Imperial Beach Star-News du lieu suivant : Imperial Beach, California • 17

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiii ukb It siuiiiiiimiimimiiiim Telegram was wrong Dead man tells tale The South will rise again? about Pearl Harbor Day or the f. mm By JOEY HAMimnirnimnimiin Will the South rise again? Absolutely, this friend said. The yeast has been working for Ai nil rf thic OAiinft li 111 gro, all sections of this the er harvsome time. Of country, EDITH AND MEL STORER, CHULA VISTA COUPLE WHICH ALMOST WASN'T Storer was reported lost after Pearl Harbor, turned up weeks later By JOANNE GRIBBLE Star News Staff Writer repair crews, so officers came THESTAR-NEWS Sunday, December 7. 1 975 iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiUghr roucfiiiinimiuii Why Johnny cant iiiiniliilllliiBy ART BUCHWALDL There is increasing evidence that students are not doing as well in school these days as they used to.

The national tests they take to get into college show that in most subjects this generation of scholars has taken a dive. Are the kids of today any dumber than those of yesteryear? I dont think so. I believe one of the reasons theres been such a letdown is that the parents of todays students are doing their kids homework. THE PHONE rings in my office about six times a week, and this is a typical conversation. Mr.

Buchwald, my name is Mrs. Thun-derbush, and my son Gerald has to do a paper on freedorfi of speech and the First Amendment. I wonder if you could help him? Where is Gerald now? I asked her. Why doesnt he call me himself Hes very busy, and I said I would get the information for him. WHAT GOOD is it going to do him if you get the information? I assume the teacher gave him the assignment to instruct him in how to gather data for his paper.

But Im his mother. Its not as if he asked a stranger to call you up. Mrs. Thunderbush, you sound like a wonderful parent, but dont you think you would be doing Gerald a better service if you let him do his own homework? Mr. Buchwald, Gerald is 15 years old.

When a boy gets to that age theres so little a mother can do for him. Hes so independent. I cant buy clothes for him any more. I cant tell him who to play with. I cant even tell him when to go to bed at night.

The only thing hell still let me do is help with homework. Believe me, if I didnt have that I wouldnt know I had a son. But, I protested, someday when Gerald goes out in the cold, cruel world and he has a research assisgnment, how will he know how to do it? ILL ALWAYS be there when Gerald needs me. Thats not the point. The idea of writing a paper is to learn how to gather facts and then put them down.

The teacher doesnt care what you or I have to say about the First Amendment. She wants Gerald to find out about it, and the only way it will make an impression on him is if he does it himself. You can say that, Mr. Buchwald, because your son doesnt have the assignment. But, believe me, if you were Geralds parent, youd be whistling out of the other side of your mouth.

After all, you dont have to sign Geralds report card. Mrs. Thunderbush, I believe youre doing your son harm by working on his homework. What pleasure will Gerald get out of a paper he hands in which he knows is not all his own work? Hell get pleasure out of knowing there was a mother who stood by him and cared enough about him to help him through the rockiest part of his life which was school. WELL, FIRST of all, why didnt you look up the First Amendment in the encyclopedia instead of calling me? Because all the mothers of the kids in Geralds class use the encyclopedia.

I wanted Geralds paper to be more original. All right. Im terribly busy now, but if you come by this afternoon Ill give you some information on it. Ill have my husband stop by on his way home from work. Why dont you send Gerald down for it? He has basketball practice this afternoon.

Besides, my husband rarely gets a chance to help with homework, and it will be a good opportunity to show Gerald his father also cares how his son does in school. 1 pordea South today is the place to be. Since the speaker was blac, I was interesed a aret in his reasoning. Did he mean the South is the They a-place for blacks to be today? Blacks, white im-whatever, he said. There is more together-, ness, more caring among all the peoples of the when South than in all the rest of the country put re.

and hi together, he said. aking Not but what the Black Revolution didnt 'eked to Ehelp- It did, he said, because now the whites who once did not dare show strong friendship lble H-nd support of their black neighbors no longer ux have society set against such action, ma THE VAST majority of Southern whites are, ve well and have always been, fine decoent people, he bf Northaid. The minority of red-necked racists made the news. ucceed ij. Speaking only of Atlanta, where he grew up, 1 finallyg'he said if he wasnt so old (nearing retirement, eters a r.g wouid go back home work and live there the rest of his life.

can sell He is taking a grownup daughter on a bout $3 Jeisurely trip through the South next summer, red, with with the focal point his hometown Atlanta, rich Frenc My friend said no black can really know who ccs seemare his friends in this West Coast situation, ia wines Everybody claims to be your friend. That is W1" mahe thing to say, but who knows really. In the lt be 5outh you know who is and wh isn for y0U' ven anl THINKING over what this man, said mot fathoidccided to look up another man about the ting experjame age and ask him what he thinks about slacks going back to the South now. with thee He comes from a small town in a rural iw to nac.ectjon 0f Texas near Houston. Now Houston is 1 Dr.

Kings Atlanta. This friend told me he Her1 i Stts counting the months (a little over 12 now) i guessed mtil he can retire from his Civil Service job. He has already retired after 20 years in the Iavy and go home to Texas for good. i a fantast He planned to be there some time ago, but We nefie got involved in helping his grandkids get ael1, Slhrough college, noted it, kef Maybe the Texas of his dreams and the real 1 6 arent the same, I suggested, he re the thighed. He goes home to Texas every year.

If ul marked didnt get to Texas I would feel like I had no iean constaracation. I feel safe in Texas, something I lever feel in California. This man owns three homes, a small farm in st yea exas and he and his wife can look to total of more than a thou a month. 111101 Afraid of What? ie; Ca Well suppose luck ran out, couldnt pay my fflnn needed a doctor, no money, whatever IllOn. njght happen.

In Texas I would simply, Hey need a favor. I would get it right then, no nd a uestion. People care about each other. I feel ee tnBlueNireer Texas than in California. get all thr Opportunities for black kids? Better, there whatever said.

More professional blacks in Texas States. han in California. Doesnt the South produce ass producmi he so-called black leaders? es fine Fret NEXT I CALLED a big shot in the NAACP, chateau highly educated California-raised black east two js true blacks are going bach, to the be a place puth? True. Is it true conditions for the selling for3lacs 'n th South are rapidly improving? tes and BriuITue Conditions are much better than before will cont when they were he said hem. Educated blacks art going back to the South eed tobottland landing good jobs, he said, because there he great buils a dearth of educated blacks there I have al 1 e.Iriends who have landed college deans 4cn care aft 0 ain bouquetiJ0sltl0n there, who could get an associate ai orofessorship here, he said.

But the men earnestly advised against OR AusoiPlacks with no special skills or education that way 'returning to the South, where wages are low was reported the union movement weaker than here. if the grap The man said he understands what my two their Brriends are saying, that in the Souththey were 13 sipping ded in the era when everybody had to iiing but a n-ihek together in the South to survive. There vere no service organizations, state aid, none 1. He can s'F'f the numerous avenues of aid available ashamed ol-oday, he said. irenia.

As long as men like Wallace are still being is in the South, the black movement has 1 8Q. he said. we had theh SSSSt I Need in the'a Melvin Storer visited the church where his own funeral was held. He even brought his new bride there on their honeymoon, 32 years after he was supposed to be dead. After the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec.

7, 1941, the 20-year-old sailor was reported lost in action. Rear Adm. Chester Nimitz, then chief of the Bureau of Navigation, sent word to storers mother in Portland, that her son had been one of the many men lost on the battleship USS California. THE NAVY Department deeply regrets to inform you that your son Melvin Tyler Storer, shipfitter third class, U.S. Naval Reserve, was lost inaction in the performance of his duty and in the service of his country.

The telegram, dated Dec. 16, 1941, was like thousands of others delivered to mothers and families across the country relating similar sad news. But Mel Storer was still alive and well. The fiery red-haired sailor had followed the order to abandon ship, and after the first waves of the attack, he waited out the bombers while paddling around the waters of Battleship Row. His story was one of the happy ones which came from the early dark days of American involvement in World War II.

The Chula 'Vista resident, now a welder at Rohr Industries, recalled Pearl Harbor on the eve of the 34th anniversay of the day that has lived in infamy. THE MEMORIES of the former shipfitter, now 54, were spurred by a packet of faded newspaper clippings, expired liberty cards and yellowed telegrams carefully tucked away in an old stationery box, which Mrs. Storer recently discovered while housecleaning. It was a Sunday morning. I was a third class shipfitter, supervising clean-up in the engine room.

We used to play cards down there on Sunday it was our day off and we liked MELVIN STORER, USN Two months before Pearl Harbor to have it clean. We heard the call Air raid, air raid, all hands seek shelter, but wed been hearing the drill for two or three months so it got to be a little like crying wolf. But the minute that torpedo hit us and oil started splattering around, I knew it was the real thing. Soon after the shelter call was the summons to general quarters, otherwise known as battle stations. Storers post was in the repair shop, just forward of the shipfitter shop.

HE REMEMBERS that he didnt have far to go to his battle station. He and the others ran out and dogged it down, Navy jargon for closing the watertight hatches between below deck compartments on a ship. We took several hits. A couple of bombs penetrated the main deck and exploded below, and that caused a lot of damage. Our power was out, steam was out, and we were passing ammunition manually to the anticraft guns.

The California held steady for a while, but the abandon ship order finally came. 'It was about a 25-foot jump to the water. I swam around for a while, but a boat came by and picked me up. They brought me right back to the ship because we were going to try and save her. The gun crews were still aboard, and the salvage and a delegation of on board and counted about 200 of us while we were working.

Somehow that list must have gotten handed to the wrong yeoman. We were all listed as lost. Three of Storers hometown buddies serving on the California were also put down as missing, and the four of them, along with one officer who actually was killed, were listed in a memorial article in the Portland Journal. NIMITZ MOURNFUL telegram arrived at the Storer home Dec. 16, 1941.

In the weeks following, the Storers received many condolences fron neighbors. Son Melvin was written up in a number of newspaper pieces, and a memorial service listing his lifespan dates as 1921-41 was held at Laurelwood Methodist Church. Portland Mayor Earl Riley presented the Storers a miniature flag and pedestal engraved with Melvins name and rank and the family prepared for a melancholy Christmas. Then on Dec. 29, 1941, two postcards arrived bearing Melvins signature.

Carefully worded to avoid military censors, they said he was alive and busy cleaning up after the attack. My father and brother Joe didnt believe I could still be alive, but my mother always said she knew it all along, Storer remembered. SO CONVINCED was she, that in a later letter to her spn she wrote: The postman knocked at my door and I went and he was smiling and he said. Well, Melvins all right, and I said What did you say? He said, Melvins all right heres two cards from him. I took the cards and I shook so I could hardly read them.

Then I grabbed the postman and I was never quite so hysterical in my life. I understand she picked up the mailman and threw him off the porch, Storer laughed. Soon after, on New years Day, 1942, Read Adm. Randall Jacobs telegram arrived. The Navy Department is glad to inform you that your son Melvin Tyler Storer, shipfitter third class, U.S.

Naval Reserve, previously reported missing following action in the performance of his duty, is now reported to be a survivor. Postcards and letters flew between Portland and Pearl Harbor, but Storer didnt return home for some six months. On a weekend leave from Bremerton, Wash, Storer rode a bus into town. They didnt know I was coming, so I though I'd better call from the depot. And while the senior Storers were no doubt overjoyed to have the son they thought theyd lost, not everyone was so glad to see him.

The mayor wouldnt speak to OfiRi ai3 asssis mm uftn? mm ST AM DAAD TUU 1911 be 15 6 10 Money. i dc 16 65EA trank melv in storrs 6n43 SOUTHEAST GLADSTONE AVE PORTLAND 0RG FOR LEAVE SEASONAL EXPENSES TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR THIRD CLAS US NAVAL THF NAVY DcPARTMFNT DEEPLY RFQRFTS SON ELV1N TYLER STORER SHIPHTTER RESERVE AS LOST 111 AND IN THC IDoes it pay you replacement cost for losses on your home contents or does it use the old "actual cash value" method of payment there can be a big difference in dollars to you 2 Does it protect you against the growing prob terns of libel slander invasion ot privacy false arrest things you shouldn have to worry about 3 Does it pay personal property losses on thett from your unlocked vehicle or does it have an escape clause that requires your car to be locked It your present policy tailed any one ot these important ques tions then it time to change Call Tom Miller at our office and he II give you the right answers on your homeowners insur ance He II review your present policy with you and make sure that you have the right coverages at the right price No charge or obligation LOANS NEVER MORE THAN 12 (APR) (ANNUAL PERCENTAGE RATE) S-DLY APPLY NOW AVOID THE RUSH meUC check chgs G0V1 DLR 0RG. FRB o-l YOU THAT YOUR SON 6045 IS GLAD 10 RESERVE VHE SURVIVOR 420-1070 CALL NOW HE Oj NC CfNU NAVA, STATION aixi 1i canton navy NAVA, AMPH SlOUS BASE Bu Id nq navai Support activity me. Hed spent that weeks beer NAVY TELEGRAMS BROUGHT BAD NEWS, GOOD NEWS TO STORER FAMILY money on flowers for the Young shipfitter not lost, just overboard, after Pearl Harbor attack funeral. "9 1 i WINES.