Posted in History, Tar Heelia, tagged avett brothers, david sedaris, doonesbury, kaolin mines, krispy kreme, mr butts, rjr, sadlack's heroes on October 25, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
–How Avett Brothers survived heckling at Sadlack’s Heroes. – In search of North Carolina’s lost kaolin mines. – “Doonesbury’s 200 Greatest Moments” cite Krispy Kreme and RJR’s indefatigible Mr. Butts. – Him sign funny today: Looking over the shoulder of David Sedaris.
Posted in Just A Bite, tagged billboards, bull durham, map of usa on October 24, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Sirs: Reading your interesting account of Durham’s bull, I was reminded of a characteristic of the animal to which you did not point: On the bull’s side appears a map of the U. S. The story as it reached me is that Durham & Co. imported this animal at a great cost from the Pampas, [...]
Posted in Just A Bite, Tar Heelia, tagged bacon's rebellion, civil war history, peter galuszka, sons of confederate veterans, washington daily news, washington nc on October 23, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
“My first newspaper job was at a small daily in eastern North Carolina [the Washington Daily News] where my family lived. I worked there summers when I was in college…. “I had a month off one college winter and needed a study project for school. So, I went to the newspaper and proposed a Civil [...]
Posted in Just A Bite, tagged 1952 presidential campaign, dwight eisenhower, famous photo, jim hagerty, mamie eisenhower, salisbury nc on October 22, 2010 | 3 Comments »
“The most famous photo of the [1952 presidential] campaign came in Salisbury, North Carolina, when a crowd gathered around the train at 5:30 a.m. and began chanting for Eisenhower. “The general and his wife woke, groaned, put on their bathrobes and groped their way to the rear platform, where they waved back at the crowd. [...]
Posted in Just A Bite, tagged american mercury, blanche knopf, charlotte nc, duke power co, furnifold simmons, h.l. mencken, old south, sahara of the bozart, the mind of the south, w j cash, wake forest university on October 21, 2010 | 4 Comments »
“At Wake Forest [W. J. Cash] became… a fan of H. L. Mencken, the acerbic Baltimore journalist who’d derided the South as ‘the Sahara of the Bozart’…. He wanted to write for Mencken’s magazine, American Mercury. In 1929 [it] published his Menckenesque dismantling of U.S. Sen. Furnifold Simmons…. ‘the stateliest Neanderthaler who ever cooled his [...]
Posted in Just A Bite, tagged baltimore ice cream, dry ice, kapok blankets, nc maneuvers on October 20, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
“To the 300,000 soldiers in the North Carolina maneuvers went the first of 38 carloads of Baltimore ice cream last week. Railroads had to pack this precious freight in dry ice and kapok blankets instead of the usual wet salt and ice. “So important was the shipment considered that it was granted right of way [...]
Posted in History, Tar Heelia, tagged asheville, bear hunting, black sheep, buddy row, civil war graves, croatoan, geneaology, lost colony, richmond county nc, vollis simpson, whirligigs, wilson nc on October 19, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
– Looking for the Lost Colony in all the wrong places? – “Bear hunting highlights Asheville’s cultural divide” – Who you calling “Buddy row“? – How a Confederate veteran did right by five Union dead in Richmond County. – Neogenealogists eager to shepherd black sheep. – Can Vollis Simpson “put Wilson on the map”?
Posted in History, Just A Bite, Tar Heelia, tagged cankerworms, charlotte nc, fred helms, hap's grill, hurricane hugo, middle street in new bern nc, queens road west, salisbury nc, storefronts on October 18, 2010 | 4 Comments »
“When longtime resident Fred Helms, a 93-year-old lawyer, turns onto Queens Road West, he draws an appreciative breath and announces, ‘We are now entering … the most beautiful residential street in the world.’ ” – From “Charlotte’s Magnificent Mile” (Sept. 17, 1989) (Beautiful, but not indestructible. Less than a week after this story appeared in [...]
Posted in History, Literature, Tar Heelia, tagged blues brothers, charlotte nc, everybody needs somebody to love, grand army of the republic, harper lee, james ross, margaret mitchell, nc capitol, nc civil war deaths, ralph ellison, solomon burke, southport nc, u-boats on nc coast on October 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Instead of (or in addition to) lamenting the shrunkenness of your Sunday paper, check out these digital destinations: – Who knew that Charlotte as recently as 1931 was home to a post of the Grand Army of the Republic? – Harper Lee, Margaret Mitchell, Ralph Ellison… Jim Ross. – Can’t see the Capitol for the [...]
Posted in On This Day, tagged gouging, illegal sports on October 16, 2010 | 2 Comments »
On this day in 1749: Attempting to quell the popular no-holds-barred sport of “gouging,” the legislature makes it a felony “to cut out the tongue, or pull out the eyes.” The law proves no match, however, for the combatants’ creativity. Five years later the proscription must be extended to “the slitting of noses, the biting [...]
