ustxtxb_obs_1975_12_12_50_00019-00000_000.pdf

A winner & two losers bed, I slid down the banister, and if there had been a bottle of anything in the house I would have killed it in nothing flat. The reason for all this activity was Texaco radio’s broadcast of ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ with Joan Sutherland and Richard Tucker in the leading roles. Not since Amelita Galli-Curci have I heard a soprano like Joan.” In his youth, Fullingim followed Galli-Curci all over the country just to hear her sing and later did the same with Paderewski when he was on a tour. Fullingim loves classical music, and loves country music as wellRogers, Williams, Wills. One of his earliest crusades at the News was a stout defense of Elvis Presley. As Fullingim got older, he did more reminiscing about the old days, but he never got impatient with the new. He defended young people, their tastes and their activities through the years. On a rare visit to Austin, he realized with a sigh that he’d finally gone and got himself one of those fancy new narrow ties that everyone wore in the Fifties, but there it was 1966, and people weren’t wearing them any more. Fullingim mourns that he’s never developed a distinct writing style, but I don’t think that’s true. He writes the way Harry Truman talked: so plain, unvarnished, honest, and simple that it’s a style in itself. Here he is on medicine: “As far as doctors and hospitals are concerned, I have never got out of doing the way I was brought up in during my youth. I never go to a doctor unless I’m scared half to death, and that is usually caused by . somebody I’ve been talking to.” He went on to recount the virtues of the remedies his family had used for everything from ingrown toenails to schizophreniasyrup of Figs, Oxidene, and Watkins Liniment. He closed by observing, “So I never go to the doctor unless I think that my time has come, and then I rush in screaming that I am done for.” On political questions, Fullingim has vacillated as much as any of us, but his instincts on the big ones are remarkably perceptive. He suspicioned the war in Vietnam from the beginning and started knocking it in early ’66. Here’s one from 1952: “When Allan [ Shivers] votes for Ike in November, he’s also going to be voting for that malicious smear specialist Richard Nixon. When I heard Nixon on TV, he gave me a fearful feeling that I was watching something sinister and merciless. In a few days it came to me that Nixon is the kind of person who would put you in jail if he didn’t like your face or name. He hates hard and maliciously. . . He and McCarthy. Between the two they could start a reign of terror. Anyway, one thing Mr. Nixon will not explain is where he got that $20,000 to build that house. In my books, he’s a crook.” MI. dif/P gib And Here’s to Charley Boyd, June Rayfield Welch. GLA Press, Dallas. 163 pages, $6.95. A lot of locally-produced dreck, not to mention drivel, comes to this office. I must admit that it’s usually with a heavy heart that I pick up a Texas book written by a writer I’ve never heard of from a press that’s not even listed in our publishers guide. The jacket describes the main chifactersDave Totten, a small town jock who enters Fort Worth University on a football scholarship during World War II; Charley Boyd Bowers, the university president, a Rhodes scholar who drives a pickup truck; a love interest named Dixie; and sundry other types one comes to expect in that growing sub-genre, the coming-of-age-inTexas novel. Why does the central character always come from a small town? Why is it always a he? Why does he always talk so funny? I was not impressed. But the first page didn’t read half bad and I ended up consuming Charley Boyd in one sitting. By the time I got to the part Classified advertising is 20d per word. Discounts for multiple insertions within a 12-month period; 26 times, 50%; 12 times, 25%; 6 times, 10%. BOOKPLATES. Free catalog. Many beautiful designs. Special designing too. Address: BOOKPLATES, P.O. Box 28-1, Yellow Springs, Ohio 45387. PLAYING THE RECORDER IS EASY. Free catalog, best recorders, recorder music. Beginner’s Pearwood Soprano Book, $11.95. Amster Music, 1624 Lavaca, Austin. GUITAR PICKERS. Buy your guitar strings from us and save 20%. Mail orders accepted. Amster Music, 1624 Lavaca, Austin. JOIN THE ACLU. Membership $15. Texas Civil Liberties Union, 600 West 7th, Austin, Texas 78701. BOOK-HUNTING? No obligation search for rare or out-of-print books. Ruth and John McCully. ARJAY Books. 263-5335. Rt. 8, Box 173, ‘Austin, Texas 78703. WANTED. Political campaign buttons and memorabilia. National or state. George Meyer, 2204 Matthews Dr., Austin 78703, or phone 478-2848. JOIN COMMON CAUSE. Only one person can make democracy work again. . . YOU. $15 \($7 Lavaca, Austin, Texas 78701. PRISON REFORM Now available from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency: Excerpts from the Final Report of the Joint Committee on Prison Reform. Send $1 to Texas where Totten is reduced to carrying Dixie’s Worth Pet Parade I was snickering loudly enough to bring a house guest out of a sound sleep and into the living room to find out what the merriment was about. June Rayfield Welch, who turns out to be a Dallas lawyer and history professor, is a funny man. I’d recommend Charley Boyd to anyone who’s up ,for a little nostalgia and a lot of chuckles. K.N. Pablo Cruz and the American Dream, compiled by Eugene Nelson, Peregrine Smith, Salt Lake City. 171 pages, $8.95. In his novel The Bracero, Eugene Nelson wrote about a Mexican laborer who came to work in the United States. That fiction uttered its depressing truths about squalor and exploitation, but failed to generate the electricity of expressionism with which proletarian literature is shocked to life. While doing research in 1964, Nelson met the Pablo Cruz of this book’s title and tape recorded Cruz’ experiences \(his life December 12, 19 75 19 NCCD, 3409 Executive Center Drive, #212, Austin, Texas 78731. INTERESTED IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE RE-FORM? Join the National Council on Crime and Delinquency in Texas. Write NCCD, 3409 Executive Center Drive, #212, Austin, Texas 78731. THE NEW YORK TIMES Sunday edition delivered to your home in the Dallas area. Call 239-5235 for rates and information. NEW ORLEANS ON $8 A YEAR. The Weekly Courier, 1232 Decatur, 70116. GENERAL HOME AND AUTO REPAIRS. Jim CYCLAR: A Women’s Community Calendar. Women-made and distributed. Monthly photographs, date grid with room for notes, information on famous women, facts and female first. ‘9’/z inches by 121/2 inches, spiral bound recycled paper. Bulk rates to women’s groups for money raising. $4 each, add 50 for mailing. Traveling Light, P.O. Box 6063, Austin, Texas 78762 DEMOCRATS’ CHRISTMAS NOSTALGIA: NRA Blue Eagle sweatshirt. L-M-ExL. $6.95. Walls, 402 Riley, Austin, 78746. ENJOY READING AGAIN. Texas Center for Writers Press announces: FICTION AND POETRY BY TEXAS WOMEN and NEW AND EXPERIMENTAL LITERATURE plus the bestselling BICENTENNIAL COLLECTION OF TEXAS SHORT STORIES. Each $5.95. Order from: Air Terminal Station Box 6281, Midland, Texas 79701. CLASSIFIED