The Chapel Hill weekly., 1958-07-07
| Like Chapel Hill
By Billy Arthur

people in general have no knowledge of what's going
on around them said the sitting next to me in
the lobby Of the Sir Walter Hotel in Raleigh the other
day How many people know 65,212ooO automobiles
were registered in the u s. last year and l5l6569 in
North Carolina"
should have guessed half that many told him.
That's it. few people ever take the trouble to find
out what the world is doing For instance you know
how many people rode buses and trains last year,"
said it must have been millions.
Two hundred and eight million on the buses and
433 100000 rode trains Do like | do, study the World
Almanac. Look these things up They'll interest you
and surprise you Got to 60 now. Goodbye
dismissed him from my mind and started looking
at the ladies coming into the lobby from their shopping
trips They carried large bags and boxes and
weighted down also with spring coat and big purse.
The apparel they wore counting purse dress, coat
and underthngs must weigh about two pounds | fig
ured And they probably shop about five hours. So
every instant they're lifting two pounds 120 pounds
a minute POO pounds hour and $4,000 pounds dur
ing the five hours.
Since there are ABS 900 females Ia years old and
over in North Carolina possibly 250000 put in five
hours day shopping. They then exerting lift
ing power Of 5000 100000 pounds during that time
That's equal to 275 900 horsepower.
If it takes 1000 horsepower to move 60car freight
train 25 miles hour they could move 275 such trains.
And applied to the ordinary tasks of sweeping wash
spend in shopping could solve household chores in
iffy with muscle to spare 1t would sweep 4500O0D00
rooms allowing 20 pounds Of energy per room wash
9000000000 dishes giving pound per dish and carry
100000 600 babies weighing Is pounds each n
got tired thinking about it, and decided to turn
n for the night No more statistics for me- would read
a while in Changing Times, the Kiplnger magazine
| learned that 10000 families this year would build
backyard swimming pools. Phooey | tried another
story
Golf, it said is booming. There are 80 new courses
in the T. s. to play this year TOO are being built
and well 7000000O 18-hole rounds of golf will
be played.
turned to another yarn
The average coffee maker today is getting 639
cups Of coffee from pound compared with only 46
cups IN l949 The PanAmerican Coffee Bureau is wor-
red because that II beans per cup or total Of
one trion and 20 billion coffee beans saved or wasted
depending on how you look at it) in the brewing of
IS billion cups Of coffee per year
"AW, beans" explained to myself "rll turn out
the light and go to sleep"
closed my eyes, lay there in the dark and sud-
denly remembered that someone had figured that a
man who lives to be 70 years old has spent % years
sleeping.
It's getting so that can't relax with a cigar
ette oge the woman or take little snooze with
out statistics staring him in the face
President Ike shouldn't have been surprised North
Carolina has known since 1865 how much loot Sher
man can pick up in a state.
By 1860 there'll be 325O000 more eligible women
voters than men, but they'll probably keep denying
they're old enough to vote till they get too old to take
any interest in politics.