One Englishman’s Goldsboro, 1957
“There were no interstates in 1957, only the old numbered federal highways that wandered the stagecoach routes between city and city. US 1 was the route we chose southward out of Washington on an...
View ArticleAl Capp brings Sadie Hawkins to campus
“On Nov. 8, the students of the co-educational University of North Carolina gave themselves over to a day of humorous osculation. It was Sadie Hawkins Day, only holiday based on events in a comic...
View Article‘Ground game’ election strategy has football roots
“A 1921 article in the Charlotte Observer previewed a matchup between the North Carolina State Wolfpack and the Davidson Wildcats by noting that ‘the aerial game’ was expected to be ‘used extensively...
View ArticleSmokies worked no magic for Kephart’s ‘health’
“[Horace Kephart, who would be remembered as father of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park] embellished considerably in constructing his own legend. His tale of arriving in a virtually unknown...
View ArticleFor whom the bell tolls (seriously?)
“A raven tapped on Edgar Allen Poe’s door and window, but in Western North Carolina it has been owls, doves and turkey buzzards that have presaged death. As the story goes, the buzzard even tolls a...
View ArticleBland Simpson’s ‘compelling love letter’
“NPR asked poets laureate, state librarians, bookstore owners and other literary luminaries… to recommend quintessential reads that illuminate where they live…. “Jaki Shelton Green, poet laureate of...
View ArticleBefore east vs. west, politics was north vs. south
” ‘North Carolina,’ the Moravian leader August Gottlieb Spangenberg noted in 1752, ‘is a rather large Province, and the conditions of [the] inhabitants varies so greatly that often what is good for the...
View ArticleCredit for moon flag not easily determined
“Former workers at the Burlington Industrial Fabrics’ Plant in Rhodhiss and Glen Raven Fabrics in Burnsville recall with pride bulletin board postings at the time saying their plants had woven the...
View ArticleDare County to flu docs: Land elsewhere
“Not every place had doctors available to treat those stricken with Spanish flu. And when doctors were flown in to treat Coast Guardsmen and others on the Outer Banks, not everyone appreciated the kind...
View ArticleUnprepared for a German ‘invasion’
“In the summer of 1943 I was a 1st lieutenant at Fort Bragg, an immense artillery post in North Carolina. Each day we had two Officers of the Day. If all was quiet, the senior OD could take off for his...
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