Exploring the History, Literature, and Culture of the Tar Heel State
— At last, Revenge is ours (or not). Including Blackbeard’s artisanal arsenal.
— eBay eye-catchers: a medal of Lost Cause honor and a poster for Louis Armstrong at Carmichael Auditorium.
— What exactly is a Confederate monument? And what should Reidsville do with the one that lost its kepied head to a reckless driver?
“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.
“By the end of the decade the polls of the Congressional Hearing on the Repeal of the Prohibition Amendment presented overwhelming evidence that men and women students drank in a proportion close to two drinkers to every non-drinker….. At the University of North Carolina, of the 944 students who voted, 67 percent admitted drinking to some extent…. and 85 percent favored repeal or modification…..
“At Duke, the [campus newspaper] editor casually suggested that the most considerate senior gift to the college might be ‘a large room about the size of the new gym, with several hundred beds in it, where the Saturday night drunks might go when they come in Sunday morning so that they might not disturb their roommates….
” ‘A dance among the younger set can hardly be called a success nowadays unless most of the boys get “high,” not to mention the occasional girl who cannot be outdone….’ ”
— From “The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920s” by Paula S. Fass (1977)
‘