The Charlotte News

Friday, July 3, 1942

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: "Anon, anon! I pray you, remember the porter."

The editorial page today begins with an imaginary conversation of Lord Harry Portal, Minister of Works and Planning, now promoted by P. M. Churchill to a new post, explaining same, with great exultation, to his wife, Lady Portal.

Add that to the quote today from the Bible, and, well, you have an interesting passage which reminds us that yesterday's piece recapitulating the key events of June left out a couple: one having occurred on June 18, which we did actually commemorate, if a little under the rose; the other having occurred on June 13, the founding, by executive order, of the O.S.S.

"Anon, anon! I pray you, remember the porter."

When we were last week in O'Hare awaiting our flight finally after having missed it night before, we were seated on the concourse next to a small boy whose identity we know not. He was talking on the telephone to his young cousin. We couldn't help but overhear his end of the conversation which went, "Knock, Knock," followed by "Boo."

Apparently, his young cousin was a bit hard of hearing, for the small boy repeated it thrice in succession. "Knock, knock." "Boo."

Wethinks we understand.

When we were a wee little one, not so wee as the little boy seated next to us at O'Hare speaking to his little cousin on the telephone, but nevertheless still of the wee sort, we listened a lot, as we have before on occasion mentioned, to the radio, especially in the summer months, as now they are once again--though now we don't listen to the radio.

The radio station to which we were partial in those days used to have lots and lots of giveaway programs and we used to win lots and lots of booty from them, some interesting and some downright silly. (One day we shall tell you of how we came to be the proud possessor of a pair of radio-sunglasses--which we still have somewhere, though we don't listen to them, as we never did.)

During the months of June and July of 1965 and 1966, our favorite radio station had a radio contest by which if one were to guess the correct number of the radio hit of the top 20 of the week which was then extant, which the radio station was next about to cue up on the turntable and broadcast upon the radio waves to be propagated and disseminated over the reddish land, bluish mountains, and grayish sea to the hammer hitting the anvil of every listeners' ears, reverberating unto the pineal gland itself, then one would win a trip to Atlanta to see a well-known musical quartet of the era.

We knew, however, that to trifle with such nonsense as that presented too much of a random chance, mathematically speaking, to have real hope of success, though success we would have liked to have had. And so, we sat out that contest on the sidelines, and merely listened to all the other suckers trying to win.

But, come June 18, 1965, the birthday of one of the quartet's members, the radio station generously provided a special variation on the theme of the contest, by which variation one had to guess the song next to be cued up on the turntable to be broadcast across the fields of wilding grain, green shucks of corn sprouting in the midst of furrowed plenty abounding otherwise with tomatoes, peaches, cabbages, rutabagas, and mad dogs in the truck gardens spotting the summer scape, of which the lead portion of the song was enunciated by the gent whose birthday it was--though it wasn't ours, too.

But, we thought, what nonsense again. For the odds were even worse now than before when merely the contest was to enforce a proper selection by random choice from one of twenty. For the catalogue of songs in which the member of the quartet whose birthday it was had sung the lead part was manifold in its number of leaves. And so we naturally again deferred.

For in our minds, we thought, come early July, we'll have the solution.

And sure enough, come early July, they did that variation on the theme yet again, this time with birthday celebration of another member of the quartet whose lead enunciation in their 1965 catalogue of songs was, by comparison, in paucity--a few less than twenty anyway.

Alas, therefore, we thought, our chance has come and we shall enter the contest this eve when it cometh.

And so we did and actually got through on the telephone, which we were particularly adept at doing, having done so many times already. Whereupon, we guessed a song, but, when cued, the song was all wrong, albeit still northern.

Next hour, however, the next bloke to try the contest, one being limited to one try per eve, also guessed wrong, having guessed the song which had been played the previous hour when we ourselves had also guessed wrong. But the song played then was the song we had guessed the previous hour.

Thus, we calculate, that by one hour's time and one song's difference, we failed to see the quartet live in Atlanta in 1965. We tried again in 1966 and also lost.

We went to Atlanta every summer from 1962 through 1971 in July, and each time stayed about two weeks. Yet, the concerts were scheduled later in July than we were there each of those summers, 1965 and 1966. And so, we had to be content in 1965 to attend a concert in Atlanta of two lesser known groups, yet also well-known, playing together on the same bill, our hermitaged burden of summer listening to the radio earlier in July having not brought fruition as we had hoped.

We also saw Chief Nockahoma on Bat Day. But that wasn't the same either. Though we still have the bat.

So, in any event, happy birthday, whoever you are. Knock, knock.

We suppose that we could prate on today about the letter to the editor on separation of church and state, reducing same to what we have long called living in the absurd hypothetical, that is argument posed by means of the reductio ad absurdissimum, and even accomplished in the present instance of it via some degree of virtuous rhyme. But we have discussed this issue previously in some depth and so won't engage that one today, except to say that the other side of the argument is that having an established state church has led through time to many a silly war and many lives lost to conflict between adherents to religious doctrine recognized officially by the state and those recognizing precepts of another not so recognized.

That, in part, was why, under our First Amendment, the first sentence of it states that there may be no establishment of religion by the state, implying therefore separation of church and state.

Enforced state religion is no religion at all, for it is not the result of personal belief derived from experiential and spiritual data perceived through time but rather that of dictatorial fiat exerted on one by another. It is the same as living in Nazi Germany.

Should you wish to repeal that precept, separation of church and state, then you must repeal the entire First Amendment, for, as Thomas Jefferson saw it, it expresses but one indivisible freedom, thus being set forth as it is in one long sentence, the clauses of which are separated merely by semi-colons for proper punctuation.

We could also discuss at some length the mysteries of Egypt, as suggested by "Early Joy". But, we think that was handled quite well by Herblock on Tuesday, and so we won't bother to try to reconstruct the pyramids or fathom their contents today. Suffice it to say that the Germans and British were quite still engaged in the conflict within the great sandbox of that forty-mile stretch between the Mediterranean and the Qattara Depression at its eastern terminus, El Alamein.

Obviously, as a small boy, Rommel enjoyed his sandbox and now missed same.

He could have done as we did a few summers ago and simply bought an old rusty car and got a cheap sandblaster and had at it. It's all the same once you're under the helmet.

Our old car, however, wasn't green. It was a dull red primer coat over its original Gunmetal Grey, as they called it. So we painted it Starmist Blue.

In Spencer, Tennessee, the best of lemons wouldn't melt, so they put them in the pie, baked from a book by a real drawn guy.