Oregon daily _ _
emerald
Vol. 74, No. 73 An Independent Student Newspaper November 13,1973
Photos by Ken Van Osdol
Saw freak wows ’em
with *Lost Sound9
By GEORGE BUDDY
Of the Emerald
You notice his clothes first: brown
bowler and red socks competing with a
thin, red tie that looks a thousand years out
of place. A wrinkled face, lit up like a
Christmas tree with twinkling eyes for
bulbs, peers out at the world and you’d
swear the man belongs to a different time,
another age.
He carries a worn and battered black
case, this old man. Printed on the side in
white letters is the legend, “The Lost
Sound,’’ and if you think the case contains
a violin, or perhaps an oboe, you’d be far
off the mark. Inside that old, weathered
case is a man’s livelihood: two wood saws,
one a baritone, the other a tenor, in
terspersed with newspaper clippings that
attest to their fame.
Old Tom Scribner plays the saw. He
plays it sweet and low, fast and cheerful,
striking each preposterous note with a
violin bow. His saw is haunting and eerie;
dancing notes floating gaily in the wind, at
once very distant and very close. It’s a
sound that’s not heard much these days.
Scribner visited the campus last Friday
and wound up giving an impromptu
concert outside the EMU fishbowl to a
large crowd of delighted students. After
each song, Scribner received lusty ap
plause for the performance.
Scribner, of Santa Cruz, Calif., first
learned to play the saw in 1910 and has
kept at it diligently ever since, going up
and down the Pacific coast to play the big
spots: The Blue Banjo in Seattle, San
Diego’s Mickey Finn, The Red Garter of
San Francisco, and a thousand places
in between.
“They call me the ‘Saw Freak’ down in
California,” he says proudly.
He used to be a logger, playing the saw
only during week-ends, but since
retirement a few years ago, he devotes
full-time to his unique vocation. The violin
for many years was Scribner’s “first
love,” but a logging accident in 1947 left
him a finger short on his bow hand and
from then on, the saw received his full
attention.
Scribner plays the music of the 90’s and
20’s on the saw and, in the course of his
many jobs, he’s played the bill with some
pretty diverse groups, including Muddy
Waters and Country Joe MacDonald.
At one time, he was an instructor of
Musical Saw for the University of
California at Santa Cruz. He’s appeared
on both televison and radio over the past
several years. Now he’s scheduled to play
at the University’s folk festival in early
December.
Playing the saw, Scribner explains, is a
dying art. He said that at one time,
several big bands had saws, but now there
are only 44 saw players left in the
Musician’s Union. •
He tapped his saw fondly and told his
audience, “This is a great instrument in a
band.’’ Then he waved his hand in the air
of the fishbowl patio and shrugged. “But
in a solo out here, it’s nothing.”
After playing “Bye, Bye, Blues,”
someone asked him which side of the saw
he played on. “Oh, you play opposite the
teeth,” Scribner hastened to explain, “or
you’ll cut your bow to hell.” He looked off
to the side for a moment and gave a wink.
“I do that when I’m drunk sometimes.”
ASUO primary begins
today for Senate seats
By GORDON MACCRACKEN
Of the Emerald
Each year the ASUO Senate allocates
approximately $800,000 in incidental fees.
That money comes directly from the
pockets of University students. Today and
Tuesday, students will have an op
portunity to decide who will be spending
that money as 92 students are running for
28 Senate seats.
Doubt still surrounds funds
for Eugene, Lane child care
The financial future of Lane County’s 4 C
child care centers is still in doubt.
Eugene’s 4 C council plans to make
voluntary cuts in its budget but still
doesn’t know how much money will ac
tually be available.
Richard Trafton, director of Lane’s 4 C’s
(Community Coordinated Child Care),
said the county’s 4 C program directors
will meet this afternoon to discuss the
budget crisis and what to do about it. He
said he hopes to know by then how much
will be cut from the operating budget.
“They’re giving us a different figure to
work with every day,” Trafton said. “It’s
really hard to know exactly what’s going
on.”
The State Emergency Board postponed
Friday a decision to make a $550,000 cut in
the child care programs, a cut suggested
by state director of human resources
Jacob Tanzer. But directors of 4 C
councils in Eugene and Portland say they
will make voluntary cuts in their budgets
and hope the Board won’t make further
cuts.
Trafton said one of the council’s main
problems is adjusting the budget when the
fiscal year is already half over. The ap
proximately $500,000 in cuts the Board is
expected to made in December will be
retroactive to July 1 of this year, which
probably will trim the Lane 4 C budget
from $323,809 to $240,199 for the 1972-73
fiscal year, said Trafton.
Trafton said the directors will also try to
decide today if any child care centers will
have to be closed and if any children will
have to be dropped from the program.
The ASUO Child Care and Development
Center — partially funded by 4 C’s — has
tentatively decided to cut out its hot lunch
program and to start charging extra
tuition to try and make up the budget
deficit.
The budget crisis developed because of a
limit on federal revenue sharing which
forced the State Department of Human
Resources to cut $4.6 million from the $30.8
million it received in federal funds. About
$500,000 was cut from the 4 C programs.
Several members of the Board ex
pressed criticism Friday of the lack of
direction from the Governor’s office in
making a statement on the social service
programs budget cuts. The Board ordered
the Department of Human Resources not
to implement any new programs involving
federal social service funds. It also or
dered human resource priorities to be
developed for presentation at the Board’s
December meeting.
This week’s election is a primary in
which the top two vote-getters in each race
will win spots on the general election
ballot. The general election will take place
next Monday and Tuesday.
Today’s piling places are the EMU, the
13th Street information booth, the Co-op,
the library, Hamilton dormitory complex
and on 13th Street near Commonwealth
Hall. All polling places except in Hamilton
complex will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The Hamilton voting booth will open at 11
a.m. and close at 7 p.m.
In Tuesday’s voting, the library and
Hamilton complex will not be used as
polling places. Instead, Carson Hall and
the intersection of 15th and University
Streets will be the locations for voting
booths.
Students wishing to vote will be required
to present both their plastic identification
card and their current certificate of
registration. They will be asked where
they live, what their class is, what their
major is and what ethnic group, if any,
they belong to.
These questions will be asked in order to
allow poll workers to decide which
categories students are eligible to vote in.
The four categories are residence, class,
academic area and ethnic-at-large.
In the residence classification, there is
one candidate for a single sorority seat, 14
candidates for four off-campus seats and
three candidates for one position
representing the Bean dormitory complex.
The class candidates include seven fresh
men, four juniors and two graduate
students, all running for one seat to
represent their respective classes.
The academic area category has 11 seats
up for election this term, including four
from the College of Liberal Arts. Thirteen
students are running for those seats. All
other academic areas have one seat
alloted to them. The candidates up for
these positions include three in education,
four in business, two in law, two in jour
nalism, three in music-library, two in
CSPA and two in Supportive Services.
(Continued on Page 8)