Month: July 2010

40 years ago: Love Valley’s would-be Woodstock

“The Love Valley Rock Festival was held July 16-18, 1970, [in] the Western-themed community of Love Valley, 15 miles north of Statesville…. This small town became a big city, swelling from roughly 100 full-time residents to perhaps 200,000 youthful pilgrims.

“Because of its size, the Love Valley Rock Festival made headlines. Beyond the initial buzz, the festival served notice that the counterculture was beginning to invade formerly resistant corners of the hippie-hating South.

“ ‘We all felt we were re-creating Woodstock,’ says Marilyn Wolf, [now a Greensboro psychotherapist], who attended with friends. ‘That was the hope.’ ”

— From “Remembering N.C.’s Woodstock” in the Greensboro News & Record. Rock  journalist Parke Puterbaugh uses the recollections of festivalgoers to capture a salient cultural moment that seems much longer ago than 40 years.

Were any other large-scale rock festivals staged in North Carolina?

‘Iron-jawed, copper-bellied’ — and ‘zigzaggy’!

carolinachoochoo

“In North Carolina’s tobacco belt last week, tongues were wagging with happiness and hope. At last, the state had an iron-jawed, copper-bellied football team that combed its hair with lightning and ate opposing tackles for breakfast. First crack out of the box,  the ferocious University of North Carolina Tar Heels took Texas apart, 34 to 7.

“The chief wrecker was slim, 165-lb. Halfback Charlie (‘Choo Choo”) Justice. He ran like a jack rabbit, fast and zigzaggy. Against Texas, Choo Choo scored two touchdowns, threw passes for two more, modestly demurred when called upon to score another. ‘I’ve had my flurry,’ he said in the huddle. ‘Give somebody else a chance.’

“Carolina folks were mighty proud that Choo Choo, in this age of interstate commerce in footballers, was a native North Carolinian. Prosperous alumni, who pour about $100,000 yearly into a football fund, convinced him of the virtues of staying at home. Like many football heroes, Choo Choo drives a new car. He and his family live in a cozy bungalow off Chapel Hill’s main street. After he graduates, a loyal alumnus has promised to set him up with an automobile dealership.”

— From Time magazine, Oct. 11, 1948

Well, yes, Charlie Justice played under quite a different system of subsidizing college athletes. Although the NCAA had just enacted restrictions that became known as the Sanity Code, they proved unworkable and were rescinded in 1951. The now-familiar (if problematic) athletic grant-in-aid wasn’t adopted until 1957.

Skats: The chain is gone, but there’s still a link

“There is a chain of burger restaurants in North Carolina (and maybe elsewhere) called Skats. I once asked a friend where she was going to have lunch and she replied, ‘I’m going to have a Skatburger.’ I knew she was a nature lover and asked her if she knew what ‘scat’ meant. She said she did but had never put the two together.”

— From Steve Harper’s post on “scatology” in the A Word A Day newsletter (July 4)

Skats was started in Rocky Mount in 1985 to serve towns too small to interest the fast-food giants. In the early ’90s, it was gobbled up by Hardee’s, which converted most stores into Hardee’s Skat-Thrus.

‘North Caclalacka/Cackalacky/Click/Clicky…’

“North Cack n. (Southern sl.) new school

“1. North Carolina. (var. North Caclalacka/Cackalacky/Click/Clicky, N. Cee)

“ex: ‘I’m about to make this run to North Cack.’ ”

—  From “Street Talk: Da Official Guide to Hip-Hop & Urban Slanguage” by Randy Kearse (2006)

According to a feature in Saturday’s New York Times, “Mr. Kearse, 45, went from hustling crack cocaine as head of a multistate crew [based in North Carolina], to federal prison, to author and…  subway sales impresario.”

In 2005 the Miscellany came up empty in pursuit of the etymology of “Cackalacky” — might it be rooted in urban (i.e., black) slang?


Rubber recycling rejected in Raleigh

On this day in 1942: Alice Broughton, wife of Gov. J. Melville Broughton, orders a rubber mat ripped off the servants’ staircase in the Executive Mansion to donate to the war effort.

Accompanied by a reporter and photographer from the Raleigh Times, she then delivers the 58-pound mat to a service station for recycling. “Either the attendants never heard of the drive,” the Times reports, “or they didn’t care whether the nation got the rubber as a means of whipping the Axis. . . .

“So the rubber was placed back in the box and carted across the street. There the fellows seemed to know what it was all about, and gladly accepted the rubber.

“Perhaps it is because of stations like the first that more rubber has not been turned in.”

Greeting-card prices track fall from grace

In a bookstore the other day I noticed a wide-ranging line of greeting cards called Quotable Notables. Priced at $3.95 each are scores of die-cut color images of historical figures (e.g., Einstein, Picasso, Freud, Emily Dickinson, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mark Twain) and current politicians (the Obamas, the Clintons, Sarah Palin), along with a choice of stick-on quotes.

In sync with their career arcs, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and John McCain have been marked down to $2.

One former candidate, however, has fallen even more precipitously — to 75 cents! Care to guess who?

Kate Smith and North Carolina

The US Postal Service recently released a stamp honoring Kate Smith, “The Song Bird of the South”: Legendary Entertainer Kate Smith Appearing on Stamp.

Though she was a native of Washington, DC, Smith spent the last few years of her life in Raleigh, NC, where she died in 1986. You can read more about her and her time in Raleigh here: U.S. stamp salutes songbird Kate Smith. The image above shows Kate Smith waving to spectators at a UNC football game in 1936.

Lost and found: N.C.’s Civil War reputation

“In the Confederacy, North Carolina regiments endured a great deal of disdain from those of other states, especially Virginia. Union victories over small armies composed of North Carolina troops at Hatteras Inlet, Roanoke Island and New Bern early in the war rubbed salt in the psychological wounds of North Carolinians.

“One general from the Tar Heel State made the soldiers in his brigade promise  ‘not to visit wife, children or  business till we have done our full share in retrieving the reputation of our troops and our state.’

“When North Carolinians fought courageously in later battles with the Army of Northern Virginia… the conceited Virginians had been put in their place. ‘It was a proud day for the old state,’ a major in the 46th North Carolina wrote after Fredericksburg.”

— From “For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War” (1997) by James M. McPherson

A Moravian Fourth: Bells, not whistles

On this day in 1783: Except in Salem’s Moravian community, North Carolinians ignore Gov. Andrew Martin’s call for the first statewide observance of the Fourth of July.

The Moravians, committed to a celebration “as impressive as our circumstances allow,” listen to a sermon in the morning, sing in early afternoon, march in late afternoon and ring bells and illuminate their houses at night.