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Home Journal Opinions
PERRY, HOUSTON COUNTY, GA. 31069, THURSDAY, JULY 9, 1970
We feel compelled to comment ever
so often on the shortage of doctors in
Perry.
Perry is growing as rapidly as any
other community of this size in the
state and we expect a jump in popu
lation when the new Pabst Brewery
opens in a couple of months. We need
more doctors. Everybody knows that,
even the doctors who are here now.
We know of several efforts that
have been made in the last year to
attract doctors to our community and
we know that efforts are even now
Our hats are off to all those law
enforcement agencies that did such an
outstanding job the past few days try
ing to control the unreal traffic and
people jams at the Rock Festival site
near Byron.
State and local law officers were
confronted with the most difficult task
imaginable when nearly a half million
rock fans and curious on-lookers came
into the Byron area over the weekend
to the festival.
Besides the traffic and people prob
lem, officers had to contend with kids
who had taken over doses of drugs
and countless other problems caused
by such a large gathering of people.
Some officers had to search the mass
of people looking for run-a-way teen
agers whose parents had reported
them missing. Some were found Some
We think the City has done an ex
cellent job in controlling gnats and
mosquitos this summer.
The idea of spraying the city for the
insects from the air has evidently
helped to keep the pesky bugs at the
lowest level in recent years.
We have been expecting the annual
gnat invasion for the past two months
and we are grateful the tiny critters
have not broken through into Perry.
We were pleased to see figures re
leased by the Georgia State Chamber
of Commerce last week that shows re
tail sales in Houston County up by
some 27.2 percent for the first quarter
of 1970 over the same period a year
ago.
Such growth in retail sales makes
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SUPPORT PERRY
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HAPPENED I
JfajgX, WAY BACK WHEN.. I
From Our Newspaper Files Os The Past I
5 YEARS AGO -
Police Chief B. E. Dennard reported
quiet July 4 holidays with only two
fender-bendings in the city and no one
injured . . . Thomas 1. Storey, recent
graduate of the Southern Baptist Theo
logical Seminary with a master of church
music and education at the First Baptist
Church . . . Houston County School Supt.
Davis A. Perdue told the Houston County
Commissioners Tuesday that the new
Board of Education Building will be
completed aboyt August 15 ... At the
meeting of the Perry Kiwanis Club, a
demonstration of direct dialing was
presented, featuring a talk with Senator
Herman Talmadge.
10 YEARS AGO -
Mayor and Council of Perry voted to
establish the Perry Planning Commission
to begin a program of planning and zoning
of this rapidly expanding town of 6,000
i. . . Mrs. Aurelia C. Evans, of the
Houston County Welfare Dept., receives
congratulations as the new president of
the Georgia County Welfare Directors
More on Doctor Shortage
Law Officers and the Festival
City Has Kept Bugs Away
Business is Good in Houston
underway to secure doctors or another
doctor to Perry.
It is our opinion that efforts can
be made more extensive to get more
doctors into Perry. All of our doctors
in Perry are extremely dedicated and
hard working men in their profession.
But we need more of them ... we
need them soon. We would like to see
efforts stepped up along these lines
and do whatever is necessary to get
Perry some additional doctors . . .or
mst one more doctor.
—B. B.
were not.
Drugs of all kinds were common
place at the festival and law officers
did what thev could to control the
drug problem. The simple fact is that
there was just not enough officers
available to do much about the count
less drugs that were floating around
among the kids.
Middle Georgia (hopefully) will not
see the likes of the weekend’s rock
festival again. It created so many
problems that to list them all would
stagger the imagination. We are thank
ful the event is over and that there
was no more trouble than what we
had. It could have been worse. . . .
Now comes the clean up. What a job
that’s going to be. . . . Bye, rock fans.
—B. B.
In past years, new residents have said
that the only thing they didn’t like
about Perry was the gnats.
We are not sure whether the gnats
just didn’t show up this season or the
city’s flying bug killer has kept them
away. We like to think it’s the air
plane sprayer that has made this sum
mer the nicest in several years for
backyard barbecues and more time
outdoors.
—B. B.
us all aware of just how rapidly Hous
ton County is growing. Houston Coun
ty and the Middle Georgia area is
“where the action is” in economic, in
dustrial and residential growth.
The upsurge in retail sales for the
first quarter puts Houston 15th among
the 159 counties in the state.
—B. B.
Association . . . Larry Ellison sold
enough Home Journal subscriptions to be
the first boy winner of a bike . . . New
Houston County Hospital, million dollar
facility, to begin receiving patients . . .
Centerville’s $115,000 water system
completed, now serving 140 customers.
20 YEARS AGO -
Dr. Felix M. Smith, graduate of the
University of Georgia, has opened an
office for the practice of veterinary
medicine in Perry. Dr. Smith, who was a
B-24 pilot in the Bth Airforce in World
War 11, is a former resident of Cordele
... A large group of Houston Countians
are taking swimming lessons at Vinson’s
Valley this week under the instruction of
Red Cross personnel . . . Good Showers
in several sections of Houston County
Sunday brought much-needed relief to
badly parched crops, but more rain is
badly needed, local farmers say . . .
Members of Perry Boy Scout Troop 96
won the placque for the best “Scouting
Spirit’’ at Camp Benjamin Hawkins at
Byron last week.
When Will Perry Get More Doctors?
<cJ\l\axins. *U/iomfiion
■L** j^BF'
"A Rose By Any Other”
- *
U was bad enough being named Harper
back in the days when only the villians in
Western movies were using the name until
Haul Newman came along and gave the
name some aspects of glamour. Now all
illusions of glamour concerning my first
name have been swept away by three little
words on a menu.
If anybody had called me on the phone
and told me about it, or walked in here
with such a story, I would have figured
they were just putting me on. But 1 sat
there at a table and looked at the menu
with my own two green eyes and in a
square at the bottom of the left side it
said, “ONION RINGS MAXINE.”
Now, how would you like to have your
name linked with onions? Such mundane,
ordinary, pungent little vegetables that
make you cry when you cut them, leave
you with smelly hands after handling them,
and a smelly breath after eating them?
What do they use for a bad examble when
they’re trying to sell breath purifiers?
Onions, that’s what.
Curiosity got the upper hand and we
ordered the things. Turned out to be one
crosswise slice from a huge onion, french
fried and somehow kept together in that
big slice. They were tender, delicate,
delicious. (Hmmm- in view of those last
three words, maybe the use of the name is
appropriate, after all! Ouch! Who threw
that rock?)
1 can’t really feel insulted, since I’m
so crazy about onions I smother hot dogs
and hamburgers with them, throw them in
my tossed salad, cram the meat loaf and
salmon croquettes full (have to divide
them up with non-onion-eaters in the
house), and even chop them up in a plate
full of blackeyed peas. Guess who keeps
the breath-purifier folks in business
single handedly?
As far as the glamour of the name is
concerned, I guess 1 ruined it at home
We think the Houston County Rec
reation Department is doing a good
job in Perry this summer. This is the
first time the recreation department
has moved into Perry and offered
their many programs to youngsters
here as well as adults.
We know that many youngsters in
this community would not have had
any organized sports this summer ii
it had not been for the recreation de
partment’s programs. The recreation
people have youngsters all over Perry
participating in several leagues of
baseball and other sporting events.
They have also attracted many par
Recreation Dept. Doing Fine Job
pretty early. Mother named me Maxine
because when she was a child she knew
a girl by that name who was older but was
very beautiful, sweet and kind, and made
such an impression that Mother vowed to
name her first daughter for her. Poor
Mother! what a shock she was in for. At
about the age of two, her little Maxine
had temper tantrums and got down and beat
her hard little head on the floor until it had
knots on it. It took a lot of beating on
the other end to stop that, and she and
Daddy said I screamed so loud every time
they approached me with a switch or an
open palm that they were afraid they
would be accused of trying to murder me.
Grandma and Grandpa Harper lived on
a farm, so one time my folks took me out
there to spend the week-end in the coun
try but made the mistake of telling them
they had brought me out there to tame me
where nobody could hear.
“The very idea! You’ll do no such
thing!” said my horrified Grandma. (She
latter had good cause to regret restraining
them, for I distinctly remember the only
spanking she ever gave me when I was
about four years old.) A picture of me
at about that age shows a rather chubby,
defiant little blonde with one clenched
fist resting on a hip.
My folks somehow accomplished a
miracle, however, by not giving up or
giving out of switches, and it was a very
docile little girl who entered the first
grade at the age of six. Only under the
direst provocation does the dormant
temper ever rise to the surface, but I
know it’s still there. Knowing it, and
knowing myself, helps to keep it under
control.
That’s why I didn’t do more than lift
one eyebrow when 1 read “ONION RINGS
MAXINE.” 1 just kept my mouth shut and
enjoyed the scrumptious things.
ents into the program and the enthusi
asm has been all the recreation of
ficials could have asked for.
We think it is a good idea to give
youngsters something to do in the long
summer months when many of them
normally would be idle.
We know that public recreation is
frowned upon by some in Perry and
the City Council of Perry voted not
to participate in the County program.
We think some attitudes may change
after the very evident success of the
recreation program in Perry this sum
mer.
—B. B.
Branch
It was Saturday morning, July 4, about 9 o’clock
People were everywhere. They were in tents, cars
trucks, ditches and any place they could find a
piece of ground to stand or lie on.
One guy who was high on hashish (a form of
marijuana) was riding a Honda up and down a nar
row dirt road that ran between two rows of pecan
trees and he was shouting “Hey, man, I’m one of
the Hell’s Angels and I’m here, man, I’m really
here.” J
They were really there, too. Somewhere around
300,000 of them. There were many that were real
Hippies and some that said they weren’t Hippies.
I don’t know what they were. There was motorcycle
gangs that were made up of some of the toughest )))
people I’v ever seen. They came in all age groups.
Some were 14 or 15. Some were 25 or 30. There
was also some 2 and 3 years old and some even
younger wandering around in dirty clothes— most
of them crying.
They were all there at the now famous Byron
Rock Festival. They said they came to see and hear
the rock singers but many came to join in on the
“Hippie Life Style.”
A 17 year old boy from Newport News, Virginia,
was taking a long slow drag off a pipe filled with
pot. He sucked on the end of the pipe and held the
smoke in his lungs as long as he could hold his
breath. He later told me that by doing that a pot
smoker gets more out of a drag than just exhaling
the smoke right away like a cigaret.
“You ever use any hard urugs?” the 17 year
old was asked.
“No, man, I wouldn’t touch that stuff but I’ve
seen some of it around here,” he said. “There was
this one guy I saw last night that was shooting
up with some pony right out there in the crowd
while the music was playing,” he said. (Pony is
slang for heroine and shooting up means taking a
shot in the arm with a needle.)
I asked the boy from Virginia if drugs were
easy to buy at the festival and if there was an
abundant supply.
“Yeah, man, there are all kinda drugs here,” he
told me. “Pot is the cheapest here I’ve ever seen
it anywhere and I’m thinking about buying up
some and taking it back home to sell ... I mean, .»|
you know, man, it’s really that cheap,” he said. *
In another area of one of the campgrounds,
about a hundred boys and girs were lined up at
a string of open air showers wating their turn to
try and cool off in the 100 degree plus tempera
tures. Some were clothed, some were partially
clothed and some were completely nude. Nobody
really took notice of the people standing there in
the nude. It just seemed to be a natural thing to
them and both boys and girls walked past each
other in the showers seemingly without noticing
one another’s nudity.
“When is the big fun time going to end for all
of you?” I asked a bearded, long-haired boy of
about 18.
“Look, dude, I don’t give a about finishing
college and going out to mork my off in that
world out there,” he said in a very calm and
direct tone of voice. “What I mean is that I don’t
care about any of those things right now, man. I
might later when I don’t have a choice but right
now I’m enjoying my thing like this festival here.
... Do you groove what I’m saying, man?”
The time is coming when the 18 year olds will
have to take a serious look at this society and take
their place in it. There’s a lot of 18 and 19 year old
kids who will do just that. I’m not really that con
cerned about it. There’s a lot of them in Vietnam
and other places “doing their thing” right now.
There’s a lot of them in colleges and universities
“doing the.r thing” by attending classes and mak
ing good grades. . . . The 300,000 here over the
weekend are just a few of the youngsters. . . .
We’ve got plenty more who are capable and willing |
to to “do their thing” for America, their state and "
their community.
I hate to see all the young people tagged along
with those who infested the woods and pecan
groves at Byron over the weekend. I’v got confi
dence in the majority of the young folk. . . . Just
look around right here in Perry and you’ll see
what I mean.
“Perry’s Hometown, Community Newspaper
For The Past 100 Years”
The Houston Home Journal
BOBBY BRANCH President-Editor-Publisher
MAXINE THOMPSON Associate Editor
BOBBY HOLLIS Advertising Manager
WOFFORD SIN YARD Production Manager
Published Every Thursday By
THE HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL, tNC.
G. OGDEN PERSONS, Vice President
LEWIS M. MEEKS, Secretary-Treasurer
(.
Entered at the Perry, Georgia Post Office, 31069
As Second Class Mail Matter