The quintessential N.C. snapshot

I know there are some folks who have no qualms about reading a book time and time and time again. I tend to be very accomplishment oriented when it comes to reading; I take great pride in "checking a book off" my imaginary list.

However, there are two books that I will periodically pull off the shelf and dive right into. (Well, three, if you count The Good Book.) I consider these two books to be my all-time favorites; they never get old.

One is Pat Conroy's The Lords of Discipline. I first read it in college, which is the perfect time for a book that explores a young man's experiences at that same age. (It's also nice to be reading it while not in college at a military academy.) I could relate to the protagonist, despite the many differences between my life and his. But there is just something magical about this book; it doesn't hurt that Charleston is a quite magical place in and of itself.

I also have very little in common with the protagonist of my other favorite book, the late Tim McLaurin's Keeper of the Moon. Actually, the protagonist is McLaurin himself, as Keeper is a memoir, a look at "A Southern Boyhood." I'm sure I'm biased about this book; McLaurin was a teacher of mine at State. (I can't call him a "professor" as that sounds a bit too pretentious for a guy who was a soda truck driver; a Marine; a Peace Corps volunteer; a snake handler; and a carnie.)

Still, I've yet to find a book that paints the perfect Eastern North Carolina picture as Keeper does. I may not have lived the hardscrabble life that the McLaurin clan did, but I can sure feel the hard dirt beneath my feet, or smell the honeysuckle, or taste the raw milk straight from the cow while reading this fantastic story.

One passage, in particular, always stands out to me. It's from the beginning of the book, as McLaurin is describing a typical Southern summer. The page is marked in my copy of Keeper of the Moon so that I can always return; returning to this page, in some strange way, returns me to my own childhood.

If indeed there exists a physical heaven, I hope it is patterned after North Carolina between the summer hours of six and eight a.m. The haunting call of doves, leaves jeweled with dew, the glint of sun in oak branches, robins and roosters in duet, fog -- something eternal exists in those minutes that a person carries in memory for life.

(Photo of McLaurin from the Independent Weekly)

Quick hits: A slew of stuff to get to

Forum will field proposals for Gullah/Geechee corridor
"It could be a tinge in your accent, or a story you heard from your grandfather.

"If something tells you that you’re a descendant of the Gullahs or Geechees, the commission to preserve their heritage wants to see you Thursday evening," says the Wilmington Star-News. "The state representatives of the Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission will have a public forum then at St. Stephen AME Zion Church to find out which projects people connected to that culture – or those interested in it – would like to see.

" 'Let them tell us their story,' Lana Carter, a commissioner from East Arcadia, said of Gullah descendants. People of that heritage came centuries ago as slaves from West Africa to the U.S. coast from Jacksonville, Fla., to Wilmington, and that’s now the length of the preservation corridor. ..."

AT hikers numbers increase 25 percent "Just days in, Murray McGill's path along the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail is just beginning," says Gannett News Service.

"His legs are getting tired, shoulders are starting to wear down from the heavy backpack and his brow is wet as he hunts for a water refill at Clingman's Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

" 'Why do it? I have no idea. I'm crazy I guess. I have no idea why you do this,' Murray McGill said.

" It's the kind of hike you can't find in his home state of Florida. The swamp just doesn't have the same terrain as the mountainous jaunt through 14 states.

" 'There is a Florida trail. But no one does it,' he said with a laugh.

" This spring, more and more people are starting that same journey. Maine to Georgia or vice-versa.

"According the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, it may be as many as 25 percent more setting out for the three to six month hike. ..."


19 places in N.C. added to National Historic Register
"Nineteen properties and districts across North Carolina have been added to the National Register of Historic Places, including three in Raleigh and one in Harnett County, state cultural resources officials said Tuesday," according to the News & Observer.

Among them are: Mount Hope Cemetery, just south of downtown Raleigh; Mary Elizabeth Hospital, built in 1920 at the intersection of Wake Forest Road and Glascock Street in Raleigh; and the Harrington-Dewar House near Holly Springs.


OBX author Stick dead at 89
"A man known for his writings about, and his love for, North Carolina's Outer Banks has died.

"Michael Stick of Chicago said Tuesday that his father, David Stick of Kitty Hawk, died of natural causes Sunday at Albemarle Hospital in Elizabeth City. He was 89," according to the AP.

"Stick's books include 'Graveyard of the Atlantic,' 'The Ash Wednesday Storm' and 'The Outer Banks of North Carolina,' ..."

Poe's bookcase stands in N. Raleigh

"In 1849, Edgar Allen Poe staggered to a drunken and delirious death on the streets of Baltimore, scattering to history some of the creepiest stories ever written -- the black cats and beating hearts that still scare children awake at midnight.

"And now, by an odd chance, you can see a sliver of Poe's literary life standing seven feet tall in Eliza Kraft Olander's sunny office, looking out on a cheerful garden of lilacs and roses," says the N&O's Josh Shaffer.

"She keeps paperback copies of Deepak Chopra and Anaïs Nin on the walnut shelves where Poe once stacked his own volumes. Though there's nothing tortured or black-hearted about North Raleigh, you can't help but picture his ghost floating past to flip through the pages.

" 'If it is haunted,' Olander said, 'I have a lot of religious stuff, too. I collect crosses from French cemeteries.' ..."

Blowing Rock to honor 'Mitford'

From the Winston-Salem Journal:

"Not a day at work goes by that a stranger doesn’t approach Bill Stroh with questions as he clips and snips the flowers or buffs the wooden floors at St. Mary of the Hills Episcopal Church.

"Stroh is the sexton at the 89-year-old stone church in Blowing Rock, but to fans of Jan Karon’s books (photo courtesy of Amazon.com), he is working at the fictional Lord’s Chapel in the village of Mitford.

“Sometimes people knock on the door late at night and say they just have to see it,” he said. “I get a lot of people wanting to photograph me because they think I’m the sexton in the book, and I say, 'No, I took his place.'”

The books revolve around the life of an Episcopal priest at a church in the fictional town of Mitford, which is set in the foothills along the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. The town of Mitford was inspired by Blowing Rock, where Karon lived in the 1990s.

The steady stream of people who visit Blowing Rock to see the inspiration for Mitford is about to become a wave of devotees. Organizers expect up to 18,000 people during the first Mitford Days in Blowing Rock. The Blowing Rock Chamber of Commerce is getting 50 phone calls daily about the festival, officials said.