A link dump even more instructive than usual

— How Charlotte got to be CHARLOTTE (while somehow retaining an amazing microhabitat or two).

— How Asheville came to host its first  flash mob pillow fight (while still honoring its more traditional pastimes).

—  How a covered wagon from Rowan County ended up on the second floor of a restaurant in New Washington, Indiana.

— How Benny from Lexington became “the old man” on “Pawn Stars.”

— How North Carolina lost  — to Ohio! — its official unofficial state  “ready-to-eat spiced sausage treat.”

Link dump seeks license as eclectic utility

Death noted: Country singer Charlie Louvin, 83, last of the two Louvin Brothers and first cousin of esteemed Durham native John D. Loudermilk. Charlie and Ira were in fact born Loudermilks, but found the handle too long for career purposes.

— Among the “All-time most popular” reader queries to the Star-News’  MyReporter.com is “Will the Wilmington area be getting a Red Lobster?” Is Lexington similarly eager for the arrival of a Sonny’s?

— The last mayor of Brooklyn — before it became a borough of New York City — was a native of Plymouth, North Carolina. At age 7, Frederick W. Wurster and his German-born parents moved to Brooklyn. He made his fortune manufacturing axles and in 1895 was serving as Brooklyn’s fire commissioner when he won the Republican nomination for mayor.

— Yet another North Carolina politician successfully auditions for “Doonesbury.”

Poitier movies on front lines of racial discord

“[In 1965]  ‘A Patch of Blue’ inflamed some Southerners…. Authorities discovered a homemade bomb with five sticks of dynamite planted in a Concord, North Carolina, theater. Luckily, the bomb malfunctioned….

“[Two years later] in Lexington, North Carolina, 20 Ku Klux Klan members picketed a drive-in theater [showing ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’], carrying signs that read ‘Fight for your Rights’ and ‘Mom and Dad — It Could Happen to You.’ ”

— From “Sidney Poitier: Man, Actor, Icon” by Aram Goudsouzian (2004)