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.