The Chapel Hill weekly., 1963-01-16

me another column to write for
the morning paper. so l was
writing two daily columns, eve.
ry day and Sunday. The other
column was called Poison Ivey,'
and the two were supposed to be
different. | don't know how that
was achieved. l don't think there
was very much thought in either
of them.' | have some here that
Burke Davis just sent back to
me. He's doing a book on humor
IN North. Carolina; and he said
he was going to incorporate some
of these columns into the book.
Well, then the war came
along, just in time. I was draft
ed | went in on April first. 1912.
went to Fort Bragg first, and
Gordon Gray wrote some letters
to some people. and made ar
engagements for me to keep OFT
writing my column from the
Army. When | got there had
to clear it. You know, went
to the first sergeant of the COM
pany, and he took it to the COM
pany commander, and the COM
pany commander said okay, this
was fine. Sol wrote the column
from the Army there for about
thirty days. | wrote both columns.
actually Then | shipped out of
there and went for basic train
ing to Aberdeen Proving Ground
in Maryland, in Ordnance. |
wrote the column from there,
too, only | had to clear it with
the post public relations officer.
Then | went through OCS, Of
ficers candidate school, there
as a second lieutenant, and there
was this newSpaperman from
Pennsylvania who was in charge
of all the libraries, and the thea
terS, and morale things on the
post. One of these computerS.
they were running through look
ing for an assistant for him, my
card up in the computer with the
Graham Memorial experience
and newspaper experience, and
he liked that because he was a
neWspaperman. and so | became
his assistant. I was still writing
the column.
Then somebody in Washington
had a computer too, and they
were looking for someone to work
in the new Special Services
branch. which had just come
through, and up came my name,
so | went to Washington and spent
the rest of the war travelling be-
tween New York and Washing
ton. The commanding officer was
General Joseph W. Byron, and
/ became his aide. He's dead.
The late General Byron. | was
his aide, and l made a junket
once. After VI Day Macarthur
said he wanted all these recrea-
tional things set up in the Pacific,
so General Byron said to me
0tfe day ete7 t!i oa kff0w how 55SF
to operate camera? | said no,
so he said, go on down to the
Signal Corps office and learn
how to operate one. / want you
to come with me to the Pacific.
So | learned how to operate
still camera and movie camera,
the only time | had ever operat-
ed a camera. Macarthur wanted
everything Eisenhower had in
Europe, and a little bit more.
General Byron went out there to
look things over, to Hawaii, Hon
olulu, Japan, and Korea. | went
along and took pictures, movies
of everything. Then we started
shipping materials out.
Then in 1916 General Brad
lev. Omar Bradley, he had just
taken over the Veterans Ad-
ministration, and he asked me
to help him, so helped set up
newspapers in 125 veterans hos
pitals all over the nation. The
patients edited them, and we
put out a directive telling them
how to do it, and if they needed
help we helped them. Most OF
them were mimeographed, but
in some places a local printing
plant would give them the print
ing or some civic club would
help them out. This was in gener-
al hospitals, neuro-psychiatric
hospitals. tuberculosis hospitals
The newspaper staff turnover
was pretty heavy in the general
hospitals, but people stayed much
longer in the neuro-psychiatrit
hospitals and the tuberculosis
hospitals. Some of the best news
papermen were in the MP hos
pitas, some of the cleverest
most creative work I've eve
seen came out Of them. Not all o
them could write, but the one.
who could were good. 1t kind o
adds up, doesn't it, neuro-pSydhi
atric and newspapers? But YOUR
only crazy in one way, you Cal
do good work at something.
81 stopped writing the column