New in the collection: A.L. Brown High band decal

Decal for A.L. Brown High School in Kannapolis. Includes majorette.Two oddities in this eye-catching window decal: the majorette’s uniform, which seems borrowed from the Confederate flag, and her face, which seems borrowed from a photograph (early Photoshop?).

Undated, but I’m guessing 1960. A.L. Brown High opened in Kannapolis in 1951. Decal maker Angelus Pacific was founded in 1932 in Fullerton, Calif. Both are still in business.

New in the collection: Mug bids farewell to Cannon Mills

Glass mug with partial image of front page of Daily IndependentGlass mug with another partial image of Daily Independent story on Cannon Mills sale

This glass mug reproduces a front-page story in the Daily Independent of Kannapolis, Feb. 4, 1982.

An odd keepsake – but local news didn’t get any bigger than the sale of privately owned Cannon Mills to serial entrepreneur David Murdoch. Three years later Murdoch sold the company to Fieldcrest, which unloaded it on Pillowtex in 1997. In 2003 Pillowtex filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy and shut down 16 plants in North America. Some 4,800 Pillowtex workers were in North Carolina — the largest mass layoff in state history.

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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.”