Newspaper Page Text
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The Houston Home Journal
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Bobby Branch, Presidont-Editor-Publisher SSAHS/VAt
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Official Organ City Os Perry And Houston County, Georgia ”**
MAXINE THOMPSON PHIL EYED JOE MIETT
Associate Editor Spirt* Editor Advertising Mfr M IS
JIMMY CHAPMAN JEANIE JOHNSON JANICE COLWELL
Production Mgr Class Adv. Mgr. Bookkeeper __ T“rgTe>^
EMILY MONTGOMERY DORIS RAPPIELO
Society Editor Computer Opr. ( f )
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"An Award Winning Georgia Weekly Newspaper
PAGE 4-A
Drugs And Parents
(Editor’s note: A reader and friend
of ours, brought the following article
to us and we believe it is well worth
publishing here. The comments are
those made by Judge Alfonso Sepe to
a youth he had sentenced to im
prisonment in Florida for possessing
hallucinogenic drugs. The Judge
made his comments to the youth in
the presence of his grieving parents.
We think the Judge’s words are im
portant and the article worth cutting
out and saving. The Judges com
ments are as follows.)
"Judge Sepe spoke directly to the
youth and said, “Do you know who is
going to serve that year? Not you;
your mother and father will serve
that year.
“That is what’s wrong. THEY get
sentenced. They get sentenced for a
lifetime.
“Your serve a year. Your body is in
the stockade for a year, but their
souls are tormented for a lifetime.
Why? Because you are a selfish,
spoiled boy, that’s why.
"There’s no punishment in the
world that I could inflict upon you that
could in any way compensate for
what you are doing to your mother
and lather. I have not spent five cents
raising you. I didn’t know you from
Adam. But your mother and father
have put their lives, their hearts,
their sweat, their money and
everything else they have into
bringing you up. And now they have to
sit in this courtroom and listen to a
total stranger who had nothing to do
with your upbringing scold you and
put you in jail.
“This is at a time when phony kids
your age are yelling, ‘You adults have
Bus R iding Justices
Piney Woods Pete, appearing on the
front page of The Atlanta Journal
each day. makes interesting reading
and we try not to miss it. Pete usually
voices a conservative point of view
that keeps in close touch with the
average Georgian.
We were especially interested the
other day in Pete’s comments on
Senator Talmadge's suggestion that
Supreme Court Justices should ride to
work in a school bus if they are having
trouble commuting from the suburbs
... Pete had this to say.
ll tOOKWS^
| BACKWARD^
SSSS
5 YEARS AGO • Houston County
Commissioners recommended that a
juvenile court be established for
Houston County, because the case
load of Superior Court Judge Cloud
Morgan has become too burdensome
... Postmaster Lawrence Hunt an
nounced that parcel post delivereis in
Perry will be expanded for five to six
days a week ... Eagle Scout Blake
Smyth, who recently moved with his
family to Perry from Mobile,
Alabama, will attend the World Scout
Jamboree this summer in Idaho. This
is the first time the world-wide scout
meeting has been held in the U.S.
10 YEARS AGO • Houston County
Commissioners last Saturday
reduced the overall tax rate by two
mills, or $2 per SI,OOO valuation ... The
PERRY, GEORGIA, THURSDAY, JULY 20, 1972
your alcohol, we want our drugs; you
have polluted our water and our air,
you have polluted this and that,’ and
all the rest of the garbage that comes
out of your mouths.
“Meanwhile, you put yourselves
above everybody else. I feel sorry for
you.
“I want you to think of this for one
year, and the reason why I say it:
“If you are sick, a doctor will treat
you and he won’t be on drugs. The
lawyer who represents you won’t be
high on drugs, and the people in
whose custody you’ll be won’t be on
drugs.
“Your astronauts are not on drugs,
and your President is not, and your
legislators are not.
“And your engineers who build the
bridges that you drive across and the
tunnels that you drive through are not
on drugs, and those who build the
planes that you fly in and the cars that
you drive are not.
“Neither are those who build the
bathrooms that you stink up with your
lousy, rotten drugs.
“None of them have been on drugs,
and this is because of people like your
mother and father.
“But in the world of the future,”
Sepe went on, “the same may not be
true. Teachers, doctors, lawyers,
legislators - products of the new drug
oriented generation - may well be
high as kites.
“You won’t know whom to send
your child to, or whom to trust your
life to.”
Sepe sighed and closed the case file.
“Let’s see what kind of world you
leave to your children," he said,
“before you talk about the world that
we left to ours.”
"...It'd be a good and educational
thing if the folks who created and
pushed the busing process would have
to endure a little of it first hand.
"Trouble is, the only way this could
be done would be for all of them to
move to where the busing is, the
South.
"Anyway, paying $14,000 a year to
transport a federal employee to and
from work, chief justice or not, means
the poor old taxpayer is being taken
for a ride, again.”
-8.8.
Perry FFA Chapter won first place
Tuesday in the string band contest at
the state FFA convention ... The
chapter also won first place in the
state Farm Safety Awards program
... Families from San Bernardino,
California are coming to Perry and
are unable to find places to rent
20 YEARS AGO - Cooper Etheridge,
editor and publisher of the Houston
Home Journal, is the new president of
the Georgia Press Association. He
had served as vice president last year
... Authorization to spend $9,102,000
for a Naval supply center at Byron,
ten miles north of Perry on U.S. 41,
was part of a multi-billion dollar
military construction bill signed by
President Truman Monday.
SHORT COAT TAILS
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The View From Here
I’ve refrained about as long as I can
from talking about that handsome
young prince, my five month old
grandson Bradley Kent Durham. A
grandmother should be allowed that
privilege once in a while, anyway.
At four months and one week of age,
he suddenly sat bolt upright by
himself, disdaining the pillows a
bunch of over-protective females
piled around to prop him up. When
they were removed and he bent to far
to reach for his toes and toppled over
sideways, he just lay there looking
surprised for a moment, flipped over,
and went round and round on his fat
little tummy inspecting the squares
on the patchwork quilt beneath him.
At that time he weighed 18 pounds.
He enjoyed sitting in his walker but
his feet wouldn’t touch the floor so his
mama, Gaile, took the wheels off. He
immediately stood straight up on his
fat little feet, laughed up at us, and
took off across the bare floor - back
ward! He soon progressed to going
sideways, and only then did we
realize how many things that he
shouldn’t have were within his grasp.
When he was 4Vi months old, his
mama had to take his high chair to
the nursery because Judy, his sitter,
who had been feeding him cereal and
vegetables while he sat still in his
walker, found she had to chase him all
around the room to feed him.
His Uncle Wayne, who had never
seen him, finally got out of the Navy
and came home. These two were
introduced, inspected each other, and
got a mutual approval. Wayne gazed
with awe at such a tiny bit of
humanity with such a strong deter
mination to get his own way, and
Bradley grabbed him by both sides of
his face and didn’t care if he was a
stranger.
Last week Gaile took the young’un
to a Little League baseball game. He
loved every minute of it, ate a snow
cone, drank coke greedily - and yelled
in anger and frustration when they
left. Since he’s the nephew of former
Little League stars Johnny McCarty
and his older brothers, he’ll probably
try his hand at that later, too.
Bradley used to take time to look
Got A Gripe? Got A Grudge?
Got An Opinion? Got A Suggestion?
Tell The Editor.
' -- "►■
Wm ' WBk
into the adoring face of the person
holding him and smile, gurgle, and
drool. (He’s teething.) Now he has
turned into a compact little bundle of
pure energy with very little time to
spend on people. He’s much too busy.
His head swivels constantly; the
longest he ever stays still, except
when he’s asleep, is when he watches
color cartoons on TV on Saturday
morning. He loves them.
When he wants to go outdoors,
which is frequently, he knows he can
con his Aunt Lydia or Aunt Melody
into taking him for a walk. That may
wear thin, though, for he has recently
decided he likes a pre-breakfast
outing.
His daddy, Dennis, will be out of the
Marines on September 1, Gaile and
the babby came back home when he
was transferred from Camp LeJeune,
North Carolina to Norfolk, Virginia
for his last three months in service,
and two sets of grandparents, aunts
and uncles are enjoying having them
home. We’re all waiting for Dennis
now.
It will seem strange - and so good -
to have the whole family together
again after four years. And the family
is growing again - Wayne and his
Lynn will be married on Saturday of
this week.
To finish out this family progress
report, Tm happy to say that Lydia,
who was a Perry High School
graduate this year, is now a member
of the Home Journal staff and likes
her work very much.
And me? Well, I stay so busy I
haven’t had time to do any worrying;
I haven’t been sick; and I don’t guess
I’m any further in debt than the next
person, so I can’t complain. I don’t
feel any older than I did when my
children were the age of little
Bradley; the fact that I look older is
just incidental.
One thing is certain - at this stage in
my life, I feel that life is good and I’m
trying harder to learn to enjoy each
day for itself, one day at a time. For
there is goodness and sweetness in
every day if I just remember to do
like little Bradley does, reach out for
it.
BOBBY TIST
BRANCH
OUT ON A
BRANCH A
AN ANNIVERSARY; It’s no big deal or
anything like that, but next week marks seven
years that my family and I have been a part of
The Home Journal and the community of Perry. It
almost seems as though we have been in Perry all
our lives but it has actually been only 7 short
years.
When I came here, Cooper Etheridge and Byron
Maxwell were owners of The Home Journal and
they looked at me for a long time before taking on
a fresh, young partner from The Hinesville (Ga.)
Sentinel, a newspaper with a total of 3 staff
members (in the front and back shop).
We moved to Perry on a Saturday and I walked
into my new office here on Monday morning.
Little did I know that I had so much to learn and I
had two of the best teachers in the business.
Cooper Etheridge, a long time highly respected
Georgia editor, taught me much about this
business and how to maintain some sanity through
it all. Byron Maxwell, who ran the back shop,
taught me a great deal about the production
aspect of the newspaper and commercial printing
department and how to get ink on my hands and
on just about every shirt I owned.
When I came to Perry from The Sentinel in
Hinesville, The Home Journal was putting out 14
and 16 pages a week. The town had only begun to
show stirring signs of growth. Now we publish 32
pages a week on the average and sometimes 36 or
more.
Almost three years ago, Ogden Persons, Lewis
Meeks and myself bought Cooper Etheridge and
Byron Maxwell’s interest in the newspaper. When
we made this move, we set goals for the future
with a real determination to keep The Home
Journal in pace with the times and growth we
envisioned for the community. This I have tried to
do. We have bought new equipment and hired
more people and expanded our entire operation
and circulation almost two fold.
We are still growing and see great things in the
days and years ahead for Perry. It’s been a
rewarding and sometimes difficult? years ... And
I’m looking forward to the next 7, a little older,
maybe a little wiser but still learning ... Thanks
for the support, encouragement and criticism ...
Keep those cards and letters coming, folks.
PREGNANT LOOKING: We spent a couple of
days at the beach last weekend with some friends.
One of the small fries in the crowd looked me dead
in the eye after a swim at the beach and stated:
“Mr. Branch, you look like you’re pregnant.” ...
That did it. Back to the diet in a most serious
fashion.
WELCOME JACK: We are beginning a new
page in The Home Journal this week, known in the
business, as the opp. ed. page. It is the page op
posite the editorial page and we will carry
editorial, feature items and columns on the page.
The lead column on the page is Jack Anderson’s
‘‘Washington Merry Go Round”, special weekly
column.
I am excited about the Jack Anderson column
and I hope our readers will enjoy each week what
the Pulitzer Prize winning Anderson has to say
about “the evil that lurks in men’s hearts.” To my
knowledge, The Home Journal is the only
newspaper in this area of Middle Georgia now
publishing the nationally syndicated column. We
are proud to welcome Jack Anderson to our opp.
ed. page and we hope you will let us hear your
comments on our new addition to your newspaper.
ANOTHER SURVEY: The following piece from
“Private Practice” magazine came across the
desk this week. It’s another one of those surveys
that folks seem to take on just about every sub
ject. This one is on the subject of “trustworthy
citizens.”
“Doctors are considered the most trustworthy
of citizens by the American people according to a
team of psychologists from the University of
Connecticut who conducted a comprehensive
study of public attitudes toward 20 occupations.
Most people think politicians are more honest
than used car salesmen, but not by much. When it
comes to telling the truth they would sooner
believe a plumber. According to the study, only
used car salesmen, who finished 20th in" the
ratings, ranked lower than politicians in terms of
public trust, while plumbers were listed 12th,
ahead of business executives, Army generals,
television repairmen, newspaper columnists, auto
repairmen and labor union officials. On the basis
of competence and altruism, the politician and
used car salesman also finished at the bottom of
the ratings, the team said. Heading the list were
medical doctors, followed by clergymen, dentists,
judges, psychologists, college professors,
psychiatrists, high school teachers, lawyers and
law enforcement officials.”
READ SOMEWHERE: “The darkest hour in
any man’s life is when he sits down to plan how he
can get money without earning it”