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UNC, Chapel Hill, and Carborro History

  • Thread starter Thread starter donbosco
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donbosco said:
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Cat’s Cradle 50 year Commemoration T-Shirt. I missed the first 2 locations.
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I missed the first one and worked some on the last one. I put in the fire door hardware on the back of the original. Don't know if that door is even still there. I was doing a fair amount of small things for Main Street Partners at the time which was largely Jacque Menache, Lucy Carol Davis, her husband Fred Emmerson and a guy whose name I'm blanking on. Met them through subbing from Davis, Davis &Davis, a happenstance that still greatly amuses me.
 
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Community Bookstore and People’s Produce. A remarkable place on Rosemary Street.
 
donbosco said:
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Community Bookstore and People’s Produce. A remarkable place on Rosemary Street.
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I'd stop by every month or so. Didn't ever find a lot I wanted but that was largely because I went to every other book store other than Logos and the Internationalist at least once a week.
 
finesse said:
I'd stop by every month or so. Didn't ever find a lot I wanted but that was largely because I went to every other book store other than Logos and the Internationalist at least once a week.
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Why skip The Internationalist?...I stopped in there three or four times a week -- loved to just sit on that front porch and talk books. And often saw Bob at Fats', The Cave, or The Hardback when tending bar (he drank Myers's Rum on the rocks with a lime). Eventually I volunteered there. When he was murdered I helped keep the place going and continued to volunteer.
 
Went into the Internationalist occasionally. Same as with the other two. Their selections in the genres I read were more limited than elsewhere. Seriously stereotyping, they essentially represented counterculture. the spiritual and the political, all things whose existence I try to avoid.
 
finesse said:
Went into the Internationalist occasionally. Same as with the other two. Their selections in the genres I read were more limited than elsewhere. Seriously stereotyping, they essentially represented counterculture. the spiritual and the political, all things whose existence I try to avoid.
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I don't remember much spiritual but counterculture and political was there galore...the zines for sale were a true American Samizdat.
 
donbosco said:
Why skip The Internationalist?...I stopped in there three or four times a week -- loved to just sit on that front porch and talk books. And often saw Bob at Fats', The Cave, or The Hardback when tending bar (he drank Myers's Rum on the rocks with a lime). Eventually I volunteered there. When he was murdered I helped keep the place going and continued to volunteer.
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Have the police ever even had a “suspected suspect” in Bob’s murder?
 
donbosco said:
I don't remember much spiritual but counterculture and political was there galore...the zines for sale were a true American Samizdat.
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Referring to Logos and the Internationalist as among the three I seldom went to along with the Community Book Store.
 
Zoo_View said:
Have the police ever even had a “suspected suspect” in Bob’s murder?
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This is the latest writing about it

CREEM | MURDER BALLAD

www.creem.com www.creem.com

I helped the author quite a lot and am quoted. That said, the police let the case go cold a long time ago. I suspect that it was Hell's Angels actually...Bob had been talking to the women at the massage parlor (he was a nurse at the hospital and knew them because of that job) about asserting their rights. That pissed some people off. Don't bother looking for that in print anywhere though.
 
donbosco said:
This is the latest writing about it

CREEM | MURDER BALLAD

www.creem.com www.creem.com

I helped the author quite a lot and am quoted. That said, the police let the case go cold a long time ago. I suspect that it was Hell's Angels actually...Bob had been talking to the women at the massage parlor (he was a nurse at the hospital and knew them because of that job) about asserting their rights. That pissed some people off. Don't bother looking for that in print anywhere though.
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Thanks for the link.

One quibble…..”Hat Duo Jets?”
 
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Bit of a detour.

And North Carolina was a “Hornet’s Nest.” I was taught that General Charles Cornwallis gave the colony, most specifically Charlotte, that label after he and his troops spent the fall of 1780 in the area during which time they were relentlessly harassed, waylaid, and attacked by local folk. I have always felt a comfortable distaste for the Lord General Cornwallis (he bore the titles of Marquess, Viscount, and Earl) rooted in historic pride in the rejection of authoritarians - i.e., the kings and queens that marked the founding of this country. The egalitarian impulse that rebellion embodied seemed quite well placed when the enemy commander bore such haughty appellations.

Accompanying that deeply ingrained allegiance to the constitutional democratic republic born out of that rebuff of aristocratic rule came a puzzlement though…why were so many thoroughfares and byways across the state named for the snobbish aristocrat turned invading general? I must have seen Cornwallis St. in Pittsboro but the one that made the most profound impression on me was certainly Cornwallis Drive in Greensboro. That the Gate City was garnished with War for Independence remembrances was understandable - once one gets past the missing ‘e’ in the town’s name, it is, after all, named for the American General, Nathanael Greene — Greensboroites and their neighbors had dealt a hurtful blow, before a humble retreat, (The Battle of Guilford Courthouse) against Cornwallis as he made his marauding way through Piedmont North Carolina.

Aside from Pittsboro and Greensboro, Gastonia, Winston-Salem, Riegelwood, Rose Hill, Burlington, Mocksville, and Charlotte each have some type of road dedicated to the enemy. Once I moved to Chapel Hill the key artery binding Orange and Durham counties — Cornwallis Road — became the way to, or around, a great many things and places. (Tip o’ the Hat to D.G. Martin who has written about this here: https://www.chathamjournal.com/week...places-named-after-enemy-generals-70510.shtml)

I’ve mentioned that since a boy I have been a habitual reader of North Carolina’s Historical Markers (NC Highway Historical Marker Program | NC DNCR) - our state’s beloved “History on a Stick” has hardly slighted Lord Cornwallis. Of the over 1,600 markers at least 68 mention the Lord General either on the plaque or in the longer explanatory text at the website. I have a hunch that no other person can claim such a historical presence on the byways of North Carolina.

Maybe that’s why we remember him - he came as an invader and Tar Heels showed him the road. We’re always good to invite folks to visit after all but we’re mighty irritated when they overstay that call. “The art of being a good guest is knowing when to leave.”

Lord Cornwallis ultimately fled the “Hornet’s Nest” of Carolina fairly well roughed up and dispirited. In Virginia he met his downfall.

#OTD in 1781 General Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown. The treatment of the British in the Carolinas by #NathanaelGreene/#DanielMorgan (Cowan’s Ford, #GuilfordCourthouse ex.) was harsh and the weight of fighting a war on foreign, contested soil bore down on the colonizing invaders. A Regional Patriot/Loyalist Civil War would continue for some months but Yorktown was the beginning of the end of British Imperial hegemony over the 13 colonies. The Road to Yorktown via the North Carolina Piedmont
 
There was a Cornwallis sign by the Wilson-Rocky Mount airport about a mile from where I lived in Nash County.
 
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