Lew Powell

A followup story without a happy ending

“On November 29, 2014, I received a phone call from an officer of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission named John Beardsley. He was investigating a missing boater, he said, and explained that some duck hunters had found a canoe and that my phone number had turned up among the gear in the boat. He wanted to know where it had come from — he hoped, in fact, that I might be the canoeist. It took me a second or two to realize that the boat must have been Dick Conant’s. It had come practically from Canada, I explained — from Plattsburgh, New York, 20 miles south of the border….

“I explained to Officer Beardsley that I was a journalist, and that I had written a short article (in this magazine) about Conant’s ambitious voyage [to Florida]….

“The canoe had been spotted floating upside down near the mouth of Big Flatty Creek, by a father who was fishing with his young boy and feared what they might discover if they drew their boat any closer. Big Flatty discharges into the not so flat brackish waters of Albemarle Sound, about 20 miles west of the Outer Banks….

“Among the canoe’s contents were 17 toothbrushes, three Louis L’Amour Western novels, a frying pan, a digital camera, and some soggy stapled papers, on the back of which I’d written my e-mail address and phone number, more than 400 miles up the coast….”

— From “The Wayfarer: A solitary canoeist meets his fate” by Ben McGrath in the New Yorker (Dec. 14)

 

Was Billy the Kid spotted at Smiley’s Flea Market?

“Frank A. Abrams [a lawyer, author and inventor in Skyland, N.C.] believes that a 3¼-by-3-inch tintype he bought at Smiley’s Flea Market in Fletcher, N.C., in 2011 might depict both Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett, the sheriff who killed the notorious outlaw in Fort Sumner on July 14, 1881.

“Abrams said he believes the photo of five seated cowboys was taken Jan. 14, 1880, at the dual wedding of Pat Garrett to Apolinaria Gutierrez and Barney Mason to Juana Madril….

“ ‘If I’m right, this will be the only known picture of Billy the Kid with Pat Garrett,’ Abrams said last month in Albuquerque.

“Though Abrams says he’s not ‘advocating a position’ on the authenticity of the photo, he spent 10 days traveling to historic New Mexico sites linked to the Kid and Pat Garrett, and meeting with people familiar with the duo’s history. He said he’s now searching out ‘experts’ in photo recognition in hopes of proving his theory.

“A trio of renowned Old West historians, however, say Abrams has a daunting task ahead….”

— From “Are Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett in tintype?” by Charles D. Brunt in the Albuquerque Journal (Dec. 6)

Meanwhile, UNC Professor Philip Gura‘s eBay-purchased daguerreotype of a woman he believes to be Emily Dickinson remains mired in skepticism. 

 

Critics of Alexander Julian, prepare to be criticized

Did you see this morning’s rave in the New York Times over the Tar Heels’ argyle-accented basketball and football uniforms? The Times noted that Dean Smith’s eye initially had been caught by Alexander Julian’s award-winning pin-striping of the NBA Charlotte Hornets in 1988. Not mentioned, however, was Julian’s less well received work for the minor-league Charlotte Knights.

Here’s what the Los Angeles Times reported in 1991:

“The Knights’ parent club, the Chicago Cubs, is about to junk its farm team’s Julian-designed black uniforms, described by one sportswriter as ‘Knightmarish’….

“Of the Cubs’ decision to change the Knights’ uniforms, Julian said: ‘I’m very disappointed. I did the best I could.’

“Of the sportswriter’s fashion review, he said: ‘I’m tracing the way this guy dresses. Let me just say this. It’s like having an illiterate criticize Hemingway.’ ”

 

Sheriff Taylor’s story had familiar ring

On this day in 1960: On “The Andy Griffith Show” Sheriff Taylor ends a feud between two mountain families by arranging the marriage of their children. Andy tells Opie the Southern version of “Romeo and Juliet,” which had been on the flip side of his hit record, “What It Was Was Football.” This is the only episode to make use of material from Griffith’s repertoire as a standup comedian.

 

Hometown of first black Marine: Charlotte

“The black-and-white photograph looks like yet another portrait of a bright-eyed, fresh-faced, all-American World War II recruit….

“What makes the photo historic? The young Marine pictured, Howard P. Perry [of Charlotte], was the first African-American Marine recruit in 167 years. 

“Especially after America entered what became World War II, the rigid, proud, traditional Marines were particularly resistant [to enlisting blacks]. Major General Commandant Thomas Holcomb anticipated ‘a definite loss of efficiency in the Marine Corps if we have to take Negroes’….

“Nevertheless, the government appropriated $750,000 to build barracks at Montford Point, a satellite camp in North Carolina outside what in late 1942 became Camp Lejeune. Through 1949, nearly 20,000 African-American Marines would train there.

“Howard Perry reported for duty on August 26, 1942, followed by 12 more black volunteers that day…. [He] remained a private through 1944 and served as a cook in the 3371, 51st Defense Battalion….”

— From “The Story of the First Black Marine” by Gil Troy at the Daily Beast (Nov. 29)

 

Race, as seen by a white N.C. sharecropper in 1956

“In [a ‘Voices of the White South’ article in Life magazine in 1956] a 38-year-old white sharecropper in North Carolina summed up his support of segregation and his views on his black neighbors and fellow farmers this way:

“ ‘We’re working to own our farm. We want to hurry up and get someplace. But they just don’t work. They just don’t care. All they’re looking for is the end of the week when the landlord will shoot ‘em a little money. [T]hey take a bath once a month, and their fields don’t look like they’s hardly tending them.’ At the same time, according to LIFE, the sharecropper’s approval of segregation was ‘based as much, or more, on personal pride than notions of color. He would rather have a Negro living next door than he would a white “redneck” or “peckerwood.” In his view, “there’s nothing sorrier than a sorry white man.” ‘

“The white sharecropper’s wife, LIFE wrote, ‘also approves of segregation and will not let her 9-year-old daughter play with an 8-year-old Negro neighbor. This is the reason she gives: “If our landlord came down here and saw her playing with a colored boy, he wouldn’t respect us. Only poor class whites do that. We’re trying to keep our self-respect and keep the highest level socially we can. We’re willing to work with the Negroes, but that’s as far as we’ll go.” ‘”

— From “LIFE and Civil Rights” at life.time.com

 

Football as played before the concussion protocol

“The Yale and Harvard football teams played (?) at Springfield, Mass., last Saturday a match game which was little short of a free fight. Of the 22 men engaged, six were taken off the field injured, and… one lay for seven minutes on the field unconscious….

“Excepting the bullfights of Mexico and Cuba, there has been no sport quite so brutal as football, as it is played to-day, since the tourneys of the Middle Ages and the gladiatorial contests which delighted the elite of ancient Rome….

“[At least] prize fighting is a trial of strength and of skill; football, of brute strength only….”

— From “The Gridiron and the Prize Ring” in the Statesville Record & Landmark (Nov. 29, 1894)

Hat tip / “Walter Camp: Football and the Modern Man” by Julie Des Jardins (2015)

The Record & Landmark didn’t mention instances of such savagery closer to home, although football had taken root in North Carolina several years earlier.

 

‘A shower of Flesh and Blood’ in Sampson County

“In 1850, a strange package arrived at the North Carolinian [in Fayetteville]. It contained a letter and what appeared to be the rotting organ of an animal.

“ ‘The piece which was left with us,’ the editors wrote, ‘has been examined with two of the best microscopes in the place,’ and certainly contained blood. ‘It has the smell, both in its dry state and when macerated in water, of putrid flesh; and there can be scarcely a doubt that it is such.’

“Thomas Clarkson, who lived on a farm about 13 miles southwest of Clinton, wrote the accompanying letter: ‘On the 15th of Feb’y, 1850, there fell within 100 yards of the residence of Thos. M. Clarkson in Sampson county, a shower of Flesh and Blood, about 50 feet wide, and… 250 or 300 yards in length.’….

“The Clarkson family were not the only witnesses to this strange phenomenon in North Carolina. It was reported to have rained flesh on a farm near Gastonia in 1876, and a shower of blood in Chatham County in 1884 was investigated by none other than F. P. Venable, a young chemist who went on to become president of the University of North Carolina.

“These are only a few of the two dozen reported such cases occurring in 19th-century America. Blood and meat were claimed to rain down on slave and soldier, adult and child. Even if all the events were hoaxes, it remains one of the strangest and most obscure artifacts of our cultural psyche.”

— From “The day it rained blood and guts in North Carolina”  by Tom Maxwell at Indy Week (Oct 29, 2014)

More on “flesh falls” from Harnett County historian John Hairr.

 

Rocky start as promoter left him much to be Grateful for

“[In 1971 the Grateful Dead] tour stopped at Wallace Wade Stadium at Duke University….Eric Greenspan was the student responsible for booking the show, which included the Dead, the Beach Boys and the Butterfield Blues Band. It was his first large outdoor event, and he was ill prepared. The stage was low and had no roof, the security barricade was a rope and there were no trailers for dressing rooms. The weather forecast was for rain….

“[But] the sun was bright as the gig day dawned, and…  among other chores, Eric took [crew member Bill] Candelario to the store, where he bought 15 pairs of Converse sneakers, and swapped them around so that everyone had two colors….

“Although there were only 7,000 kids in a  50,000-seat stadium — there had been no advertising or off-campus sales — or perhaps because there were only 7,000 kids, it was a blissful day that established the Dead in North Carolina forever….”

— From “A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead” by Dennis McNally (2002)

“Working on the Grateful Dead’s farewell shows in Chicago, [entertainment lawyer] Greenspan’s career had come full circle — back to a show he promoted as a Duke University student…. ‘Everything in my career dates back to that,’ he says.”

— From “Music’s Most Powerful Attorneys: From Litigation to Performing Rights, Radio to General Counsel” (July 22, 2015)

 

NC was hotbed of resistance to (Jewish) refugees

“Sen. Robert Reynolds, a Democrat from North Carolina and an outspoken opponent of Jewish migration, claimed Jews were ‘systematically building a Jewish empire in this country,’ and often argued that Jews were alien to American culture. ‘Let Europe take care of its own people,’ Reynolds argued. ‘We cannot care for our own, to say nothing of importing more to care for.

“Reynolds disseminated his nativist views through a publication he founded called the Vindicator. The publication carried headlines about the ‘alien menace’ such as ‘Jewish Refugees Find Work,’ ‘Rabbi Seeks Admission of One Million War Refugees,’ and ‘New U.S. Rules Hit Immigration of German Jews.’ Defending himself against critics, Reynolds told Life magazine that he simply wanted ‘our own fine boys and lovely girls to have all the jobs in this wonderful country’….

“William Dudley Pelley, a leading anti-Semite and organizer of the [Asheville-based]  ‘Silver Shirts’ nationalist group, claimed that Jewish migration was part of a Jewish-Communist conspiracy to seize control of the United States. Pelley, whose organization routinely used anti-Semitic smears such as ‘Yidisher Refugees’ and ‘Refugees Kikes,’ attracted up to 50,000 to his organization by 1934….”

— From “Anti-Syrian Muslim Refugee Rhetoric Mirrors Calls to Reject Jews During Nazi Era” by Lee Fang at the Interceptor (Nov. 18)