt
went on the two national radio networks
and told the American people he was
closing the banks in order to save them.
He didn’t say “the only thing we have
to fear is fear itself.” That was in his
inaugural speech.
Carter waited 12 days before his first
chat, but he too has a matter that
demands immediate action and some
sacrifice —the energy crisis. He will be
speaking from a White House library
chilled by his decree to lower
thermostats to 65 degrees, a good place
for a fireside chat.
*»
by driving rocks into the cracks and
potholes,” he said.
“The trouble with that is, when it
rains, cars and trucks kick the rocks
out again,” he added.
Floyd Wilkerson, Spalding County
warden in charge of the county’s roads,
said dirt roads in the county have
suffered the most damage.
“We have been hauling a lot of rock to
fill in holes and washouts,” he said,
“but it’s difficult to work on. When they
thaw, they’re too muddy to work with.
Then they freeze before they dry up.”
“We need about three good days to
catch upon the repairs,” he said.
People
...and things
Dog whose water pan had frozen
avidly lapping from driveway mud
puddle.
Unyielding snow on slate roof at old
administration building on Griffin High
campus.
Student with Valentine’s Day on
mind, looking at outdoor poster near
high school.
Just can’t make it
ATLANTA (AP) — A state appeals
court judge, saying he “did much
better” as a Lafayette lawyer, has
submitted his resignation from the
bench to Gov. George Busbee.
Judge Irwin Stolz Jr. of the Georgia
Court of Appeals, whose resignation is
effective March 1, said Tuesday that
judges’ salaries must be boosted “if the
public wants a sound judicial system.”
Stolz said he has not received a raise
in the last three years and inflation has
reduced his $39,000 salary by almost
onethird.
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President Carter’s fireside chat tonight will revive something that hasn’t been
done for some 33 years. The late President Roosevelt in picture here spoke from
the White House Dec. 9, telling the nation, “We are now in this war...”
Vol. 105 No. 27
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Rock used to patch temporarily.
Cold weather likely
to hike food costs
By LOUISE COOK
Associated Press Writer
The first month of the new year
brought higher grocery prices and
consumers were warned to expect more
of the same in the future due to the cold
wave.
An Associated Press marketbasket
survey showed prices increased during
January for a wide variety of items,
including pork chops, orange juice,
coffee and eggs.
The AP drew up a random list of 15
commonly purchased food and nonfood
items, checked the price at one super
market in each of 13 cities on March 1,
1973, and has rechecked them on or
about the start of each succeeding
month.
The latest survey came in the face of
several discouraging reports. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture said
Monday that prices paid to farmers for
their products went up 1.5 per cent
Weather
ESTIMATED HIGH TODAY 55, low
today 31, high yesterday 43, low
yesterday 23, high tomorrow near 50,
low tonight in low 30s.
FORECAST: Increasing cloudiness
and not as cold tonight. Thursday
mostly cloudy with a chance of rain.
EXTENDED FORECAST: Chance of
rain Friday with fair weather Saturday
and Sunday.
between Dec. 15 and Jan. 15. It was the
second monthly increase in a row.
The USDA report did not reflect
recent damage to crops, particularly in
Florida, because of the below-freezing
temperatures east of the Great Plains.
The government said generally
abundant livestock supplies should hold
down meat prices and help offset higher
fruit and vegetable costs. But a private
economist warned that if the cold
continues through March, the nation’s
food bill could be boosted by $7 billion.
(The Conference Board, a business
research organization, says that
Commerce Department statistics
showed Americans spent $166.4 billion
on food in 1974.)
Consumers shopping at the start of
February found orange juice prices
already were up in some cities, ac
cording to the AP survey, although it
could not be determined whether the
increases were directly linked to the
cold.
