Yiumbin 9 It
■ situatii
been Ti
man, J[i|
?le wej|
ir all-S
200-po;
iptain,
iship 8C!
is regi
16 M us| i (EDITOR’S NOTE: Yesterday we left A&M’s greatest hitchhiker.
Battalion sports editor Larry Jerden, as he stood in “the darkest
r ters ft S pot on the face of the earth” waiting for another ride. His report
(on his trip home for Christmas continues today.
team
)enny E
-5 font
points
:ent rea
man is:
ub.
aggress
igainst
oints.
'resh t:
icticutl
The As
'st appe
r for
shrilled
pect it
A-ere a
'humbing Champ
bntinues Tale
Of Holiday Trip
By Larry Jerden
I stood there for 20 minutes, w ith less than one car every five,
and a truck now and then to blow me over. The longer I stood there,
the better the idea sounded of spending the night with the doctor
but it was too late for that, and I was seven miles from Minden,
the nearest town.
At 8:15, a big Mack slammed to a halt, backed up, and I scam
pered into the warm, if noisy cab.
The driver, and owner of the truck, was Frank Dawn of Dallas.
He was hauling produce from Dallas to Monroe, was going to unload
there and go on down to New Orleans to pick up a load of bananas
to sell in Big D. An independent trucker, he figured he could make
$600 on this two-day trip.
We’d been hauling down the highway for half an hour when we
spotted a Comet stuck in the mud on the side of the road, about ten
yards from a 30-foot drop to the swamps. Dawn stopped the truck
and we got out to help.
In We pushed, pulled, strained and tried just about everything we
J.IJ could, but the little car was in to its axle and we didn’t have a chain.
We finally took the driver, a young airman from Big Spring on his
way to Florida, to the next town and let him off to call a wrecker.
Before letting me out in Monroe, Dawn gave his opinion of the
war.
“I was in the 82 Airborne in WW-II, and I say either send in
enough men to win, or bring our boys home.”
My seventh ride was across Monroe with Glen McAdams, a fresh
man at Northeast Louisiana State, majoring in BA. He is a student
in the day and works at night, and, he says, just doesn’t think about
the war very much.
At 9:20, I was back on the road, standing on the outskirts of
rn 8 | town. Cars were passing pretty regularly, and no one seemed
interested in picking up a guy in uniform that night. Finally I
noticed a car with Texas plates slowing down, but it was just to
pull into the filling station a few yards down the road. I went back
to thumbing it . . . but I looked back ... a fellow Texan . . . hmmm.
Ti 1 Why not? All he can do is say NO. He was getting ready to
leave when I rushed up to him.
“You from Texas?”
“Yep.”
“Got anything against giving an Aggie a ride?”
“No, hop in!”
I went back and got my bag, and after introducing myself,
settled beck in the soft seat for a long, comfortable ride.
A. F. James, a truck line owner, was on his way to Birmingham,
Alabama, and while he was going to make a couple of stops along the
way, the prospect of one ride all night was the best I’d had yet.
He seemed thankful for someone to talk to, and he began telling
me of his days in the oil fields, and how he rode the freight trains.
“I worked for weeks on an oil rig once, back in East Texas,
during the depression, and saved all my money in a sock. I was
going to save up a pile and make a grand homecoming, show my folks
how good I’d done on my own. I was about 20 at the time.”
“After saving up a few hundred dollars, I decided that the next
day I’d go home. That morning I woke up, fixed all my things to
leave, and went to work on the rig for the last time.”
“But when I got in that evening to pick up my things, I knew
what had happened. My money was gone!”
“All the fellows knew who did it. There was this no-good that
hung around the camp. All my buddies went into town that night
lookin’ for him, and we knew what to do when we found him, too.
But we never found him.”
“So, the next morning, I packed what I had again, and, since
I knew the train schedule . . . freight that is ... I hopped this one.
See, our camp was by a big hill, and that train could just barely pull
it, so it was just going ’bout two miles and hour and you could just
step on it. The train people didn’t care, either.”
“When I got home, the train went right in front of the house, I
was gonna hop off, run to the garage and wash up, change, and walk
in looking real nice for my folks.”
“Well, the train wasn’t going very fast, but faster than I thought,
and when I hopped off, I ran a few steps, lost my balance, and fell
head over heels into a big, muddy drainage ditch.”
“That wasn’t so bad, ’cause I could still sneak around to the
side of the house and change, but, as I picked myself up out of the
mud, there was mom and dad sitting on the front porch, laughing so
hard tears were coming down their face. That was the end of my
train hopping.”
“But nowadays everybody has everything handed to them. We’re
gettin’ too soft, that’s the trouble with this country.”
“Now the trouble in Viet Nam is that we don’t know what’s
going on enough here at home. I’m not for Communism, but I’m not
for the way we’re doing it over there, either. But I’m not a quitter,
so I think we ought to do a good job and get it over with.”
His ’61 Buick was heavy, fast and quiet, and the only way we
could tell miles and time were passing was the way our eyelids
began clicking together. At 11:15 we stopped in Vicksburg, Mis
sissippi for a snack, then drove through light fog till one in the
morning. At 1:15 we stopped for coffee, and 15 minutes later I got
behind the wheel and drove the 65 miles to Meredian in a little less
than an hour, fighting rain, fog, and sleep.
McAdams has a station of his truck line in Meridian, and was
transferring one of his truck drivers, Harmon Hasher, to Birming
ham. After having the car serviced, and while McAdams and I slept,
Hasher took over the driving and we pulled out of Meridian at 3:25
a.m. Hasher drove to the iron and steel capital of the South. After
McAdams bought breakfast for us all, and I had my first grits in
about three months, they let me out on the street.
I stood there from 6:30 to about 6:35 when Bill Jordan, a ma
chinist in the city, sped up in his ’66 Olds 4-4-2 and had me across
the length of the city in what is probably near record time. He knew
an Aggie once, and recognized my uniform. He had me out on the
outskirts of the city by 7:15, where I stood for 15 minutes in light
rain.
A ’50 Ford whisked by, made a U-turn on the slick four-lane
street, and came back to give me a ride out into the country a few
miles. Milford Simmons, the driver, was on his way to work where he
runs a Texaco station just out of the city limits.
Five minutes later I was on the road again, and after an equal
length of time on the road side, a ’63 Valiant made a rapid stop. After
the driver shifted his luggage around in the back I tossed my heavily-
laden B-4 on the seat and piled in the front.
Lt/JG Martin Chandler was on his way to Roanoke, Alabama
where he is a CPA for the Marement Corporation when he is not on
active duty with the Navy. He quickly gave his opinion of the war,
the state of the nation, his Christian faith, and the role he hopes to
play in all of it.
A graduate of the University of Alabama, he described himself
as a strong anit-Communist.
“I think we’re doing the right thing in Viet Nam, but we should
win the war to defeat Communism, not use it for political purposes.
We are in a death struggle and this thing Communism has got to
be stopped,” he said.
He swung his Valiant off the road at a crossroads where he was
to turn off, we shook hands, and at 8:35 I was again out in the cold.
Aggies Upset Mustangs, 85-78
Che Battalion
Volume 61 COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 5, 1966 Number 251
Cyclotron Heads List
Of Campus Projects
CAMPUS CONSTRUCTION TOTALS $26.5 MILLION
Workman crosses huge hole next to the elude the offices of University Information
A&M University Press which is part of the and Student Publications. Other major pro-
$26.5 million construction project underway jects started are the expansion of Cushing
on campus. The site will house the new Memorial Library, the Cyclotron and Bi-
University Services Building which will in- ological Sciences Buildings.
‘Stale Air Taxi’ Crew
Runs Unique Car Pool
Three Texas A&M employes
have been riding to work to
gether for almost 35 years in a
“stale air taxi.”
They are charter members of
a unique car pool which began in
the early 1930’s. Uniqueness
stems from the fact that mem
bers of the pool buy vehicles ex
pressly for transportation.
Steve Visoski, physical plant
accountant and 40-year employe,
is “pilot” of the pool’s “taxi.”
Co-pilot is fiscal office account
ant H. C. Hertel, with 39 years at
Ag Hospitalized
With Broken Neck
After Car Mishap
Texas A&M senior Marvin
Ratliff Jr. remains in serious
condition in a Del Rio hospital
with a broken neck.
The veterinary medicine ma
jor was injured in a Christmas
holiday accident at the Interna
tional Bridge on the Rio Grande
River. Two other persons re
ceived minor injuries when the
car in which they were riding
crashed into a concrete median.
Ratliff, 23, is the son of Mr.
and Mrs. Marvin Ratliff, Sr.,
Box 988, Del Rio.
He is hospitalized at Val Verde
Memorial in Del Rio, Room 203.
Ratliff will be hospitalized for
another two weeks, then in bed
at his parents’ home for an ad
ditional month.
He hopes to continue his vet
erinary medicine studies at A&M.
Another university student,
John Fowler of Baytown, re
mained at home following the
holiday. The father of his wife,
Mary, died in an airplane crash in
Louisiana.
The Fowlers reside at 102
Batts, Bryan.
Aggieland. The other charter
member is Frank Nedbalek, Tex
as Forest Service accountant and
36-year employe.
Visoski cranks up the General
Motors Corp. carryall about 7:25
every morning at 400 West 30th
in Bryan. Nedbalek, who lives
just across the street, is the first
passenger.
Along the 7-mile route, he
picks up William A. Norman, ad
ministrative assistant for the
Texas Forest Service, a 38-year
employe; W. D. Locke, fiscal
plant office manager; Miss Bar
bara M. Ruchti, Agricultural Ex
tension Service accounting as
sistant, and sometimes Mrs.
Mary E. Parrett, Agricultural
Extension Service stenographer.
Charter members pay $4
monthly, riders $5. With these
funds, Visoski pays for gas and
oil, a campus parking sticker,
license plates, insurance for the
group and puts the surplus into a
fund to buy a new vehicle.
C. C. Edge of Bryan originat
ed the pool with an ancient Chev
rolet. Then came an Oldsmobile.
The pool mushroomed until five
men were riding in the back seat.
To solve the problem, an old
Dodge transport was purchased
for $300 in 1947. It was re
placed in 1955 by the present
GMC carryall.
As members dropped out of
the pool for one reason or anoth
er during the years, they receiv
ed partial refunds from the sur
plus.
Pool rules are simple and prob
lems are few. Everybody sits in
the same seat they have occupied
for years by force of habit. Des
pite two vacant seats now, the
vehicle is still equipped with a
canvas stool for an extra rider.
One minor accident involved
the “stale air taxi” several years
ago. A little sports car hit the
carryall in the rear wheels on a
foggy day. Nobody was injured,
however.
Nedbalek recalled that a form
er A&M president, Gibb Gil
christ, rode as a guest in the
vehicle when his car would not
start.
“After that,” Nedbalek said,
“we put up a sign saying ‘Gibb
rode here’.”
Asked about the probability of
buying a new vehicle, Nedbalek
quipped, “We like this one. We
are going to ride ’er ’til she
quits.”
By MIKE BERRY
Battalion Staff Writer
The Student Senate will con
sider Thursday proposals con
cerning operation of political
clubs on campus and acts of van
dalism to campus buildings.
Senate President Roland Smith
said the group will also appoint a
committee to study the organiza
tion and administration of Stu
dent Publications and recommend
possible changes.
The Senate will send to the
Administration a recommenda
tion dealing with the need to
“govern the attempts made by
students ... to paint, deface or
destroy property,” and seeking,
“an agreement . . . with the mem
ber schools of the Southwest
Conference.”
The recommendation is being
distributed to the athletic direc
tors of member colleges of the
Southwest Conference, and to
administration officials. Dr. Chris
Groneman will present the Sen
ate proposal to the spring meet
ing of the SWC Faculty Commit-
By DANI PRESSWOOD
Battalion Staff Writer
Texas A&M’s $6 million cyc
lotron heads 12 projects on cam
pus totaling $26.5 million under
construction now or in the near
future, said Dean of Students
James P. Hannigan.
The 88-inch variable energy
cyclotron, which will occupy a
10-acre site at the comer of
Spence Street and Farm Road 60,
is expected to be the largest in
the South. It is due to be com
pleted next January.
The $3.6 million expansion of
Cushing Memorial Library has
closed travel on Roberts and
Hubbard Streets from the Agri
culture to the Academic Build
ing.
The four-story addition will
adjoin the present structure and
double its volume capacity to
1,000,000 books. Expected to be
finished by November of 1967,
the library will provide about
200,000 square feet.
The largest toxicology labora
tory in the nation will be con
structed south of Farm Road 60
across from the College of Vet
erinary Medicine. No date has
been set for its completion.
The $3.6 million laboratory
will consist of a main one-story
building and 12 smaller outbuild
ings. Most of its research activi
ties will be devoted to pesticides
and insects affecting livestock.
A Space Science Center and
Data Processing Center adition
are under construction on the
eastern side of the campus. The
$2.25 million space center will
house A&M’s activation analysis
laboratory, other space-related,'
research facilities, sections of
the Institute of Statistics and the
DPC additions.
Other facilities in the building
are designed for plasma physics
research; space life sciences sec
tion; space structures research
for strength of materials for cap
sules; space electronics research;
and space chemistry research.
The large excavation across
from Cushing library is the be
ginning of a $2.75 million addi
tion to the Biological Sciences
Building.
The four-story expansion will
provide increased facilities for
research and graduate studies.
The building will house labora
tories for research in bio-zoology,
micro-biology, bio-chemistry and
marine biology in addition to
radiation laboratories in the base
ment.
Other construction projects are
a $1 million Services Building
tee.
A statement formulated by the
Issues Committee defining the
scope and procedures of political
clubs on campus will be pre
sented at the meeting for ap
proval.
The statement recommends
that “political clubs ... be al
lowed on campus under the same
procedure as any other student
organization.”
The conditions for their ad
mittance would be: approval of
the Dean of Students, an ap
proved faculty or staff sponsor
or advisor, the filing of a consti
tution or statement of purpose
in the Student Center Finance
Office, and the deposition of or
ganization funds in the Finance
Office.
Because of their nature,
further procedural limitations
will be placed on political clubs.
Speakers will be subject to the
approval of the Dean of Stu
dents, but this approval will not
be withheld because of an in
dividual’s political beliefs.
to house all University informa
tion and publications; a $2.5 mil
lion Veterinary Medicine Sciences
Building addition; a $1 million
Veterinary Medicne Hospital ad
dition; and a $3 million project
calling for the renovation of
Guion Hall, air conditioning of
G. Rollie White Coliseum and the
addition of a new wing to the
Memorial Student Center.
Future plans also include air
conditioning and remodeling the
Engineering Building and con
struction of six new dormitories
in the Duncan Hall area.
Increased parking space is also
called for to facilitate the ex
pected enrollment increase.
Pulitzer Prize
Correspondent
To Speak Here
Pulitzer Prize winning corres
pondent Eddy Gilmore of the
Associated Press will speak
Thursday at 8 p.m| in the Mem
orial Student Center Ballroom.
Gilmore captured journalism’s
highest honor in 1947 for his
story of an interview with Soviet
Premier Joseph Stalin at the
start of the Big Four talks. He
won Headliner and Sigma Delta
Chi awards for best foreign cor
respondence in 1946.
“Creeping Capitalism in Rus
sia” is Gilmore’s topic. His visit
is sponsored by the MSC Great
Issues Committee.
Great Issues Chairman Tom
Tyree said Gilmore’s talk will be
no dry recital of economic
changes, but an entertaining des
cription of how capitalism is
gaining new strongholds within
the Soviet system.
Gilmore joined the AP in 1935
and began coverage of the Soviet
Union in 1942. He met a Rus
sian ballerina in Moscow and
married her in 1943 despite a
hassle with Soviet authorities.
They have three daughters, all
American citizens.
More recently, Gilmore has
reported foreign news from AP
headquarters in London.
Gilmore’s autobiography, “Me
and My Russian Wife” was a best
seller. He followed with a nov
el, “Troika”, and recently a live
ly account of his return trip to
Russia with his wife in 1963:
“After the Cossacks Burned
Down the ‘Y’.”
Solicitation of funds will be
permitted, with the approval of
the Dean of Students, during
registration outside Sbisa Dining
Hall and in the Memorial Student
Center campaign area on the
corner of the Guion Hall block.
No campaigning or demon
strating of any form will be al
lowed, however. The final quali
fication of the statement reads,
“These rules shall not be used to
prohibit campaigning or rallies
held off compus—in fact, an or
ganization of a double nature is
advisable. It could meet and
recruit on campus, but hold its
rallies and campaign speeches
off campus.”
After the Senate vote, copies
of the resolution will be submit
ted to the Executive Committee,
the President and the Board of
Directors.
The committee that will ex
amine Student Publications will
include polls in their study to
determine attitudes of the stu
dent body to present Student
Publication procedures.
Political Clubs, Defacings
Top Student Senate Agenda