Monday, May 14, 2012

Must read: Why Am I a North Carolinian?

One of the nice things about being in the communications world is often random publications come across my desk that I otherwise would never see. One such publication that I recently saw for the first time was North Carolina Conversations, a quarterly of the North Carolina Humanities Council. (In all honesty, I had never heard of either the publication OR the Council.)

In the Winter/Spring issue of Conversations is a wonderful piece by Melton McLaurin, professor emeritus of history at UNC Wilmington and a former chair of the N.C. Humanities Council. Here is a link to Conversations; McLaurin's "Why Am I  a North Carolinian" is on page 7.

For those of us who grew up in the Old North State, this is a fantastic, nostalgic and romantic look at why we love this state so much. McLaurin writes -- stream of conscious -- about childhood trips to Carolina Beach, or visits to family in Virginia ("a foreign land"). He talks of the state fair, and of basketball -- "the other religion" -- and the "magic figures" of Everett Case and Frank McGuire. In short, he writes of a "sense of place, of rootedness."


I can't do it justice. Just promise me you'll read it.

Enjoy.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for the wonderful review. Please visit the North Carolina Humanities Council website at www.nchumanities.org and sign up to recieve the magazine (actually biannual) directly. I am happy to answer any questions for you about the Council and our grants program.
Thanks again for your comments.

Shelley Crisp, Ex. Dir., North Carolina Humanities Council

M. Lail said...

S. Crisp, thank you for the feedback (and correction). You do GREAT work!