Tag: memoir

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Bodie, California

title slide with photo of road leading into Bodie
The Methodist Episcopal Church in Bodie

In early October, Sandy, a woman I had dated while in Pittsburgh that spring, flew in. She had an interview for a job in California, but before that spent a few days with me. On Friday night, we checked out the bars and nightlife in Virginia City, listening to Murray Mack pound the piano playing ragtime tunes. Then, on Saturday, we went with Victor in his old Bronco and checked out the country around the Comstock.  We were looking for the petrographs, which we never found. Then, on Sunday, after church, we packed up and headed South on US 395, with plans to visit Yosemite from the backside. I don’t remember if someone had suggested I check out Bodie or if I learned about the town on this trip. 

This being in early fall, bursts of yellow aspen dotted the mountains on both sides of the highway. Unlike in the East, where the fall landscape becomes colorful with reds, yellows, and oranges, in the West color shows up in patches up on the hillside. Our first stop was for ice cream at Bridgeport, an old town on the east side of the Sierras. Then we went to Mono Lake, a place I’d wanted to see since reading Mark Twain’s Roughing It late that spring. It was one of several books I read in preparation to moving to Nevada for a year. While at the lake, we saw the unique geological monuments left behind by calcium springs when the water was higher and experienced the brine flies that cover the shoreline. Thankfully, they don’t bite. 

Mono Lake looking toward the Sierras. I took this photo in 2013

As the light began to fade, we headed to Lee Vining where I rented the last hotel room in the town. This older hotel had shared bathrooms, something I was surprised to find in America in the late 1980s.

The next morning, we rose early and drove over the Tioga Pass to Tuolumne Meadows on the backside of Yosemite. Most everything had closed for the season, so after hiking a bit, we had to head back to Lee Vining for lunch. 

After lunch, we drove to Bridgeport, turned east and drove 13 miles on mostly a gravelly wash boarded road. At one point, we crossed a ridge and Bodie stood in front of us with mountains rising behind the town. The town’s old woodened structures and the mill’s industrial complex sheltered under tin, appeared to rise out of the sagebrush. Coming into town, we saw only a few trees, cottonwoods and aspen, nestled in ravines which protected them from the strong winds. We parked, paid our entrance fee as Bodie is now a California State Park, and proceed to spend several hours walking around the old buildings.  

The road leading into Bodie. Parking is below the town and visitors must walk

Bodie shares a few things in common with Virginia City. Both areas were discovered in the late 1850s, just before American fell into the Civil War. But Bodie’s start was slower than the mines along the Comstock.  While Virginia City was remote, it was only 10 miles north of the Pony Express and the Overland Stagecoach route. Dayton, Mormon Station and Carson City, while small towns, were all close, while Bodie had only Bridgeport, which was not much more than a stage stop. And the Southern Sierras are higher and wider than the those around Carson City. So Bodie was harder to reach. 

Warning sign on road to Aurora r

However, 15 or 20 miles east of Bodie sits Aurora, Nevada. It’s discovery also occurred around the same time as Bodie. Aurora had higher grade of ore and in the early 1860s became very prosperous. One of its citizens in 1862, who learned how difficult mining came be, was Samuel Clemens. While in Aurora, he wrote a series of articles and mailed them to the Territorial Enterprise, a leading Nevada newspaper in Virginia City. This lead to a job which didn’t involve a pick or shovel and there, as a reporter, Clemens would begin to go by his nom-de-plume, Mark Twain. Sadly, lacking a high clearance 4-wheel drive vehicle, I never made it to Aurora. 

In addition to its isolation, Bodie sits at 8300 feet, two thousand feet higher than Virginia City. This is harsh territory.  While the Sierras capture much of the snow, it still snows here and there’s little protection from the bitter wind. It’s amazing to consider that once Bodie came into its own in the late 1870s, as Virginia City’s production declined, 10,000 people lived amongst these hills. In those early years, the town developed a mystic as a very violent place. Supposedly, one young girl whose family were leaving Virginia City for Bodie said, “Goodbye God, we’re moving to Bodie.” But such was the life early on in mining camps, which were mostly populated with men. 

Then, as with all mining towns, in the early-1880s, Bodie began to decline. But people continued to mine. In 1932, a young boy started a fire that burned a large portion of the town. Yet, even then, a few hung on, continuing to live and mine in Bodie until World War 2, when the government closed all gold mines as unnecessary for the war effort.  In time, the state of California inherited the town and in the early 1960s created a state park.  

While the state protects the town, private concerns own the rich hills to the south of the town. The mines were located here.. When I visited again in the spring and summer of 1989, I learned a Canadian mining company had its eyes on the potential ore in that hill. California no longer allowed cyanide leaching (a process to remove valuable metals like gold and silver from rock). To get around this, the company proposed to build a ten-mile-long conveyor. This would allow them to transport the ore to Nevada, where such operations are allowed. I don’t know what happened to such plans as California fought it. Such an operation with blasting and heavy equipment would be enough to destroy what’s left of Bodie. 

Bodie’s remaining mill

I would visit Bodie twice more during the year I lived on the Comstock. In late May, my parents visited. We took a two-night trip down to Bodie and stayed in a hotel in Lee Vining. While walking around the ghost town, it began to snow. This ddi not amuse my mother. I knew she didn’t care to share a bathroom with other guests at the hotel. I made reservations before leaving.

On this trip, we left Bodie and took another gravel road to the south, which came out at Mono Lake. Back in the day, train tracks ran down the cuts now used for the road. The train cut along the east side of Mono Lake, then headed into the hills south of the lake. There, east of Mammoth Lakes, a sizable forest consisting of Ponderosa and Jeffrey Pines grew. Lumbering operations cut the trees forr mining timbers, building lumber, and firewood. Kilns converted some of the wood into charcoal. The later found use in heading and in the milling process. The tracks never connected to another railroad and was only used to wood products.  Once the town declined, the train ceased to operate.

After a night in Lee Vining, we traveled over Tioga Pass, across Tuolumne Meadows which still had snow. We then headed down into Yosemite Valley where we spent the second night. The next day, we drove through some of the California mining areas on the western slope of the Sierras, before crossing back over on Sonora Pass and heading north back to Virginia City.

My third visit was late in June. Carolyn, whom I had been dating much of the year, and I took her daughters, Emma and Holly to Bodie and Mono Lake. We camped at Twin Lakes on the eastern slope of the Sierras, before spending the day exploring Bodie.

While I have been back to Mono Lake and over Tioga Pass several times since 1989, I haven’t gone back to Bodie. But I would like to see it again one day. Unlike Virginia City, Bodie is a true ghost town. You’re not allowed to stay there after dark, and the only residents are rangers working for the state. 

The photos were taken at different times. some were slides and others were prints. I have more photos somewhere!

More stories about my time on the Comstock:

Arriving in Virginia City, September 1988

David Henry Palmer arrives in Virginia City, 1863

Virginia City’s Muckers presents Thorton Wilder’s “Our Town”

Doug and Elvira

Matt and Virginia City

Driving West in ’88

Funerals on the Comstock Lode

Sunday afternoon drive to Gerlach 

Riding in the cab of a locomotive on the V&T

Christmas Eve

Easter Sunrise Services (a part of this article recalls Easter Sunrise Service in Virginia City in 1989)

The Revivals of A. B. Earle (an academic paper published in American Baptist Historical Society Quarterly. Earle spent several weeks in Virginia City in 1867)

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The Ordeal

Last week I wrote about being “tapped out” for the Order of the Arrow. But, as I said at that time, before I would be received into membership of this group of honored campers, I had to pass an ordeal. This is the story of the ordeal.

Order of the Arrow memorabilia
Some of my saved Order of the Arrow memorabilia: bottom slash that I received at the ordeal (the top sash was when I was made a Brotherhood member. There is a membership card and both the lodge and camp neckerchiefs.

A few days after the ordeal, I sat at the kitchen table, scratching bug bites while telling Mom all I’d endured. I thought she’d be impressed with her macho 13-year-old son. I was mistaken. While I don’t recall if she used the word fool, but that was essentially what she called me for having allowed myself to endure a day of hard work on meager rations, without the ability to talk back. “You did all that for a patch and a white sash with a red arrow embroidered on it?” she asked. Mom had a way to put me in my place. She knocked me off the high I’d been riding since the ordeal. 

A few weekends after the tap-out, I was back at Camp Tom Upchurch for the ordeal. I didn’t know much about what to expect. In addition to our scout uniforms, they told us to bring work clothes, gloves, and sturdy shoes. As the camp was over two hours from my house, I rode up with other scouts. There were about thirty of us going through the ordeal. Mostly kids but also a few adult leaders, including Mr. Barrow. His son, Ricky, and I were in the same class for the three years I attended Bradley Creek Elementary School.  

After dinner in the dining hall, they told us to stow our gear and to report to the campfire circle with only a pocketknife, a poncho, and a blanket. We knew we’d be spending the night in the woods, so we all doused ourselves with bug spray before heading to the campfire. 

I don’t remember much of the mysterious ceremony. When we arrived, older scouts, dressed like Plains Indians, and already members of the Order of the Arrow greeted us. Someone shot a flaming arrow into the lake. Then the Chief reappeared. He instructed us as to the ordeal we faced. We would spend the night alone in the woods. They required us to maintain silence for the next 24 hours. And, by morning, we needed to carve an arrow to wear around our neck. If we talked, a notch would be made in our arrow. If we received three notches, our arrow would be broken, and we would fail the ordeal. I had worried about this ever since the tap-out ceremony. .

After giving us our instruction, they lined us up. In our left-hand we carried our poncho and blanket. We placed our right hands upon the shoulder of the scout in front of us. In front and back of the line Indian braves carried torches. We were led down a two-track road toward the rifle range. To the right of the road, the land rose, covered by pines and wire grass. To the left, the land slopped into a swamp, with thick vegetation. As we moved down the road, I could hear people running around behind me. Then, the guy behind me dropped his hand from my shoulder and I felt him whisked away. I was next. 

Two braves grabbed me and led me to the left, down toward the swamp. They sat me in a dry spot and told me they’d be back in the morning. It was a moonless night. I looked at the stars as I listened to the mosquitos’ buzz and the frogs sing. Lightning flashed in the distance, but thankfully, the storm missed us. I thought about carving the arrow, but decided it wasn’t a bright idea to carve in the dark, so I spread out my poncho and wrapped myself in my scratchy wool blanket in an attempt avoid the mosquitoes. Surprisingly, I quickly fell asleep.

Something moved nearby, waking me up. “Was it an animal?” I worried. I opened the blade of my pocketknife and laid still, clutching the knife and looking around. My eyes had become somewhat adjusted, but the vegetation was so thick that I couldn’t make out what it was. Then a twig snapped and I turned and saw another scout, testing branches, obviously trying to find wood for his arrow. We looked at each other but didn’t speak and, in the darkness, I couldn’t recognize him. His placement was about fifty feet behind me,. Without saying a word, he walked back back to where his poncho and blanket were lying. 

Lying back down, I watched the stars and battled the mosquitoes for a few minutes. The bug repellant was no longer working. I rolled up in my blanket and, despite the heat and bugs, somehow fell back asleep.

When I woke the next time, the stars had faded away and there was enough light that I could orient myself. Mosquitoes were still buzzing. I knew I needed to carve and arrow before they came to retrieve us, so I looked around for suitable wood. Nearby, I found an old stump from a longleaf pine, its inners filled with lighter wood. I broke off a chunk and began to work shape it in the form of an arrow that was approximately four inches long. Such wood splits easily and has a nice sheen from the resin it contains, but the wood is hard and therefore difficult to carve. I worked with it and even though my arrow wasn’t the best looking one in camp, it had a nice rich golden color and, because of the way the wood splits, was probably the sharpest arrow around. This wasn’t a particularly good thing since the arrow had to dangle from my neck. 

I barely had enough time to fashion the arrow before being rousted up and led with others to the main part of camp. They sat us down under a tree beside the dining hall, handing us a carton of milk and a fried egg between two pieces of white bread for breakfast. We sat for the longest time and after eating. I shaped my stick into a more presentable arrow between scratching mosquito bites. Then, they assigned to work groups. As the smallest kid in the group, my fate was to be assigned to the group with the toughest task.

Our taskmaster had our group jump in the back of a truck and drove us to a sandpit beyond the rifle range. Today, they wouldn’t be allowed to haul us in the back of a truck, but this was 1970. They assigned us the task of loading sand onto the bed of a truck and hauling it to the waterfront to fill several gullies. Another group constructed dams in these gullies to help hold the sand in place. As the morning wore on and the sun rose higher, the temperature climbed. We kept making signs of wanting water to our taskmaster, an older and sadistic scout who was probably sixteen as he could drive the truck. He kept saying we’d have a water break later and pushed up hard. At least mosquitoes left us alone in the sun. 

When he finally did let us drink, we gulped water down at an unhealthy rate. Several guys got sick. After a morning of hauling sand, we were led back to the same site where we’d eaten breakfast for our lunch. Large containers of bug juice (watered-down Kool-Aid) sat on a table, and we could drink all we wanted. For lunch, they provided us a bologna sandwich. As it was with the egg at breakfast, this consisted of a slice of bologna between two pieces of white bread. Mustard, mayonnaise, and cheese were not an option. I ate my sandwich hurriedly and laid down, closing my eyes knowing that before too long, I’d be back working a shovel.

That afternoon, our taskmaster continued to be stingy with the water breaks. At one point several of us got so thirsty when unloading the sand into the ravines by the lake, we ran out into the water and wet our shirts as well as cupped out hands and gulped water lake water. Later, our task master stopped the truck at the camp trading post and brought himself a coke with ice. He drank it in front of us, making slurping sounds and then poured the ice out on the ground, taunting us while trying to get us to talk. An adult leader observed his stunt and called out taskmaster over for a serious conversation. I don’t know what he said, but afterwards, our taskmaster provided frequent water breaks and no more hazing. 

Our afternoon ended at about 4 PM. We remained silent. They told us to clean up and to report back to the dining hall at 6 PM in uniform. We showered, first with water, then with calamine lotion. Dressed, I spent a hour resting, waiting for the bugle to call for dinner. 

We gathered at the dining hall filled with memorabilia left behind by camp staff members going back into the 1940s. Paddles, banners, and flags hung from the rafters, one for each year. Each piece memorized the names of the staff members. As we entered, each table contained platters and bowls of food and pitchers of water, bug juice, and iced tea. 

After a scant breakfast and lunch, this was a feast. Fried chicken, mash potatoes, vegetables, freshly baked yeast rolls, and chocolate cake. Still, we could not talk,. This was okay as we were famished . We stuffed our mouths with a seemingly unlimited amount of food, some of the best I’d ever eaten. 

Thinking back, much of what happened after dinner is now a blur. Exhausted, it was a long ceremony. We were again led out into the woods in a single file, with a hand on the scout in front of us, to a secret fire ring located deep in the swamps. When we arrived, a fire blazed.  Behind the flames stood the Chief. He welcomed us, had us sit down and told us the legend of the Order of the Arrow. He then gave us a secret sign and handshake, and presented sashes, a patch, a pocket ribbon with a small pewter arrow, and a neckerchief. We’d passed the ordeal. 

I was proud I endured the ordeal without a single notch in my arrow. However, I can’t say that I didn’t talk during the day, we just made sure we talked away from the taskmasters and others in charge of the ordeal. After the ceremony, we all made our way back to the dining hall where a cracker barrel was waiting. No longer on silence, we talked about our experience as we ate crackers with cheese and sausage and drank plenty of bug juice. I was now an Arrowman. 

Exhausted, we headed to bed around 11 PM. I would be on a high for the next several days, until that morning when I told my mother about my experience. 

Camp Tom Upchurch would close in 1974. For several years, the Cape Fear Council used camps from other councils until 1981, when Camp Bowers opened. For a history of the Council with Lodge history on the sidebar, click here. The Order of the Arrow was based on the Delaware tribe of Native Americans. Interestingly, the name of the lodge, Klahican, supposedly means “Venus Fly Trap” in the language of the Delaware trip. I find that suspicious as the Venus Fly Traps only grows in three counties in Southeast North Carolina and one county in Northeast South Carolina. They would have been unknown in Delaware!

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Order of the Arrow Tap Out

Order of the Arrow tappet
Camp Tom Upchurch patch

Wednesday night campfire at Camp Tom Upchurch in Hope Mills was the highlight of the week. Families gathered with their scouts. On this night, my grandparents had driven over from Pinehurst, which was a lot closer than my parents coming up from Wilmington. Grandma brought a picnic dinner consisting of fried chicken, rolls, potato salad, fresh tomatoes, deviled eggs, and a jug of ice tea. We all devoured the food which was a welcome relief from that they served in the dining hall.

About an hour before dark, a bugle called us to the campfire circle. We sat on wooden benches, the scouts in front, each troop sitting together, with family members sitting behind. The campfire circle was really a semi-circle which faced the lake, with two fire pits between the benches and the water. The air was still, warm and humid, when we arrived. Mosquitoes buzzed and, in the distance, we could hear the roll of thunder. Or maybe it was artillery from Fort Bragg, which wasn’t far away. Be prepared was our motto and we all carried ponchos and had doused ourselves with some deet-ladened insect repellant. 

As soon as everyone found a seat, a staff member dressed as an Indian warrior from the Plains called down the fire. Arrows flew into each pit, igniting the wood. It seemed a miracle, but it really as the church camp song goes, “it only takes a spark to get a fire going.”  This is especially true when the wood has been soaked with some kind of petroleum products. With the fires burned brightly as we sang songs, watched corny skits and listened to stories. As the light drained from the sky, a chorus of frogs threatened to drown us out. When it was finally dark, the mood became somber, and we sang the song of the voyageurs. 

Our paddles keen and bright, flashing like silver; swift as the wild goose flight, dip, dip, and swing.
Dip, dip, and swing them back, flashing like silver; swift as the wild goose flight, dip, dip and swing.

Repeatedly, we sang the song, each time softer. Soon, we whispered the words and could hear fish jump in lily pads near the water’s edge. We started another round and then he appeared. In the middle of the lake the chief stood in a canoe, his arms folded across his chest, a full bonnet of feathers surrounding his head and hanging down his back. A lantern sitting in the bottom of the canoe illuminated him as two other scouts, dressed as braves, paddled quietly. We watched in awe. The canoe beached and several other staff members, dressed as Native Americans, joined the canoe at the show to help the chief out of the boat. 

A distant drum began to beat as the warriors danced around the dying flames. Then the Chief joined in, dancing across the front and then up into the benches where he crossed back and forth in front of the sitting scouts, just inches away. We sat, entranced. When he came to me, he stopped, turned, slapped my shoulders, and then lifted me up. Before I comprehended what was happening, happening, one of the braves whisked me to the front. He had me stand by the fire, with my arms crossed over my chest. Several other scouts soon joined me. After a while, the Chief led us away as the campfire closed with the singing of the scout vespers.

Softly falls the light of day, as our campfire fades away. Silently each Scout should ask, “Have I done my daily task? Have I kept my honor bright? Can I guiltless sleep tonight? Have I done and have I dared, everything to be prepared?”

I had just been tapped out for the Order of the Arrow, the brotherhood of honored campers. That night, the Chief told us we’d been elected by our peers to be a part of this elite fellowship, but before we would be welcomed into the group, we’d have to pass an ordeal scheduled later in the summer. I was excited, yet nervous about what I’d have to endure. I’d heard about the ordeals: a night alone in the woods, a day of little food, hard work and silence.

When he told us we could go back to our troops, I set out to find my grandparents. I could tell they were proud of me. Granddaddy asked me to walk with them to their car and once we got there, I spied on the floorboard of the back seat, one each side of the drive train hump, two watermelons. Granddaddy gave me one and he took the other and we walked over to our troop site. My grandma carried a butcher knife and a saltshaker. She cut up the melons on a picnic table in the center of our campsite, sprinkled salt on them, and gave everyone a thick wedge. I sure the watermelons came from Coy McKenzie’s farm. Coy was grandma’s nephew. In addition to growing and curing some of the best bright-leaf tobacco in the county, he was well-known for his watermelon patch.

Klahican Lodge Order of the Arrow patch
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Memories of a Foster Daddy

photo of young girl and one of her and her foster dad.

I started reading Frances Liardet’s novel, We Must Be Brave, this week. It’s about a woman who falls in love with a lost girl whom she cares for during the chaos following the German bombing of Southampton, England during World War 2. The story reminded me of something I experienced and wrote about over 30 years ago, before our other kids came along. At the time, I had the article approved by the social worker, making sure I wasn’t breaking any rules or leaking confidential information,, then submitted it for publication. A magazine accepted the piece for publication, but then they closed down the presses before it was published. So, it sat in my files. This evening I dusted it off and presented it here.

MEMORIES OF A FOSTER DADDY

photo of Becky
Becky, photos are copies (this was before digital)

The first of September 1994, one of the saddest days of my life. 

I waved good-bye to Becky for the final time as the social worker’s car backed down our driveway. But the sadness didn’t take away the joy of the previous six months as I experienced how precious life seen through the eyes of a toddler can be. Becky taught me the importance for adults to spend time with children, caring for them and helping them to discover the world. From Becky, I learned a lesson which everyone needs to experience firsthand. Children need responsible adults in their lives and, as adults, we need children in our lives if we are to experience life to its fullness. Perhaps that is why Jesus was so insistent on the disciples allowing children to come to him (Mark 10:13).

Becky was just a little over a year old when she came to live with us. At first, she seemed so small and fragile. The previous month, she lived in a shelter for children and came complete with a cold. She struggled to go to sleep in a strange place while hacking and coughing. My wife and I took turns holding her, patting her back and saying, “it’s okay,” while praying she would eventually fall asleep. After regaining her health, Becky still had a hard time going to bed. Only then, it had to do with her fear of missing out on something exciting. She was at the age where she wanted to experience all that life had to offer.

Church was a new experience for Becky. On that first Sunday, she seemed stunned to hear my voice from the pulpit and started to run down the aisle. My wife caught her after a couple of steps, and we introduced our foster child to the congregation. Becky came with only a few clothes, mostly worn hand-me-downs. Before her first church service, my wife brought her a lacy pink dress. Becky looked stunning in that dress and she knew it. After worship, she came to me expecting to be held. Acting shy, with her arms tightly hugging my neck, she charmed everyone during fellowship hour.  Soon, however, she lost her shyness and became the terror of the fellowship hour, running around like a wild cookie monster. No one seemed to mind, everyone loved her.

During our time together, Becky and I developed a special relationship. She would get up in the mornings with me, and we would eat oatmeal together.

This was so long ago I was skinny and had hair!

On the days my wife had to work, I would take her to church with me. Even though the nursery with all its neat toys was next to my study, Becky would insist on playing with my books. She would take them off the shelf, rearrange them on the floor, and then put them back in another location.  Sometimes she would demand that I read to her.  I think she found Augustine as boring as I once did. At other times, I would take Becky visiting. I know my parishioners were glad to see us coming, and I’m sure they were just as glad to see us go. Having an energetic toddler along assured me that a short pastoral visit wouldn’t take up the whole afternoon.

In a way Becky became my guardian angel. Taking the suggestion of Family Services, we didn’t teach Becky to refer to us as mother and father. Instead, we allowed it to happen naturally, and Becky quickly took to calling me “da-da.” Becky showed concern for her daddy when my wife dropped me off on a backroad for an overnight backpacking trip. According to my wife, when Becky realized I was not in the car, she panicked and cried “ah-da-da” all the way home. In addition to looking out for me, I found myself looking forward to coming home early so that I could spend time playing with her. Having her around made life less stressful.

at the table

From the beginning, my wife and I made it a point to include Becky in our prayers at mealtime. With her sitting in a highchair between us, we would each take one of her hands and say grace. At first, Becky was not at all cooperative with what must have seemed to her a strange ritual. Instead, she was ready to eat as soon as her food was placed on her plate. Having just come from a children’s shelter, Becky learned not to wait too long when food was available and would stuff herself with whatever placed in front of her.

However, as the months passed, Becky calmed down at the table. She waited for us to sit down while holding out her hands in anticipation of the prayer. Before she left, she had added to word “amen” to her vocabulary and would boldly proclaim it at the end of the prayer.

Although Becky was a foster child, we held out hope that we would be able to adopt her. Becky’s case worker assured us it was unlikely she would be allowed to return to her original family.  Our dreams were shattered when another family member decided to accept custody. We were given two weeks notice, two weeks to say goodbye to her and our dreams, before the social worker moved Becky to her new home.

Running in the backyard

On our last full day together, we took a picnic and went up onto Cedar Mountain. Becky seemed so happy. No longer a fragile sickly little child, she had blossomed into a healthy toddler. She ran around enthusiastically, only to occasionally stop and examine nature. While on that picnic, Becky collected several rocks and sticks and gave them to me for safe keeping. I still have those mementoes, in a small glass case, as a reminder of what a small child considers special in our world.

During the final week of Becky’s stay, I found myself drawn to the passage of her namesake in the Bible. I read and re-read the story of Rebecca in Genesis. I came to understand Rebecca had done all she could to prepare Isaac for life, but in the end, she had to let him go. With Esau out to kill Isaac, Rebecca could no longer protect him. Isaac fled and as far as we know Rebecca never again looked into the eyes of the son she loved so much. It suddenly dawned on me the pain that she must have felt, and the pain that parents everywhere feel when they lose a child.

The Apostle Paul reminds us of how some plant, and others water, but God gives the growth (1 Corinthians 3:6-9). In a way, my wife and I had an opportunity to water and nurture Becky. We cared for her, loved her, and allowed her to love us. But Becky didn’t belong to us, and in the end, we had to let go. We could only pray and trust God, the one who gives the growth, to watch over her.

A few weeks before Becky left us, a fierce thunderstorm in the middle of the night woke her up. I went into her room, picked her up out of the bed and held her. She quickly calmed down. With the thunder rumbling and lightning flashing, Becky started patting me on the back, saying, “it’s okay, it’s okay.” Among other things, she learned to trust and to love.  

I still get tears in my eyes when I think about her; however, I am thankful I had the opportunity to be her daddy, even if only briefly.

Becky had a serious side. At the groundbreaking for the new church facility, Summer 1994.

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Thankful for a childhood with plenty of room to wander

Title slide with a photo of the crown of longleaf pines

Happy Thanksgiving. Today I am thankful for a wonderful childhood.

Sheba, our English Setter, barked incessantly in the drainage ditch behind our house. Investigating, I found her moving around a pocket in the clay wall of the ditch. Draining water created these small caves which were common along the ditch bank. 

“What is it girl?” I asked. I rubbed the dog’s head and leaned down to peer inside the hole. A good-sized turtle appeared to be hiding inside. Its head barely stuck out of what seemed to be a black shell. “Good girl,” I said, grabbing a stick. I slid the stick underneath its shell and tried to drag the turtle out when all a sudden its head, fangs flashing, struck the stick just below my hand. Dropping the stick, I jumped back. The snake’s body recoiled. Sheba barked even more frantically. She knew danger lurked. 

I was ten years old and had come inches from being bitten by a water moccasin. Leaving the dog to guard the snake, I ran inside and told dad who came out, grabbing a hoe, and killed the snake. It was too dangerous for something that poisonous to be at the edge of our yard. A year or so later, a snake bit Sheba. Her snout swelling twice it’s normal size. The vet drained the poison and she convalesce a few days. Thankfully, she was soon back to normal. 

Longleaf forest. Photo taken in Carolina Beach State Park, about 8 miles from where the story took place
Longleaf Forest. This photo was taken in Carolina Beach State Forrest, about 8 miles from where my memoir is set. You can see wiregrass along with prickly pear cactus in bloom. I took this photo in May 2024.

We moved to into a neighborhood called Tanglewood in the Myrtle Grove Sound area when I was nine years old. This was before the big building boom in Wilmington, which started around 1970 and hasn’t yet let up. There were only seven houses on our street, each sitting on a half-acre. Ours was one of the few exceptions. My father brought two lots, not wanting to be “crowded in.” In addition to the woods behind the house, we could cross the street and ramble through more swamps and pine forest until we came to the headwaters of Whiskey Creek, which I thoroughly explored after I purchased my first canoe when I was sixteen. 

The woods across the street were the first to go. They built houses up and down the road. By the time I entered Roland Grice Junior High, all the lots had been sold I don’t remember just when the woods behind my parents succumbed to the great urban sprawl of the Southeast. My last trip exploring the bays and pine forest was during a break from college. A few years later, when visiting, I discovered the ditch filled in and houses standing where woods and bays once existed.

The drainage ditch behind our house was a wonderful place to play as a kid. When we first moved here, there was always water flowing. I didn’t realize this being an ominous sign as they were draining the swampy areas to the south of our house. As kids, we played in the ditch, hunting salamanders and turtles, and caught a few small, red-finned pike. 

Also exciting were the carnivorous plants, especially the Venus flytrap with trigger-hairs in its cupped hands which snapped shut, imprisoning an unlucky insect as it feasted on its decaying body. The ditch also served us as a trench for us to re-enact Civil War battles. Having moved here from Petersburg, Virginia, I knew trenches played a major role during the Civil War. We fought our battles with friends, unaware that just a mile or so away our ancestors skirmished with Union soldiers. This was early in 1865, in a last ditch effort to delay the fall of Wilmington. Lee’s troops, hunkered down in the trenches around Petersburg, needed the provisions blockade runners brought into the city. They held back the Union soldiers long enough for most of the stockpiles at the city’s wharfs to be transported north.

Behind the drainage ditch were several square miles of woods and swamps. These swamps, known as Carolina Bays, consisted of an oval shaped depression filled with peat moss. In all but extremely dry periods, water filled the mossy depressions. Ringing these oval depressions were thick undergrowth including live oaks bearded with Spanish moss, bay trees, and pond cypress. The rest of the land, which was only inches higher than the bays, consisted of white sandy soil in which grew long-leaf pines. Occasionally, one came upon a patch of winged sumac or blackjack oak. Wiregrass covered the ground.

In ages past, these pine forests of eastern North Carolina supported a thriving industry for naval stores and turpentine. Evidence remained of such industry. Slash marks on the trunks of mature trees indicated someone had drained sap from the tree. There were also mounds, which we at first thought were Indian burial grounds, only to later discover they had something to do with burning pines while extracting pitch. But that was all in the past. By the time I explored the woods and bay, they were waiting development. But for a few years, they made a great playground.

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Moving to Virginia (the first time)

title slide with photo of the author with his brother in sister and a parent in 1962 and 1964

It may surprise some that I had lived in Virginia once before. I spent my first three years of school in Petersburg, Virginia. Between the third and fourth grade, I moved with my family to Wilmington, North Carolina, where I would live until I was 24. This memoir piece draws on my recollection of that first move. Most of these pictures I found last fall as my sister and I cleaned out my parent’s house.


The phone of the kitchen wall in the house on Doubs Chapel rang. Mom answered. She sounded excited. 

“We’re moving to Virginia,” she said with her hand over the mouthpiece. “Do you want to talk to your dad?“

It may have been my first long distant phone call. In my five years, I hadn’t met anyone outside the local calling district. I placed the receiver to my ear and asked Dad if Virginia was another country.

Mom and us kids beside the house on Doubs Chapel Road
Mom and us kids at the house on Doubs Chapel (between Pinehurst and Carthage, NC) .


Dad had started a new job that summer. He spent six months in Baltimore, wherever that was, in training. He occasionally came home for a weekend. We picked him up at the train station in Southern Pines. When he returned, he took an overnight sleeper on Sunday evening, arriving back in Baltimore early on Monday morning. 

Once, when Mom wrote him a letter, which she often did, I decided to write one, too. The only words I knew how to write were the names of gas stations. We called them “filling stations,” back then. On a piece of paper, I wrote Esso, Shell, Sinclair, Gulf and Texaco. I even drew a dinosaur beside Sinclair. As the time to move got closer, Mom went up to Virginia with Dad and the three of us “youngins,” as we were called, stayed with my grandparents. I turned six then and my grandma threw a party for me and my older cousin Marie, who shared my birthday. Her dining room was cramped with cousins and friends from church.

That’s me at 6 years of age


We moved to Petersburg in late January 1963, just a week after my sixth birthday. I don’t remember much about the move, except for a long drive. Uncle Frank helped and all our stuff was loaded onto one of his farm trucks. I assume, since Dad had just started to work for the company for whom he’d work for the next 45 years, they didn’t provide expenses for the first move. When we’d move to Wilmington, North Carolina in 1966, we’d use professional movers.

It was after dark when we arrived at the rented cracker-box house on Montibello Street, overlooking toll booths along the Petersburg-Richmond Turnpike. A row of houses on the south side of the street, with our backyards dropping down to a small creek. Across the street was a chain-link fence which kept us from running out into all the traffic the moved between the Northeast and Southeast. Just south of town, I-85 and I-95 (although neither one was completed at this time) merged. If you headed north from New Orleans, Atlanta or Miami, you drove right by our house.

Being close to the freeway didn’t seem such a problem that January night as we moved in. But come spring, when we opened the windows, as there was no air conditioning, we heard a constant roar of trucks and cars. Those heading north braked for the toll booth while heading south accelerated as they continued their journeys into the night. That night, as we moved in, we heard the sound of music coming down the street. It was the ice cream man who also sold milk. We didn’t get any ice cream night, but would, in warmer months, look forward to his visits.

I have only snippets of memory about the house on Montibello Street. A gas floor heater in the hallway warmed the house. When heating, you could stand on the grate and watch the fire through a small window in the metal heater below. Shortly after moving in, it snowed. My sister placed her wet shoes on the heater and turned it up. When my mother discovered this, her shoes were well-done and curled. 

Out back, the yard slopped down and there, my father taught me how to ride a bike. He had installed training wheels on the bike and blocks of wood on the paddles so my feet could reach them. After I got to where I could keep it upright, he took the training wheels off and I’d ride it down the hill and then turn and try to make it back up but generally gave up and walked the steep hill back to the house.

My grandma gave me some seeds. Corn and peas if I remember correctly. That spring before I started school, I planted a small garden on the hillside. I was proud of the handful of peas that I harvested. I don’t remember if we got any corn.

Our next-door neighbors, to the west, were the O’Neils. Mom was always telling us to be quiet when we were outside and they were home. I didn’t understand. They seemed stuck-up as they never talked or waved. I assumed that was because they were Yankees from New York. I knew they had a boy a few years older than me, but I only saw him in the backyard once, laying in a lounge chair, sunning. Mom wouldn’t let us go out and meet him. 

Then, to my surprise, he died. We had to be especially quiet. Mom made pecan pies and took them over and afterwards they became good friends. About a year later, after we moved to Bishop Street, my brother and I was surprised to have a second Christmas several months after the holiday. There were all kinds of army stuff and an electric train in the living room one morning. The O’Neils had cleaned out his toys and given them to us. Years later, I learned he died of cancer.

On the other side of the O’Neil’s, at the last house on the street, lived a kid my age. His name was Robert and we became friends. His dad was in the Army and worked at Fort Lee. About the time school started, his family had a big party and Robert invited me, but my mother wouldn’t let me go because the adults were going to be drinking beer.

I should say something about church in Petersburg. Coming from Scottish Presbyterian stock, albeit over two hundred years since leaving the motherland, we first attended Second Presbyterian Church. Maybe we tried First Presbyterian, but I only remember the second one. There, in the sanctuary, someone took pleasure in showing us where a Yankee cannon ball crashed through the roof a mere 98 years earlier. The church had a big bell tower, but no steeple, the story being that the Yankees shot off the steeple during the Civil War. Afterwards, they rebuilt it only to be blown off by a tornado. They again rebuilt the steeple, but nine years earlier, in 1954, the winds of Hurricane Hazel once again removed it. I’ve always thought the church played by baseball rules and decided three strikes must mean God didn’t intend them to have a steeple. 

It surprised me in 2004, when I was in a meeting in Richmond and drove down for an afternoon to see the church had a steeple,. Looking up the church history, it appears they added the steeple in 1984. And the only part I remembered correctly of the steeple story was that Hazel blew one off. The first steeple fell during construction which was early in the Civil War, a few years before the siege of Petersburg.   

That September, I entered the first grade at Walnut Hill’s Elementary School. As there was a shortage of teachers and classrooms, so I was told, first graders only attended school half day. I pulled the morning shift and came home at lunch, passing by those going for the afternoon shift. Mostly, my parents took me to school and picked me up when it was time to come home. Once, I rode the city bus with Ellen. Mom had given me what she thought was the correct change, but I was a nickel short. I volunteered the nickel I had for milk, but the bus driver said I could pay him later. I never rode a bus again while we were in Petersburg. Well into adulthood I carried guilt with me for having cheated the bus company out of a nickel. I was in my 20s, when I told my mother about it and she assured me that she sent Ellen with the money I owed the next day. I’m not so sure, but it was a nice attempt to alleviate my guilt.

Once we moved to Bishop Street, we began attending St. Mark’s United Methodist Church. While my parents didn’t join, they did help out teaching Sunday School. The next church they joined was a Presbyterian one but that was after we moved. I assumed they knew we would not be longterm residents of Petersburg. The Methodist Church also had a Cub Scout program which I joined when I turned eight. I would earn my wolf and bear badges while being in a den where the den mother was a former Miss Virginia.

Ellen

We and the O’Neils moved about the same time. The next summer, when I was between the first and second grade, Ellen invited me to go with her to the city pool. She introduced me as her “boyfriend,” which made me a pretty proud kid having a girlfriend twice my age.



That fall, my parents brought a house on Bishop Street in Walnut Hills. At the time, it seemed large, but looking at photos, it wasn’t. Before moving in, Mom and Dad painted and fixed the house up. We were still in the process of moving the day my father picked me up at school. When we got home, Mom had the TV on, which had already been moved to the house, and was very upset. The President had just been shot. I will always associate our new house with Kennedy’s assassination.

family in fromt of a house
My dad with the three of us at the Bishop Street house, maybe Easter Sunday, 1964
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A Humorous Look Back at 1975: The year I graduated from high school

Senior year photo of Class of 1975 button

Years ago, I wrote an essay on 1957, the year I was born. I now have an essay on 1975, the year I graduated from high school. Enjoy.

Senior Class Photo

The year wasn’t even half over when we lined up under the bleachers at Legion Stadium for graduation. The evening was warm and humid. Each graduate had been given five tickets. If it rained and we had to move inside the gym at Hoggard, we could only use two tickets. Thankfully, the night stayed dry. In the crowd were my parents, one of my grandmothers and my surviving grandfather along with my brother. The whole evening was a blur. A brown paper bag with a bottle passed down the aisle. Jokes were shared. Despite this, somehow, we all made it across the stage to receive our diploma. 

That weekend I went with my church’s youth group on a camping trip to Topsail Island. For those of us who just graduated, it was our last hurrah. Saturday night under the pavilion, a band played for several hours, mostly Jim Croce’s “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.” I was sick of the song halfway through the evening. To this day, I can never hear it without recalling that night on Topsail. Thankfully, we can blame the Class of 1973 for that song.  Cell phone cameras were still a quarter century away, which kept us from taking embarrassing photos of each other.

People acted like graduation was a big deal, and it certainly felt like a bigger deal than my other graduations although it didn’t involve researching and writing a dissertation. Academically, I barely skated across the podium. But I did received all kinds of gifts. I was barely shaving and given enough aftershave lotion that I never had to buy another bottle. Before I ran out, I grew a beard and threw out what remained. I’ve had a beard for nearly 40 years. As for the gifts, I had to rush to write thank you notes before stamps jumped by 30% (from 10 to 13 cents) at the end of the year. Today, to buy a roll of stamps, I might have to mortgage my house. 

So much had already happened in 1975 by that night on the sixth of June. In January, I turned 18 and was supposed to register for the draft. I got around to it in March and was read the riot-act for being late. Nobody cared. As a country, we hadn’t drafted anyone in several years. But I still received a draft card which in North Carolina could be lent out to someone my size for the purpose of buying beer. The card had no photo, only height, weight, color of hair and eyes. 

Of course, for much of the winter and early spring of 1975, as the news reported on the collapse of Cambodia and Vietnam, the war remained real. The question as to if we would go back in to save South Vietnam stayed on our minds. With an unelected President in the White House and people wanting to put Watergate behind us, that wasn’t to be. Those of us with draft cards were saved from having to decide whether we should go to war or buy flannel shirts and head north. 

Speaking of Watergate, the year began with four of Nixon’s crony’s, including his Attorney General, being found guilty and sentenced to prison. Take note, Ms. Bondi. Of course, the former President, whom I had defended in Coach Fisher’s class, avoided prosecution. But he lived out his life in shame for what he’d done. When the truth came out, I felt ashamed for having defended him.

Men’s clothing in 1975 could be best described as horondous. We strutted around in bright bell bottoms and double-knit leisure suits. The later didn’t breath and became terribly uncomfortable, but at least they allowed men to ditch ties, which were supersized (just look at the photo of me). Women, at least the girls at school and many of the teachers, were still wearing mini-skirts, although maxi skirts were beginning to make an appearance. Converse tennis shoes were popular. Growing up near the coast meant that after school, we wore baggies and flip-flops and Bert Surf Shop t-shirts. Some things for me have not changed.

In the sporting news, it was a good year for Pittsburgh. The Steelers won back to back Superbowls (in January for the 1974 season and again in January 1976 for the 1975 Season). The legacy of this is we still get to hear the Steeler’s quarterback, Terry Bradshaw, obnoxious voice reporting on the NFL long after his prime. While the Pirates didn’t win the National League pennant, they were still hot. Of course, I wouldn’t care about Pittsburgh teams for another decade, as I went back to school and spent three years in the city.

Shortly after graduation, I made my first overnight canoe trip down the Black River. I’d do a lot more paddle trips over the next fifty years in the United States and Canada, including a four-night paddle trip this year around Michigan’s Drummond Island.  At the time of my ’75 trip, the movie Jaws had just been released. I was amazed to get back and learn there were those genuinely concerned on my behalf. Of course, there are no sharks that far inland and the few alligators slipped into the water and hid. Later in the summer, I would make my first backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail in the Shenandoah Mountains of Virginia. The trail would become my second home for a while 12 years later. I climbed Mt. Katahdin in Maine after covering 2142 miles, the length of the trail, on August 30, 1987. 

1975 was a year of death. The old order was dying. Taiwan’s Chiang Kai-shek, and the last fascist from the 1930s, Spain’s Francisco Franko, died. Haile Selassie of Ethiopia also died. He’d held off the fascist Mussolini with a rag-tag army in the 1940s. Who’d thought that 50 years later, the world would be facing a resurrection of fascism? Elijah Muhammad, who Americanized and racialized the Muslim religion died. Two of the remaining Three Stooges, Larry and Moe, died. Jimmy Hoffa disappeared in 1975, along with the iron freighter, the Edmund Fitzgerald. To this day, Hoffa is presumed dead, but decades later they found the ship in 500 feet of water at the bottom of Lake Superior. The story became a wonderful ballad which made Gordon Lightfoot famous. Every November, when the gales of November blow, the song is played repeatedly on the radio and by December I’m sick of it. 

On the political side, two crazy women, three weeks apart, attempted to kill President Ford. Closer to home, my grandmother died before the month of June was over. My other grandmother would die a month before I turned 60. She never smoked.

For those who smoked, which were a lot of Americans, 1975 was the year we got to “Flick our Bic.” Cigarettes in North Carolina rose to $2.29 a cartoon (or $2.39 for 100s). I know this, because I got to change the prices at Wilson’s Supermarket on Oleander Drive. Today, a pack of cigarettes cost double what a carton cost in ’75.  But I didn’t smoke then or now. I was more likely to use the lighter to start a campfire or light a lantern. Other people sported Mood Rings and kept Pet Rocks. At least the rocks required less food than your traditional pets. Altair came out with a microcomputer, which would become common a decade later, but that fall in college, if you wanted to use the computer, you had to keypunch cards and have them in the correct order. 

Medical science introduced the Heimlich Maneuver in ‘75, which made hot dog eating contests much safer. They also introduced CAT scans, allowing physicians a peak of our insides.  On the science front, we sent spacecrafts to Mars and Venus and linked up with a Soviet spacecraft high above the earth. 

While I didn’t read any of the books published in 1975 during the year, several published then had an affect on my life. Annie Dillard published Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, which I read in 1987 while hiking the Appalachian Trail. This was a perfect book for such a journey. Dillard encourages her readers to wonder about the smallest things within creation. Paul Theroux published The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia. I have read almost all his travel books and when on sabbatical in 2011, I modelled my overland trip from Asia to Europe on his trips.  

Edward Abbey published The Monkey Wrench Gang. I was first introduced to Abbey as a student pastor in Nevada in 1988, just before his death. This humorous book about a group of eco-terrorists in the American West fed my interest in wilderness and helped me appreciate the desert. I’d go on to read all his books.

The year was a good one for movies and a show only cost two bucks in the theater. My favorite movies included “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, “The Man Who Would Be King”, “Three Days of the Condor”, “The Return of the Pink Panther”, and “Tommy” featuring the music of The Who. In time, I’d come to appreciate “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” which came out that year. The Rocky Horror Picture Show was also released but wouldn’t become well-known until later. 

Television was in its prime and by 1975, 70% of American households had a color television.  At night we watched shows like “Mash” and “The Jeffersons.” But the real treat came on Saturday. An unrecognized blessing of having to have my date home by 11 PM is that I could drive home in time to watch Saturday Night Live with the “Not Ready for Prime Time” players.  

Music was great in ’75. The decline into disco was still a few years away, even though cracks in Rock showed as groups like the Bee Gees and K. C. and the Sunshine Band broke onto the airways.  Heart released “Crazy on You” and The Marshall Tucker Band released “Searching for a Rainbow.” Both would perform in Wilmington that year. Pink Floyd released “Wish You Were Here,” and Bob Dylan released “Tangled Up in Blue.”  These melancholy songs could be the soundtrack of my life. While AM still ruled, FM was catching up and on there you could hear groups like Steely Dan, who took a 20-year hiatus from touring and released the album, “Katy Lied” in ’75.  Other great songs included Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Elton John’s “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” and “Island Girl,” Earth, Wind, and Fire’s: “Shinning Star,” and Fleetwood Mac’s, “Rhiannon.” 

And then there was Bruce Springsteen, who released “Born to Run.” The song could have been our theme as we ran out of Legion Stadium with our gowns flapping that night in June. 

Oh honey, tramps like us
Baby, we were born to run
Come on with me, tramps like us
Baby, we were born to run

We’ve now been running for 50 years. Sadly, some have been forced to give up the race and we remember and honor them. And all of us are a lot slower. But let’s keep it up, as long as we can. I look forward to seeing folks at the reunion on Saturday. 

###

Photo taken by Donald McKenzie of me paddling the Black River in 1975
Paddling on the Black River in 1975. Photo by Don McKenzie.
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Readings from September (along with a personal memory from 1968)

Title Blog with photos of covers of books reviewed

Erik Larson, The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War 

Cover for "The Demon of Unrest"

(New York: Crown, 2024), 565 pages with bibliography, notes, and index.

Larson is a gifted storyteller historian and has once again brought a story of a pivotal time to life. His latest book looks at the months between Lincoln’s election as President in 1860 and the attack on Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. 

As Larson has done so well in other books, he tells the story from several viewpoints. We have Major Robert Anderson, commander of the Fort Sumter garrison. He’s own slaves and has southern sympathies but is also loyal to the Union. There are those in Washington trying to avoid a war and refusing Anderson’s call for more supplies and troops in the fear such actions will incite a war and encourage other Southern states to leave the Union. 

Larson follows radical southern secessionists, such as Edmund Ruffin, who worked hard to encourage states to leave the Union. He even got to fire the first cannon at the fort. There’s Mary Boykin Chesnut, the wife of a planter who was a part of South Carolina’s succession convention. Her diary provides a first-hand view of much of what happened from behind the scenes. And then there’s Sir William Howard Russell, a special correspondent from the Times of London. A famed war correspondent (having reported on the Crimean War), he had access to key politicians in Washington DC, including William Stewart and Abraham Lincoln. But he was late to arrive in Charleston.

During the waiting, the South built more batteries so the fort could be attacked from three sides. Lincoln finally authorized a fleet to sail with additional supplies and the ability to support the fort, but confusion still reigned. The main ship with the necessary firepower had been mistakenly sent to a fort in Florida, leaving the smaller flotilla unable to intervene. It arrived off Charleston the evening before the attack.  Confederate guns and sandbars at the harbor entry kept the ships from supporting the fort. 

The attack on Fort Sumter, led by Confederate General Beauregard, began in the predawn hours of Saturday, April 14th. Throughout the dark hours, the fort’s guns remained silent. During the bombardment, the men in the fort even gathered for breakfast. Anderson wouldn’t return fire until after daylight, when they’d have better views of the Confederate positions. During this waiting time, Edmund Ruffin worried that the fort wouldn’t fight back, making the Confederates look bad. But he received his wish as light appeared and the fort’s guns began to strike back. 

Despite all the shells and gunpowder expended on both sides, no one died. The fort, which had been built to protect the harbor from enemy shipping, had a difficult time to train its guns on land targets. Furthermore, the best guns for such an attack were on the top parapet, which made them more open to Confederate shelling. Anderson kept his men safely inside the fort itself. The fort, which was almost out of food, had plenty of powder, but as fire burned, a larger concern came from explosions. Quick thinking by Anderson kept this from happening. 

The Confederate forces spent much of the morning attempting to take down the American flag. When the pole was finally broken and the flag fell, Captain Doubleday (from whom legend has it created baseball), ordered guns to aim for a holiday hotel, The Moultrie, where many of the Confederate officers stayed. The guns blew holes in the hotel and sent men running for safety, but again, no one died. A makeshift flag was eventually raised during the battle. 

Upon surrender, Anderson was allowed to give a 100-gun salute as he struck the colors and marched this troops out of the fort where they were to be transported to Union ships offshore. The salute was cut to 50 when one of the cannoneers was seriously wounded when gunpower in the cannon prematurely explode.  He would die later in a Charleston hospital. 

This is a good read and help me understand more about how the terrible war began. Larson begins each section with a quotation from The Code Duello. The 1858 manual laid out rules to be followed in duels. These rules provided a civility to such disputes, trying to maintain gentlemanlike behavior in conflict. Such behavior appears to have been honored by both sides at Sumter. Later in the war, things became uglier.

While I don’t think the book is as good as several other Larson’s books I’ve read (especially The Devil in the White City, In the Garden of the Beast, and Thunderstuck), it’s better than most books I read. This is the sixth book by Larson I’ve read. In addition to this book and the three above, I have also read Dead Wake, and Issac’s Storm. 

Kevin DeYoung, The Nicene Creed: What You Need to Know about the Most Important Creed Ever Written 

Cover for "The Nicene Creed"

(Weaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2025), 93 pages including a general and scriptural index.

This year marks the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, from which came the beginnings of the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed would be finalized, adding a longer section about the Holy Spirit at Constantinople in 381 AD. For the Western Church, the creed was finalized in 589 with the addition of the filioque statement which says the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. This last edition has not been accepted by the Eastern Orthodox Churches. But with this small difference, the Nicene Creed is the most accepted creed in Christendom, and used by Protestants, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and Coptic Churches. 

In this short book, DeYoung introduces the readers to the various heresies facing the church (mainly Arianism and Apollinarianism) which led to the writing of the creed. Arianism held to the idea that the Son was created by the Father, not co-eternal. Apollinarism attempted to discredit Arianism, by going too far in the other direction and essentially denying the humanity of Christ.  The creed holds the concept of the Trinity together by maintaining a mystery.

DeYoung also fairly lays out both sides of the “filioque” debate. While he accepts the Western version of the Creed, he rightly sees the issue not as important as how the creed sought to maintain Christ’s unity and co-existence with the father. The filioque clause wasn’t added till the 6th Century with the Council of Toledo.   

This is an easy book to read for anyone wanting to understand the importance of the Nicene Creed.  

Taylor Branch, At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 

Cover for "At Canaan's Edge"

(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 1039 pages with bibliography, notes, and index, plus 18 plates of b&w photos. Audible, narrated by Leo Nixon and Janina Edwards, (2023) 34 hours and 37 minutes.

I have now finished all three volumes of Branch’s “America During the King Years.” The last volume had more meaning for me, as I remember much of what happened. I would have been between the 3rd and 5th grade in elementary school during this time.  I was in the 5th grade when Martin Luther King was assassinated and share below a memoir of that time. Like the second volume of the work, this one read more like snippets from the news media for each day.  I mostly listened to the book on Audible but also read some of the interesting sections. Here are links to my reviews of the first two volumes:

Parting the Waters (1954-63)

Pillar of Fire (1963-65)

At Canaan’s Edge shows the tension felt by Martin Luther King. Strains existed between King and President Johnson. Other strains were between King and those within the movement chanting Black Power and calling for violence. Ironically, this call to violence even came from the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, which had left behind many of its founders such as John Lewis. And even those who were committed to his non-violent movement resisted King’s visions of expanding the movement to include all poor people and to work against America’s war in Vietnam.  Branch helps the reader understand King’s troubles during the last three years of his life. 

The book ends abruptly, with an assassin’s bullet striking King on the balcony of Lorraine Hotel in Memphis on April 4, 1968. King had just asked that “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” be played that evening as they dressed and prepared for the event. Then he fatefully stepped out on the balcony. 

By providing a “play-by-play” history of what happens up until the shot was fired, Branch provides the reader with the complexity of the world. The beatings of civil rights workers on the Pettus Bridge in Alabama came at the same time as American’s first big engagement in Vietnam in the Ia Drang Valley.  The miracle” of Israel’s 6-day war in 1967 occurred during the rising opposition to Americans in Vietnam and the Supreme Court’s decision to end laws against interracial marriage. And finally, King’s desire for a “Poor People’s March” on Washington plays out against the backdrop of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam.  And as King’s life came to an end, President Johnson had just decided not to run again for the Presidency.

There was also much tension within the Civil Rights movement as some wanted to advocated violence (especially within the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee) who leaned into the Black Power movement. The tension also increased as King began to take his movement north, spending significant amount of time in Chicago, a move which caused his movement funds as donors, who supported the work in the south, began to withdraw their support.  

Also, in the background of all that happened was the FBI, who hounded King. Even in the last month of his life, they sent anonymous letters to King supporters in the north saying that he had plenty of money. At the same time, they sent other letters to Black churches in the south saying that he was broke. This discouraged those interested in the poor people’s march to Washington (which was being planned), suggesting they’d find themselves stranded. 

In these three volumes, Taylor Branch provides a wonderfully in-depth history of the Civil Rights movements. Some of this history is hard to recall, but it must not be forgotten.  

Memories of ’68

(this is part 2 of a 4 part series I wrote 20 years ago and edited for this post)

I turned eleven barely two weeks into 1968. It was a big deal. I was finally eligible to join the Boy Scouts and go camping with someone other than my family. I wasted no time. Thursday, two days after my birthday, I attended the troop meeting. It’s amazing I stayed with scouting. I experienced more hazing in those first two meetings than the rest of my life. Brian and I were both new to Troop 206 and they put us in the Rattlesnake Patrol. The patrol consisted of a bunch of older guys (probably all of 13 or 14 years old). When the adult leaders weren’t nearby, they arrange things like beltlines for us to run. But it didn’t last. I’m not sure what went on behind the scenes, but by the third week, the Scoutmaster placed us in a new patrol. Gerald, an older scout, but new to the troop, became our patrol leader. We named ourselves the Cobra Patrol, consciously picking a snake more deadly than a rattlesnake. Gerald put an end to the hazing. In a way, he became a mentor. When I became a patrol leader, I always pondered what Gerald would do in a situation before I acted. 

A week or two after being placed in Cobra Patrol, I made my first campout as a Boy Scout. We headed up to Holly Shelter Swamp and camped along the bank of the Northeast Cape Fear River. Gerald had us put our tents in a line. Brian and I ended in a slight depression. I argued that we should move our tent, having done enough camping prior to scouting to know we were in the best location. But Gerald was all for neatness. We stayed in a neat line and when the rains came that night, out tent flooded. I now had a second reason to quit scouting. Thinking back on my experiences, I can’t recall a camping trip that I’ve gotten soaked at night except for when I was a scout. However, Gerald made everything better, offering us his semi-dry tent. We assumed Gerald was going to sleep in our pool but found him in the morning asleep in the back of the equipment trailer, the only totally dry place around. The storm cleared and we dried out our bags and had a grand time in the woods, even though we kept having run-ins with our nemeses in the Rattlesnake Patrol.

We’ve come a long way since 1968. There were no I-pods, laptops, game-boys or other forms of amusements in our packs. All I had for fun was a nine-volt transistor radio and we listened to it that first night, as we tried to ignore or forget the moisture seeping into our sleeping bags. I could get the powerful 50-kilowatt station out of Cincinnati and a few local stations. And that night, laying in a sleeping bag on a bluff overlooking the slow waters of the Northeast Cape Fear River, between the music of the Beatles, Stones and Supremes, we heard news reports about the Chinese New Year and the Tet Offensive. For the first time Vietnam seemed real.

Our second night included a game of capture the flag, played pitting the Cobras against the Rattlesnakes. We didn’t win, but we went down honorably, and it would only be a matter of time before we did win. After the game, we had a big campfire, which concluded when our scoutmaster, Johnny R. told us the story of “the Hand.” He made it come alive. I’d hear this story a dozen times over the next couple of years, as he added new twist so that you were never sure when you’d nearly jump into the fire. That night we didn’t listen to the radio; we wanted things to be quiet so that we’d hear “the Hand,” in case it was about doing its dastardly deeds.

Our second camping trip with the scouts was at a camporee on the grounds around Sunny Point, on the Brunswick County side of the Cape Fear River. This gathering involved troops from all over the council and the theme was getting along with one another, with a special emphasis on racial harmony. All the scouts who participated in the event received a badge showing a handshake. One hand was light colored and the other darker, symbolizing getting along between the races. It was a lesson we’d all need to hear for soon all hell broke loose. But that weekend, we didn’t know that. Instead, we worked hard, and Cobra Patrol earned a red ribbon (next to the highest) while the Rattlesnake Patrol only received a yellow (participation) ribbon. I became a hero during the camporee in the signaling event. Few of the patrols had anyone who could read semaphore, and I shocked everyone with my newly acquired skill.

My self-instruction in semaphore came because of what was happening in Mr. Briggs classroom. My mother told me a few years ago about how she heard me talking about these things we were doing in his class and assumed I had a wild imagination until one night, Mr. Briggs called. And did my mother reward me for my honesty? NO! Instead, I was doubly grounded. Not only could I not leave our yard, but I was also stuck in my room except to go to the bathroom or to eat dinner. This sentence was to last a few years, but she relented after I brought my citizenship grade up a notch. In such tight confinement (and there were no TVs in my room back then, it really was a solitary confinement cell), I was stuck with reading. And my choices were meager. I could read schoolbooks, but I had a natural allergy to them. I could read the Bible but figured that if Mom saw me reading the good book, she might keep me grounded for my own edification. The only book of interest was the Boy Scout handbook, and I quickly set down to the task of learning semaphore (which I long since forgotten) and the constellations (which I still remember).

My third Scout camping trip was back to Holly Shelter Swamp. It was early April. We left home Friday afternoon, knowing of Martin Luther King assassination the night before in Memphis. Things went along well during the camping trip, but my nine-volt transistor radio brought in the news that violence was erupting across our nation. Somehow (along before cell phones), our Scoutmaster Johnny Rogina, a detective with the Sheriff’s Dept., got word to report for duty. But there were enough other men along that we camped two nights. Sunday morning, we packed up and headed back into town. Since our troop met in a church, we’d always come back from camping trips in the early afternoon, so as not to disturb the worshippers. But this Sunday, things were eerie. There were no cars on the road. All you saw were police and a few military jeeps. Rioting erupted in Wilmington, as it had in many cities, and the city was under a 24-hour curfew.

Since we lived out of town, far from where the rioting occurred, we weren’t really affected. Instead, we enjoyed a vacation from school, playing sandlot baseball and roaming the woods. With everyone being forced to stay at home, my parents cooked out that Sunday afternoon and invited our next-door neighbors. This was a rarity as I knew my parents didn’t like the man (I later learned that he was very abusive, but as an 11-year-old, I just thought he was a jerk). His wife was nice, and they had a younger daughter. She was several years younger than my sister but occasionally would be in the house early in the morning having slept in my sister’s room. I was an adult when my mother shared that these sleepovers was to protect the girl, as her father had gone on a drunken rampage. But even before learning this, when I first heard of sleeveless t-shirts called “wife beaters,” I envisioned that man in his backyard with wearing such a shirt. 

This Sunday evening, after the Holly Shelter’s campout, I remember l sitting in a lounge chair in the yard as the neighbor told my dad (along with my brother and I) about the Wilmington Race Riots of 1898. “The Cape Fear River ran red with n—– blood” he said, suggesting a similar situation out of the problem Wilmington was currently facing. My parents, who didn’t allow us to use the “N” word, weren’t too happy with this conversation and this was the only cookout we ever had with them. Shortly afterwards, they moved. Interestingly, this was the first and only time as a kid that I heard about the 1898 riots. Later I’d learn the event was a massacre. The whites had a Gatlin gun just back from the Spanish American War, while the African American community attempted to defended themselves with hunting guns. I’d also learn later that the guy whose park we played little league ball in, Hugh McCrae, was the one who acquired the Gatlin gun. He, along with several other well-known names in town, were responsible for the “riot.” 


I am not sure just how they restored calm to the city in 1968, as we lived far outside its boundaries. After a week holiday, we returned to Bradley Creek Elementary School where everything appeared normal.

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Nevada 375 and Rachel, Nevada

Title slide with photo of dry rain along Nevada 375
One house we worked on was located near here, where the road is still washed out.

I’ve been away this week, working on a Helene rebuild mission out of Burnsville, North Carolina, so I don’t have time to write anything new. I wrote this piece many years ago and some of you may have read it in another blog. I tried to update and clean up the language a bit before reposting it. Recently, I learned another friend had spent time working around Tonopah, Rachel, Caliente, Nevada on a government contract. He, too, was surprised that not only did I know of these places but had been there many times. Thinking of him, I thought I’d republish it.

The last time I was in Rachel was in 2010, as I drove across Central Nevada, heading from Death Valley to my old stomping ground in Cedar City, Utah.

Rachel, NV during daylight. Photo from the internet


I see the lights of Rachel a good ten miles away, soon after crossing Queen City Summit. “The bar will be open,” I say to myself, “I’ll grab a cup of coffee and stretch my legs and take in some of the night air.”

It’s after ten, early September 1995. I still have two hundred miles to drive to get home, having spent the past two weeks backpacking along the John Muir Trail in the Sierras. When I got off the trail, I learned my parents were driving in the next day, which meant an all-night drive. In the hundred miles since Tonopah, I’ve only passed a couple of vehicles. I roll my windows down and stick my head outside, trying to stay awake and alert. I pop cassette tapes in and out, playing them loudly and trying to find something to keep me awake. Nothing comes in on the radio, except some distant AM talk station from Los Angeles. 

I try to stay awake for nobody’s likely to see if you run off the road in this country. Making it more dangerous, this is open range. I share the road with cows. They’re hard to see at night and often seek the blacktop for warmth. If I run into one of these beasts and die, my estate will get to pay for the cow. 

“Thank God for Rachel,” I mumble, thinking about how this is one of two stops in the next two hundred miles where I can get coffee. I topped off my tank in Tonopah. Experience taught me the few gas stations along this stretch will close before I drive through.

Entering town, I pull off at the “Little A”le’Inn,” the center of Rachel’s night life. I’m shocked to see so many cars and people mulling around. Normally, there might be a car and a pickup or two out front. Tonight, I must search to find a parking place. The line to the bar starts at the front door.

What’s going on?” I ask the guy in front of me. 

“It’s Labor Day weekend,” he says, “people come from all over on Labor Day and Memorial Day weekends to check out the UFOs.” I’d noticed just outside the front door, mounted on a tripod, a parabolic listening device. These people are serious. Many of them have cameras and binoculars dangling from their necks. At the booth closest to me a guy cleans the lens for their cameras I consider telling him not to bother, as I’ve yet to see picture of a UFO taken through a clean lens. But I hold my tongue. 

“Do you think they’re really UFOs out here?” I ask the guy in front of me.

“I’m not sure, but you see some strange things,” he says, adding that he mostly comes up from Vegas to enjoy the party.

I look around at the eclectic crowd. There are dudes with pencil protectors in their shirt pockets talking to guys with tie-died t-shirts. Some look college-aged. Others probably have great-grandchildren. Many appear to have been strung out on drugs since the 60s. A few may have come straight from a desk job at IBM. It looks like a lot of fun, and I imagine myself as a reporter for the Rolling Stones, getting to know these people and writing about their shindig. Unfortunately, I must get back home.

 It takes me a while to get up to the bar and then I must wait for the bartender to make another pot of coffee. Then he fills my Maverick[1] insulated cup. I head outside, climb into the car and drive eastward into the darkness, over Coyote Summit and across Tikaboo Valley. It’s sad to leave the lights behind, for even if they don’t see a UFO, they’ll going to have a good time.

In my travels between California and Utah, I stopped at Rachel a dozen or more times. In the late 90s and early 2000s, there were only two businesses in town. The gas station sat on the east end. It includes a store which would make a 7-11 appear to be a supermarket. I’ve never seen it open after dark and their hours seemed to be irregular, another reason why I topped off my tank before heading this direction.

The Little A’Le’Inn sat on the west end of town. A combo restaurant, bar, casino, and motel, it reminds me of a scaled down version of Bruno’s Country Club in Gerlack, Nevada. The Inn seemed thrown together and wouldn’t make the Triple A Guidebook. But people come here because Rachel is the closest town to the supersecret Area 51, where some believe our government holds intergalactic aliens as POWs. Others think the government made a secret pack with some space race to dominate the world. I don’t believe it, but there are strange things seen in the skies along this highway. 

Driving along this stretch of highway, I’ve been scared out of my pants when a jet, flying what seemed to be 50 feet above my car came up behind me. I first noticed the. shadow. Because of his speed, I didn’t hear him until he’s gone.

Once, while checking out the mining sites in the Timpahute Range northeast of Rachel with Ralph, we watched several jets in apparent dogfight. I’ve never seen such aerial maneuvers, as they turned and swirled back and forth. One jet climbed almost straight up like a rocket, only to turn and come back to earth at supersonic speeds. When the jet disappeared behind the mountain, we looked for a fireball. We assumed it crashed. Then, to our surprise, the plane pulled back up and climb again as two jets made the same maneuver. Neither of us could believe that a plane could perform like that. 

Sun setting amongst Joshua Trees in Central Nevada



This is barren country. The government controls all the land land south of Rachel. This is a training ground and bombing range for Nellis Air Force Base. They tested stealth fighters and bombers here. The vast area also contains the Nevada Test Site, where nuclear weapons used to be regularly tested.

Rachel is a relatively new town. In the 1860s, the town of Tempiute grew up around a vein of silver to the northeast. That petered out. Later, a tungsten deposit was discovered. Until the 1980s, Union Carbide ran a mine there. Most of the miners lived in Rachel. A few ranches dot the countryside along 375, but it takes a lot of this poor arid soil to produce enough grass to feed a cow.

Every time I stopped at the “Little A’Le’Inn” I meet interesting people. Once there was a family from Germany who came to see UFOs. Another time there were several young adults from the Netherlands. One evening, there was a couple at the bar who had driven up from Las Vegas. They were nearly out of gas. The gas station had already closed for the day (and the owners had headed to Vegas for dinner), so the couple rented a room at the motel and made the best of the evening by drinking heavily. They probably saw some good sights that night as well as some bugs on the wall in the morning.

The bartender is always willing to offer advice as to the best places to supposedly see UFOs. And the walls of the place have pictures and clippings about UFOs and even a signed photograph of Spock from Star Trek. In the mid-1990s, Nevada 375 became known as the “The Extraterrestrial Highway,” a move which helped draw in the curious to support Rachel’s businesses. 

I’m sure most people who drive across Nevada 375 think it’s the worst road to travel, but I find comfort in the desolation. US 50 crosses Nevada way to the north. In the 1960s, Life Magazine dubbed US 50 the loneliness road in America. Compared to Nevada 375, Highway 50 is a crowded freeway. 

Each end of Nevada 375 is located at a hot spring. The road begins at the site of Warm Springs along US 6. A gas station with a swimming pool sat at the junction, but by the 90s had closed. You can still stop and soak your feet in the warm sulfur smelling water as it runs through a ditch. Crystal Springs is at the other end of the 98-mile highway, at the junction with US 93, which leads south to Vegas and north to Ely. The springs are huge, with deep pools of warm water creating a large wetland and bird sanctuary which never freezes.

For those interested, there are other hot springs in the area. Just south on US 93 are the communities of Ash and Alamo, both of which have hot springs. Further to the east is Caliente, another town with hot springs located in cement pools at one of the towns 1950ish hotels. 

trains passing through Caliente, Nevada

If you travel this road, be prepared. It’s a long way to help. Limited services can be found in Tonopah (108 miles west of Rachel) and Caliente (98 miles to the east of Rachel). The nearest city is Las Vegas, 140 miles south of Rachel, on the other side of the government’s testing area which is closed off to the public.

[1] Maverik is the name of a chain of gas stations and convenient stores.

Other Nevada Adventures:

Great Basin Mining Adventure

Reno to Pittsburgh (April 1989)

Sunday drive to Gerlach

Driving West in ’88

Matt, Virginia City 1988

Doug and Elvira: A Pastoral Tale

Christmas Eve 1988

Easter Sunrise Services (a part of this article recalls Easter Sunrise Service in Virginia City in 1989)

The Revivals of A. B. Earle (an academic paper published inAmerican Baptist Historical Society Quarterly, part of these revivals were in Virginia City in 1867) 

Eddie Larson, a good shepherd (he ran his sheep on BLM land in Eastern Nevada during the winter).

Riding in the cab of a steam locomotive

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More good and bad stories from the bakery


Looking back over the five of posts I wrote about my experiences in the bakery, it seems a lot of bad things that happen. That’s not true, but the challenging days do stick in my memory more than the regular “good” days. That goes for most of our lives. 

A few weeks ago, I told you about the challenges which happened at night. But sometimes bad things even happened during the day, as was the case one hot afternoon. I was over at the oven talking to John Z, when things started going crazy. All a sudden, the oven, proof box and cooler stopped. But the conveyors kept running. The de-panner was also running, but there was no vacuum and the bread wasn’t being pulled out of the pan. As John started pulling pans off the conveyor, I hit the horn and a mechanic came running. Both of us agreed it appeared we had lost air. 

We headed down to the compressor room. Sure enough, none of the compressors were running. By this time, there were calls coming over the intercom throughout the bakery with other people having problems. Not finding the problem, we ran back up into the plant and were shocked to see several conveyor motors with flames coming out of them. I started shutting down everything (as soon as the power to the conveyors were killed, the motors stopped burning) as the mechanic went to find the maintenance engineer. Coming out of the shop, the engineer realized immediately that we no longer had three phase electricity and pulled the main circuit breaker coming into the building. 

Everything went dark. A call was placed to Carolina Power and Light. It took them about thirty minutes to have the problem fixed and we had a mess to clean up. While production stopped, the bread waiting in pans in the proof box and along conveyors continued to grow. The bread in the oven continued to bake. We had a long night of cleaning up the proof box and getting the dough off the racks with steam cleaning before we could began making bread. If the dough remained on the racks, it could easily fall into a loaf of bread, creating a discolored hard lump within a loaf. We didn’t finish our work and return to production until the first shift crew returned, meaning that most of us worked 16 hours. 

But our mess wasn’t nearly as big as the one in the front office. They drew power off the same circuit. This was around 1980, and they had one large computer. When the engineer pulled the power switch into the bakery, they also lost power and data. It took them several days to get everything restored. 

Not long after this, the company forked over big bucks to the power company and had them to feed the plant from two directions so if we lost power from one substation, another station would take over. This ended the problems with blimps in power which created havoc with the ovens as I wrote about before. Not being an electrician, I’m not sure if it also protected us from “single phasing,” but we never had that problem again. The compressors and the ovens and equipment with big motors stopped because those motors had protection which shut them down if there was an issue. But there were too many small motors which pulled conveyors. Since it was a lot easier (and cheaper) to replace a ¾ horsepower motor than a 20 or 60 horsepower one, they didn’t have such protection. 

Another problem we had to deal with at the bakery was bad yeast. One summer, we changed from Fleischmann’s to a new brand, Dixie yeast. Supposedly the family owning the bakery had a stake in Dixie Yeast, so we were expected to use this product. At first, things went along smoothly, but after a few weeks, we started having problems primarily with the dough-maker bread. And the problems became worse in the afternoons, when the temperatures soared inside the plant. The bread wouldn’t brown nicely and would have large holes in it, appearing as if it had been over-mixed. Most of us suspected the yeast, but the owners were reluctant to agree. They brought experts who were unable to pinpoint the problem. Finally, someone convinced management to go back to the old yeast and things cleared up. When the “experts” checked the processing at the yeast plant, they learned they used fiberglass tanks which couldn’t be cleaned like stainless steel. Over time, they built up some kind of growth which affected the yeast. For a while, we went back to the yeast we had been using while Dixie Yeast worked out these kinks.

But life at the bakery wasn’t always one problem after another. There were also good times. Although we came from a lot of different backgrounds, we were a family. I enjoyed listening to the old timers tell stories about their career at the bakery or their lives growing up. I don’t remember his name, but the oven operator on the roll line talked about working on an old kerosene oven when he was young, which blew up. He also had a hearing aid and when management came around yelling, he’d turn it off. Several of the people who worked on the roll line had spent a lifetime in the bakery. Harvey, whom I wrote about earlier, had managed a dairy, which had closed when he came over to the bakery.

Scotty, who worked in sanitation, lost an arm in an accident in the Wilmington shipyard during World War II. I asked him if he knew my grandfather who also worked in the shipyard, having left the tobacco farm of North Carolina behind during the war. He said he did,but I think he tried to be nice. When I pressed for information about him, as my grandfather died in 1967, he could recall no real memories. I’d later learn that the shipyard at its peak employed 21,000 people. While Scotty was always nice to me, he had one of the most vulgar minds in the bakery and often said the nastiest things to women. Thankfully, he retired a year or two after I started working at the plant and before I had a chance to supervise him. However, I still called him on his comments, and he agreed it was inappropriate. But it didn’t stop him. 

At break, we’d crowd into the air-conditioned lounge for cold drinks. The air would soon become stale from cigarette smoke. I was one of the few who didn’t smoke, but that was okay for everyone knew I was different. I was the “college boy.” 

Sometimes our friendship extended outside the plant. There were at least half a dozen parties during the years I worked at the bakery (like Linda’s, which I wrote about earlier). Looking back on these, it’s interesting that the parties (at least the ones I attended) had only white folks. Another shock was the number of supervisors who were ten or twenty years older than me who would smoke joints during these parties. As one who eschewed drugs, I found this odd. But in the late 70s and early 80s, smoking pot was common. I expected it at school and with the younger employees, but not among older ones. 

Racial lines were crossed at the annual company picnic and some of us did get together to play basketball in the projects across the street from the plant. While working there, I hunted deer, rabbits and squirrels with Bobby, an African American who ran the bread slicing and wrapping area on first shift. 

Often, we’d have to work on holidays and at Thanksgiving and Christmas. On these days, the company would supply turkeys which were roasted in the back of the roll oven. They also provided the other parts of the meal included mashed potatoes, gravy, vegetables, and brown and serve rolls which we’d be making for weeks before the holiday. On these days, everyone got to pig out on their lunch breaks. 

One of my favorite treats of working night shift occurred shortly after the first bread left the oven. We’d split up a loaf of freshly baked bread, slather it with hot butter (which we had available for the butter-top loaves) and then add honey or molasses. Of course, we worked hard and in heat, so we didn’t have to worry as much about the extra calories.

Upcoming: I have one more post planned I which I will discuss leaving the bakery and it’s demise several years later. 

MORE BAKERY STORIES

More Bakery Stories: Bad Things Happen at Night

Coming of Age in a Bakery: Linda and the Summer of ’76

A College Boy in the Bakery

Harvey and Ernest

Frank and Roosevelt

The Perils of Working on the Christian Sabbath

Remembering Charlie