Caldwell Watchman from Columbia, Louisiana • 4

PAGE 4 WEDNESDAY, March 30, 1994, THE CALDWELL WATCHMAN Opinions Caldwell Watchman MfiMltoW.W ltlIHllhlll" L- Ole Doc The Pen, Or The Sword! By Dr. Wren Causey Tripping i jS Letters to the Editor The Caldwell Watchman-Progress our yard. That live oak tree, standing so tall and proud in front of my mother's home, will always portray his life. My dad nurtured and loved his family with tender loving care-just like he took care of his tree. One day I will plant an acorn from my dad's tree on my own property and give it the same tender loving care that dad gave to his tree.

I miss you, Dad. You were a great man. I loved and admired you so. Your tree is doing fine. Tripping is a great experience.

One expression I remember as a boy, somebody had been tripping the light fantastic. Have you ever heard of that. It means some old boy dancing joyfully with some lovely from whom he had smelled the power. That means they were courting. Some of you who read this may be old like I and can no longer see why anybody with any sense at all would enjoy whirling around an a cold floor on legs that are so weak and hurt so bad.

Well ya may not do it now, but can't ya have precious memories. Memories can keep ya worn on a frosty morning especially if you are drinking your coffee with someone ya love or think agreat deal of. Tripping too brings back other memories too like when as a child and running along beside another you wanted to play a trick on him or her so you could get to the finish live first and beat them, you stuck your foot between that persons feet and tripped them. That sort of tripping often brought on unexpected repercussions and could cause blue eyes to become black real quick. What a dreadful turn of events never dreamed of, but such things do happen.

If ya don't believe it, just watch children as they play and try to out do each other. Still another favorite tripping of mine is to go and see somebody ya love and why is a great cook. Or maybe taking that special person or persons out to eat or go with them to see some of natures great and wonderful places. I am thinking of when I was in the service of the US of A and went from Baton Rouge, La, to Fort Douglas, Utah, to Fort Old, California, to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, to Carlyle Barracks, Pa; to Fort Lewis, Washington; to Japan and back to Oakland, California where Uncle Sam said "You can now go home and go to work to support me, your Uncle Sam, and I have been doing that for nearly 50 yrs. While Tripping about I have seen oceans glaciers, mountains, whales, trees hundreds of years old and one tree was so big in California a hole was cut through it big enough to drive a car through; too there were elephants, eagles, whales, snakes, bears, lions, zebras, who are just sport modeled jackasses, grapes, watermelons, cotton, corn, okra, and speaking of okra, I knew one fellow who would not eat build okra or row oysters for he never wanted anything in his mouth that he didn't know when it left.

If you have trouble with that one, come by and I will explain it to ya. To tripping I have seem great cities, waterfalls, rivers lakes and ponds with people relaxing and fishing. Fishing is another great experience for out of it grow just tales each person telling these tales has to better the one he has just heard like the story about fishing I once heard where one fisherman said, "I guess you were catching whales." The other liar said, "No we were baiting with whales." Well I have finally grown sleepy tripping so better trip back to bed and dream in techni color. Have you ever dreamed in techinicolor. Try it.

It is more fun than black and white. So long. To the Editor: I wanted to send you a copy of this story that I wrote about my father and his tree. My father, Wilson Miller Gordy, was a long time resident of Grayson. His birthday was on March 21.

If you decide to print this story please print it on his birthday week, if possible. I graduated from Caldwell High in 1968. I attended Louisiana Tech for two years. I married an Air Force Officer and traveled the world. I am now divorced and live in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

Thank you for taking time to read this letter. Sincerely, Reta Gordy Rohling A Live Oak Tree I remember as a child my dad admiring the live oak trees at the old courthouse in Columbia, Louisiana. These oak trees were beautiful, all lined up in front of this stately old building. One day while my dad and I were visiting the courthouse my dad picked up a hand full of acorns and said to me, "Well plant our own live oak tree." Dad planted one acorn in a little pot and it grew. He transplanted the small tree to my mother's flower bed.

My mother complained that the tree was getting to large for her flower bed, so dad transplanted the tree to the yard. He put protective wire around it and fertilized it regularly. As the tree grew taller, it got tangled up in a nearby pine tree. My father, against my mother's pleading to get out of the tree, climbed up to the top of that pine tree and cut it down, a section at a time. The tree spread out its limbs and grew tall.

Dad was so proud of his tree and the beauty that it brought to Dear Editor: I am a lover of history and I have a somewhat unusual hobby. I collect old tokens used by stores, barber shops, pool halls, bakeries, saloons, forts and other businesses years ago. The tokens were "good for" 5 cents, 10 cents, 12 12 cents or such in trade or merchandise or "good for" a loaf of bread, one drink, one shave one ride or whatever. They were usually made of metal and while having the general appearance of a coin, they were made in all shapes and sizes. I am hoping that if you have a "Letter to the Editor" section or such in your paper that you might mention my search.

I have reason to believe that some of these tokens were used in your area and I would be most interested in obtaining some of them for my collection. I would like to hear from anyone having one or more of these tokens or from anyone that might be able to help me. My address is Travis Roberts, Box 1168, Bellaire, Texas 77402. Thank you kindly in advance and best wishes. Travis Roberts By Robert Walters Nation no longer resembles republic Wc need only to cut through the rhetorical fog and decide once and for all whether we wish to complete the conversion of American from the Republic it once was to a full fledged socialist system.

We no longer resemble the republic created by our founders. We went from a republic to a democracy, from a democracy to a welfare state, then to a quasi socialist society where about seventy per cent of the system is socialist. Clinton's program is socialist! Every idea he espouses every civil law he proposes has it's basis in socialism. Despite the fact that the Soviet Union and all of Eastern Europe are struggling to free themselves from the self imposed slavery of socialism, we nevertheless seem to be determined to sink ourselves deeper into the same Quagmire. The proposed Health Care Bill will capture another fifteen per cent of our national production and put it under the control of the national government.

The states will merely be agents of the fed and the attendance bureaucracy (now that the Soviet Union is defunct) will be the largest in the world. Health premiums will actually be a tax. It will be the largest tax increase in the history of the entire world! This tax, like all other taxes will be mandatory, failure to pay your Health Care Tax will be treated exactly like the failure to pay your other taxes. Your home, your property, your wages, and any other assets are subject to seizure for failure to pay your Health Insurance Tax. Like Social Security, you will pay! I have often admonished my readers that socialism is slavery; I think fewer people will disagree after Clinton's term.

Several years ago, C. Ellen Shaffer, wrote a masterpiece. Here is an excerpt: "If a man or group of men can force me to act against my will and against my conscience, then I am a slave! If my liberties are controlled, regulated, or sold to me they are not liberties at all: merely privileges. If a person or many persons can command a specific performance from me without paying me for my services, then I am a slave. My status as a slave does not depend on what kind of master I have.

My status as a slave arises out of my belief that I am under the absolute control of someone else. Today most Americans would rush out to buy a walking license if some government agfi'i demanded it. If their masters demanded they buy a permit to mow their lawn most would comply. This belief that they are under the complete control of another makes them slaves! It matters not that the masters have not yet demanded such a permit; what makes them slaves is the fact that they would comply if ordered to do so. This slavery is self imposed, for rape is not rape if there is no struggle.

They go meekly into the chains of slavery while listening to some dipstick with his collar turned backwards murmuring, "render unto It was quite a feat to turn the posterity of freedom loving men into snivling cowards who welcome slavery over the animating contests for liberty and responsibility for themselves. The posterity of free patriots now proclaim themselves to be not free; but freer! They will still be shouting it from the dungeons and from behind the barbed wire. They will still claim that somewhere there are others with even less freedom than they. Government already controls all business in America via the tax code and regulatory agencies such as never dreamed of by the founders. They control all commerce and currency circulation.

They destroy all incentives for success because success means less dependence on government. Only the dependent are slaves, therefore every effort must be made to promote dependence and destroy individual initiative. By taking over the health care system they are about to get in the business of deciding who lives and who dies. Who's expected quality of life after surgery is sufficient to justify the expense of the operation? You might very well find yourself being evaluated by some bureaucrat who's job it is to decide whether to authorize treatment for your cancer or to allow you to die. Almighty government has the situation well in hand! The Gender issue has basis here Ole Doc P.S.

We are so blessed, aren't we? By WILLIAM RASPBERRY WASHINGTON Thank heaven it's not a public school, or St. Stephen's and St. Agnes would be in trouble. No, the private Episcopal school in Alexandria, is not over charging kids, or abusing them, or oppressing the. It's educating them very well indeed.

But it is doing so by (among other things) operating single-sex classroomB for math and science in sixth, seventh and eighth grades. The rationale for this gender separation is the well-documented fact 5that, in math and science, girls tend not to do as well as boys Oof equal intelligence. Whether the difference ia the result of nature or merely of socialization, of male-oriented teaching styles or of lowered self-esteem for girls, the result often is that girls have their subsequent academic and career choices curtailed. I've heard all manner of explanations: that girls learn more efficiently by listening, boys by mental and physical manipulation; that girls deliberately underperform (in mixed settings) to avoid the social cost of being as good as the boys; that teachers inadvertently, of course, pay more attention to boys than to girls; that girls prefer cooperative learning, while boys turn learning and everything else into a competition. Some of the explanations may not be true.

This is: If the St. Stephen's and St. Agnes experiment were taking place in a public school, somebody would be out to stop it. They just stopped one in Philadelphia, where John Coats, a teacher at Stanton Elementary School, had initiated a model five-year program for a group of 20 first-grade boys who had had learning problems in kindergarten. The program was working 00 indeed was the subject of a documentary, I Am a Promise," that reportedly is up for an Oscar.

Nine of these erstwhile slow-learning boys made the honor roll. But the program is dead now. The American Civil Liberties Union threatened to file a lawsuit against it on the ground that boys-only classes are unconstitutional, and the school district folded. (See Gender, page 5) We Welcome All Letters Editor's Corner By Susan Gartman The CddivdCatcfiman-Trogress Official Journal of Caldwell Parish The Caldwell Watchman-Progress is published each Wednesday in Caldwell Parish North Louisiana Publishing Company, 215 Kentucky Street, P.O. Box 1269, Columbia, Louisiana 71418.

Second class postage paid at Columbia, Louisiana 71418 U.S. Post Office under Act of 1897. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Caldwell Watchman-Progress P.O. Box 1269 Columbia, Louisiana 71418 (USPS) 082-92 Terry Stockton Regional General Manager Susan Editor Tammy Nugent Office Manager SUBSCRIPTION to Sales Tax) Caldwell Parish $10.00 Outside Caldwell Parish $13.00 Out-of-State $18.00 The Caldwell Watchman-Progress is the official Journal for Caldwell Parish and is a member of the Louisiana Press Association. of so many that went far above and beyond the call of duty to make this event so wonderful.

As a few of us stood in the building late Friday night, after all was said and done, we were tired but elated and so proud of what had just taken place. Approximately 30 people viewed the exhibit Saturday and all marveled at the restoration of the building, A group of four residents from Monroe, who had come to walk through the town were amazed at all that was going on in Columbia and assured us that they were not only going to spread the word about our little hamlet, on the Ouachita but were going to return soon themselves. Not much more needs to be said about Friday nights gala marking the grand opening of the newly restored Schepis Building and Museum. After many months and a few frantic daya last week, a dream of many has been realized. It is not often that one gets to participate in preserving a part of history for those to follow.

Seeing the town adorned in flags, Marines in uniform, hearing the Marine Corps Band and noting the large crowd in attendance made me proud. Proud not only of our heritage but of our community and the many residents that pulled together to make this event a reality. Many many thank yous are due for the efforts.