Blast from the Past

November 06, 2007

Week of Nov. 4, 1957

The Sunday movie referendum was defeated in Waynesboro (Pa.) Tuesday. The issue lost by a margin of 210 votes. The vote was 1,220 in favor of Sunday movies and 1,430 against.

The issue cannot be put to voters again until 1959, two years from now.

While Waynesboro and five other areas in Pennsylvania turned down Sunday movies, the voters of 10 other Pennsylvania municipalities voted for them.

The first switchboard of its type in Maryland has been installed at Betty Winn, Inc. The switchboard is designed specifically for telephone answering bureaus and physicians' and surgeons' exchanges. It is a two-position board, which replaces an old single position board.

The business at which the Chesapeake and Potomac Company of Maryland installed the board this week is operated 24 hours daily, 365 days per year. Answering calls for numerous doctors and business firms in Hagerstown and vicinity, the Betty Winn, Inc. business can now work two operators at a time during the peak load periods, thanks to the new switchboard.

From our reporters' notebooks: We could scarcely believe our ears when we heard that boys enrolled at South Hagerstown High School are taking up cooking. But it's true, and from early reports of their activities, girls had better look to their laurels. Their male classmates are said to be really good at whipping up a meal.

Home economics teacher Mrs. De Witt Miller says she was amazed at the way the boys have caught on to culinary skills, and describes them as "terrific" cooks. This week they prepared a spaghetti dinner, which included a salad. The results were delicious, and the boys even did a very good job of cleaning up all the dishes and utensils.

Week of Nov. 4, 1982

The push buttons and plastic cards of the banking industry are revolutionizing the way people save money, pay bills and buy the bacon.

Your friendly bank teller hasn't been abandoned, but the Automatic Teller Machine is taking over as the main go-between separating you from your money. Convenient for customers and cost-effective for banks, ATMs are sprouting up virtually everywhere.

In the next decade, analysts say it will be commonplace for consumers to hand over a plastic card with the groceries at the checkout counter, where an electronic reader will deduct the cost.

"Alcoholism is this country's number one health problem," psychologist Dr. James R. Milam told a recent Hagerstown Junior College audience. "There are probably 20 million alcoholics in this country, and more than half are undiagnosed," Milam said.

"We are seeing a tremendous rise in teenage alcoholics," said Milam. "And part of it is because we haven't told kids the truth." He referred to a study which indicated that as long as everyone who drinks does so responsibly, there will be no problems.

"That is garbage," Milam said. "That program actually started a lot of kids on the road to alcoholism, because there is no such thing as responsible drinking for an alcoholic."

- Compiled by Kelly Moreno

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