The Daily Banner, Greencastle, Putnam County, 27 November 1968 — Page 1
Old Tom “miffed” over Santa’s earlier arrival each yuletide season
by SHAUN HIGGINS Staff Reporter NORTH POLE — At a news conference held early this morning Santa Claus announced that he and “Old Tom” the Thanksgiving Turkey, 'had reached a reasonable and fair settlement of a recent dispute over who should arrive first in the hearts of the American Public. Santa said the public had been misled and the Turkey’s pride upset by the early appearances
of Santa helpers in the nation’s marketplaces. The Turkey had threatened Santa with indigestion, unless the jolly fat man, postponed his appearances until after this Thursday. The irate gobbler, feeling somewhat imposed upon by the early appearances, had made two threatening phone calls and written several letters to Santa. But evidently the mail had never reached Santa’s ear, but had gotten bogged down in the
bureaucracy of “pencil-necked” elves. Santa said he had immediately called “Old Tom” upon receiving word of the situation. A press conference was called. Mr. Claus told the crowd of reporters that the terms of the agreement were: (1) the turkey should reign from the second to the fourth weeks of November, after which time he would leave the coop and turn the holiday festivities over to Santa; (2) Santa said the agreement allowed him to make his first appearance
of the season on Thanksgiving Day in New York, after which he would (3) fly to Greencastle on Friday. Santa also explained that a United States Un-American Activities investigation would take place should any “Santa helpers” show their faces before T-Day, known as Turkey Day. “As I am sure most of you know, and as I explained to my feathered friend, there are great numbers of my helpers who dress like me who are darkening my image. They use my name and
my address and make premature visits before Thanksgiving Day.” On this digression the New York Times reporter interrupted the white bearded man and asked if there was any truth to reports of a domestic uprising at the North Pole. “I was hoping to keep this quiet, “Santa replied, “but you news boys always seem to be on top of everything that’s happening.” “It’s true that we’ve been having trouble,” he continued. “It began when the elves de-
manded higher wages and extended fringe benefits. I wanted to meet their demands but sim - ply didn’t have the financial resources.” “Management at the North Pole wants to get the toys out earlier to compete with the marketplace where toys are being shoved onto counters before Halloween,” he said. “And because consumers know the products are on the market earlier they expect the whole darn season to be movedup.“ My Continued on Page 3
O
VOLUME SEVENTY-SEVEN
The Daily Banner •. waves Fo r A,r GREENCASTLE. INDIANA, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1968 UPI News Service 100 Per Copy No. 25
Thanksgiving services set Three area churches have scheduled Thanksgiving Day worship services. The churches include St. Andrews Episcopal , 520 E. Seminary Street, First Baptist, meeting in the Junior High School auditorium; and the Gobin Memorial United Methodist Church, 302 S. Locust. The St. Andrews communion service will be at 9:30 a.m. and officiated by the Rev. Gordon Chastain. The altar will be decorated. An offering of canned goods and clothing will be taken to be distributed among Episcopal community throughout Indiana. The First Baptist will conduct a 7 p.m. service in the junior high school auditorium. The Rev. Stanley D. Nicol will be the speaker. For the first time since 19G5 Gobin Memorial United Methodist Church will have its own Thanksgiving service of worship. The service will be at 10 a.m. and will be in the sanctuary of the church. Dr. Jameson Jones, pastor of the church, will give a Thanksgiving meditation. Robert S. Eccles, baritone, wil sing “To Thee, O Lord, Our Hearts We Raise,” a Thanksgiving text by William C. Dix set to a Norse folk melody. The community is invited to attend the services.
Ever think of asking Howard Hughes
for $100,000? A DePauw coed did
How many college coeds would ever dream of taking up residence at New York’s Plaza Hotel to write Howard Hughes for $100,00 and use Elizabeth Taylor Burton’s name on the return address? DePauw University’s effervescent Sally Wilton would — and did! She won’t have her career crimped by having her “Personal — Urgent” letters “put in dusty filing cabinets by secretaries who have allergies.” “I sort of thrive on going to the top,” says Sally, “because if you write to the bottom, you stay on bottom.” The axiom is largely true for the 22-year-old Chicagoan. She was relatively obscure (which is difficult to believe) at DePauw until she plunged into her seventh semester here. That’s when she became a firm adherent of papyrus power. Subsequently, a vista of incredibly zany events has opened up for
the Dean’s List coed whose prerose vision has been through her amberized octagonal glasses. “This year is like I’m on the brink of something big,” gushed Sally in a campus interview. Through careful modulation of her voice, Sally makes whispered absurdities sound devastatingly profound — and confidential — and convincing. “I mean I probably sound hyper-excited; it’s because lam. Everything is crystalizing now, at once. My painting is working now. My writing is working; the whole film idea is going. People are listening to me for the first time. I know something is going to happen very soon; in the meantime I write letters (to the top, of course)!” Because she is so cocked sure she has terrific insight into making educational films, something is going to happen, soon. A door has suddenly opened for her. Naturally, one of her letters did it.
Tuesday (Nov. 26) in Chicago Sally was interviewed by an executive of what Sally calls “that young blood company,” Bell & Howell, in Chicago. She’s there because the chairman of the board Mr. Peter G. Peterson, and the president Mr. Robert A. Charpie, read Sally’s letter and were interested. Anyone who moves through oceans of ideas and emotions as swiftly as Sally is apt to leave some vagueness in her wake. Sally does. She supposes it was her film-making and TV writing aspirations that started this dramatic eruption of energy that led to her letter writing. “You see, my mother (Mrs. Alice Wilton) won this movie camera and projector at a fashion show,” recalls Sally. “So I decided to become a movie maker.” About the same time Sally introduced herself to Chicagoan Harold Grotjahn who calls himself America’s # 1 salesman. “We had lunch and talked for four hours. He told me I should go right (with emphasis on the rrrriighhttt) to the top because people on top are interested in helping people on the bottom.” Sally did. She contacted Chicago TV personality Floyd Kalber. He put her in touch with WMAQ - TV station manager Harry Jacobs, a DePauw alumSanta arrives with parade The annual visitation by Santa Claus will be made in Greencastle Friday afternoon in connection with a downtown parade by the Greencastle High School band. The 2 p.m. parade will launch the 1968 Christmas season in Putnam County. Merchants will begin their seven day a week shopping hours starting Friday. The businesses have agreed to remain open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and will be open on Sunday from 1 until 6 p.m. for the next three Sundays. Santa will remain in the downtown area following the parade.
nus though she didn’t realize it at the time. Since what Sally wanted to know was how to get started in TV writing, Jacobs arranged for her to meet Robert Wogan, NBC vice-president in New York. Going up! Killing two birds with one flight, of course, Sally used the Plaza Hotel’s stationery to write —and impress— Hughes! She needed the $100,000 to underwrite a 45-minute movie, “Sweet Saturday.” Rod Steiger was to be the doting grandfather and an as yet unselected Greencastle child the sevpn-year-old who transforms grandpa Steiger. “The whole thing was sort of a big circle to nowhere,” remembers Sally, “but it confirmed my belief that people on the top help people on the bottom.” Sally brought no money back to campus after the summer excursion. Hughes did, however, respond, telling her he was very interested, but accepted film ideas only through agents. Undaunted, Sally has turned her atomic-like energy to campus movie making. She has become enthralled with the prospects of educational film-making. “I’ve seen lots and lots of educational films and they are terrible. The whole field of educational films is terribly lacking in imagination,” Sally alleges. Consequently, she has plunged headlong into the battle. She and a fellow filmer - Manette “Noni” Tucker of New Fairfield, Conn., drafted tallish, long-locked John Thompson of Schenectady, N.Y. as the star of their first film. It’s called “John’sDream.” John (who teaches Saturday morning art classes to Greencastle youngsters) is the Pied Piper sort who lopes in and out of the mood scenes Sally dreamed up. The coeds are filming 18 hours a day with their three cameras and the other sparse equipment they can finagle. “We’re trying to get the feel of the whole medium of film-making,” Sally stresses. “Basically I’m the writer. However, this is just a preliminary to the grand epic which we plan to do this summer in Europe.”
(She needs $3,000 for the epic). “John’s Dream” is no celluloid nightmare. “Pm sure it’s going to come off,” conjectures Professor Bill Meehan, who’ll teach a film-making course next semester to the would-be impresario. “It is very imaginatively shot and the angles are good.” “She often makes my day,” Meehan admits. Recently she offered to sell Meehan’s house as she claimed she did her parent’s home in suburban Chicago (Beverly Hills). “All you need to do to sell a house,” Sally assured Meehan, “is to have fresh bread baking in the oven and freshly cut flowers all over the house. They can’t resist it!” Meehan agrees with another of Sally’s profs, Garret Boone. They point out her frenetic technical approach needs work. Sixteen three-minute color reels have come back from the labs— in varying degrees of exposure. Nevertheless, the DePauw art department is gambling on her success. According to Sally, it wants a copy of the final print. “For someone who has breezed in off the street (meaning she’s a non-art major), she’s a pretty remarkable girl,” Boone says. “She does some very interesting stuff, probably some of the most interesting in the painting class Continued on Page 10 Post office, newspaper to close tomorrow Both the Greencastle Post Office and the Daily Banner Office will be closed all day, Thursday, Thanksgiving Day. There will not be a newspaper published Thanksgiving Day in keeping with the Banner’s policy of not publishing on Sundays or holidays. The post office has announced that there will be no city or rural delivery. Collections and dispatches will be made on a holiday schedule.
Sally WiIten
U.S. 231 will be 4 lanes,
may bypass Greencastle
by DENNIS ABELL, Managing editor Putnam County residents who have recently built new homes along U.S. 231 (Ind. 43) between Greencastle and U.S. 40 will not have to worry about higliway construction crews plowing through their front yards. The homes will not be replaced for an expanding 4-lane highway, the Banner learned today. A proposed 4-lane route is being contemplated for the area, but the highway will by-pass Greencastle and not follow the existing 2-lane pavement., a state highway official told the Banner. In an attempt to discover what plans are being made to widen the narrow and curvy Ind. 43 which claimed the life of a rural Greencastle mother and sons, the Banner contacted Fred. L. Ashbaucher, chief Highway engineer for the Highway Commission. Ashbaucher pointed out that no programs have been started as yet, and referred the Banner to the department’s “long range planning” division. Ed Ames, chief of the division of planning, told the Banner that the four laning of U.S. 231 at Greencastle was definitely apart of a projected overall program which would make available to the driving public a 4-lane route from Lafayette, south to Crawfordsville, through Greencastle, and south to Loogootee. The idea, he pointed out is to give motorists a good 4-lane route in and out of southern Indiana in an area now minus such a route. He said the highway would carry traffic from both Evansville and Louisville. In reference to a four lane highway going through Greencastle, Ames said, “The curves and turns in the city are not conducive to good traffic flow.” He said the highway will in many respects follow the same route originally outlined several Weather watcher Cloudy with occasional rain today through Thursday. A little cooler today, little temperature change tonight and Thursday. Locally moderate rains south portions tonight. High today 47 to 53. Low tonight 38 to 44. High Thursday 45 to 52. Precipi. tation probability percentages 40 north to 80 south today and tonight, 30 north to 50 south Thursday.
years ago for a proposed toll road. The toll road bypassed Greencastle to the west. Ames assured the newspaper that not even a study has been completed on the proposed project as of yet, and it will be several years before actual construction will begin. “This can be a four to six year project and the first thing that has to be done is to get the proposal included in the Commission’s statutory program which is reviewed each July.” This movement will come about when the need for a 4-lane highway for U.S. 231 ranks above the other projects. Ames said that the program could be listed this summer and that the first order of business would be to call for a planning
Retires from State Police
Sgt. Bailey
Acting State Police Superintendent Arthur R. Raney, Jr., has announced the retirement of Sergeant James F. Bailey, Terre Haute, effective November 30. Sgt. Bailey joined the force as a trooper in September, 1941 and served his entire career in the Putnamville District. He was appointed district laboratory technician in July, 1950 and rose to the rank of sergeant in that capacity in June, 1957. During his 27-year career on the force, he attended many technical training schools including the Harvard University Homicide Seminar and other courses in narcotics, fingerprint identification, and bomb disposal. A graduate of Honey Creek High School, he is an Army combat veteran of WW II. Upon retirement, he will take a position with the Indiana State Board of Health as an inspector of licensed nursing homes throughout northern Indiana.
study which would determine the best route location. “There would then have to be public hearings notifying the public on what the State Higliway Commission was planning for their particular areas.” The step-by-step procedure must be carried out to qualify for federal funds which would be involved in constructing the fourlane route. He said right-of-way would have to be purchased following the preliminary engineering reports of the proposed route. Alternative plans would be drawnup for particular locations in case the primary route could not be followed. Ames said the commission would finally arrive at the construction stages where bids could be let and pavement could be laid. As one resident who now lives south of U.S. 40 on U.S. 231 points out, “highway construction can really take a long time.” The resident was referring to the last construction work in his neighborhood on U.S. 231 when the highway was relocated so that it would be a more modern connector leg from U.S. 40 to new Interstate 70 which presently stops at U.S. 231. The construction work continued more than a year. The I70 program took nearly three years to advance to its present state. But as one concerned resident now living north of U.S. 40 on U.S. 231 said, “I just built my home, and it sure would be disappointing to know the government was going to put a highway right through it.” As Ames indicates, the new highway is more apt to cut around Greencastle moving through grain fields rather than subdivisions. The present highway zig-zags through downtown Greencastle taking motorists around the courthouse square, causing congestion both for those wanting to be downtown and motorists who are simply trying to get through town. Membership drive starts The American Legion Post no. 58 will have its annual mem. bership drive Sunday, December 1st.
NATIONAL BIBLE WEEK**One of the greatest blessings Americans have to be thankful for tomorrow on Thanksgiving Day coincides with this week being national Bible Week. The United States
is one of the few nations in the world where there is a pure religious freedom exercised by its people and guaranteed by its constitution. The BANNER Photo, Wilbur Kendall.