Slouch
by Jim Earle
f A*
Vv'7'/ :> -'7' 5
“Did you say that somebody sold you a ticket to listen to the
game on your own radio in your own room?“
Opinion
A&M ‘factory’ doors
don’t slam shut
The factory doors cracked open a little last week.
Texas A&M University, over the years, has put more and
more requirements in students’ curricula to successfully
produce a money-making graduate. In the process, the ef
ficient factory has also squeezed out the “air that rounds
out a person’s view of the world and opens his mind.
A proposal to give students nine free elective hours — to
be selected outside their major department — was ex
pected to go down in flames before the Academic Council
last week.
Observers figured opposition, mainly from engineering
and hard science quarters, would sfnPther the attempt to
liberate some hours for students.
But the proposal did not die. Instead, it was sent to a
special committee established to study it.
That’s good. At least now the proposal has a chance. If a
final vote had been taken, it probably would have been
defeated.
We hope the special committee will agree that students
need opportunities in college to learn something besides
how to make money.
Maybe the factory doors will let in some fresh air.
A fine statement, but...
Encouraging Aggies to speak up with a firm “Howdy” sounds like a great
idea, especially when a yell leader says it at Midnight Yell Practice.
What’s not so great is following the statement with a really “grody” fable, or
stoiy.
Most stories are encouraging, demeaning of the other school, or downright
funny.
The second fable at Friday’s Yell Practice was funny, but good humor has its
bounds — and that particular one crossed the bounds of good taste.
It’s downright embarrassing to be with a date when a grody fable is told.
But more than that, it’s downright embarrassing to admit to an old Ag that
that kind of story typifies Yell Practices today.
Jokes don’t have to be embarassing to be funny; we can knock another team
or encourage our own without being gross. And we can laugh then, too.
The reason for saying “Howdy” to old Aggies — and everyone else — is to
impress them with Aggie spirit, friendliness and traditions.
How impressed are they at our traditionally — sometimes exceptionally —
off-color stories?
The Battalion
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ca
The Battalion
Texas A&M University
Monday
October 15, 1979
Staff notebook
R.I.P. Dutch Osborne
By ANDY WILLIAMS
Battalion Staff
A good cowboy and a good cowman died
last week. He was my grandfather.
His name was Dutch Osborne. Though
the name on his birth certificate was David
W., the nickname he picked up as a tow
headed boy hung on long after his hair had
turned black and even when it was speck
led with gray.
The phrase “a good cowboy and a good
cowman” was his. It was the highest com
pliment I ever heard Granddad pay any
one. He said it in reference to a ranch
foreman named Clint whom I remember
chiefly for the barbed-wire cuts on his
hands.
I liked the phrase because it brought up
two qualities that were, in Granddad’s
eyes, important for a man to have, and
drew a distinction between them. A cow
boy is one who works directly with stock.
A cowman is one who is in the cattle busi-
not by my own citified, judgment, but by
his financial success and the respect that
other good cowboys and cowmen paid
him.
He was solitary but not lonesome.
There were few people whose standards
he worried about conforming to, and I
think that is what allowed him to be inde
pendent.
When he was born in the Panhandle in
1908, about 75 percent of the people in
Texas lived on farms and ranches. By
1970, the Texas Almanac says, only about
3.5 percent did.
Probably because of that change, there
are fewer and fewer men like him now. He
lived in a thoroughly different world than
the one that has developed.
I know Granddad fit his own description
Granddad froze his feet when he and his
dad, on horseback, drove a herd of mules
about 45 miles from the family farm south
east of Pampa to Clarendon one day.
He survived the Dust Bowl and the De
pression farming near the town of Panhan
dle.
In general, he hated the government,
feeling it took his money needlessly and
spent it foolishly.
This was probably partly responsible for
causing his last fistfight, which he had
when he was in his forties. It was with a
county employee who was working near
Granddad’s land. I heard the story
second-hand and don’t know what the
fight was about (specifically) or who won,
but I was told it gave Granddad consider
able pleasure.
He was ungodly tough. He was not
much more than 5-foot-7, but he wore a
17-inch shirt collar. One winter day when
my folks and I were visiting him and my
grandmother, several of his cows began to
calve.
My dad, his son-in-law, went with him
to help out. Dad said later the cold had
been terrible — the temperature was zero
and the wind was more than 40 miles an
hour — but Granddad had stayed out in it
all the time, refusing to get ii
even the few times he had a
He must have been bored after
working on his farm. When lie
68, he and I watched his son sta
Granddad picked up the last b
weighed about 65 pounds).off.theu
threw it into the ham. “Just wo]
could still do that, he said with
of-faet expression.
Like most Texas men of his
he rarely exhibited tenderness
which made it memorable when lie
saw it happen once.
A little girl cousin of mine crawledi
his lap one day when she wasaix
there are angels, they are like her
sister.
She sat and looked at him, then
him and said, “I love you. It toe
almost no time to decide to forii
composure. “I love you, too,’’hesaii
kissed her. They sat there foralo
her blond hair against his dark
That’s a picture of him I intendtok
/ .».■ A wsr, • •
Melody J(
Broder
The triumph of the unfashiombh
we are seeing victory over
By DAVID S. BRODER
WASHINGTON — It is dangerous to
draw too much meaning from historical
coincidence, but the temptation is strong
today. When teams from Pittsburgh and
Baltimore are playing a World Series,
right after the pope from Poland has met
with the President from Plains, a message
is being delivered which cannot be ig
nored.
What we are witnessing these days is a
triumph of the unfashionable, a victory
over elitism and a vindication of the
victims of social snobbery. A President
who eats grits, a pope who likes Polish
sausage, and two cities of beer-drinking
steelworkers occupy the spotlight — to the
envy of those with fancier tastes.
It is not clear what effect this cultural
inversion will ultimately have on this soci
ety. But for the moment, it has focused
attention on some of the neglected sources
of America’s strength, particularly in its
blue-collar, ethnic neighborhoods.
The men who planned the pope’s
triumphant American tour were more sen
sitive to these sources of our strength than
are many of the leaders of our own coun
try.
The pope s trip was, in many respects, a
neighborhood tour. Yes, he visited the
United Nations and the White House, the
symbols of secular power. But the most
affecting scenes of his journey came in the
neighborhoods, from Boston’s North End
to Harlem and the South Bronx to
Chicago’s Milwaukee Avenue and Pilsen.
Switching easily from Polish to Italian to
Spanish to English, the pope emphasized
and endorsed the ethnic diversity that is
one of America’s unique qualities.
By visiting the neighborhood churches
as well as the great cathedrals of his faith,
he underscored the role of those churches
as the cornerstones, not only of Catholi
cism, but of the secular communities they
serve.
As it happens, Baltimore and
Pittsburgh, rivals in baseball s autumn
classic, are preeminently cities of
neighborhoods. Their triumph in the regu
lar season and the playoffs created a World
Series match-up far different in character
from the Los Angeles-New York rivalry a
year ago.
The Dodgers, with the claque of Hol
lywood fans, were emblematic of show biz
glitter and promotional hype. The Yankees
were “the best team money could buy, ” an
expression of aggressive corporate power
in a city that operates all too much on the
premise that wealth is the ultimate
weapon in any struggle.
By contrast, the Pirates and the Orioles
are, if one can say so, the pope’s kind of
ballclubs: athletic, outgoing, dedicated —
and very good at their work. Their skills
are the fundamental skills of strength and
speed and stamina. They mirror the diver
sity of America — from Stargell to
Stanhouse to Parker to DeCinces to
Flanagan to Candelaria to Lowenstein to
Tekulve to Garcia.
It is not accidental, I think, that
Pittsburgh and Baltimore are cities that
are making it more than baseball.
They are examples of the older, indus
trial centers that have looked ruin in the
not an eai
versity’s
high scho
of the sea
tend an ^
face — and fought their way back fa
Pittsburgh has cleaned its air, rebul
downtown and revived its spirit.
When the U.S. Conference of
met there earlier this year, visitif
executives found themselves in the#
of an arts festival that was a marvelois
pression of both the culinary and erf^
richness of the city’s many cultures
As Pittsburgh has exploited its t
rivers as the focus of its revival, sol-
more has begun to do with its harbor
fice and apartment buildings share?
along the waterfront, and, onceagair
arts have been given a prominent pb
the mixture.
There is nothing fashionable about®
cities, or their teams, anymore t
is in having a Krakow pope oraCrJ>
President. But it is a joy to sec
fashionable ones reduced to spectf
roles for a change.
(c) 1979, The Washington
Post Company
Letters
Did you notice which coach’s team
ranked 20th in the nation by UPI?
Editor:
Did anyone happen to notice who was
ranked as the number 20 team in the na
tion in the UPI poll for Wednesday, Oc
tober 10? In case you didn’t — it was
Mississippi State. And just who is head
coach at Mississippi State? Why, none
other than Emory Bellard.
A rather interesting bit of trivia relative
to us down here among the unranked.
— D. Kerr, ’81
loans for college students, for deregulation
of the trucking industry, and favors anti
trust laws. And Kennedy is for job pro
grams in which the poor can earn money
instead of having it given to them free.
You also stated that our present Presi
dent is the worst “President since LBJ and
FDR. Sir, LBJ had one of the best
domestic policies of any President since
the beginning of the United States of
America. In his administration he passed
major reform and civil rights bills that
have benefited ALL people. As for FDR,
his administration helped to pull the U.S.
out of the Depression. That can hardly be
deemed as bad.
In the fifth paragraph you stated that the
“real downtrodden in this country are the
whole American people who are barely
coping with government caused inflation
and energy shortages.” You should have
inserted “poor” for “whole” for the rich are
not downtrodden. They are doing f
well — especially big business.
You are asking us to elect a man
would not give a cent to the poor, but-
thing and everything to the people
are retarding the growth of tbe k ,f
classes. True, Ted Kennedy is nota«
servative Republican who wishes onl)
big business to dilapidate the poor, f
then neither are most Democrats.
Bill Wool sc'.
Kennedy no socialist Thotz
by Doug Grahan
Editor:
Dear Mr. Leonardon,
Concerning your letter relating Senator
Edward Kennedy and socialism: Socialism
is a theory concerning a political state in
which collective or governmental owner
ship of the means of production and distri
bution of goods is advocated. Sir, Sen.
Kennedy does not advocate socialism. No
man/woman running on a major party
ticket could expect to win the nomination
with socialism as his/her platform.
You mentioned some of Kennedy’s
policies — big spending, welfare pro
grams, etc. However, you left out that he
is pro-E.R.A., pro-busing, for government
i