The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 102

In how niaiiv ways can von lell a son von are 1 'JT: 1 1 I U- ten All Is Gone But The Memories HP? YTTtfM fflm 2r 'i 1 A The author of this article has written four books, a television play and almost 2,000 articles for leading publications in the United States and abroad. But this article carries no byline because it is an expression of a mother's love for her son, and her family's love for their country. It is an intensely personal revelation of deep emotions, shattered dreams and enduring faith. We think readers will find in this article a viewpoint, unique in many ways, about the feelings of an American family in a time of war and national I had thought a thousand times what we would say to Buddy when he returned home. How many ways can you tell a son you are sorry? For days I had rehearsed what we would say to him.

Myriads of thoughts and emotions were teeming in my brain, but I could not search them out, separate them, put them into words. And now he was home. FAMILY AND friends who met him at the airport and others who thronged to see him this first evening were gone now. Tomorrow the house would be filled with acquaintances and relatives again; there would be no time to reflect, to think of an explanation, to humbly lay my apologies at his feet. The room was still as I slipped in.

He was asleep. I tiptoed over to look at him again. My stomach constricted at the gauntness of his young face as it had constricted when I first saw him that afternoon. A great surge of maternal love rocked my body. My arms ached to sweep him to my breast as I had done when he was a baby, rock him, comfort him, pour out my love, my apologies.

Most of all, to pour out my apologies. But I knew I must not. I HEARD quiet footsteps behind me and felt my husband's arms about my shoulders. As we looked down at our only son's exhausted young face, a montage of his childhood scenes unfolded before my eyes He was a quiet child, asking little, playing happily on the soft grass under the crooning pines, feeling a special kinship with the land and its creatures. Knowing nothing of killing, blood and torture, he taught the chattering squirrels to come to him and eat bread from his hands.

The birds sang joyous songs for him alone, the farm animals crowded about him, vying for his pat of attention and special tidbit. HE CAKEFULLY weeded and hoed the crooked rows of his own garden, pride glowing softly in his brown eyes as he laid the products of his sweat and toil before us. With a quiet love bordering bn reverence, he gloried in the deep snows of Winter, Autumn's bright harvest, the warm breath of Spring smelling of violets deep in the woods, fresh rain, gurgling brooks. We taught him to love and respect the country that nourished him. When other parents took their children to Disneyland, we took him to see the Freedom Train.

We wanted him to see the documents of his nation's birth, to appreciate the hardships, blood and tears shed in bringing about this great country. HIS DADDY spent long hours with him in Boy Scouts, building up his mind and body, teaching him service to God and country and duty to all human beings. We urged him to make good use of his free hours, to take advantage of America's free enterprise system, to accept individual responsibility, to stand on his own sturdy feet. He learned his lessons well. He worked his way through college with after-scho'ol and weekend jobs.

We cheered him on when he engaged in baseball games, swimming and bowling, not burning down buildings, not calling our law enforcement officers "pigs," or his teachers vile and obscene names. We applauded when he ignored the long-haired insurrectionists, the draft dodgers, the parasites of society as he plodded determinedly toward his goal. We trained Buddy in the philosophy that to enjoy a country's freedoms one must accept its responsibilities. He never questioned it. He took for granted, as we did, that it was his inherent duty to serve his required time in the armed services, to go where he was sent, as his Daddy had done before him.

HE HAD marched off to service that morning much as he had marched off another morning, only a few short years before, to kindergarten eyes straight ahead, going with courage and trust into a world totally unknown to him. We stood smiling in the doorway as we bade him a brave farewell, saluting his great strength, much greater than our own now. He looked back only once, a last unguarded, longing, little-boy look, before he turned the last corner I clasped my husband's hand. He stared straight ahead now, eyes dark with memories. HE NO DOUBT was remembering, as I was, the night Buddy called to tell us he had received his overseas orders.

His pitifully young voice, still gallant with hope and trust, cracked only once. He had hesitated a second before he spoke the word that edged every parent's heart with ice Vietnam. But his country had pledged itself. The gnal, we were told: freedom and democracy for the people of South Vietnam. Buddy was not reared to bewail his lot in life.

When he fell off his first bicycle, we encouraged him to get up, brush himself off without complaining and keep trying until he mastered the skill. If he had been given more than his fair share of a load, or treated in a way that was unfair, we pointed out that it was the knocks we get that we don't deserve that build strong moral fiber. He took us at our word. "You'd never believe how long it took us to get over here," was all he wrote about the long, fearful journey See HORROR, Page 6 John S. Knight's first bout with the flu.

Page E-2. President Nixon's right hand man. Page E-3. Old Farmer's Almanac. Page E-4.

A return to medieval diplomacy. Page E-4. Lively Arts: Faces of glamor in Hollywood. Page E-12. i 1 It 4 BHJ v.

Akron Beacon-Journal Sunday, February 13, 1972 SECTION Emerging In Pacific A Tiny New Nation ti I HAWAIIAN ISLANDS 0 it Ey-': I jZEALAND By LACY McCRARY Beacon Journal Staff Writer COLUMBUS It was, for the superstitious, an inauspicious time to start a new nation. The date was Jan. 13. But it was so far removed from civilization that Thurlow "Tad" Weed of Columbus and Robert Marks of Los Angeles were not sure of the date. It wouldn't have mattered anyway because they are not superstitious.

So there they stood on a piece of coral reef 380 miles south-southeast of the Fiji Islands and, about 900 miles north of New Zealand a tiny speck in the vast expanse of the South Pacific. Still, it was a historic occasion. WHILE TRADE winds dried salt spray on their bodies, Weed and Marks jammed a 21-foot piece of 2-inch pipe into the hard coral. They attached a rope and ran up the flag of their new country. It was a small flag, only three-feet-by-two-feet, but it snapped and fluttered smartly in the brisk breeze as they rallied around it.

It was not the stars and stripes under which they have lived and prospered. Israels Toilets Can Come Later INSTEAD, IT was a golden torch, symbolic of freedom, within a golden circle on blue background, representing the aquatic nature of the area. It was the first symbolic appearance of the Republic of Minerva, formally proclaimed six days later, on Jan. 19, by Minerva's Secretary of State Ralph McMullen of Los Angeles. McMullen sent letters to the secretaries of state of the world's older nations advising them of the birth.

There is a north Minerva and a south Minerva since it is actually two reefs 18 miles apart. It was on north Minerva that Weed and Marks hoisted their colors. "A FIJIAN we had along saluted. And one fellow gave out a cheer," said Weed. "We felt pretty excited.

It was sort of inspirational. We got quite a kick out of it." Weed, 39, used to get his kicks differently. He was a star placekicker for Ohio State University football teams in 1952-54. But Weed got his degree in philosophy and after two years in the Marine Corps the U. S.

Marine Corps became an independent oil and gas producer. SINCE THEN, "Tad" Weed, so-called because of his 5 feet 6 stature, has grown progressively unhappy with what he believes is intolerable governmental interference in business and confiscatory tax policies. As a result Weed has become not only the man who helped raise the new nation's flag, but also the first individual land owner in what he calls "the only purely capitalist country in the world." Weed admits that "land" owner might be somewhat inaccurate. In fact, Weed's 10 acres is under water at least half of every day. At low tide the coral peeps out of the Pacific.

At high tide it is awash and in rough weather it is submerged. "P-call it land even though it's land only at low tide," said Weed. Weed said there are two high and two low tides each day in a 12-hour cycle. "WHEN ONE goes there all one sees is a lot of breakers. And in rough weather you don't see much except those breakers," he said.

"In calm weather you see a beautiful lagoon with crystal clear water to a depth of about 13 fathoms (about 78 feet)." "Each of the reefs is about 14 miles in circumference. One is in the shape of a figure eight. Each has a deep water break in the coral which provides an entrance for ships to lagoons. That provides a safe anchorage which makes the whole operation feasible," he said. THE "OPERATION" will be a landfill effort to dredge sand from the lagoons onto the coral to make land.

During two weeks on the reefs in January, Weed and Marks were able to raise "a very small part" above high tide. Weed said a dredge should be working by April. "We have to fix it so the tidal currents will not take it off. Meanwhile, we have some people on site who are doing a lot of measuring and mapping," he said. THE WORLD'S newest nation got its name from a ship called "Minerva" which ifoiindered on the reefs in the early 1800s.

The reefs have been known as the "Minerva Reefs" since. So far Minerva does not have a national anthem or a BEN MA1DENEUKC nanas and grapefruit and tossing peels in all directions. For Instance: The sanitary facilities. They are slightly improved over my first visit several years ago. But, still unless you are in a large city or in plain luck, the chances of finding a "facility" are slim indeed.

And if you do find one it probably will have no flush apparatus it is a hole in Is Mi for bidding, but in any case higher than the official exchange. Yes, police raid the "market" periodically but only as a formality. There are countless other "for instances" that confound the visitor who comes from a more orderly and much older country. BUT LOOK objectively at this sliver of land over which several wars have been fought and you reach the same conclusion as the man approached for the church contribution. They're doing the pressing things; others can wait.

The Israelis have put first items like highways, schools, housing, hotels, medicine, growing of food. And industry that will not only provide goods at home, but give the nation something to export. Tomorrow they'll stop the litter, install rest rooms and do something about the They have a commission working now on a plan to make tax-collecting easier and tax-paying more honest. The commission feels that if taxes (which pre astronomical) can be reduced, the nation See MAIDENBUKG, Tage E-4 the ground. There will be nothing on which to sit.

Typically you'll find the out line of two human feet for you to stand on. Paper being scarce in Israel, there'll be no toilet tissue. With real fortune, you may find that the the the "faculty" has paper but in form of old newspapers strewn on floor. can you oibectm straight I ME TD -TUE I I EAST TO In so many ways, beleaguered Israel reminds me of the man who was approached for a contribution to a church building fund. "I can't give you anything," the man told the pleader, adding, "I owe for groceries, for my auto, for furniture and went on listing other debts.

"But sir," the fund-collector pleaded, "don't you think you owe something to the Lord as well?" "Yes," was the reply, "but He isn't pressing me like the ethers." YOU GO INTO Israel with a background of relative affluence in the U. S. For even people here on relief have ter on the average. And with this ground you note certain things hich, to you, represent failure. For instance: The litter in the streets and roads.

Israel is a great producer of citrus and other fruits "and they walk around eating oranges, tangeres, ba- For Instance: The money problem. Israeli currency is wrfrth nothing outside Israel. Over there the people deal in it, of course, but would much prefer to get your American dollars. ISRAEL IS THE only land I know where the daily paper carries latest quotations on black-market dealings in Israeli pounds. You go to certain areas in Jerusalem and sidewalk brokers will approach you and haggle for your dollars in exchange for pounds.

When we were there the official rate was a little over four Israeli pounds to the dollar. The black uarket rate was up SeeJLIVE. Pace E-5 Ml" it: -j' -y.