I went to Tryon High School with Ruth Butler Cantrell; she was a few years ahead of me. I remember her and her brother Paul as large (meaning adult-size), red-haired people, who as rugged individuals, probably felt no peer pressure. I am sorry that I never made good on my effort to visit Ruth at St. Luke’s Hospital, where she was a nurse for countless years.

I remember Graham Elliott as “Sandy,” for that is what we knew him by in the “Breakfast and Bible” class at the Tryon Presbyterian Church. Sandy was a faithful attendee, along with about two dozen other men that I am becoming acquainted with. I am happy to report that the renovations to the church building are essentially complete—we never knew from month to month how we would get in to find our meeting room! 

Terry Ackerman was a founder member of the boisterous group of “Men Without Jobs” who fill the North dining room for breakfast at Terry’s (called TJ’s) restaurant south of town. We hear them on Tuesday mornings; don’t know whether they are there other days. Mr. Ackerman always greeted me when they trooped by to pay for their breakfast. I knew him from the Tryon Little Theater; he must have been an awesome Big Brother!

I discovered when he died recently from pneumonia that Astronaut John Young was my age. I feel I have to mention him because he was an American hero in so many ways. He was not only an astronaut, but also a naval officer (captain) and aviator, test pilot, and aeronautical engineer (Georgia Tech grad). He became the ninth person to walk on the Moon as commander of the Apollo 16 mission in 1972. As a naval aviator, he flew an airplane that I did design work on: the Vought F8U Crusader.

Young was a largely unsung hero because he never tarnished his reputation (to my knowledge) by any foolish acts! The media thrives on the misdeeds of prominent people, seems to me. As Seth Vining, Sr., used to say, “Dog bites man, not news; but if man bites dog . . .” My own observation is that if any man should rise by his accomplishments to tower over the rest of us, a multitude begins to chip away to see whether he has feet of clay, so that they can then cut him down to size.

When Betty Frost invited me to present a paper about Mr. Vining to the Polk County Historical Association, I opened by observing that “you won’t hear that the great man had feet of clay.” None of my local heroes did, to my knowledge: not Mr. Vining, nor Mr. Singley (superintendent of Tryon Schools) nor Mr. Stevens (owner of Tryon Builders Supply and mayor of Tryon). As a youth I was not privy to any idle talk about our community leaders, but I daresay those men did not generate anything but admiration.

I am saddened by the trashing of so many of our revered founders and others who have contributed so much to our heritage as a nation, by a media that has dropped to the level of the “yellow” tabloids and gossip magazines. Not only are they gleefully reporting the misdeeds and unfortunate utterances of public figures, but they keep “resawing sawdust,” as my friend Al Creasy says. This is not an endorsement of the behavior being reported, but a lament over the lack of balance in coverage. Surely there are accomplishments and contributions to making the world a better place that we’d also like to hear and read about. But sin and sex sells; honors are footnotes at best.

Not so at our Tryon Daily Bulletin or the Polk County News Journal. Be it ever thus.