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THE NIGHT OF JANUARY 16TH
By Bill Cherry
Fifty-five years of January 16ths have come and gone since then, but the lesson taught on January 16, 1957 by Ball High School speech and drama teacher, Arthur Graham, at the old Galveston County Courthouse remain intact to this day with those who were there.
Graham had undergraduate degrees in speech and drama, physiology, and a master’s degree in psychology. He had planned to be a medical doctor, but lack of money had interfered with that.
So after a few years acting off-Broadway in minor legitimate theater productions, he returned to Galveston to teach. And he did that at Ball High for the next 33 years.
It troubled him that a lot of students and the public in general were convinced that popularity rather than achievement was almost always the deciding factor in which students reined as the chosen few.
Graham recalled seeing the unusual play that Ayn Rand had written in the late 1930s for the Broadway stage.
It was titled “The Night of January 16th” and it had a clever gimmick, one that hadn’t been used before.
The story was a fictional murder trial. It was performed in a courtroom setting, and the outcome was determined by jury members randomly selected from the audience moments before the curtain rose for the first act.
Rand had written two conclusions, so that whichever verdict the jury turned in, the actors could segue to lines that embraced the proper outcome.
Graham’s version ran two successive nights. He chose co-captain of the Ball High Tors, Bobby Wilkins, to play the defense attorney.
And he picked ROTC Company “C” Guidon Bearer,Victor Damiani, to be the prosecutor.
Speculations ran high among Ball High students. How could Damiani be a match for Wilkins?
After all, the juries for both performances were sure to be picked from audiences of students.
That inferred that no matter which of the attorneys was the better prepared or was the most convincing in his part, the co-captain was certain to beat out the guidon barer.
The first performance, Friday evening, came and all of the actors --- Wilkins, Damiani, Peter Moore, John Rowland, Raleigh Garcia, Peggy Burton, Pat McInerney, Nancy Frederickson, Jean Moreland and Sandra Salinas -– gave credible performances.
The jury gave its verdict. They found the defendant was not guilty.
Damiani and his supporters said they knew that was what would happen. They thought it was pointless to have the second performance.
The defense would surely win the jury’s verdict again.
Graham, though, was betting that something else would happen. And it was the lesson he wanted to teach.
Sure enough, Saturday night’s jury’s verdict went to the prosecutor.
So now it was a tie; one for Wilkins, one for Damiani.
Graham had let students discover for themselves that Wilkins hadn’t won the first night’s verdict because he was the co-captain of the football team. He won because the jury felt he was the more convincing.
And, Damiani, despising his first-night defeat, had spent all day Saturday rehearsing his lines over and over again, with his Aunt Rena as his audience and critic.
When that night’s performance came, he was infinitely more prepared to win than he had been the night before.
As Damiani turned to walk out of the courtroom with his victory, he looked at the large portrait that was in the regal frame and hanging on the rear wall.
He grinned and said under his breath, “How’d you like that, Judge?”
The picture on the wall was that of his cousin, Judge Jules Damiani, Sr., who in years past had presided over many criminal trials in that same courtroom.
Copyright 2012 – William S. Cherry
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If you remember what you learned in school, in general the circle is the strongest geometric form, followed by the triangle.
From a practical standpoint, though, most building frames and trusses are made strong by converting some of their naturally perpendicular rectangles into triangles through the addition of cross members.
Probably one of the major structural components with which everyone is familiar is the gable roof.
It, in itself, is a series of triangles that, when covered by the roof decking, becomes one large triangle.
The gable roof has two weak spots – the two ends. And that’s where strong winds, hurricanes and the like have a field day, and many breeches occur.
In years past, gable ends were strengthened with shiplap lumber, cut and nailed on the bias to the frame. Picture that in your mind. That then made each of the gable ends a series of triangles to which the siding was affixed; enormously strong.
Apparently to save money, builders began enclosing gable ends with ¾ inch plywood, veneered with the siding. While not as strong as the shiplap, nevertheless, plywood gave substantial strengh, too.
Today, gable ends on home after home are built with little thought given to shear stress. Instead of the end caps being made of shiplap on the bias or plywood, they are merely covered with fiber board underlayment which has very little shear or tensile strength.
The underlayment is then veneered with siding which also has very little shear and tensile strength.
If the strong wind blows-out either of the gable ends, the entire structure is seriously compromised – all the result of the builder’s putting first his own economy.
If you have a gable or a hip roof, you may want to go into the attic and investigate how the ends were strengthened, if at all. A structural engineer can advise you how to correct any weak spots. The "fix" will normally not cost more than an investment of a few hundred dollars.
It's a worthy exercise and investment. And your insurer should love you more as
well.
Actually, far fewer homes on the gulf coast would suffer significant damage in hurricanes if their roofs were closed-end, square hips like the one on the garage in this illustration.
BILL CHERRY, REAL ESTATE BROKER
Dallas – Park Cities
Since 1964
214 503-8563
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“Ever since hedge fund honcho Eddie Lampert bought Sears and merged it into his already-owned Kmart back in 2005, the combined Sears-Kmart chain has been a business in decline. Same-store sales numbers have dropped consistently since the retailers linked arms.
“Explanations for the decline vary. Professional analysts will tell you Sears' problem is that it doesn't invest enough in store upkeep. If your average chain store spends $6 to $8 a year per square foot of retail space, then Sears' lackluster maintenance budget of $1.90 guarantees that its stores will be dingy, dark, and generally lacking in Christmas cheer.
“Other industry watchers blame CEO Lampert, who famously dismisses investor obsession over "same-store sales," and tells folks to focus instead on how he grows the firm's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. (Note to Eddie: We have been watching... as your EBITDA dropped from $3.6 billion in 2007 to a projected $400 million this year.)
See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/vsPGYe
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When I came home from college for the Christmas Holidays – let’s see, that was about 1960 – my daddy came home for lunch one day and went straight to the telephone.
I heard him tell his broker, Don Frye, “Don, sell all of my Sears stock.”
My daddy had accumulated Sears-Roebuck & Co. stock on a regular basis for at least fifteen years. And now he wanted to sell it all.
I asked him, “Daddy, what caused that call to Mr. Frye?”
Daddy told me that Sears stores had been successful because their store managers ran his store as if he were a local merchant. His wages were based on the store’s net profits, and because of that, Sears let him merchandise the store.
So several times a year, Sears managers would go to the Sears “market,” look at and pick and order the merchandise that their store would carry in the coming season.
"After all," Daddy said, "Who knows better what the locals will buy than the guy who runs the local store? What does a fellow working at the Sears home office in Chicago know about a beach town off of the coast of Texas?"
He continued, “I saw Ernie Norton today (Mr. Norton was the Galveston Sears store manager), and he told me that he had decided it was time to retire. Sears is going to send his store what they think he ought to sell, and from now on, they’re going to pay him a straight salary with a small achievement bonus.
“They are tinkering with the very formula that has made them successful,” Daddy went on.
“I assure you that from now on, they will see their place in corporate America continually diminish.”
For nearly 50 years, what Daddy said would happen, has. And Eddie Lampert apparently hasn’t cared enough to research his company’s history. His problem is obvious to everyone but to him.
BILL CHERRY, REAL ESTATE BROKER
Dallas – Park Cities
Since 1964
214 503-8563
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Note: This is the original draft of the piece I wrote for Texas Heritage, the magazine of the Texas Historical Foundation. It is in the Volume 4 2011 issue.
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THE STORY OF GALVESTON’S MACEO DAYS: Not as you’ve been led to believe By Bill Cherry
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