Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, October 2, 1987
Opinion
Beauty and the beast in Southern
Ah. Beautiful,
sunny Southern
California — the
place to be.
Los Angeles.
Disneyland.
Malibu.
Hollywood.
The San
Andreas Fault.
Sondra
Pickard
Beaches to the
west, mountains to
the east, perfect
weather year-round.
Earthquakes.
With the good must come the bad,
but when my parents told me they were
moving from San Antonio to Los
Angeles two years ago, only good things
came to mind. Texans worry about
tornadoes, hurricanes or heavy
thunderstorms, not earthquakes, and I
wasn’t going to start worrying about
them now. After living in Texas for my
whole life with parents who had lived in
Texas for their whole lives, I was ready
for a complete change of scenery, and
far as I was concerned, so were they.
California that my parents considered
what most Californians, especially the
natives, choose to ignore. The San
Andreas Fault is a zone of faults, big
and small, that extend along the coast of
northern California all the way down to
the Gulf of California. Common sense
tells us it’s not a brilliant idea to build
one’s dwelling directly above one of
these faults, but Californians have been
living on and near them for years. I’m
not convinced this is because Southern
Californians lack brilliance. I think of
them instead as suffering from a
chronic illness called the “There Won’t
Be An Earthquake While I’m Living
Here” disease — a serious affliction that
causes thousands to ignore the thought
of natural disasters while surrounded by
warm beaches, a cool ocean, movie stars
and Disney characters.
Earthquakes or not — California,
here we come!
At the advice of their real estate
agent, my parents decided to be
different — they bought a house that
wasn’t on or near a fault line. The agent
assured them that the area was safe and
that their house probably wouldn’t
suffer any serious structural damage
when the next earthquake hit.
It wasn’t until they started looking for
a place to live in beautiful, sunny
When faced with the fact that she
could very easily Find herself in a real
California earthquake. Mom quickly
Group believes
you can never be
too fat, too happy
There was a
story in the papers
about a group that
calls itself the
National
Association to Aid
Fat Americans
(NAAFA),
holding a
convention in
Newark, NJ.
(Why any group
would hold a
statement by Mrs. Grace-Brown’s
husband, James, who weighs 125
pounds, three times less than she does.
Mr. Brown, who married his wife at
last year’s convention, stated he loved
her just the way she was and wouldn’t
have her any other way.
Lewis
Grizzard
How intriguing, I thought to myself,
when you consider how much time and
money today’s woman spends keeping
her figure somewhere between anorexic
and hollow-eyed and bird-legged.
convention in Newark is beyond me
when such glamorous convention sites
as Dogpatch, U.S.A., and Booger
Hollow in Eureka Springs, Ark., are
available. I remain convinced that if you
live in the Northeast and don’t go to
Sunday School, when you die you go to
Newark.)
They go through all this, I am
certain, to be attractive to the male. But
if Mr. Brown is satisfied with his wife at
400 pounds, there must be advantages
to taking up with a fat girl.
The story told of members of
NAAFA wanting to convince other
Americans that, despite the fact they are
fat, they are quite happy.
They also want to tell their fellow
Americans that it’s OK if someone
refers to them as “fat.”
I have considered the following:
1. Fat girls probably appreciate their
mates more than thin girls do because
fat girls have spent a lot of time being
snubbed. Gordie Mae Poovey, a girl in
my school, was so fat she lived in two
ZIP codes and nobody would date her.
“I don’t like being called cuddly or
chubby,” said Mary Jane Grace-Brown,
a member of NAAFA who weighs in at
400 pounds.
2. Fat girls won’t serve you Lean
Cuisine, Jerusalem artichokes or bean
sprouts for supper. Just make certain
you get to the mashed potatoes before
they do.
“I like fat. It’s a descriptive word, just
like thin, tall or small.”
3. Snuggle up to a fat girl when you
go to sleep at night and think what you
could save in insulation costs for your
house.
I know others who carry around a
great deal of weight who feel the same
way. My stepbrother, Ludlow Porch, a
radio talk show host, humorist and
author — and a bit full-figured himself
— has written several books on the
subject.
I am not certain, incidentally,
whether or not Cordie Mae is a member
of NAAFA, but she finally did find a
husband, one of the Phillpot boys who
didn’t weigh what her big toe did.
His first, “It’s Not So Neat to See
Your Feet,” was followed by “Thin May
Be In, But Fat’s Where It’s At,” and
“The History of the Toledo Scale Co.”
When asked how it was living with a
fat girl, the Phillpot boy answered,
“Every time I think I have done loved all
of Cordie Mae, I find new, uncharted
What really caught my eye in the
article about the fatso — remember, it’s
OK to say that — convention was the
territory.
That’s another way of saying, God
bless fat girls. There’s just more of them
to love.
Copyright 1987, Cowles Syndicate
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Sondra Pickard, Editor
John Jarvis, Managing Editor
Sue Krenek, Opinion Page Editor
Rodney Rather, City Editor
Robbyn Lister, News Editor
Loyd Brumfield, Sports Editor
Tracy Staton, Photo Editor
Editorial Policy
The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspaper oper
ated as a community service to Texas A&:M and Bryan-College Sta
tion.
Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editorial
board or the author, and do not necessarily represent the opinions
of Texas A&M administrators, faculty or the Board of Regents.
The Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper for students
in reporting, editing and photography classes within the Depart
ment of Journalism.
The Battalion is published Monday through Friday during
Texas A&M regular semesters, except for holiday and examination
periods.
Mail subscriptions are $17.44 per semester, $34.62 per school
year and $36.44 per full year. Advertising rates furnisned on re
quest.
Our address: The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M
University, College Station, TX 77843-4111.
Second class postage paid at College Station, TX 77843.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Battalion, 216
Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, College Station TX
77843-4111.
brushed up on her earthquake survival
skills. I had to laugh when, on my first
visit home, I found numerous cans of
food and bottled water stashed among
my bath towels in the upstairs closet.
I had contracted the disease, but I
didn’t know it until Thursday.
California^®
Jdei
She also made sure I knew what to do
the minute I felt a tremor. Before, I
always thought that in the event of an
earthquake, I would run outside so the
house wouldn’t cave in on top of me.
Mom tried to dispel this notion by
telling me that there were trees, cars,
powerlines and enormous cracks in the
earth outside, and that it’s safer to stand
directly under a door frame until the
shaking stops. Somehow I just couldn’t
picture it, and I found the whole thing
quite humorous. If the earth shook
beneath my feet, I was going outside.
But it probably wouldn’t, I thought —
not while my parents were living here.
At 7:43 a.m. PST, an earthquake
measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale
struck Southern California. It was
followed by at least 15 aftershocks. The
quake was the biggest to strike Los
Angeles in 16 years. The latest count
has six dead and 100 injured.
By
Mom was at a gas station in La
Canada, which is about 20 miles north
of the quake’s epicenter. Dad was
driving to work in downtown Los
Angeles, which is less than 10 miles
south of the quake’s epicenter. Neither
was hurt, and the house is fine. The
disease I had just hours ago is gone. It
can happen while my parents are living
there. It just did. And the chances are
one in 20 that it will happen again in the
next five days.
It was big and it was bad, butsciem
say it’s not the catastrophic big one
Californians have so long awaited. Tt! ; J
one is still to come. The 6.1 earthquakl
wasn’t a party, but the big one will
measure eight or greater on the scale | f .cap “spurs
and will occur within 50 miles olios taembers — h
Angeles. The chances of the big one | j^ 1 ', ,1
hitting will increase by 50 percentovetlU.eek prec
the next 30 to 40 years. Bn Methodi:
■me, said Eri
Southern California is a beautiful, fc^be^of th,
exciting place. When I finish school,111
probably end up there, too. I’llcontini:!^\y^ 0n "
basking on its wonderful beaches and K eans there
gazing at its rolling hills. But I won't fd tball seaso
forget that with the good comes theImJfP. 5 decided
With the beauty comes the beast.
|n by wearir
fbi Saturday’s
Sondra Pickard is a senior journalise f (: ^ niversl
major and editor of The Battalion, ■ The Red R
■rse, so the i(
■-cap spurs i
■ to victory, J
(■Gary Hend
Be band, say
■meted with
■ttened bott
Btflt to OUlf
Bps are colie
■ey,” next to
Bn at Northgi
Hendershoi
fie to reflect t
Bting class bs
caps on th<
[is year’s fres
|91, so the
aring 91 be
one and 4
nyas 91 on
‘Outfits try
iform,” He
by of doing
ttle caps all
jal blue (tht
maroon anc
The comm;
iorps unit d
be design
iust construe
Real Marines don’t cry
until the Spirit moves them
Marines don’t
cry. I know — I’ve
been one now for
more than nine
months. I was
commissioned in
December and left
College Station for
Jeff
Brady
Guest Columnist
officer basic school in a place far north
of the Brazos Bottom.
We were taught in school the sort of
demeanor a Marine must maintain.
Stout. Hard. Rigid. We were instructed
in how to fight hand to hand, how to call
artillery rounds, fire a machine gun,
throw a grenade and command an
infantry platoon. As a rule, Aggies do
quite well. But emotional outbursts
never came up in class.
Marines from all over the country
were there. UCLA, Kansas State,
Tulane, Notre Dame, Annapolis,
Hawaii, you name the state, they were
there. We talked, got to know one
another, spoke of hometown, families
and — ultimately — of schools. They
spoke of beer busts, frat houses and glee
clubs. I spoke of Muster, the MSC and
the Ross Volunteers.
They talked about overnight trips to
the coast, using and abusing Mom and
Dad and skipping football games to
sleep in all day. I mentioned Silver
Taps, Parents Weekend and the Aggie
12th Man.
They were astonished.
“The whole student body does what?
The first Tuesday of every month? The
lights are extinguished all over campus?
Right. Sure. What for?
“You stand up the whole game?
Right. We rarely even went to our
games, much less knew the yells or
gathered at mignight to practice them!
Sheesh!! What kind of school did you
attend? What are these Aggies?”
You know, I really had a hard time
explaining. They just couldn’t
understand. There were no similarities.
Nothing even close. They might have
heard of Aggies or Jackie Sherrill, or
that land-grant college east of Austin,
but not many could relate to the
emotion.
“Boy, was I glad to leave school and
get away from that campus,” they said.
I told them it ripped my heart out
when I had to leave and how I still get
choked up talking about Final Review.
But I honestly thought that was all
behind me. I’m a Marine now, dammit,
not a silly college student. Marines are
professionals. Marines are above
unexplained outbursts of emotion. Like
crying.
True, but this Marine is also an
Aggie. And returning to campus does
something to you, and for you, as a
former student that none of us really
appreciated as students.
I was OK, two weeks ago, walking
around campus. Seeing familiarsigti
and greeting a few younger friends^®
are now nearing graduation. Even
hearing the Singing Cadets Fridayatm
open rehearsal was stirring but not
overwhelming.
I made it to Yell Practice all right.
Took a place in the stands with some
friends. Fine. We did some yells. Great
Goosebumps.
Then Kyle Field grew silent. Andtht
greatest military marching band in the
free world played the familiar firstthr«
note of “The Spirit...” And Ilostit.
Some Marines do cry. Particular!)
Aggies. Because each of us Aggies-
military or civilian, male or female,
Catholic, Protestant, short, tall,wideot
small recognize something here when
we return. And I speak for mostall
former students, I think. No matter
where we go or how long we are gone,
upon return we sense somethingforj^
in heart and mind that shapes us,
betters us and ties us all together.
Ultimately, it is that Stirring Spirit.
Know it.
Believe it.
Appreciate it, before you’re forced
into former student-dom.
2nd Lt.Jeff L. Brady ’86 has now left
the NROTC Trigon and is on hisvlf
to flight school at Pensacola, Fla.
D
Hi
DEL
21V
21
N
BLOOM COUNTY
by BerKe Breath
a/V£Z MNPeLL J0N6S...
WHAT'S TAKING SO LONG A
IN TUB JOHN f