20 Years Ago
Week of February 20, 2003
Hunters Bag
1,335 Bruins,
Set New State
Bear Harvest Record
West Virginia bear hunters harvested a state record 1,335 bruins during the combined archery and firearms seasons, according to William K. Igo, black bear project leader for the Division of Natural Resources, wildlife resources section.
The preliminary harvest total is seven more than the previous record of 1,328 established in 2000, and seven percent higher than the 1,253 killed in 2001.
The total number of bears harvested in Pendleton County was 59.
Week of February 27, 2003
SUGAR GROVE
Mountain Dialect
Describes Recent
Old-Fashioned Snowfall
The hills are still firmly grasped in the frigid hand of winter. Snow and ice have completely covered the landscape. The “winds of war” swept through following the weekend heavy rains, which caused swollen streams and heavy wash-off to leave havoc in its path.
The weather “goes with the territory” and the previous weekend, Pendletonians took a “double take” and realized that a “monkey wrench” had been thrown their way with blizzard conditions of 20 to 30 inches of snowfall.
Parents were at the “end of their rope” with schools being closed most of last week; however, the state road did an outstanding job at “biting the bullet” by clearing the highways so that some form of normalcy became effective in everyone’s lives.
A lot of descriptive phrases make up the mountain dialect, which one uses unconsciously and which have been handed down by one’s parents and grandparents. If one is offered a new job, it might be a good idea to ask what “goes with the territory.”
Many times, a spot that looks tempting has requirements not immediately obvious that are less than desirable. Few, if any, sales territories offer only plums; there is always at least one “tough nut to crack” and maybe, a day or two of impossible schedules.
The amount of snow the area received made everyone have a “double take.” No one believed what he or she saw. Erupting from entertainment lingo, “double take” has come to mean deserving a second, or better look.
Naturally, a “monkey wrench” was indeed thrown into schedules. The people who first saw the special tool form of a wrench probably laughed heartily. After all, a wrench whose lower jaw moved up or down at a twist of the fingers is about as ludicrous as a monkey jawing at onlookers in a zoo.
The phrase “at the end of one’s rope” is quite interesting. Europeans invented elaborate devices designed to give a horse freedom to graze, but not to run away. With one end of a rope fastened to the bridle, and the other to a post, a rider could rest while his mount filled its stomach. Many an animal moved to the end of the rope, straining to eat grass barely within reach. Like a tethered horse, a human who exhausted all resources is at the “end of one’s rope.”
Despite the extreme weather conditions, everyone, includng the state road, “bit the bullet” and pushed ahead. In this case, it was the only alternative to calling things quits.
This was the case with many a Civil War casualty. With lives hanging in the balance, supplies of whiskey and other painkillers often ran out. That meant the best the medics could do for a fellow was to offer him a soft-lead bullet. Placed between the teeth, it didn’t give much, but it was better than nothing. It made amputation a little easier “to bite the bullet” instead of lying on the table screaming.
The area has had an almost “good old-fashioned with piles of snow and freezing weather” with the most spectacular snowfall of the season, spreading a fairy tale scene over the hills.
50 Years Ago
Week of February 22, 1973
$500,000 Nursing Home May Be Constructed
In Franklin
The construction of a nursing home in Pendleton County took a step forward last Thursday night at a meeting of the Pendleton Nursing Home Committee in the community room of the Pendleton County Bank.
The proposed structure is a 54-bed facility which can be enlarged into a 74-bed home without enlarging the building. It would be located on a five-acre tract of land to be selected.
The Secret of Longevity—Stay ‘Happily’ Married
And Live on a Hillside
Washington — Stay married and you probably will live longer.
Your chances of longevity further increase if you regularly engage in outdoor activity and dwell on a steep hillside, preferably in the Eucadorean Andes, the Karakoram Mountains of Kashmir, or the Caucasus in Soviet Georgia.
These are the inferences to be drawn from a global study of centenarians conducted by Dr. Alexander Leaf. Dr. Leaf, a Harvard professor and chief of medical services at Massachussets General Hospital, reports.
The gerontologist notes that for marriage to help prolong life, it should be a happy one. He spoke with a Georgian who had married his seventh wife three years ago, at the age of 97. “My first six wives were all wonderful women,” the man said, “but this present wife is an angry woman, and I have aged at least ten years since marrying her.”
Dr. Leaf cites a survey by a Soviet gerontologist, G. E. Pitzkhelauri, of 15,000 persons older than 80, which showed that “with rare exceptions, only married people attain extreme age.”
“Many elderly couples had been married 70, 80, or even 100 years,” he added.
Fixed rules for reaching a ripe old age remain elusive, however. In Abhazia, a part of Soviet Georgia, whose residents regard 100 as a normal life span, the author interviewed a woman who is more than 130. Khfaf Lasuria smokes a pack of cigarettes a day and enjoys a glass of vodka before breakfast and wine before lunch. A tea-leaf picker on the collective farm until she retired in 1970, she had just returned from a bus trip—alone—to visit relatives in a distant village.
Dr. Leaf says the Russian survey of oldsters indicates women with many children tend to live longer. Among the centenarians studied, he writes, “Several women had more than 20 children.”
During a two-year research project supported by the National Geographic Society, Dr. Leaf traveled to
Abkhazia in the Soviet Union, Vilcabamba in Ecuador, and Hunza in Kashmir, the three places in the world where the highest proportion of centenarians is found.
These bastions of longevity are mountainous. In Hunza, Dr. Leaf observes, “It seemed no slope was less than 30 degrees. Just getting through the affairs of the day conditions the hearts of the Hunzukuts.”
“A striking feature common to all three cultures is the high social status of the aged,” he says. “Each of the very elderly persons I saw lived with family and close relatives—often an extensive household—and occupied a central and privileged position within the group.”
He reports that the diet of elderly Abhazians provides from 1,700 to 1,900 calories a day. The figure is about 1,900 in Vilcabamba and 1,200 in Hunza. An overweight oldster is a rarity.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommended in 1968 that men over 55 limit their eating to 2,400 calories a day. Dr. Leaf points out, but the average American consumes 3,300 calories every day.
60 Years Ago
Week of February 28, 1963
100 YEARS AGO
By LON K. SAVAGE
Editor’s Note—The following is one of a series of articles on the Civil War. Each weekly installment covers events which occurred exactly 100 years ago.
U.S. Congress Passes New Conscription Act
A new Federal draft law came into being 100 years ago this week, setting off a controversy that would rage for months.
It was a conscription act designed to place more power in the hands of the Federal government in raising troops to fight the Civil War.
The Union had passed a draft law the year before (and the Confederates had passed one before the Union’s first conscription act). The first conscription act had brought an increase in volunteers among men who felt that conscription bore a stigma.
It also had brought in some draftees. But the enforcement of the 1862 act had been left to the governors of the states, and some governors had been lax in that enforcement, the Lincoln administration felt.
Hence a new draft law was introduced early in the 1863 session, debated for more than a month and finally passed. President Lincoln signed it March 3.
There were features in the bill that would make modern draftees flinch. Men who were called to service could rid themselves of their military obligation by paying $300 to the government. If a draftee could hire a substitute to go in his place, that would exempt him, too. Thousands of Northerners adopted these two means to avoid the military.
Thousands of others were exempted for different reasons. Many were exempt for physical reasons. The sons of aged and infirm parents or the only son of a widowed and dependent mother was exempt. The father of motherless children under 12 was exempt. If two men in a family were in the service, two other men in that family—if they existed—were exempt. If aged and infirm parents had two sons, the father must decide which one was to go to war. If the father was dead, the mother must make the decision.
Beyond that, all men between 20 and 45 were subject to the draft. Those between 20 and 35 and unmarried men from 35 to 45 were placed in a “First Class” which was to be called first. The rest were placed in “Second Class” and were to be called when the First Class had been exhausted. The men were selected by drawing lots.
The administration of the program was placed in the hands of a Federal Provost Marshall. The states and territories were divided into districts, with a local provost marshall presiding over each district. A list was to be made of men of fighting age in each district, and the quota of each district was to depend on the number of men on its list.
Almost immediately, “enrollers” set out through the land collecting names and making up lists of the eligible men. And simultaneously, resistance to the law sprung up. So many people paid cash to get out of the draft that the draft law paid for itself. Substitute soldiers found sudden popularity.
Before the following autumn, the draft law had caused a bloody riot in New York, the shooting of many “enrollers” and the growth of “Copperhead” organizations opposed to the war.
Next week: Ranger Mosby Makes a Raid.
64 Bears Killed
In State
During 1962 Season
West Virginia hunters reported killing 64 bears during the 1962 season, the Department of Natural Resources announced today. This is more than double the 29 bears reported harvested in 1961.
In addition to the seasonal harvest, 18 bears were known to have been killed at other times of the year.
70 Years Ago
Week of March 5, 1953
Editorial
Can We Save Them All? – – –
The policy of the American state department for several years has been to rush all over the world trying to save a multitude of countries from tyranny. It’s a very admirable policy—on paper, but quite impossible when put into action. It reminds one of a life guard who is suddenly called upon to save a score of drowning swimmers and in the process of doing so, expends all of his own energy and drowns himself.
Everyone wants to see a free world, but this nation should not try to bite off more than it can chew—which, in the minds of many, is precisely what has happened already. It is physically and financially impossible for one country, already carrying a heavy burden of debt, to accomplish such a task.
Moreover, there are many nations of the world that are not prepared for democracy as we know it here in America. Freedom is for the deserving—for those who are willing to work and fight and if necessary, die to attain it. That’s how we got it; that’s why we appreciate it.
To many people of the world, freedom is merely a word and nothing more. To such people, accustomed as they are to a life of slavery and serfdom, the first task of our country should be to educate and indoctrinate them in this new way of life; to instill in them the desire before we bestow democracy upon them as a gift.
Democracy, handed to a nation on a platter, can be as dangerous as giving a loaded gun to a child who has never seen one.
