When view from sidelines becomes too painful….

“In Chapel Hill, N.C., after grimly watching his school’s football team drop three games in a row, University of North Carolina Cheer Leader Harry Benton Thorp turned in his megaphone, reported to the coach as a team candidate.”

— From Time magazine, Nov. 17, 1952

The rise and long, hard fall of muscadine wine

More phrase-frequency charts from Google Books Ngram Reader:

— Chapel Hill vs. Raleigh and Durham

Variety Vacationland. Tourism promotion not a priority during World War II?

— Billy Graham vs. Jim Bakker. No contest, even during the glory run of PTL.

— North Carolina vs. South Carolina. South Carolina’s spike in the early 1700s roughly coincides with its becoming a royal colony.

muscadine wine. After 150 years out of favor — longer even than big band music! — still waiting for a comeback.

When town meets gown, who picks up the tab?

“In Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where the university once had more resources than the town, the school built and still operates the water, electrical and telephone system; it has paid half the cost of two sewage disposal plants and all but one fire truck bought by the city; and it makes an annual payment, based on an agreed formula tied to enrollment ($4.96 per student, or $42,000 in a recent year).”

— From “The Free List: Property Without Taxes” by Alfred Balk (1971)

Balk, best remembered for a First Amendment case resulting from his 1962 Saturday Evening Post expose, “Confessions of a Block-Buster,” died last week at age 80.

Lit-crit link dump calls for guitar backup

Gastonia native “strengthens her already credible claim to the title of best living American writer.”

Greensboro praised (?) as “that true American anomaly – a place where there seem to be more people writing serious books than reading them.”

— Much to applaud, per usual, about Mary Chapin Carpenter‘s country-and-Eastern show last night in Charlotte. “I Am a Town,” her tribute to the sad two-lane from D.C. to the Outer Banks, always moves me. Also notable: on bass guitar, Chapel Hill’s ubiquitous Don Dixon.