Memorabilia Moment – Page 22

New in the collection: Shad Festival license plate

Municipal license plates are no longer being issued by Grifton (or most other towns), but the Shad Festival lives on. This year’s will be April 20-22 (and will of course include the traditional Shad Toss).

Since 1971 the town has been celebrating the annual return of shad upstream from the Atlantic Ocean to Contentnea Creek, a tributary of the Neuse River.

But the festival idea, proposed by Cooperative Extension Agent Ed Comer, didn’t meet instant acceptance. Many anglers disdain the predominant local variety, the hickory shad, which is smaller and bonier than the American shad. (Both are in the herring family.)

Mayor Dave Bosley saved the day for the hickory shad: “We don’t have to eat the shad; they don’t eat azaleas at the Azalea Festival or mules at Mule Day in Benson.”

New in the collection: country ham bag from Central Falls

Is there a country ham expert in the house? I’d like to know more about Tom’s Ham Co. of Central Falls, but the Randolph County Public Library hasn’t been able to help, and I’m still awaiting approval to join the enthusiastic Facebook group I Grew Up In Asheboro, North Carolina!!!

Considerably less understated than Tom’s is Mom “n” Pop’s of Claremont, which pulls out all the stops on this ham bag commemorating Dale Earnhardt….

New in the collection: NC State aeronautics paperweight

If you know the story on this 2-inch by 3-inch cast iron paperweight (?), you’re one up on me — and on the experts at North Carolina State. “The university archivist,” I’m told, “thinks this likely dates from the 1930s or the 1940s and suggested that perhaps it was a student project rather than an item that was mass produced.”

Regardless, its simple depiction of Bernoulli’s Principle dates it no earlier than 1738.

New in the collection: Randleman, Zebulon license plates

During the greater part of the 20th century, municipalities in North Carolina were empowered to collect their own vehicle taxes — and to issue license plates. Local officials often saw this as an opportunity to add a unique self-promotional slogan.

If you’re advertising Apex, nobody’s likely to beat you to the title of “Peak of Good Living.” Or beat Benson to “Annual Sing-Mule Day,” Manteo to “Home of the Lost Colony,” Havelock to “Gateway to Cherry Point” or Love Valley to “Cowboy Capital.”

If, however, you’re claiming bragging rights to “Friendly People,” better expect some competition.

New in the collection: handbill for George Wallace speech

“About 450 attended, compared with about 1,500 in Asheville Wednesday and an even larger crowd in Raleigh Tuesday.

“Out of deference to UNC-Charlotte’s televised basketball game [against N.C. State in the NIT], Wallace spoke a little more than 20 minutes….

“Wallace was joined on the Park Center stage by Barry Worley, who was shot in 1974 as a Charlotte park policeman on duty outside a Memorial Stadium rock concert.

“Worley, like Wallace, is partly paralyzed and in a wheelchair.

” ‘Your former patrolman… is a typical example of what happens if we don’t get a handle on this problem of crime,’ Wallace said. ‘What we need is to return to the electric chair to get some people off of society.’

“He also touched on his familiar campaign themes — tax reform, welfare reform, the importance of military strength and the evils of ‘big government.’ ”

— From “Wallace: No Plan to Bolt” by Jerry Shinn in the Charlotte Observer (March 19, 1976)

Wallace’s loss to Jimmy Carter in the next week’s Democratic primary, 54 to 35 percent, virtually ended his fourth and final bid for the presidency.

New in the collection: Charlotte Bobcats souvenir gnome

This 6-inch-tall composite figurine of Kemba Walker was given away to fans at Time Warner Cable Arena, Jan. 22, 2014.

The Charlotte Bobcats defeated the Los Angeles Clippers, 95-91, despite point guard Walker’s missing the game with an ankle sprain.

This was the last season the city’s NBA team went by Bobcats.

It’s complicated: After the 2002 season, the original Hornets moved to New Orleans. In 2004, Charlotte was granted a new franchise, the Bobcats, named for owner Bob Johnson. After the 2013–14 season, the Bobcats, now owned by Michael Jordan, changed their name to the Hornets.

New in the collection: Herring labels from Colerain

Perry-Belch Fish Co. was founded in Colerain 1927 and reconstituted as Perry-Wynns Fish Co. in 1952.

According to a summary of company papers at NCSU Libraries, “For decades, it was the largest freshwater herring fishery in the world, packing both herring and herring roe under the Tidewater Brand, the Bertie Brand and Chowan’s Best. It also ran a restaurant, the Sea Gull Cafe, that was open for lunch during the herring season in March and April. During the company’s height, it hired up to 200 seasonal and permanent employees.

“During the 1990s, the number of herring in the Chowan River fell, and employment shrank to 25 seasonal and 10 full-time. The company also began packing herring, mackerel and mullet caught elsewhere, rather than just those caught locally. In September 2003, Hurricane Isabel destroyed nine of the fishery’s 11 buildings, putting the company out of business.”

— David Cecelski recalls the origins of fishing on the Chowan River.

— A couple of well-worn “good for” tokens — scrip — from Perry-Belch and W.S. Nixon & Co.

— And from the other coast, a lament for herring’s gastronomical underappreciation.

New in the collection: chitterling strut poster

Chitterlings/chitlins, a notoriously pungent exemplar of Southern cuisine, are seldom seen (or sniffed) these days. (None too soon, my mother would’ve said. Not my father, who took advantage of her absences to boil up a bucket of hog intestines and have his pals over to share.)

One early reference to the chitterling strut, as a dance step, appeared in the Asheville Citizen (June 30, 1926): “The Chitterling Strut, the Breakfast Bounce and the Rolled-Sock Dance are the latest terpsichorean novelties in Asheville’s darktown…. Wallace Walker had been charged with operating a dance hall without a license but was released when it was found that the cost of chitterling strutting was only 15 cents a head….”

The step may be long forgotten, but its name lives on most prominently in the annual Chitlin Strut in Salley, S.C.

Thanks to whoever thought this undated marker-on-cardboard poster was worth saving. Karen Brann at the Caswell County Public Library has lived in the county since 1987 but has no recollection of Fat-boys. Any Miscellany readers who can fill us in?

New in the collection: anti-HB2 pinback button

As everywhere else in the state, public opinion on HB2 in Forsyth County was starkly split.

In a one-day special session on March 23, 2016, the N.C. General Assembly had reversed a Charlotte ordinance expanding gay and transgender protections — most controversially, the right to use public restrooms based on gender identity. Gov. Pat McCrory signed the bill that night, making it a central issue in his unsuccessful campaign for reelection.

On March 30, 2017, after a year of national boycotts and other protests against the “bathroom bill,” the legislature approved a compromise that repealed HB2 but restricted anti-discrimination ordinances in cities and counties. Gov. Roy Cooper signed the measure into law.

New in the collection: Gloria Steinem poster

Can’t beat this poster for capturing its era, both in content and design. Signed by “Bellows” — ring a bell with anyone?

Gloria Steinem visited campus as part of a 1974 Women’s Festival. “All feminists are viewed as angry and difficult, but they’re not,” she told a press conference. “We enjoy the movement; it makes us better people. It’s joyful.”

Afterward, according to the Daily Tar Heel, she “strolled into 205 Union flicking her long brown hair away from her famous purple goggle glasses.”

Drama ensued, however, at the evening’s banquet: “Steinem carried her salad outside the Carolina Inn and dumped it on the ground in a demonstration of solidarity with the United Farm Workers lettuce boycott. A line of 10 sign-carrying pickets cheered….”