The Times Herald du lieu suivant : Port Huron, Michigan • Page 6

PAGE 6, SECTION A THE TIMES HERALD Sunday, July 9, 1972 Where The Wild Goose Flies That Old TyrantThe Rapids The Times Herald EDITORIAL VIEWPOINT IK Toward A Nation Of Sheep familiar to vessel passengers and to the townspeople alike, which often figured in a "race" between it and a steamer trying to make its way through the strong current. The little steamer on such occasions as the pioneers tell it would push bravely forward and get well ahead of the stump when, through a slight deviation from a direct line, the strong current would cause her to fall back and the stump would again be ahead. Eventually, however, with repeated attempts and perseverance, the little steamer would win out. There is the story told by several pioneers of the Saginaw area including Judge Albert Miller, E. S.

Williams and William A. Clark concerning the, Rapids and the steamboat Governor Marcy, the first steamboat to enter the Saginaw River. The incident occurred in 1837, the year Saginaw was incorporated as a village, and when the Governor Marcy was enroute from Detroit to Saginaw. When the Marcy reached the Rapids a number of schooners were becalmed there and one of them hailed the master of the steamer, Capt. J.

Rhodes, for a tow. Among the passengers on the schooner, it seemed, were a number of "capitalists" from New York State, who were interested in buying up land in the Saginaw area, as well as traders and lumbermen. Evidently some of these passengers were By DOROTHY MITTS Local Historical Writer The strong current, often one of the contributing factors in ship collisions at the Rapids of the St. Clair River was, in earlier days, just as often a source of amusement for the townspeople as well as one of tragic circumstance. Much has been written about the early schooners, barks, windjammers, and the like, wind-bound at the Rapids.

Dozens of these vessels at a time, filling the St. Clair River with the beauty of their trim lines and sails, were forced to lay to and wait for a fair wind to take them up through the Rapids and into Lake Huron unless, of course, some agreeable Indians would swim out and tow a vessel through the Rapids, for which they would receive whiskey in pay, the Indians having to dive into the water to retrieve the bottles of whiskey thrown to them, much to the amusement of the passengers and of the townspeople watching from shore. But not so much has been written about the struggles of early steamboats with the Rapids and how those little steamers had to chug and puff and fight their way through to the lake as the dense gray smoke, pouring up from their wood-filled furnaces, swirled about them. On the Canadian shore, across from what is now Pine Grove Park, there was a tall tree stump, 'em hell, Walt, but don't use my name. don't print this, Big Brother may be "I'd like to write a letter to the editor of our newspaper.

But I hesitate to sign my name and affiliation for fear of adverse effects to my With these quotes, Walter J. Campbell, editor in chief of Industry Week, begins an editorial for his July 3 edition. They are typical, he says, of comments he receives in letters every week. "What," he asks, "are you afraid of? "You appear to feel deeply that wrong things are happening. Most often, those wrong things spring from the public sector.

You believe they are a threat to the way of life you believe in. "Yet you fear to speak up in "Why? "Is it fear of reprisal or just reluctance to become involved? "If you witness a couple of young hoodlums snatching the purse of an aged woman, or pillaging the fruit vendor's stand, and refuse to blow the whistle, you are contributing to crime and disorder. "If you condone abuses in government by your silence, you are, in fact, encouraging further abuses. "For too long, too many of us have been selling our freedom for bits and pieces of security, or economic gain. For too long, too many of us have been forfeiting our true rights of citizenship by our noninvolvement." Mr.

Campbell, not one to mince words on such an issue, is not making any new point in his editorial. But it is a particularly valid point in these days of social change. The things that most people believe in are more threatened than they have been, and the need for steadiness in support of them is more acute. Special interests, whether claiming allegiance to the American system or not, do not hesitate to speak their conviction and act accordingly. They draw strength and comfort from each other.

Yet even the most militant, vocal group is only a collection of active individuals. They are together only because they have recognized each other. Alone, they would be unrelated voices in a social wilderness. But members of the silent, inactive majority have the greatest potential for togetherness by their very numbers. Most people believe in justice and morality; most favor the authority represented in sound government.

All they have to do is say so, or take reasonable and appropriate action, to find a multitude sharing their convictions. No one is alone, especially not a fair-minded American speaking out for what he believes is right. He may feel a tinge of fear as almost anyone does while facing up to danger in defense of his homeland. But it is a fear that can be shared, along with courage and determination, and maybe with justified anger. Some have to speak, to be involved, if the unity of the whole people is to be retained.

If individuals do not take the initiative, the great, silent majority will become a nation of sheep. anxious to make time for the schooner's captain went aboard the Marcy and offered Captain Rhodes $100 for a tow into Lke Huron. Rhodes -accepted the offer and also allowed several of the (passengers to come aboard for the tide and, for some of them, their tfst ride on a steamboat. I The towline had just ieen made fast, so the story is toll, when a fresh breeze sprang up. The schooner hoisted sail, off, from the steamboat, and sailed into Lake Huron, leaving the Marcy to struggle with the current, and race the stump on the Canadim side.

After the schooner got fairly into the lake she lay to and jvaited for the steamboat to chug an puff and fight her way through to1 them. At last the Governor Marcy: came alongside the schooner and tllowed the vessel's passengers to gt back on board. BERRY'S WORLD All In A Day Griggsville Sheds New Light On Wren Mystery Now, in view of a report in the current issue of the Purple Martin Capital News from Griggsville, 111., the only conclusion we can draw is that wrens have passed the word to stay away and any house in that particular location is taboo. The Griggsville report, authored by John A. Giegling, points out that wrens are about the easiest bird in the world to entice into a bird-house.

"This cheery sprite; this loud incessant 'dawn to dusk' vocalist; this miniature bombaster of bigger birds, and general all around busybody is seldom difficult to attract," writes Giegling. "Certainly no 'ego crusher' to the overly hopeful person who has just put up a new bird house. "Wrens are accommodating. No matter what kind of house (size, shape or color), where located (high on a pole or tree, low to the ground, in woods or garden) wrens will probably use it," says the author. Where does that kind of buildup for the wrens leave us and our poor old empty birdhouse? Attempts in the past to charge it all off to the "elusiveness" and "fussiness" of wrens no longer seems valid.

They aren't elusive and they aren't fussy. ANYBODY can get a wren, it seems. Anybody but you-know-who. We've got a better chance of landing a snowy owl in that spooked location than we have wrens. It's all got to be tied up with that cat.

Not a bite on tenants since that incident occurred has got to be more than coincidence. They're smart birds, wrens. Sometimes too smart, darn it. 1972 by NEA, Inc. "Son, if you want to vote for McGovern, go right ahead.

I'm only leaving you $500,000, anyway!" taxes, assessments and special sewer levies. Not once has any wren ever put a twig toward a nest in the bird-house, which is hanging there today just as empty as it or its predecessors have been for the last 10 years. Wrens have been observed occasionally in the yard. Sometimes they'll work up toward the bird-house and, perhaps, twitter around some three feet from it. But never have they been seen going into it.

Not since the night the cat took that fateful swipe. It Says Here 'No Stopping, Except For Repairs' By LOUIS J. DUNN Times Herald Executive News Editor Don't tell me birds can't communicate with each other. Up until about 10 years ago we had a houseful of wrens in the backyard every season, come wind or fair weather, regardless of where the birdhouse was hung or how many kids played on the ground underneath. Those little songsters always were there, flittering around in their own fussy way and singing a song loud enough to do justice to birds many times their size.

They were like a timetable, arriving regularly every May and leaving near the end of the summer. Then came that night about 10 years ago. There was a family of young wrens in the birdhouse at the time, large enough to make plenty of noise and apparently about ready to take off on their own. Who knows what happened. The next morning we found the bird-house tilted sideways on the wire from which it was hanging, the young birds gone and a strange cat prowling around on the overhead tree limb.

There was no sign that the cat had killed the young wrens, so perhaps they were able to fly away to safety. The point is, however, that we've never had wrens in the backyard since. And that despite changes in birdhouses, changes of location, open letters to all wrens everywhere in bird publications, telegrams to Jack Miner's Sanctuary in Ontario telling all of them that we're sorry, apologizing for the cat, which has long since departed this life, and waiving all property i Forever Compromise By Floyd A. Bernard (Editor. Timed Herald Editorial Page) The Scenario For The Convention By Art Buchwald Everyone has his own scenario for this week's Democratic National Convention.

The way things have been going with the party, one scenario has as much validity as the next. This is the one that I have written and if it comes true, remember, you read it here: It is the fourth day of the convention and the Democrats have been unable to decide on a presidential candidate. The fight to seat delegations has taken up three days, and those people who were ruled ineligible have refused to give up their seats to those who Split Level A lot of people are taking off on motor trips this season of the year. Hopefully they will find refreshment, entertainment and maybe even a little education along the way. They may well find a measure of frustration, too.

Especially when they can't find the way they had hoped to be going. There are road signs, to be sure. Some are quite instructive, in a belated sort of way like "Bump" when at 70 miles an hour you are already there. And some are entertaining, in a confusing sort of way like the one at a fork in the road which says "Left, West Right, South." But generally speaking the signs are pretty clear on major routes like on the turnpike when you have just missed your exit and the sign says "Next exit 37 miles." Off the big paths, however, the signs become less instructive, more confusing and much less entertaining. The situation can get downright traumatic if the hapless motorist is equipped with one of those maps that show only primary roads.

What looks like the beginning of a fine rural highway can turn out to be a cowpath after a couple of miles. After surveying back roads of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia a few days ago, we can only conclude that those states have a lot of cows. Under those circumstances, road signs are not very helpful. They work fine for local people who know where "Town Line Road No. 2" goes, but they are a lost cause for a stranger trying to find his way back to an interstate route.

And on the rare location when a rustic road does have a sign pointing out a significant direction, the information given is sometimes suspect. An example is the Ohio 7 sign which indicates that an Ohio Turnpike access is straight ahead, followed by a second sign indicating that the turnpike is to the left. Six miles and a gas-station query finally revealed that the second sign was wrong. The arrow, which was not speaking to each other, and on CBS, Walter Cronkite wasn't talking to himself. It was obvious to everyone in and out of Convention Hall that a compromise candidate had to be found one who had not already been nominated.

But who? The Democratic Party leaders call a recess behind the dium. They argue and thrash it out for several hours. The only man whose name is proposed as the compromise candidate is a very famous, but controversial, figure on the American scene. He has announced many times that he is not a candidate for the presidency or the vice presidency, and has said under no conditions would he accept a draft. Yet, the leaders argue he is the one person who can save the party.

This young man, whose name had been associated with a very embarrassing incident, is a household word now. Because of the deadlock at the convention, he is the only one who can possibly beat Nixon in November. The compromise candidate is not at the convention. He has purposely stayed away so people would believe he was not interested in the nomination. O'Brien puts In a call to him.

Everyone, in turn, gets on the phone and tells him he has to be the candidate. The compromise candidate speaks to George McGovern, Huhphrey, Muskie and Wallace. They urge him to run. The candidate finally agrees to a draft and says he will take the next plane to Miami. And that's how Bobby Fischer, the U.S.

chess champion, became the Democratic presidential nominee for bolted on, should hate been straight up instead of horizontal. Then there is the highway sign in Monaca, indicating jthat the bridge to Rochester is fet right. What the sign doesn't sty is that the highway junction to tie bridge is a half-mile ahead and tljen to the right. Instead, the weary motorist is led into the downtown-area of Monaca, where all seven stores are having sidewalk sales anj everything on wheels for miles tround is jammed into the streei. Four blocks in 40 minutes is a iong way home.

Or how about the rk near Washington National Arport on the road to Mt. Vernon? The sign points to the right and says "Airport Parking." Since we were not going to the airport, we those the left fork which goes drectly to the terminal. Airport paiking really Is to the right a little farther down the road to Mt. Vernon. It seems clear the signmakers are trying to be helpful.

And sometimes they succeed. Bit the job really doesn't seem as tiugh as it comes out. To give credit where due, the signs in Michigan are tell above average, almost as goo as those in Ontario. But even at jbest.they occasionally leave a motorist anxious about where he is ahd how to get where he wants to goi We have no brilliant aiswers to all the problems that sgnmakers run up against. Besides, it's easier to complain than to be 'constructive.

But just the same, the! kind of sign which says "No Stoprng, Ex-cept for Repairs," is made by someone who is not thinkinj overly hard. "No stopping" would do just as well because a car that (breaks down is going to stop with dr without an official OK. Anyway, it's nice to be baik. were officially designated as delegates to the convention. Almost every state delegation has two people sitting in every chair.

No one dares leave the floor for fear that someone will grab his seat. When someone tries to speak, he is hooted down by the opposition faction. Larry O'Brien, the chairman of the party, has the podium ringed with the National Guard so no one can grab the microphone. The nomination speeches have not been heard, but the candidates have been nominated McGovern, Humphrey, Wallace, Chisholm, Jackson, and Muskie. There have been no demonstrations for the candidates in the hall because everyone is afraid if he gets up and marches they won't let him back in his section again.

On the first ballot McGovern picked up 1,234 votes, well shy of the 1,509 he needed. The rest were split between the other candidates, with the uncommitted refusing to vote for anyone. The second and third ballot found no one budging. By the tenth ballot of Wednesday's all-night session, the convention was hopelessly deadlocked. The state delegations caucused right on the floor, trying to get people to change their minds.

But it was impossible. On NBC, John Chancellor and David Brinkley became short-tempered and refused to talk to each other. Howard K. Smith and Harry Reasoner on ABC were also.