Life in Chapel Hill in the late 1940's and early 1950's was simple. In most ways it was the best time to live in Chapel Hill. In the photo below from the middle of August 1952 Chapel Hill High School freshmen Richard Gunter, Gene Smith and Clyde Campbell drink fountain Cokes between two-a-days training for the Chapel Hill High School football team. The Cokes were then 5 cents. They are sitting on the grass in front of the "new" auditorium at Chapel Hill High School on West Franklin Street and now the site of University Square Plaza.

Friends for Life, left to right, Richard Gunter, Gene Smith, and Clyde Campbell

These three young men began a lifelong friendship the year this picture was taken. Richard had moved to Chapel Hill in the fifth grade, but had known Gene since Richard's grandfather started bringing him to town at age 9 to go to the Western movies on Saturdays. Richard recalls that on those Saturdays he took 15 cents to town, paid 5 cents for a bag of jellybeans from Rose's 5 & 10 Cent Store and then went to see the movie at the Varsity Theater for 9 cents. In the afternoon after the movie Richard sold newspapers around town for a nickle, and was allowed to keep 2.5 cents from each sale. He did this until he sold six papers and had made 15 cents. That was all the he needed for town the following Saturday. After that he would stop by Danziger's Candy Shop where Mrs. Danziger would give him a piece of pumpernickel bread as a snack. Richard said it was as good as chocolate cake.

Richard says the legendary Cat Baby, George Canada, was also selling papers at that time. Cat Baby was in Richard's Chapel Hill High School graduating class of 1956, though he was about 21 by then.

This is George (Cat Baby) Canada on top of Leon Ivey at Bill Albans Service Station in downtown Chapel Hill in 1953. Among the onlookers at the fight are left to right Robby Ross, Tommy Goodrich, Arnold Smith, Bobby Thompson, Billy Thompson, Roy Jones, Floyd Pittard, Gene Cate, Billy Wayne Andrews, Johnny Watts, (first name unknown) Womble, unknown, and John Hall. I have been told that Ivey probably deserved getting a little banged-up that day.

Clyde Campbell moved from Newton-Conover to Chapel Hill during the summer of 1952. The three friends went on to co-captain the Chapel Hill High School football team their senior year.

The three friends in 1955 as co-captains of the Chapel Hill High School football team. They are in same order as top photo.

After graduating from Chapel Hill High School in 1956 the three men went their separate ways for a while. Gene and Richard joined the United States Air Force, while Clyde stayed in town to graduate from the University of North Carolina before going into the Marine Corps. Gene returned to Chapel Hill to enter the insurance business and remained in Chapel Hill. Richard came back to go to UNC and graduate with a math degree before beginning a career as an actuary, living as far away as Texas. He traveled to 41 states in his career as a presenter for insurance industry marketing seminars. Clyde began a career with IBM when he returned from service, and held jobs for the company in Boulder, San Diego and Austin, before finally retiring to New Canaan, Connecticut. As with most men, there was little communication while they were settling down, having families and building their careers but whenever one came back to Chapel Hill, visiting family or passing through, he could get caught up because Gene stayed abreast of the goings on in town.

Gene was still away in the service when Richard got married, but Clyde was there to be best man. Richard met his wife Ka (pronounced "Kay") when they were in the fifth grade in Chapel Hill in 1949. They got married 10 years later in her home on Westwood Drive. Richard was at Clyde's wedding a few years later. Gene got married while Richard and Clyde were away in the service. They do manage to get together at class reunions and just recently, Gene and Clyde attended Richard and Ka's 50th wedding anniversary. Richard and Gene both live in Chapel Hill now so they see each other frequently. The phone lines stay hot between Chapel Hill and Connecticut as Richard and Clyde have been known to be connected on the phone during entire televised Carolina basketball games.

During the time Richard, Gene, and Clyde were at Chapel Hill High School "The REC" was where high school aged students congregated on the weekends. It had been a Methodist Church and was converted as a place for teenagers to have parties and events. Every Friday night there was a "sock hop" dance at The REC. It was managed by Sarah Umstead, who was from an old Chapel Hill family. It was torn down more than forty years ago.

This is The REC where Chapel Hill teenagers got together for parties and dances in the 1950's 

Photos for this article provided by Richard Gunter and Ruth Vickers

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