The Petal paper. [volume], December 05, 1963, Image 1

About The Petal paper. [volume] (Petal, Miss.) 1953-19??

Image provided by: Mississippi Department of Archives and History

                
TSds being the issue nearest Christmas, I wish you, one and all
MERRY CHRISTMAS
HAPPY FISCAL YEAR
At Christmastime, generally, I relate in this column my favor
ite Christmas stories. There is one about the Santa Claus in a de
partment store in Hattiesburg who was exhausted after a day of
being jolly old St. Nick to the children brought in to see him. It was
just a few days before Christmas, near closing time of the store,
and some parent purchased a bicycle for his child. “Of course,
said the father, “Santa Claus will put the bike in the car for us.”
Well, good old jolly St. Nick had no choice. While approaching the
door to the street, he was pushed and battered about awfully; finally,
at the door, with shoppers going in and out, Santa Claus got the
bike iammed in edgewise and took a terrible pounding. He was
exhausted, but more than that, he was exasperated. Unable to get
the bike out the door immediately, he exclaimed loudly, so that all
could hear: “I’ll be so damned glad when Christmas is over I won’t
know what to do.” The manager, standing nearby, and having
heard jolly old St. Nick, arranged for his Christmas to be over
then and there.
My other favorite Christmas story has to do with a little girl.
She was attending a presentation of the manger scene in church
with her father. Several times those in the play looked into the crib
at the new born baby. The'little girl, in such wide-eyed innocence,
asked her father loudly, “Daddy, who’s in the basket?”
“Shhhh,” he said, “that’s the little Lord Jesus.”
“My goodness,” the child said in reply, “what’s He doing in
Hattiesburg?”
This year I don’t think I’ll tell those two stories. I saw two
editorials from the Tulsa Tribune which, I think, point up the spiiit
of Christ and the season very well indeed. To me, a frustrated
Baptist preacher, the stories below show and give meaning to what
Christianity should mean to those who claim to be Christians—acts
and deeds instead of Sunday morning lip service.
The first of the Tulsa Tribune’s comments followed the tornado |
in Oklahoma earlier this year. It is entitled, BROTHER’S KEEPERS: I
Our jaded, cynical society needs occasional demonstrations of
how nure Christianity works.
Such an example has been given Oklahomans by members of
the Mennonite churches who have dropped their own duties and
traveled considerable distances to tackle the tornado rubbish at
Sapulpa and Wilburton.
Mennonite customs—the beards, the plain dress, the distaste of
machinery—may seem queer to most of us. But the spectacle of
citizens traveling long distances to participate in the messy, difficult
business of cleaning up after a disaster, with no thought of reward
or attempt at self-glorification, is inspiring.
The Tribune learned of the Mennonite contribution only after
awed Sapulpans called us. No Mennonite press agent had been
around. There was no attempt to give a dime’s worth of charity in
return for a dollar’s worth of publicity.
The second story from the editorial page of the Tulsa Tribune
was of recent date, and is entitled, “WAS THIS YOU?” Herewith:
Was this you? If it was, all we know about you is that you are
a well-dressed, responsible-appearing businessman and that you
were in the vicinity of Third and Main the other afternoon.
Oh, yes we know one other fact about you, but that can wait
for a moment. .. .. '
«I first noticed .the man,” said a lady who phoned us about you.
• (Continued On Page 2)
A BOOK
REVIEW
LOVE IN A LONDON FLAT, by
Victor Jones. Lyle Stuart, New
York, c. 1963. 159 pp. $3.50.
The question arises, “What can '
a non-hero do against stark re
ality?’
Peter Copeman is ineffectual. !
He struggles to survive as a.
schoolmaster, only to find that he j
never has a pair of trousers to j
wear to a party because the boys
at school have splattered ink on
him.
However, he gets to the party
anyway—not through resourceful
ness, but through the generosity of
a roommate, whose trousers he
borrows. Once he is at the party,
there seems to be hope: he meets
Paula. He falls in love with her.
But naturally, he does not know
how to let her know it. Time
catches up with Paula, and she
marries her boss—fiasco No. 1. A
determined blonde, having failed
to capture Copeman’s roommate,
finds Copeman an easier victim.
He winds up a miserable, domi
nated husband—fiasco No. 2.
His problems multiply. He meets
Paula afiain, his wife says she is
pregnant, there is some questior
about his position at school (for
which he gets further humiliation,
(Continued on Page 4)
THE
EMPTY PEW
by
W. Jene Miller
She said to me, “As it gets
nearer Christmas, put your rose
colored glasses on.” So, I did. My
rose-colored glasses enabled me
to see only the good. It was a
wonderful experience.
I saw parents who had started
making payments a long time ago
on presents for their children. I
saw young people working to earn
money to buy presents for their ,
parents. I saw men with bad colds
and fever and aching in their
muscles go to work to earn money
so that their families would have
happy Christmases. I saw women
who were very tired going from
store to store to buy that one last
nice little gift to make someone
happier.
I saw business men taking
money that they needed for taxes
to give their hard-working em
ployees a Christmas bonu* to make
their lives a little gayer. I saw
clerks putting out extra effort to
be nice to some tired customer who
was trying to be argumentative.
I saw busy people stop and hold
doors open for someone laden with
packages. I saw children and ;
adults mailing gifts to those who
were far from them at this time of
the year. I heard people talk
about “ Christmas Cheer” and
“Peace on Earth” and even some
of them mentioned “Good will to
men”. I heard singing. I heard
laughter. I often heard, “Merry
Christmas”!
My, there is so much goodness
(Continued On Page 4)
Some People Never Learn!—
Journal Of A Trip South
by
John Howard Griffin
SUNDAY
Midnight. I make these notes in
Father’s little front-room office at
the Catholic rectory. A sense of
uneasiness fills this house. Why?
Because, I, a white Catholic, am '
visiting a priest? No, that would
be all right. But this priest is a
Negro—and this is the Old South,
and a white man does not stay in !
the home of a Negro, even the
home of a Negro priest.
Father has retired, but some
thing painful, almost nightmarish,
keeps me awake. We expect the
phone to ring at any moment with
a Klan call. Do they know yet?
I am aware of a pricking fear
whenever I stand before a window.
Outside, in the darkness, the
Negro section of this town sur
rounds us. Dogs bark and oc
casionally a rooster crows in the
distance.
The contradictions here tax the
brain. Father’s parishioners have
warned us to be cautious — and
with good reason. The white
racists would be outraged that a
white man should spend the night
in a Negro home—the home of a
priest. T-his f 1 a uTi t s Southern
traditions in this area. And yet if
they caught me in this section of
town visiting a Negro woman for
immoral purposes, this would not
affront them. This would be part
of the “charm” of our Southern
Way of Life.
ine JSlluauuu atimca me agan*
because there is no place where I
can take the priest to dinner, no
place where we can even stop to
have a cup of coffee together. 1
receive my nourishment in the
homes of Father’s friends. Only j
there can we sit down to table
together. They receive me gallant- j
ly. The atmosphere of their homes j
is full of hospitality—they speak
easily and minimize the clanging
dissonance of a white man in
their homes. If things were nor
mal, I would be merely a co
religionist accompanying a priest
friend to eat with them.
But things are not normal. I
learned this evening that a host
on a former occasion slept with
his shotgun by his bed after we
had left. Later, the Klan tele
phoned to warn him they were
“watching his every move.”
This very Klan shouts constant
ly about freedom, about the white
man’s right to freedom of
association. But I am white and I
what freedom do I have here?
They do not even want me to ,
associate with a Negro priest. I j
know that I jeopardize the safety
of any Negro who receives me
into his home. And yet they re
ceive me graciously.
Tonight, Father tactfully waited
until almost dark to drive me to a
home ten miles out of town. We
entered this home only after it
had become full night so that no
one could see us. Once inside, our
hosts put us at ease. But we were
aware of our plight, the unspeak
able plight in this land of the free:
the need for secrecy because
Negro and white Catholics were
sitting down with a priest to take
ood. How symbolic, almost
Eucharistic, this act of eating to
gether becomes in such an “under
ground” context. The Catacombs
—we knew something of that.
We talked. We talked about
the problems of Negro Catholics
in a rigidly segregated area. Our
host spoke without bitterness.
Where did his family attend
church?
“In Father’s church,” he said as
though surprised that I should
even ask such a question.
“But don’t you have a Catholic
Church in this town?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Then you’re in this parish, not
Father’s.” I said.
“It doesn’t work that way here,”
he said. “We go to the Negro
Church—it’s understood.”
“Do you mean you have to go
all that distance to Mass when you
have a Catholic Church right
here?”
“We do that, yes,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“To keep the peace . . . out of
love for the Church,” he said
simply.
“What would happen if you
attended Mass here?” I asked.
“It wouldn’t be appreciated at
all. We would probably be asked
to leave.”
“Not by the priest, surely?”
“No — the priest is all right. He
has told us to call on him if ever
we need help. No, the parishion
ers would not like it.”
The conversation around this
matter died. I realized that I was
bringing up a subject that could
not then be resolved.
And yet these were by no means
“Uncle Toms.” They were Catho
lics who realized fully the scandal
of this kind of religious segre
gation, who suffered from it; but
they had faith that this sort of
thing had to right itself and would
most certainly right itself.
Floorboards in this rectory creak
with every footstep I take. I turn
on the radio and find a M o z a r t
Divertimento. It bounces from the
walls of this room, setting a tone
of such sanity, such health and
charity that the surrounding
night’s menace appears profoundly
obscene by contrast.
But the menace is there to taint
everything. It is understood clearly
that I can remain here only until
the racist group in town discover
my presence — and we are not at
all sure that they do not already
know. Certainly they knew that
a Negro family had a white man
to dinner here on my last trip
through. The threat is tangible:
perhaps a warning will come, or a
molotov cocktail or a shot from
out there in the darkness.
We say we don’t care, but we
are saying in reality: “If they kill
or maim us, then let them and let
it scandalize the world. We can
not bow this low to them. It is
better to die than to bow down to
a system that makes it wrong for
a Negro priest to have a white
co-religionist in his home.”
The racist would say that my
(Continued on Page 2)
A,