Roanoke Rapids herald. [volume], September 02, 1937, SECTION A, Page 4, Image 4

About Roanoke Rapids herald. [volume] (Roanoke Rapids, N.C.) 1931-1948

Image provided by: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library, Chapel Hill, NC

                
ROANOKE RAPIDS, NORTH CAROLINA
THE LARGEST NEWSPAPER IN HALIFAX COUNTY
Member North Carolina Press Association
CARROLL WILSON, Owner and Editor
Entered as Second Class matter April 3rd, 1914, at the post offu.
at Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, under Act of March 3rd, 1879.
OFFICE EQUIPMENT & SUPPLIES
ADVERTISING - PRINTING - EMBOSSING
EDBB0WAL
THE LOST COLONY
• • One conies away from a performance of “The
Lost Colony” at Fort Raleigh near Manteo with
mixed feelings.
Immediate reactions are unpleasant ones due
in no degree to the pageant itself but to the physi
cal aspect of getting in and away from the island
or finding a place to stay for the night. Food seems
scarce because there are so many visitors demand
ing same at the same time.
We sat in a restaurant, The Wigwam, hastily
improvised for the pageant crowds and due to fold
its “tent” and silently steal away after Labor Day,
until we could wait no longer and then snatched a
hasty sandwich at a drug store counter.
The seats in the amphitheatre were wet and
hard, grew no softer as time went on. Wise per
sons brought their own pillows. Some may have
had fortunate parking places. We were jammed
in between two cars and a corner of the fort, sat
there for what seemed like hours for one car way
up front, blocking the whole row, to move out and
break the blockade. And a long list of complaints,
all of which, we admit were purely physical and
just as temporary....
As one gets away from that side of it and
looks back over the two hours of sublime music
and flawless acting, the authentic settings, the ro
mantic story unfolded, and the perfect lighting ef
fects, those physical discomforts fade away for
gotten,
One of the things that struck us was the ab
solute attentiveness of the crowd. There were a
bout 3,000 men, women and children there that
night. Except for one infant’s plaintive wail two
rows back, that entire audience sat with eyes glued
on the stages, seemed straining to catch the few
spoken words, missed not one bit of the panto
mime.
Sitting there under the stars, knowing that on
or near that very spot just such homely events
transpired 350 years ago, the thing grips one un
til he too is reliving each incident.
We believe the secret of the success of “The
Lost Colony” is the simplicity of it all. The scenes
unfold in chronological order and there is no con
fusing plot or counterplot. It is as if one were back
in school reading the story of that colony, first
English with the first white child of English par
entage, the hopes and aspirations of those settling
in a new land, their troubles, trials and tribula
tions, their moments of exaltation and happiness,
their moments of black despair when they realize
they will never hear or see their loved ones back
home again, their last journey as the survivors
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fade into the woods seeking a new home.
That last scene remains with one. No one
knows what happened to them. But after watch
ing them for two hours there, and then seeing them
leave the village and walk up the hill leading away
from the main stage, and entering the woods at
the top of the hill after a last glance at their home,
one feels as if that is just what happened so many
years ago. You know it did. For you see them go
with your own eyes.
But, in retrospect, as one draws farther from
the scene, the most impressive and lasting impres
sion we have of those forefathers of ours is the
simple faith of the people of those days. A faith
in their God, so childlike in its simplicity and yet
so firmly rooted, that unknown seas and unchart
ed forests, fierce animals and treacherous natives,
cold ,heat, hunger, starvation, loss of loved ones
and death itself ... that simple faith conquered all
these.
One has the feeling they were not lost at all
when they set out on that last journey, never to be
seen by human eye again. With such simple faith,
none could ever call them lost.
The feeling we got was that they had found
something which we of today have lost.
“The Lost Colony” brings us the real meaning
of the “Faith of Our Fathers.”
. ■ , •; . . |
THIS MONTH OF AUGUST
• • Is is the month of August or is it that the
world is getting worse all of a sudden?
For the past few weeks, the daily newspapers
have been filled with crime news, most of them
crimes of the most sordid kind. One morning pa
per Tuesday had at least a half dozen of these sto
ries, most of them following the same line: sex
crimes. Even the most hardened of us get fed up
on too much of any one thing and then we start to
do a little wondering, and possibly a little thinking.
We have heard somewhere that August is a
bad month for crimes of this sort; why, we don’t
.know. It sounds a little far-fetched -to pin any
thing like that on a season of the year and we
thought at the time it might have just been an ali
bi of some law enforcement official who was not
doing his job. But come to think of it, August does
seem to have more than its share of this kind of
thing.
Heretofore, August has just been one of those
bad business months that iome between seasons
and could better be left out; of the calendar alto
gether. If it be true that die to the weather, crim
inal instincts get the bett* of people, there is an
other good reason to do
away with August.
Several things have
happened i n Roanoke
Rapids in the past few
days that the same peo
ple would probably not
do in cooler and calmer
moments. The more we
think about it, the more
we believe there is some
thing in the theory that
on the tag end of a long,
hot Summer, m e n’s
nerves are frayed and
they may say or do
things which later they
regret very much.
If that is not a suffi
cient reason, it is at
least a charitable one.
COME SEPTEMBER
Q This particular September is'
one which marks another mile
stone in the life of the writer, a
mile stone in this instance being
one of those events from which we
have a habit of dating others less
important . . . “Let’s see, that was
two years after the baby was born
... or that happened six weeks
after Junior cut his first tooth . . ”
This particular September hap
pens to be one of those kind. Those
of you who have lived thru it will
smile, of course, while those who
have not, probably, will not under
stand.
School starts in September. Of
course, it usually does and prob
ably always will, unless somebody
gets the idea that eight or nine
months is too long and agitates for
school to start in October or No
vember. But on this particular
September, we live a new experi
ence.
We start a child in school.
Now, we know that is done ev
ery year by thousands of parents,
but up until now it has always
been somebody else, not us.
And now we say to all those who
have and who will start a child for
the first time that it is an experi
ence one does not forget.
School, something which was in
the abstract, something which you
supported because it was the rignt
thing to do, suddenly becomes a vi
tal, daily problem with you. Al
most overnight that little baby has
grown up. It is no longer all yours; i
it must be shared with others[.
Perhaps your reaction was dif
ferent or will be. But for us, it
makes us feel old, ages old, and
not a little sad.
Cadet William Graham Dean,
after spending his furlough here
with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. W.
S. Dean, is returning to West
Point His address is Co. B, U. S.
\t A., West Point, N. Y.
Mrs. Douglas Davis of Rocky
Mount is the guest of Mrs. J. P.
Co .'>on this week.