The Civil War: 150 years later

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, the War of Northern Aggression, the Late Unpleasantness -- whatever you want to call it. In short, it was an ugly period in American history. Fortunately, some VERY good things came from it.

Yahoo News has put together a slideshow of rare photos from the time. You can view it here. After all, it was probably the first war to be documented with film.

The war, writes Yahoo News, "is so often described in battles — the Battle of Gettysburg, the Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of Fort Sumter — that it may be easy to forget that the soldiers who fought in the four-year war had a lot of time between fighting."

North Carolina was late to "the game" (actually, the latest of the southern states to get involved) of the War.

"Many North Carolinians, especially yeoman farmers who owned few or no slaves, felt ambivalently about the Confederacy; draft-dodging, desertion, and tax evasion were common during the Civil War years," writes Wikipedia. "However, North Carolina contributed more troops to the Confederacy than any other state. The Union's naval blockade of Southern ports and the breakdown of the Confederate transportation system took a heavy toll on North Carolina residents, as did the runaway inflation of the war years. In the spring of 1863, there were food riots in North Carolina."

In the end, North Carolina gave more resources and men to the Confederate cause than any other state. (That includes you, Virginny.)

Also from Wikipedia: North Carolina "provided an important source of soldiers, supplies, and war materiel to the Confederate States of America ... The city of Wilmington was among the leading ports of the Confederacy, providing a vital lifeline of trade with England and other countries, especially after the Union blockade choked off most other Confederate ports. Large supplies of weapons, ammunition, accoutrements, and military supplies flowed from Wilmington throughout the South.

"Troops from North Carolina played a major role in dozens of major battles, including the Battle of Gettysburg, where Tar Heels were prominent in Pickett's Charge. One of the last remaining major Confederate armies, that of Joseph E. Johnston, surrendered near Bennett Place in North Carolina after the Carolinas Campaign."

As the famous memorial states, North Carolina's troops are remembered as such: "First at Bethel, Farthest at Gettysburg and last at Appomattox."

We talk funny: How we actually speak

Here's the second part at the look at the ways we "talk" in North Carolina. I've always been fascinated with this subject, especially after reading Walt Wolfram's "Hoi Toid on the Outer Banks." This one is actually just that -- the various dialects. And, boy, are there a lot of them in North Carolina. (See part 1 here.)

The North Carolina Language and Life Project at N.C. State (Go Pack!) has done amazing research in cataloging the various dialects all across the state. As its website states, the goals of the project are:

• To gather basic research information about language variety in order to understand the nature of language variation and change.
  
  
• To provide information about language differences and language change for public and educational interests.
  
  
• To use the material collected in research projects for the improvement of educational programs about language and culture.
• To preserve the rich heritage of language variety in North Carolina as it reflects the different cultural traditions of its residents.
  

I'm personally always trying to detect peoples' roots based on their inflections, pronunciations and even pauses. (I'm a bit of a geek that way.) You can see some of the various research findings on places such as Crusoe Island, Louisburg (one of my favorites because of the lilt), Ocracoke, Graham County, Raleigh, Durham and many others.

Here are some youtube clips that show the variety in regional dialects just in N.C. alone. (Here's a link to the NCLLP's channel.)









The project even has an online media store where you can purchase some of their work.

Griffith, Watson and Caesar among newest N.C. Music Hall inductees

The N.C. Music Hall has announced its newest class (Class of '10). These pioneers will be honored in October in Kannapolis as the newest members of the Music Hall.

Among the honorees are Andy Griffith, Doc Watson, Shriley Caesar and Donna Fargo.

The induction ceremony will be held October 7 at the Core Labratory Building on the N.C. Research Campus in Kannapolis. The N.C. Music Hall opened there in 2009.


N.C. Music Hall Class of 2010
Performing Artists:
Maurice Williams, recording artist, Charlotte
Andy Griffith, gospel recording artist, Mount Airy/Wilmington
Donna Fargo, country recording artist, Mount Airy
Arthur Smith, country composer, performer, producer, Charlotte
George Hamilton IV, country recording artist, Winston-Salem
Doc Watson, country/bluegrass vocalist, musician, Deep Gap/North Wilkesboro
Curly Seckler, bluegrass vocalist and musician, China Grove
Dr. Bill Taylor, jazz pianist, composer, Greenville
Shirley Caesar, gospel recording artist, Durham

Deceased:
Don Gibson, country recording artist and composer, Shelby
Les Brown, Big Band leader, Durham
Oliver (William Oliver Swofford), recording artist, North Wilkesboro

Non-Performing Artists:
Don Schlitz, composer, guitarist and soloist, Durham

'Peak of Good Living' .... 'City of Oaks' ... 'Clogging Capital of the World' and other N.C. nicknames

You gotta love Wikipedia. Wanna know the GPS coordinates of Schuyler, Nebraska? No problem. Ever wondered who was the first person to swim the English Channel? Bingo. Wanna know how fireflies produce light? You got it.

And if you want to know what are the nicknames of North Carolina places, then you can (kinda-sorta) find that too. Of course, it being Wikipedia and all, some of the ones listed are possibly incorrect or just plain not something the local Chamber of Commerce is likely to promote. (Ex: "Torture City" or "Fayettenam" for Fayetteville.)

But it's still neat to see a repository of some of these nicknames. For instance, most people know that North Carolina has two places known as the "Paris of ..." Asheville is the "Paris of the South" (not listed by Wikipedia, by the way), while Carrboro is the "Paris of the Piedmont."

Speaking of fireflies, I had no idea that Boone was the "Firefly Capital of the World." Other "Capitals" include Calabash ("Seafood Capital of the World"), Chadbourn ("Strawberry Capital of the World"), Erwin ("Denim Capital of the World"), High Point ("Furniture Capital of the World"), Maggie Valley ("Clogging Capital of the World") and Pinehurst ("Golf Capital of the World").

Of course flora and fauna play into some of the nicknames as well: Brevard ("Home of the white squirrels"), Fayetteville ("City of Dogwoods") and Raleigh ("City of Oaks").

As with the aforementioned "Fayettenam," there are several "unofficial" nicknames out there: Cary ("Conentrated Area of Relocated Yankees") and Greenville ("G-Vegas" -- or the cynical "G-Wilson" and "The Emerald City") come to mind.

Other place nicknames include:

Apex - Peak of Good Living
Brevard - Land of Waterfalls
Chapel Hill - The Southern Part of Heaven
Charlotte - the Queen City
Durham - City of Medicine
Fayetteville - All-America City; Tar Heel Town
Greensboro - The Gate City
Hendersonville - City of Four Seasons
Kannapolis - City of Looms
Raleigh - Raleighwood
Thomasville - Chair City
Winston-Salem - Twin City
Wilmington - The Hollywood of the East

What are some other place nicknames that we've left off?

(Image from drivehq.com)

This just in: N.C. has a connection to tobacco

Greensboro is fourth "smokiest" city in America, according to a report. Wilmington came in at No. 7, and Hickory came in at No. 10.

"Earlier this month, U.S. News & World Report published a list of metro areas with the most smokers as a percentage of population," says the Star-News.

"The rankings, which came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s health risk data, showed the Wilmington metro area, which covers New Hanover, Brunswick and Pender counties, in the No. 7 spot, tying with the Chattanooga, Tenn. area.

"Nearly 27 percent of adults in the Wilmington area said they smoked in the CDC survey."

Oddly enough, Durham -- which was built on tobacco -- ranked as the fifth-lowest city for smoking, with just 12 percent its residents saying they smoke.

"The Huntington, W. Va. area topped the list of 161 metro areas included in the survey, with more than 34 percent of its adult residents smoking. In comparison, only 7 percent of residents in the Provo, Utah area reported they smoked.

" 'I think the fact that we have North Carolina ranking that high means that we do really need to take action in the state,' State Health Director Leah Devlin said by phone Monday. 'Those statistics represent real people.' ..."

Ridin' the N.C. rails

I had the absolute pleasure -- and I don't use that term lightly -- to take Amtrak's Piedmont train from Raleigh to Charlotte a little over a week ago. It had been a decade since my last Amtrak experience -- a horrid, 18-hour (each way) affair from Raleigh to Fort Lauderdale.

Needless to say, I was cautiously optimistic about what lay before me. My previous experience coupled with the fluid and flawless rail trips in Europe -- and the horror stories of American train trips that I've heard/read about -- made me suspect that not only would the Piedmont not get to the Queen City in the estimated three hours, but that it may be a dirty, smelly and generally unpleasant trip.

How wrong I was, thankfully.

The Piedmont was scheduled to leave Raleigh at 7 a.m. (Truth be told, if there is a building in Raleigh that could use some aesthetic help, it is the downtown Amtrak depot. It doesn't exhude pleasantness.) It left at -- wha-lah! -- 7 a.m. It got to Cary at the scheduled 7:11; Durham at 7:30; and so on and so on. Yes, it lost a minute or two along the way, but I was in Charlotte at roughly 10:15 -- some six minutes after it was supposed to arrive.

The fact that I had ample leg room (made me not ever want to set foot on a plane again), complimentary snacks and drinks, and plenty of time to sit back and read (or nap), made the experience one that I will gladly recreate in the near future. True, the Piedmont and thus the Carolinian don't exactly wind their way through the Alps or France's wine valleys, but you do get to see parts of North Carolina that most folks never do: N.C. State from the windows of the train; Durham's burgeoning downtown; and towns that look like they were built up around the train, like Kannapolis and Cary.

If there is a downside to traveling the train it is that Charlotte's train station is in a "worse" part of town than Raleigh's.

Is train travel conducive all the time? No; one is still better off probably driving to places such as Orlando or, ahem, Fort Lauderdale. But trips to D.C., Philly, Boston, NYC, Charlotte and Atlanta (and, for that matter, Charleston and Savannah) SHOULD be open to efficient train trips.

This trip did nothing but reinforce my belief that trains should be highly invested in as a critical mass transit option --whether for intra- or intercity travel.

Oh, no!

I don't like the sound of this one bit.

"The Associated Press reported earlier this week that the producer of the 1998 movie 'Bull Durham' hopes to start filming a sequel in Durham in late spring 2009."

Why take the chance of tainting one of the best sports movies of all time?

Some people, however, have thought long and hard about this.

"[Durham business owner George] Davis believes he has an idea for a plotline that could work out for a second installment.

" '[Susan] Sarandon and [Tim] Robbins own the team and [Kevin] Costner's to be the coach,' he said. ..."

It was 20 years ago today ...

OK, so not exactly today. But it has been 20 years since the movie "Bull Durham" made Durham, N.C., a popular culture trivia answer.

ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine have dubbed this "Bull Durham Week" in honor of the anniversary. Among the highlights: an interview with writer/director Ron Shelton and interviews with Tim Robbins and Kevin Costner.

Both of those men have returned to Durham in honor of the anniversary. Costner revealed a Durham-focused anecdote from the days of filming.

"... Anyway, there's a guy in the film who was really enjoying himself in town when we weren't shooting, and may have had a good time out at the bars with a lady or two on the young side. Anyway, Ronny decides to get a local cop to come out and walk onto the set while we're in the middle of shooting a game scene and confront the guy, cuff him and arrest him for what would be, in the cop's words, having a little too much fun with an underage girl, unbeknownst to him. I mean, this is Durham and nobody's checking ID's. So the cops are basically there arresting the guy, and you can see the horror. Everybody else just loves this and it makes me almost want to throw up. I wanted to go hide in the dugout, and I'm dying. But the kid, the guy, he's just seriously watching his entire life crumble in front of him and it's in front of everybody! I'm pretty sure I snapped a bit and had to sort of reveal the prank, just for my own sanity. My stomach is just f**ing turning! And I mean, the thing is, Ronny had gotten actual cops to do this. They were taking him off the field. For all intents, this was no joke. I couldn't take the suffering. "

And Robbins is asked if "Bull Durham" is the greatest sports movie of all time.

"Yea, I mean I am biased, but I'd have to say yes, it is," he answers wisely.