Sunday, December 14, 2008

Archie Bunker’s heart was broken


(This story originally appeared in the December 1972 issue of the Wake Forest Magazine and was reprinted in The Wake Weekly a month later.)

There is a soft spot in Archie Bunker’s heart, and nestled there are memories of an adorable young Wake Forest coed.

The truth emerged when Carroll O’Connor, the real-life name for television’s most famous bigot, replied recently to a Wake Forest student’s invitation to participate in next spring’s Challenge symposium. O’Connor spent a year and part of another semester as a student on the old campus, back before World War II.

In his letter, O’Connor regretted his professional life makes such engagements impossible, and then, duty discharged, proceeded to fill the remainder of the two pages with delightful reminiscences of his stay at Wake Forest.

“I am delighted that some of your colleagues remember me from the days [three wars ago] of the old magnolia campus at Wake Forest, though I was seen far less on campus than in ‘Shorty’ Joyner’s pool hall in the town,” he wrote.

“I came to Wake Forest in a funny way. A close friend of mine in New York was planning to go there and I wanted to go where he went, so knowing nothing about the college, I applied and was accepted. My friend then changed his mind, but my mother refused to let me follow suit a second time. Off I went in September 1941 to meet ‘Shorty’ Joyner and became a truly dangerous nine-ball player. I was a wretched student — utterly disinterested in the classroom learning situation — and when I resumed college in 1947 at the University of Montana, I could transfer only one semester’s credit in English gleaned at Wake.

“There were few girls at the old man’s college, just the daughters of the faculty, and with the most adorable of these, Elizabeth Jones. I naturally fell in love. This was sheer futility. Between Miss Jones and any new admirer was a scrambling horde of old admirers, so my ardour was expressed merely in distant looks, of which Miss Jones was not aware.”

Miss Jones, who now lives on Faculty Drive and works with her husband, Russell Brantley, in the University’s News Bureau, agrees with a touch of embarrassment, that she, indeed, was not aware.
In 1941, she was 17, a sophomore, the daughter of Dr. H.B. Jones, English professor, and involved in just about everything going on on campus. She remembers Carroll O’Connor as a “very bright boy, intelligent, but as he said, he just didn’t like school very well.”

O’Connor’s description of her, she protests, is “very exaggerated.”

“But,” she adds, “it is very nice to be remembered in such a glamorous light.”

Thwarted he may have been, but the young O’Connor was not the kind to languish. The remainder of his letter includes some of the decidedly un-Bunkerish observations:

“… My frustration caused me to explore the state. I was a frequent traveler [via thumb] to Raleigh, Durham and Greensboro, and though the goal was girls, I learned a great deal en route about Carolina and its people. Believe it or not, one heard many, many whites even then expressing a certainty — yes, and an anxious wish — that the segregationist culture would soon wither away.

“I knew only one violent Klan type and I knew a few brooding reactionaries who could sound sinister on occasion. I knew a number of racists of the birdbrained windbag type, but my larger impression of Carolinians [forgive me, but I am not fond of ‘Tarheels’] was not at all of a hard people, but of a very sweet people — probably trapped and confused, as James Baldwin believes, in their own incomprehensible American History.

“I last saw Wake in 1945. I was a merchant seaman then — a fireman on an oil tanker, and we were lying useless in Miami with a broken boiler when Truman dropped his persuaders on the Japanese. I quit my ship and found a fellow who was driving to New York, and when we came through Wake Forest we stopped at Mrs. Wooten’s guest house on Route One. I roamed around the town that evening saying hello here and there, and I was touched and surprised almost to the point of disbelief that so many people remembered me — and not only remembered me, but welcomed me back, welcomed me home with love.”

Afternote:
Carroll O’Connor, the actor most famous for his curmudgeonly character Archie Bunker in TV’s All in the Family, died in 2001. The object of his college affection died in 2000 and her husband Russell, director emeritus of Wake Forest University communications, passed away in 2005. But the Joneses do have surviving children, Robin Brantley, assistant to the president of Wake Forest University Health Sciences and Benjamin Brantley, chief drama critic of the New York Times.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Electing a president



In early 1960, Democratic Sen. John F. Kennedy threw his hat in the ring as a contender for the office of President of the United States. Kennedy's priorities included the economy, international aid, national defense, the space program, civil rights, controlling corporate monopolies and upping the minimum wage. His opponent, sitting Vice President and former Navy officer Richard M. Nixon, campaigned largely on his experience.

The Wake Weekly interviewed Wake Forest High School students to see which candidate they would choose if casting a vote in that election. Following are several of their responses:

Roy Lynam (Senior)
"I like Kennedy because he is an American looking to get the most out of his country for all Americans. He realizes the situation that our government is in and wants to do something about it. He wants to improve our relationship with Caribbean countries. He is going to put America back into the driver's seat. America will be second to none..."

Virginia Maupin (Junior)
"My choice for President is Richard M. Nixon. He has experience in both the legislative and executive branches of government. Nixon and his wife have traveled through many foreign countries and have become acquainted with the leaders in these countries. The foreign leaders have had a chance to learn the policies of the Eisenhower administration...We should not necessarily be Democrats or Republicans -- but Americans, and think only about what is best for our country."
"We should not necessarily be Democrats or Republicans -- but Americans, and think only about what is best for our country."

Mike Williams (Sophomore)
"[Nixon] would be a better man because, in being Vice President, he has had experience in presidential matters. I would vote for him also because it appears that Republican presidents have been better qualified to keep the United States out of war more so than Democratic presidents have."

Mary Ann Shearon (Senior)
"I would vote for Senator John Kennedy...First, I believe in Kennedy's policy for the conservation and development of the nation's natural resources for the benefit of all people. Second, with a predominantly Democratic Congress, I believe we need a Democratic president for the government to work smoothly and on constructive principles...The Democrats are for the farmers and small businessmen. What are the people of Wake Forest, but small business and farmers, or people who are dependent on these people?"

Philip Mason (Senior)
"Richard Nixon['s] familiarity with the federal government is thorough, for he has served as Vice President of the United States for eight consecutive years. His trips abroad and his associations with foreign diplomats in the United States assure us that he is capable of handling himself in the field of foreign affairs...The main reason is that he is a member of the Republican party, which stands for peace, prosperity and individuality."

Elizabeth Rich (Senior)
"Whoever wins the coming election is going to have a tough job on his hands -- our foreign policy, especially our dealings with Russia and the fight against Communism; our expanding economy and how to deal with it to prevent depression; the farm problem; a defense program that will protect our country, and yet show all the people of the world that we have peaceful intentions; keeping the federal government from getting too powerful; and protecting the rights of all citizens...I would put my cross mark by Mr. Nixon's name. I do not think that Mr. Kennedy is mature enough or experienced enough in governmental affairs to handle all the difficult problems facing a president of our country."

Monday, October 6, 2008

Making molasses


Known for the ingredient in an old-fashioned Blue Ridge mountains taffy, a deadly disaster in Boston circa 1919 and a gang of comic robbers who used it in 1871 to blind shop owners, molasses was once made by the tubful in the backyard of one Wake Forest resident's East Nelson Avenue home.

In a November 1964 article of The Wake Weekly, Oscar L. Merritt showed reporters how he made cane molasses by the batch, keeping alive what he said then was almost a passing scene. According to the article, "Merritt, who was reluctant to reveal his age, has been making molasses for about 40 years and has had his present equipment since 1934. He said when he began making it people laughed at him, until he turned it into a profitable venture.

"The process is slow and tiresome beginning with a primitive cane mill powered by a mule pulling a long pole in a circle. The pole is attached to gears which turn two rollers that flatten cane stalks being fed into it by hand ... The juice is drained into a bucket. When full, the juice is strained into a keg several yards away where it runs into the cooking pan.

"Starting at one end, the cane juice runs alternately through ends of seven copper trays about four feet long and about eight inches wide. The wood fire is hottest about midway, where the juice boils and changes into molasses. Merritt maintained almost a continuous skimming with a copper scoop with holes in it to take off the waste. The thick molasses then drains out from the last tray when a wooden plug is pulled."

Each batch fills 22 half gallon jars, Merritt said, which he turned around and sold for $2 apiece.

"It's a lot of trouble and I wouldn't fool with it if folks here at home didn't like it," Merritt said.

Mmmm. You can almost taste it.

The homemaker of today


In April 1964, Rebecca Lynn Green, daughter of a school piano teacher and professor of old testament interpretation at the seminary, won the Betty Crocker Homemaker of Tomorrow scholarship and a trip to New York with her home economics teacher, Mrs. R.H. Forrest. Becky intended to use the $1,500 prize toward attending Westhampton College at the University of Richmond. Central to her taking top honors was the essay Becky wrote about her ideal household.

The home, she wrote, would be one of "love, well-distributed responsibility, sound moral and religious convictions, freedom of thought and speech, and opportunity for the development of individual interests, ambitions and talents."

Talk about a prediction!

A passing fad


In 1957, a nonreligious group of humanists won tax exemption for their organization, putting them on par with churches. Following another court case four years later, the term "secular humanism" was coined as way of defining the beliefs of those who derive morality without spiritual guidance. The concept has disturbed the Christian church at all levels since, and led to a March, 1966 seminar on the seminary campus about it, featuring John E. Steely, professor of historical theology and Dr. John Eddins, professor of systematic theology, among others. The men (and the journalist covering the event) did not use the term "humanist," or the phrase "secular humanism," in any place but one, instead preferring the substitute label "the death of God movement," and pinning on it the rise of Marxism and Nazism.

Eddins offered a harsh prediction for the movement: "It's a fad ... the theologians, and those possessed of real piety, will not succumb."

He also took umbrage at the movement's criticism of lack of proofs in God's existence, saying, "the best representatives of Christian thought have never said God could be scientifically demonstrated or proved. He is known by faith and worship."

Steely took a more pragmatic tack: "I can't see that they offer any more effective ways of coming to grips with the social issues of today than the church has, despite the church's slowness," he said.

Slowness to respond to modern conditions was also of concern to Eddins, who issued this warning to his own brethren: "Their answers may be out in left field, but the church must find better ones if it is to win a secular world."

No death of God representative was invited for rebuttal.

(Photo above is of the new faculty building, Patterson Hall, enshrouded in fog)

Monday, September 29, 2008

Industrial giant



That humongous warehouse building over at The Factory entertainment complex houses a heckuva lot of children's activities. But it wasn't built for kids. It was erected in 1966, less than two years after Athey moved to Wake Forest, to store on-site the kind of vehicles that require an equally humongous amount of space. In April '66, Athey began building 25-ton bottom dump truck trailers, which were 33 feet long and could carry 50,000 pounds. The following March, Athey began shipping those trucks to New Delhi, India on a $1 million contract. By 1972, the company had moved up to even larger, 100-ton carryalls like the one pictured above, which was used by a Florida contractor for hauling sand and gravel. In the photo are, from left, Buck Marshburn, Thomas E. Perry, Louis Hodge, Lanny Mitchell, Luther Harper, James Rogerson, Hoyt Brown, Nelson Ray, Jimmy Trent, Terry Kearney, Steve Bridges and Ray Beaman.

Monday, September 8, 2008

The one that got away


The picture above was my first choice for the lead photo to go with our August Centennial section, featuring 1969-78. But when we got out the boxes containing the old negatives, it turned out that the strip with that frame was absent. That's happened several times as we've gone through the newspaper's archives looking for "the shot" that I'd chosen in advance. It would be easy to criticize the storage methods, except to be honest, it's pretty impressive they were kept at all for so long. Probably, someone wanted a copy of this photo and the negative was pulled out, either never to return, or was possibly filed back in a different place.

The picture is of the 1978 Fourth of July children's parade winners. They are, front row: Kevin Medlin, Holly Hendricks, Christie Perry; second row: Ellen Arthur, Bruce Lowery, John Barlow, Tom Warren; third row: John Cooke and his "lion" dog, Thor Foster, Jim Cooke, Lisl Gerstacker, Gena Arthur, Cassandra Walker, Amie Potts, Wendy Mason, Hyon Chu, Christy Medlin and Amy Perry in the stroller.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

I remember the '80s (Part 3)


There are stories of heroism all the time; firefighters and rescue personnel place their lives in risk on a regular basis. But everyday folks aren't expected to be heroic, so when they are, it's all the more amazing and impressive. Here are three that graced the pages of The Wake Weekly in the 1980s.

In February 1981 Bessie Holden rescued three small children from their beds in a Sunday night fire in Forestville. Louise Ferrell was burned over 35 percent of her body later that year after running back into a burning Massey apartment at least twice to look for her 4-year-old grandson (who was safely elsewhere).

And in September 1988 23-year-old Wake Forest resident and former school bus driver Richard Stallings (pictured above, with nephew Dion) safely saved fellow passengers guiding a Greyhound bus he was riding away from a tree after the bus driver suffered a fatal heart attack. The bus had been traveling 60 mph on Interstate 85 in Virginia when Stallings noticed the driver's arm fall to the side as if he were asleep. A wreck at those speeds could have injured or killed all of the 25 passengers aboard the bus. "I think he did a brave thing," his sister Valerie said at the time. "I'm proud of him for what he did."

It's a good story to recall in the midst of a divisive presidential race, don't you think?

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

I remember the '80s (Part 2)


Individual events don't always have an impact on the development of a community; but often constitute what we remember most about any particular year or era. Like the bear that wandered through town in the following decade, animal stories and near escapes were prominent in the 1980s.

The Fourth of July fireworks show was canceled in 1986, but that wasn’t as surprising as what happened a year before, when a faulty timer sent four “stars” into the stands at WF-R High, shattering the press box glass and injuring seven people.

Animals were the talk of the town several times in the ’80s. Raleigh workers spilled caustic soda into the Neuse River in July 1980, killing fish and turtles along a 20-mile stretch. Lee Leonard, Riverside Tackle Shop employee, recounted seeing brown foam three-feet high in the river at the dam. In the photo above, wildlife employees at the U.S. 1 bridge collect fish killed by the chemical spill.

Two years later, there were rats everywhere in Wake Forest, causing town officials to consider releasing owls or other rodent-killers inside town limits. “(The rats) are about the size of house cats. They killed one of my cats,” North Taylor Street resident Alan Skinner said. “I’ve thought of going down and stealing all the cats in Zebulon,” Town Administrator Jerry Walters said. And in 86, an ostrich escaped from a pen on Brick Street, leading would-be captors on a merry chase. It was later apprehended without incident.

Providence may have played a part in returning Jon Marx, 11 and Scott Kearney, 14, to their mothers with only scratches after they fell off a railroad trestle — dodging a train — and plummeted 60 feet to the ground below in 1981.

William Perry and a very pregnant wife, Catherine, barely escaped a train wreck of their own when their 1971 Fiat stalled on the tracks at the Brick Street crossing in front of a train loaded with Super Bowl fans on the way to Tampa Fla. This is how Lillian Horton, whose house was closest to the crossing, described the scene: “Stuff was flying everywhere. There was gas all over the side of the house ... and the motor is laying in the driveway.”

Sunday, August 17, 2008

I remember the '80s (Part 1)


I remember the 1980s rather well. Of course, my '80s were spent in western New York. But I feel as if I remember the '80s in Wake Forest, after writing down much of what happened here in our July 31 centennial installment, which featured 1979-88.

Newspaper space is limited though, and not everything made the final cut. The next several installments on this blog will feature the weather events, heroes, and other odds and ends that caught Wake Weekly journalists’ eyes.

Baby, it’s cold outside

Wake Forest experienced several notable weather events in the 1980s. Perhaps the most notable came in November 1988 when a tornado (wreckage, above) tore its way down from Franklin County, passing between Wake Forest and Rolesville, knocking down trees, before moving west into rural southern Wake Forest. No one was killed, but one man was injured when his mobile home at Ligon Mill and Burlington Mills roads was destroyed. A lesser tornado did some damage west of U.S. 1 in February 1981.

Snow, ice and freezing temperatures struck several times over the decade. In January 1979, an ice storm shorted out transformers. A month later, 10 inches of snow fell on Wake Forest, the most since 1948. Back-to-back snowfalls blanketed the town in early 1980.





A cold snap in January 1982 dropped temps to 4 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 9 wind chill), and electric line damages knocked out power to close to 1,900 people. That year, on Christmas morning, the temps got as low as 2 degrees. Another 1,700 people were without power the following January after a snowfall as well. Seven inches of snow fell in February 1984, and a year later, the mercury dropped to minus 9.

And a sleet storm that one local called “the worst in 39 years,” hit in February 1987, paving the streets, yards, and homes with five inches of ice.

Snow photos: Top - taking a stoll along Juniper Street during an early in the decade snowstorm is Rae Gerstacker with her dog Sigi and (from left) Stasi and Mindi Mulvihill and Lisa Gerstacker. Middle - with this icy Snoopy in the yard of Jim Medlin is Kevin and Christy Medlin and their dog, Red. Bottom - Guy Spencer enjoys a long slide down Holding Avenue in 1988 with kids Matt (top) and Sam.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Raleigh's cow pasture



In 1995, the city of Raleigh — formerly a 25-minute drive from the southern tip of the Wake Forest town limits — annexed 1,800 acres of the Wakefield family farm.


What was once considered to be in the neighborhood of Wake Forest, had a local mailing address, whose kids attended Wake Forest schools and long thought to one day be part of the town’s development spiral, suddenly became part of the big city.



Attorney James Warren describes his reaction:


“[I] remember when Wakefield was a cow pasture. It was a significant thing was when Wakefield became part of Raleigh… we always thought it being the Wake Forest area it would be part of Wake Forest someday. I guess Raleigh offered a good deal on providing water and sewer. [It] was quite a blow for this community — we just figured whenever it got developed, it would be part of this community.”


In the photo above, Daril Wiggins paints the Wakefield Plantation sign on Falls of Neuse Road when Wakefield Elementary school was set to open in 1998.

Friday, August 1, 2008

Cash 'n carry


One of the more interesting things about reading through old newspapers is seeing familiar faces. Here's a picture of Daryl Cash proudly displaying giant turnips, the largest 7 pounds, which he grew with his father Bryant in the 1980s. Daryl is now a captain with the Wake Forest Fire Department.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

To think I saw it on White Street


The 13th annual Hoops for Wake Forest, a 3 on 3 basketball tournament for any entrants, was held in May and raised $15,000 for charities in the community. Since 1995, the tournament has generated over $175,000 for local causes including summer camp for disadvantaged kids, DARE program, Shop with a Cop, Camp Kanata, Tri-Area Ministries, Wake Forest-Rolesville High School Band, and Kiwanis Park. It is a uniquely downtown event. This year it was held on Brooks Street, but when it first began, basketball backstops and jumping players stretched down White Street, framed by the old brick buildings distinctive to downtown. The photo above shows the 2nd annual tourney, held in 1996.

Monday, June 30, 2008

Teen's best friend


As I wind my way through the annals of Wake Forest's history, reading old newspapers, I occasionally come across a story or photo that jumps off the page or speaks to me. This story, originally published in the Oct. 18, 1990, edition of The Wake Weekly, is one of them. It was written by Jimmy Allen, who was news editor at the time and is now pastor at Heritage Baptist Church.

The ultimate act of love is giving one’s life for someone. A concept sometimes hard for humans to grasp, it apparently represents what a pet dog did for her best friend last Tuesday morning. The dog, a three-year-old Labrador retriever named Blackey, is credited with saving 15-year-old George Campeau Jr.’s life in a daring move that killed her.

“It really is an unusual story — one with a happy ending and a sad ending,” George’s mother, Phyllis, said.

Like every school morning, George walked down the dirt path from his home Tuesday, and Blackey played with George and other dogs on their way to the bus stop. This particular morning was foggy, and George, recovering from surgery to his nose, looked to the right, left and right again before starting to cross Ligon Mill. He did not see any vehicles. Blackey had already crossed the road when she turned back and noticed George walking into the path of a small pick-up truck. The approximately 100-pound dog ran and leaped into the air toward George, striking him in the chest with her paws and knocking him back across the south-bound lane. The truck was so close to George, it struck Blackey.

The Labrador often jumped when she was excited, George said, but she always did so from a standing position. Tuesday, she ran and jumped.

“I remember seeing Blackey running right at me,” George said. “Then I saw the headlight (about two to three feet away). She was pretty far up in the air. She knew what she was doing.”

George and Blackey had spent the past three years together, often playing. “She just hung by me. If I jumped in the water, she’d jump in right after me.”

George, who is taking driver’s education, sometimes drove the family’s truck down the path to the bus stop, with Blackey inside. Blackey waited by the truck eight hours until George returned on the bus.Described by family members as friendly, smart and tireless, Blackey was almost taken to the Wake SPCA as a puppy. George’s aunt, Toni Campeau, carried the dog to the family on Thanksgiving Day in 1987, and gave her to George’s sister, Amy. The Campeaus decided to keep the little dog. Although Blackey chewed items he should not have (including the bottom of a 100-year-old chair, the front-porch railing and insulation in a pick-up truck the morning she was killed), she became a fixture in the Campeau family.

“I loved her,” George Sr. said.

Because of regional television coverage of the accident, Frank Walker of Fayetteville donated a five-week old black chow puppy to the Campeaus (see Wake Weekly photo above). The younger George said he likes the puppy who runs with full enthusiasm before dropping to the ground for a short nap. It will take awhile, though, before the new puppy, Bear, becomes a Blackey, George said.

Despite the enthusiasm for life Blackey showed, she will be remembered mostly for her last jump.

“I feel like she saved my son,” Phyllis said.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Wild cows and Christmas tea

We asked town commissioner and Wake Forest native Margaret Lee Jones Stinnett to tell us about life in the old days. Many of her memories focused on the family's store, Jones Hardware, which was open for 99 years before closing in 2005. But she also had other things to say:

Fire and ice

"[One] thing that I remember is when Greg and Janet (Allen)’s house burned. And this was probably in the ’60s. They didn’t live there then. I guess we must have had a town fire department too, but everybody that was on the town fire department was on the rural fire department. And in the good ole days when the fire alarm went off it sounded from the water tower so you knew if it was an in-town call or out-of-town call. And my dad in his younger day was also on the fire department. The fire truck would come through town and it’d stop and pick everybody up and there was nobody left to work in the stores.

"The coldest day ever… as fast as they were pouring water on that house, it was freezing on the ground. And of course me and mom and dad went up there. The town was small enough then that it was somebody you knew’s home. All the ladies in town went back home and fixed thermoses of coffee and sandwiches and stuff. I sat in the car with Mom once she had made coffee to give it to the firemen…it was that cold. I can see the water freezing thick in the front yard…

"I remember the movie theater burning and all the firemen on the top of buildings across the street because all the roofs were tar and they were afraid the fire was going to jump. I remember going to the movie theater and coming out and there’d be snow on the ground on Saturday. We didn’t have plows to plow the streets. Nobody went anywhere. You walked everywhere. It was fun. Everybody in town went to Woodland Avenue and sledded. Because at the end was Tommy Byrne’s house and there was a creek across there and you wanted to be sure you didn’t screw up and hit the creek….because then you’d be all wet and cold and you’d have to go home."

Lazy Wednesday afternoons

"I remember closing on Wednesday afternoons because all the businesses in downtown Wake Forest closed at noon. Even when I started working at the hardware store downtown, we still closed on Wednesday afternoons and that was in the eighties. We would go down there, I guess it was in the summertime because I wasn’t in school, and I’d walk down to meet Dad. Me and Suzy (my black dog) would wait for him to get close and we’d go to Percy’s and take a can with us and buy fishing worms and we’d go to Moore’s Pond and go fishing on Wednesday afternoon. Then, Mr. Nuckles, who was the police chief, and his wife, would all come to the pond and we’d cook fish that we’d caught during the day for dinner."

Tea time and parades

"The Christmas parade used to start up on North Main Street. That was where the route started and you used to dress up to be in the Christmas parade. I’d wear my pretty little smock dress and my little fur muff. It was like going to church because it was an honor to be in the Christmas parade, to be on a float in the parade.

"Christmas Tea when I was young was always good and so was the community Christmas dinner. Those were big events. Once again we all dressed up. All the civic clubs, the women’s club, and it may have been the garden club… on a Sunday afternoon it was a Christmas Tea and all the women in all these groups made all these great refreshments. And it was laid out on this nice table, we got to serve punch and the tree was decorated with all handmade ornaments… at the Community House and everybody went. That was what you did that Sunday afternoon..

"We used to have dance recitals — all the girls in town took dance from Betty Holding. And the first recital I remember I was probably four and it was on the stage of the movie theater. After the movie theater burned, it moved to the auditorium to the elementary school. Big event. Packed house. Everybody went."

Watch out for bears!

"A bear came through. He hung out for a few days and they had sitings of him. The next thing I know he was running through the fire department section and Cardinal Hills and running out that way. I remember Andy Ray coming over, “Have you seen the bear?” and I was worried about (my) cats.

"And cows used to get loose before Tyler Run. There was a dairy. I’m sitting on the screened-in porch one day and the dog just starts raising hell, and this hasn’t been that long ago and I look and a cow’s coming across the backyard, crosses the front, (N.C.) 98, and goes headed off towards past the golf course."

Looking out for one another

"When I was pregnant with Elizabeth, they had snow when I was supposed to deliver. That was in 1987. The guys that worked downtown would come and pick me up — they wouldn’t let me drive (because the walk was so dangerously icy). The sense of community downtown…all the business owners downtown were the chamber and were the worker bees. The same group of 10 or 12 of us did everything, Meet in the Street, the Christmas parade, the chamber banquet. We were the whole kit ‘n’ kaboodle. But it all got done."

(For more of Margaret’s reminiscing, see the May 29 issue of The Wake Weekly).

A century of memories

100 years.

That’s the amount of time your hometown newspaper, The Wake Weekly, is attempting to squeeze into 10 issues over the next 10 months, covering a decade at a time, leading up to the town of Wake Forest’s Centennial Celebration.

It is a lot of time, and a lot of ground to cover. There’s no way we’ll be able to get it all in, no way to run every interesting photograph, every fascinating memory, every startling occurrence.

That’s where this blog comes in. Alongside our once-a-month section coverage of the last 100 years in Wake Forest, we’ll be posting extras on this online journal, where space is less of a premium. We also encourage you to respond with your own memories (provided they aren’t libelous or hateful) and will welcome old photos with descriptions of what they represent, and suggestions for coverage as well.

Some we may post to this blog, some we may decide to include in the print edition and some may not run at all. But we’d certainly like to hear from you. Post your thoughts here, or feel free to contact Wake Weekly managing editor Marty Coward at Marty@wakeweekly.com or by calling 556-3182, ext. 132.

The town’s Centennial Celebration events begin in December and run all year in 2009. The birthday bash itself is in February. We hope to see you there!


David Leone,
Wake Weekly staff writer