Cool College Memory

I got this picture from one of my good friends, Terry Swaim. This is from the end of my freshman year at NC State. That is Terry on the Right and his roommate Bill Gramley on the left. They are holding two of the three chickens that they raised in their dorm room in the spring semester of 1988.

Another one of my suite mates, Jody Harris, brought the chickens when they were just chicks. (His family raised birds for Perdue.) Bill and Terry raised the birds in their room for the entire semester... without getting caught. Yeah, our RA was right on top of things. He somehow also didn't notice the underage drinking parties that were taking place in the suite next to ours - even though there were beer bottles piled up in the hallway 6-8" deep with only a small footpath to walk on.

By the way, they are standing in front of my room - which, incidentally, is now a laundromat. Their room was put to the same purpose. Ah, it is nice to be appreciated!

The three birds were named Thunderbird (after the alcoholic beverage, of course), Frobird (after one of our suite mates, John Froberg), and ironically, Perdue. I'm not really sure which ones they are holding. I could have told you back then, but that has been 20 years ago.

Sadly, the birds met a tragic end. Terry took them home and gave them to a relative - whose dogs promptly killed and ate them.

Those were the days... Good times. Good times.

A Hearty Thank You

To my good friend, DP, thank you very much for your hospitality this evening. The steak and the ribs were awesome, playing Wii was fun, and the fellowship with the guys was the best part. Thank you for helping to make that a possibility. (Also thank K, C, and B for being willing to open their home to a bunch of old college buddies!)

DP has set the bar pretty high, but any other readers that want to treat me to a home-cooked dinner, just let me know so that I can get you on my calendar! (After reading about how good TC's cooking is over at LifeSong, I may have to actively try to make that a reality!) Who knows, I may even return the favor!

There is nothing like getting together with old friends. (Oh, and by the way, C, your comment about how none of your dad's friends are old earned you some major brownie points with me, Chief! I always knew you were one sharp cookie!) It is hard to imagine that you can get together with people that you haven't seen in years and still be able to talk and cut up just like you did back in college. Heaven will be like this. I hope everyone has friends like mine!

For the First Time Ever...

I have just begun reading Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel. I am not even 20 pages into it and I'm already hooked. Dang! This guy could write.

I am actually torn between reading for general effect and reading for full comprehension. I think that I will read it faster for the general effect. Later I can come back to it and revisit. This is a book that I believe that I can read and enjoy more than once. I can't believe that I have never been required to read Wolfe in all my years of education. Even in my Southern Writers class we read Faulkner instead - FAULKNER!

It took me years just to read Faulkner and understand him - I was afflicted with him as a senior in High School too. Why is it that people always believe the most twisted perverse things about the South? It is because of the likes of William Faulkner and Erskine Caldwell. Thank God I didn't have to read Tobacco Road. I saw it for the first time last year at the Triad Stage in Greensboro (who, by the way, do a great job with their productions) and was utterly appalled. It was the most revolting thing I have ever seen called art. Caldwell had a chip on his shoulder and the South has been paying for it since.

OK, I'm calm again. I actually can see why Faulkner's writing has been praised. He captured - at least in Absalom, Absalom, the way Southern people tell stories. I just wish that his characters hadn't been so bizarre. If you've never read Faulkner before, there is a trick to it. See, when Faulkner wrote he would often insert parenthetical ideas that could literally last for PAGES before finishing the original sentence. The effect was something like this: (Forgive me, I'm a bit out of practice. I could do it perfectly in college.)

Salisbury was (Can't you remember that time that we went down to O.O. Rufty's General store? You know that time when the radiator hose busted there on East Innes Street. There we all were trying to get that blamed thing off the truck with everyone and his brother standing around gawkin' at us. Don't you remember how Uncle Jim burned his hand on the steam? I'll never forget how they used to have the buckets of seed right there in the walkway between the display cases as you entered the door. I always thought the pink corn was neat and liked the feel of it slipping through my fingers before my dad made me put it down on account of the poison that had been put on it to keep the birds from eating it.

That store was a veritable wonderland inside. They had things in there that must have been there since the store was opened just after the Civil War. There were farm implements and notions, old toys, hardware, clothing, doo dads, and thingamabobs, tools, housewares, fertilizer and all manner of other fascinating treasure. And in the air hung a pungent, earthy smell. I guess it came from the dirt that was ground into the hard wood floors and the farm chemicals.

Of course my favorite part was the drink coolers that they had there just inside the front door - you know, the big square chests that slid open at the top and contained bottled drinks. Not the kind of drinks they have now in the plastic bottles; glass bottles with metal bottle caps that didn't twist off. There was a bottle opener right on the front of the cooler. We always drank it right there so we didn't have to pay the 10¢ bottle deposit. Somehow a drink tasted better drinking it there in the lobby of O. O. Rufty's.

Thank goodness they had that radiator hose too. We'd a been in a fix if they hadn't. We were able to get the truck fixed and back home before supper.) a lot different when I was growing up there. Everything was a lot more laid back and slower paced. Everybody knew everyone....

That was typical of most everything that I ever read of Faulkner's with the exception that the characters are fairly normal and no one is doing anything scandalous in the back room. By the time you get to the end of the sentence that started four paragraphs ago you have completely forgotten what was being said.

The secret to reading Faulkner is to read until you get to a parenthesis and then skip on down to the end of the parenthetical phrase. Read the rest of the original sentence and then go back and finish the stuff in between. Get used to doing it. You won't read far without needing to. Sometimes it seemed like he even put parentheses inside of parentheses! The thing about it, though, is that if you listen to Southerners telling a story that's generally the way they do it.

I suppose that it is a little early in my reading of the story to be extolling Wolfe over Faulkner - only 20 pages in and one of the main characters turns out to be an alcoholic. But there is something different in the portrayal so far - something different in the presentation. It is being done respectfully, I guess. It isn't the South that is making him this way. It is his own generational demons that are driving him. I am truly shocked that I am already engaged with this book. I am already empathizing with the characters. I think this is going to be a very enjoyable read.

Don't Feel Much Like Blogging

I'm not really in the mood today. I don't know why. I didn't feel like it yesterday either. I think that it might have something to do with staying in the office so much lately. Of course, it could also be that there is so much discouraging stuff going on in the world that I just want a change of scene. Maybe it is because it is so blasted hot. I don't know, but for whatever reason, I just don't feel creative and fun today.

I just got back from my first cousin (once removed)'s wedding. It wasn't much to write about. The couple was, shall we say, rushed into it by some choices that they made. You could tell that they were both scared to death. No real joy in it. No excitement - only fear.

That is NOT the way that I want to do marriage if I ever do it. Marriage is a serious commitment, a covenant - the most serious commitment that a person can ever make before God - but it should also be one of the happiest days and most joyous days in your life. On your wedding day you are declaring to the world that God has given you a fabulous gift that is so excellent that you are sure that a lifetime won't be enough time to discover all of its goodness.

Weddings always depress me a little bit anyway. I think that part of it stems from the fact that I have desired such a gift for a long time. "Hope deferred makes the heart sick." Still, I wouldn't want such a challenge as my cousin has set herself up for. That is more trouble than I believe in volunteering for.

Part of it also stems from the fact that regardless of all of the good intentions you have on that day, and all of the promises that you make, and all of the love that you have for that person a day is coming when you will (intentionally or unintentionally) hurt that person who is making you so happy. Morbid thought, I know, but true.

I'm heading to see the Durham Bulls play tomorrow night. It should be a good bit of fun. My brother-in-law will be working the plate. I hope they give us decent seats. It will be great to actually get to see an entire ballgame for a change. I rarely ever get to watch more than three innings it seems. Of course I am typically at the game with my nephew and/or niece and that means that you are going to be up and down for snacks, games, souvenirs, etc. Not to mention that you have to keep them entertained while the game is going on. They are playing Shrek after the game on the jumbotron. That should be cool. I doubt that I'll stay for much of that though. I guess it depends on how long the game runs.

I had the opportunity last night to go down and visit my old Boy Scout Camp. It was great. Alot of things have changed there. They have a new pool and there is a new dining hall. I kind of hate the dining hall thing. When I was a Scout there we had to cook our own food. Granted, you got some interesting dishes if you didn't supervise the cooks well, but you also learned how to do alot of things that these kids may not be learning otherwise. When I was at camp as a Scout you had to actually build a fire in a crappy woodstove that didn't draft right. You ended up missing breakfast alot of times, but you also learned how to build fires and how to cook.

The yellow jackets were always bad at camp. Being the innovators that we were, we developed a dandy yellow jacket trap. See, every morning we would get a jar of jelly for our toast or whatever. We would use a little bit of the jelly and then we would set the jar on the table with the lid off. Of course, the yellow jackets were attracted to the sugar in the jelly and would land in the jar. Once they did and were sufficiently occupied slurping up that sugary stuff, we'd clap the lid on the jar, tighten it down and shake it vigorously. This would leave the yellow jacket encased in the jelly. It was actually kind of cool looking when you had alot of bees entombed in the jar. Apple jelly produced the most visually impressive results.

Being down there at the camp really brought back some great memories and made me want to do some exploring to see what is new and what hasn't changed. I think that I'll take my nephew down there one night when they are having campfire and let him see what Scout camp is like. I think that he'll have a great time.

Well, that is about all for tonight. I have a couple word studies that I want to write about soon, but I'm not in the mood to try anything that ambitious tonight. Have a great weekend!

Cheerwine at O.O. Rufty's

A hometown favorite...

Earlier this afternoon I stopped at a small bait and tackle shop to get some gas and bought a bottle of Cheerwine. I just had to take some time and write about it. The taste of that drink brings back so many great memories.

Cheerwine is a drink that was born right here in my hometown. It is basically a cherry cola and has nothing at all to do with wine. Growing up, it was always funny to travel to different parts of the state and ask for Cheerwine. Folks would look at you funny and say, “We don’t sell wine here, son.”

I guess even that statement says a lot about the world that I grew up in. There were still blue laws on the books that prevented stores from being open on Sundays when I was a kid. There were also a lot of “dry” counties in North Carolina back then. I remember there being major battles to bring liquor by the drink to Salisbury. It was a very polarizing issue. And there are still remnants of those old laws on the books, preventing people from buying alcohol at various times. But I digress.

Anyway, Cheerwine has A LOT of carbonation. Back when I was a kid the only way to get it was to buy a carton of glass bottles (see the picture above) and these bottles had the pry off bottle caps. That saved a lot of headaches, because anyone who has opened a 2-liter bottle of Cheerwine can tell you that if you aren’t careful when opening its twist off cap you’ll likely be wearing it! The other caps seemed to prevent this unpleasant experience!

Cheerwine has finally expanded its horizons past Rowan County. Apparently, it is now available throughout the Southeastern United States. Sadly, in the years of its expansion the quality of the drink seemed to decline. I am not quite sure what the cause of it was, but the quality of Cheerwine was becoming sub-par. If you got it from a soda fountain it tasted right, but getting it from any other source was bound to be disappointing. Perhaps the soda sat around too long and wasn’t fresh anymore; or perhaps the formulation got changed. This was incredibly sad to me because when outsiders would sample my favorite soda they would blaspheme it, saying that it wasn’t good. It was like saying that America, baseball, and apple pie just weren’t up to snuff anymore!

A couple of years ago the company changed its bottles to match an older logo that had been used before I came along. This change seemed to correspond to the change in quality. Recently, the company has gone back to the bottles that I am most familiar with, and the quality has gone back up. The only difference that I have noticed is that the bottle touts real cane sugar as an ingredient. I wonder if that is the source of the difference in the taste of the drinks. Perhaps the company tried to substitute high fructose corn syrup for sugar. Well, whatever the problem was, I’m glad that they’ve got it fixed.

Cheerwine figured in to a lot of my childhood memories. I remember going to my grandfather’s home during the summer months to make homemade ice cream. My favorite kind was the homemade Cheerwine ice cream. It was just awesome! (As if the drink weren’t sweet enough, you go and add MORE sugar to it!) Those were good times. My brother and I would play as the preparations were made, and then we had to take our turn sitting on the ice cream freezer to hold it steady while my dad or grandfather turned the crank. It always took much longer than we wanted it to. I’m not sure which was the worst part: having a frozen behind from sitting on that melting ice, having to wait for the ice cream that was in the freezer, or just having to sit still that long!

Another memory that Cheerwine figures in prominently had to do with trips with my dad to O.O. Rufty’s General Store. The store had been in existence since 1905 and was an absolute wonderland to a kid like me. The front windows were full of all kinds of interesting things, many of them antique. As you walked into the front of the store there were seed bins with many varieties of garden seeds and plants on both sides of the entrance. Once inside the store you could find anything from farm tools to house wares, to clothing. The floors were worn wood with a heavy layer of dust and dirt, and the air had a smell that was a combination of machine shop and farm supply store. There was always more to see in that store than you could ever take in in a million years.

Even beyond all of that wonderment, my favorite part of going to Rufty’s with my dad was getting to go to the old drink coolers that they had there and get a bottled drink. I usually got a Cheerwine, but would sometimes break tradition and get a Brownie or a Sun Drop. It was a ritual with us. (Perhaps you have never seen the kind of coolers that I am talking about, but they are like a chest-type freezer. They had a sliding top and when you went to get a bottle you could tell what you were getting by looking at the bottle cap. I’m sure that is why you rarely ever see this kind of cooler anymore, they just don’t show off the bottles as well as the refrigerator style coolers that they have today.) Every time we ever went into Rufty’s we would get a drink before we left. Usually we would drink it right there in the store because there was a 10-cent deposit for the bottle that we could save by drinking it right there. I don’t remember a single time that we ever went into the store without getting a bottled drink. In fact, up until they sold the business, I would buy a drink when I went in there, even if I was by myself.

There was something special about those times. I am not exactly sure what it was, because I don’t remember a single conversation that we had while drinking those soft drinks, but there was something about it that was just like a Norman Rockwell painting or like the cracker-barrel in the old stores. If I had to guess what it was, I’d say that there was a sense of connection and acceptance between me, my dad and grandfather, and that place and the people around us. It was as if in those times there was never any feeling of being in the wrong place or the wrong time. Time, place, and personality joined in the lobby of O.O. Rufty’s in perfect harmony.

Sadly, the proprietors of Rufty’s have sold out to a new owner. I haven’t been to the “new” store yet. But somehow it just doesn’t seem the same.