Weekend link dump: Banana trees to bateau poles

— Might those be banana trees in the supposed photo of North Carolina slave children?

— “We thought it was just a stick,” recalls the Draper woman who pulled an iron-tipped, 19th century bateau pole from the Dan River.

— On the wish list of the revived and relocated North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in Kannapolis: a glass elevator from which visitors can view the nearby Dale Earnhardt statue.

— “If the waitress calls me sweetie and the place is full of old people telling stories,” confesses historian and omnivore blogger David Cecelski, “I’m going to say it’s the best place ever, even if I hear can openers in the back.”

Weekend link dump: from horses to thieves

— In the Pilot of Southern Pines, Stephen Smith finds a silver lining in the theft of the historical marker identifying the Weymouth Center as the former home of novelist James Boyd.

— Volunteers in Eden retrieve a  sunken 40-foot bateau replica from the Dan River.

— Ben Steelman answers a reader’s question about the checkered tenancy of downtown Wilmington’s old Masonic Temple, aka St. John’s hall. 

— Is North Carolina’s official state horse really unAmerican?