wEnn
If Shelton's Reed Auditorium isn't packed to the rafters
next Thursday night, it won't be for lack of a drawin'g card.
On the stage of that venerable building will be three of
the top young amateur thespians in the state, appearing in
the best high school play produced in Washington this year.
The consistent excellence which has taken Director Dean
Tarrach's Shelton High School Drama Department to state
competition five years in a row, produced a bonanza of
awards last weekend in Pullman. The troupe's performance of
"'Peanuts" was cited as the best play for 1971, Julee Archer
was named the best actress for her role as "Lucy", Dan Nye's
"Snoopy" won the best actor award, and Guy Hodge copped
the best supporting actor title as "Schroeder."
The home folks will have a chance to greet the
prize-winners and see their outstanding production Thursday
night, when Tarrach and his cast present a free performance
of "Peanuts" in Reed Auditorium as a splendid addition to
the Forest Festival celebration.
A standing-room-only crowd is the perfect way to
congratulate the young performers and, especially, Dean
Tarrach, whose dedication, talent and professionalism have
brought top-flight drama to Shelton.
Has rough-and-ready Mason County turned into a refuge
for limp-wristed loggers and little old ladies who look under
the bed each night before they take off their tennis shoes'?
Most of the time it doesn't appear to be, but for the past
several years, during Forest Festival time, a strange trembling
has come over many of its citizens.
Rumors of dark and evil events which are to transpire
during the Festival travel Shelton's streets with the speed of
summer lightning.
Hairy-chested men with bulging biceps cluck like hens on
the street corners, passing on reports that Shelton is about to
be invaded by some ominous force.
ttealthy women who could put a typical male in the
hospital with one amateur karate chop whisper tremuously
about unidentified beasts who are reportedly waiting at the
city limits for the Festival to commence.
The rumors were so prevalent last year that we
investigated several and reported on their falsity.
The most persistent, aside from the unknown invaders,
was that someone was going to put LSD in the hot dogs. No
one seemed to know what hot dogs, which made the rumor a
little hard to run down. We found some lousy hotdogs, but
none thal would send the purchaser on any trip save one to
the bathroom.
~L,~ phone
horse's mouth. I rsons
their stomachs pumped out and one little girl had died after
eating at the carnival.
Our inquiries revealed no LSD, no stomach pumpings, no
dead girl and no invaders unless you can classify
eight-year-olds with charcoal beards, axes and tin pants as
invaders. The Festival, as usual, was a huge success.
Let's forget the rumors and enjoy this year's Festival. A
well-stacked girl on a float is worth two invaders in the brain.
By DAVE AVERILL
Let me call your attention today to the guy whose
hairline begins somewhere at the back of his neck.
In an age of longhairs, his pink scalp is a novelty. He
stands out in a crowd.
Somehow, though, he fails to look downcast at having so
much face to wash and so little hair to comb.
Watch him at a party, and you will discover that the
prettiest girl in the room always wants to sit on his lap. There
is no denying it: The ladies go for bald-headed men.
And now science, which is always meddling in private
matters, provides an explanation.
It is no secret that not all men are created equal. We get
one vote apiece, but in other respects we vary.
Scientists who analyze blood have learned that even our
endocrine systems are unequal. One guy's blood is fairly
surging with hormones. The next guy has tired blood. He
sleeps a lot.
This would be of only passing interest to anyone but an
endocrinologist, but it turns oat there is a quick and simple
way to spot the man with more than his fair share of
hormones.
When he reaches the age of maturity, his hair falls out.
The guy with a limp wrist and a high-pitched voice always
has a full head of hair. His cigar-smoking neighbor, the one
who had to get an unlisted telephone number because he was
getting so many threatening calls from irate husbands, has a
deep voice and a bare scalp.
No wonder the bald-headed one always sits in the front
row at the burlesque show. Girls are his specialty.
No wonder he is surrounded by admiring ladies when he
goes to a party. With their women's intuition, they already
knew what the scientists are just discovering.
Fashionable or not, his gleaming scalp is a testimonial to
the quality of the inner man. Here is a man who never needs
to boast. He carries his own advertisement at the top of his
head.
Now that science has confirmed what he knew all along,
you'll never get the guy to buy a wig.
Every time he takes off his hat, he makes all the other
nlen in the room feel inadequate.
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"It's a questionnaire from our legislator. He wants to know
what he can do to us in the interim."
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By NORMAN COUSINS
For a decade, the Vietnam War and everything
that is part of it have been piling up in the American
subconscious. The effect is unlike anything in our
national experience. It is a war yet not quite a war,
a jumble of horrors and disparities, a part-time thing
that leaves a permanent mark, an ordeal off to one
side that has extinguished no lights in America, has
left our cities untouched, and has shattered
thousands of tiny Asian villages. It is an arena,
committed to the cause of American security, an
arena in which we somehow have all become more
insecure than before, and uncertain of what we once
learned in our history books about the values that
shape us and are supposed to guide us.
And now the Calley case breaks over the nation,
opening a large sluice in the American subconscious.
The result is an outpouring of all the frustrations
and. doubts and remorse that have been
accumulating in the collective soul. People cry out
about Calley, but these are stored-up cries and come
out of deep torment and not just as an isolated
response to the conviction of an American soldier
on charges of killing civilians. The outcry about
Calley is mixed, it would be a tragic absurdity to
expect consensus out of so many omens and
discontinuities. But what is significant is that so
many people should at last be recognizing a direct
connection between themselves and Vietnam.
The official verdict on Calley is guilty. Where
does the guilt begin? Where does it end? It is said
that his superior officers cannot be absolved. There
are many ranks above captain, all the way to the
Commander.in.Chief who is President. But there is
also an ultimate power beyond the Presidency - the
American people themselves. What is the
responsibility of American citizens for having
permitted for so long the I~ihd ,;7 situation that both
produces and transcends Callo9?
The Nuremberg Trials established the principle
that individuals and not governments make war and
must be held accountable for the crimes of war.
Americans a generation ago had no difficulty in
recognizing that the German people themselves
could not be separated from their leaders. Even a
totalitarian government can be made unworkable if
enough people are willing to bet their lives on higher
values. Such, at least, was the essential point many
Americans tried to make about Germans under
Nazism. Are we to say now that it is more difficult
for Americans to affect the policies of their
government than it was for the Germans? The
Germans pleaded not only powerlessness but
ignorance. They said they did not know and had no
way of finding out. The American people have not
been told everything they need to know about the
war. But we know enough. Can we claim we are as
helpless to do anything as the Germans were?
Two key facts about Vietnam are in the open.
The first is that our government says we are in
Vietnam to ensure the principle of
self-determination. Yet the United States, about
fifteen years ago, set aside the popular elections that
were to bring about self.determination in Vietnam
because, as President Eisenhower later wrote, the
wrong side would win. Can it truly be said that the
American people had no way of knowing these facts
- or no way of acting on them?
In a larger sense, we are all guilty. The hand of
every American may not have been on the gun used
by Lieutenant Calley, but neither is our hand totally
absent from the bomb-release buttons in the planes
that pulverize Vietnamese villages. Not only did
Calley know that the people he was killing were
helpless civilians, but he could see their faces. Was
this fact - the fact that he could see their faces -
the prime fact in the case'? Is the tact that the men
in the bombers do not see the thces of civilians they
are killing enough to differentiate them from
Lieutenant Calley? Or does the fact that the men in
the bombers carry out their missions under orders
from their superiors keep them from becoming
criminals?
In this case, what is the responsibility of the
superiors? Do they justify their decisions by saying
that members of the Vietcong were believed to be
operating in those villages? This is like saying the
police are justified in burning down an apartment
house with all its occupants because it may contain
a criminal's hide-out. Or will it be said that the
precedent for bombing civilians was well established
in previous wars? This rationale has no standing
because we are not bombing enemy villages in North
Vietnam. We are bombing villages in South
Vietnam. There is no way of circumventing or
purifying the fact that the bombing of civilians
under the circumstances of the Vietnam War cannot
be absolutely separated from the kinds of questions
being asked in the Calley case. Nor can the
responsibility of the American people be erased or
blurred because we did not know what was
happening, or because, even if we had known, we
could do nothing about it. The American people
knew about the bombing of villages and there was
everything we could have done about it.
Meanwhile, the focus is on Lieutenant Calley
and the verdict of guilty. The verdict cannot be set
aside on the grounds that we are all tied together in
hi~ crime. He represents a specific and particularized
m[nifestation of a morally and legally unacceptable
act. He had an option. He chose to kill civilians. He
cannot be absolved of that act. What is the option
of the American people? Our option is not to allow
false pride to blind us to our individual and
collective responsibility. Lieutenant Calley has
confronted us with questions that no longer can be
buried in the recesses of mind.
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Editor, The Journal:
When reading the May 1971
issue of Reader's Digest I couldn't
believe my eyes. In the section
entitled, "Our Missing Men: Silent
Faces, Somber Facts" was a
picture of a hometown boy I
went through high school with,
Captain Paul L. Graffe, Army,
missing in So. Vietnam since
October 1969.
We had heard Paul was
presumed dead. How tragic to
think Paul and 47 other men from
Washington alone could be
suffering the indignities of a
P.O.W. camp while we sit
comfortably at home, eating good
meals and ignoring our duty to
them.
The Reader's Digest suggests
several
which may
communists more
wish for better
prisoners of war an
an exchange
I have two
home, maybe
will need the
community.
Perhaps my
help but again it
might.
A letter and a
small price to
return could be a
who has paid such a
us at home.
I'd like to
won't you too?
Editor, The Journal:
Speaking about the war
prisoners in Vietnam - the
United States has a great many
ships in mothballs and quite a few
of them could be used to house
our boys who are being held
prisoners in Vietnam.
And 1 believe arrangements
could be made
government or s
government to
and to man these
harbors.
Of course,
would pick up
Prisoners
could be
By ROBERT C. CUMMINGS Those who voted
A Legislature which was the wrath of the
notably reluctant to pass billswant their riglat
sped up its pace during the final restored.
days, but some were passed withSo the
the hope they would be blocked a manner that
before they reached the chance the
Governor's desk. it. Votes for
There was the case of a then soon
boating safety bill which had been at least
introduced by executive request Governor
and was on Gov. Dan Evans' top PolitiealS
priority list. The measure had
been in the House Rules There also
Committee for more than a strategy
month, despite several efforts by tactics. If
the Governor to bring it out. bill acceptable
Then, in the final week of the there was the ’
session, the measure was brought tied up by
out into the calendar and passed,
55-40. The Republican majority
made the move to placate the
Governor, but opponents by then
believed it never could get
through the Senate at that late
date.
They remem
to the "toler
enacted in
Besides
appear on the
5, which ,a
anti-lotterY
Well-Studied Subject constitution.
Many House members were so measures in
sure the bill couldn't get through bingo bill we
the upper chamber during the build up a
time remaining, that they passed a SJR 5.
resolution calling for a study of
the need for boating safety. This
NumerOl
would make boating safety one of
defeated in
the most studied subjects in the
Legislature. Only the cross-Sound only to
passed at a
transportation problem has been a device used
subject of more studies.
to vote ,,yes
Similar boating safety ,,
legislation has been attemptedissue.
unsuccessfully in every session of He
to register
the Legislature since 1961.
The Legislation has been record.
studied by the Legislative He votes
Council, and recommended by second time
that group, on numerous says, he
occasions. But it still is highly done
controversial, and is stronglyalternatives
opposed by responsible boatingafter the
groups, originally.
How rna~
Risky Business nobody
In a similar fashion, the use these
Senate tacked a one-quarter mill reelected
property tax increase onto a bill,
feeling certain the House would
take it off by amendment. The A
purpose of the increase was towent
finance the property reevaluation 120 dayS
program conducted by counties.Evans'
Such operations take certain At the
legislators off the hook with many were
certain constituents, but it is seek reeleC
risky. Some times the other house His politic"
gets carried away and fails to do to close
the expected, weight tc
Gamblers Can't Win number
A slightly different device, measures
but from a similar pattern, was more than
employed on the gambling bill.was tryin$.
This was one of the toughest through
votes in the Legislature. As one But
senator put it: indicated
"No matter how you vote on the future,
this bill, you can't win." For
In the first place, most privately
lawyers in the Legislature were office go
convinced it was unconstitutional, default.
pending approval of a far has
constitutional amendment whichdefender
will be on the next general invasion.
election ballot.' The
In addition, those who voted At th
for the measure were leaving GovernOr
themselves open to charges of what hewi
voting for "wide open" gambling.
...';,
EDITOR AND PUBLISHER ..............
Page 4 - Shelton-Mason County Journal - Thursday, May 13, 1971
