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Chapel Hill Up Close
by Charly Mann
A Chapel Hill bee that I met on Morgan Creek Road
Ever since I was very young I have loved being outside in Chapel Hill. When I was eight I would spend hours in my tree house behind my house on Old Mill Road observing the birds around me in the woods. Eventually some cardinals and blue jays would feel safe enough to perch within two feet of me.
A fly enjoying a rose petal on Coker Drive in Chapel Hill
When I was nine I became fascinated with the insects that I would find in my yard, especially the ants, bees, and flies. Flies were so common that many people, including my family, had screened-in-porches to keep them away while they enjoyed the "outdoors". I thrilled at watching flies soar through the air and marveled at their beauty when they landed on my arm. I also spent countless hours watching bees pollinate my mother's flower garden. Today my interest in the outdoors and the creatures that inhabit it has not waned, and I often enjoy photographing nature up close.
A busy bee enjoying a garden along Coker Drive in Chapel Hill
On a recent visit to Chapel Hill I took a long walk starting at where Country Club Road intersects with Raleigh Road and walked down to the end of Laurel Hill Road, before carefully crossing over the 15-501 bypass to Coker Drive where I walked on through all of Morgan Creek Road. My primary purpose was to take photographs of houses for future articles in Chapel Hill Memories, but along the way I was lucky enough to find some insect friends who allowed me to take their pictures.
A hoverfy on a bladle of grass on Laurel Hill Circle in Chapel Hill
I have not lived in Chapel Hill for twenty years, but I still spend an hour or more outside communing with nature. For many years my daughter and I have enjoyed taking photographs of the birds and butterflies that live near us, and last week I began posting some of these photographs to our new web site: oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com
Grasshopper enjoying a flower on Laurel Hill Road in Chapel Hill
Comments:
David Brown
6:41 PM Wed 8/25/2010
Wonderful photographs!
v w linney
12:28 PM Sat 6/5/2010
Your first picture is of a wasp or hornet. If it was very large, it might be Vespa crabro, a European import. I had them in my home orchard at the beginning of October eating the apples. At first when one flew by, I thought it was a dragonfly; yeah, they are that big.
Sam WIseman
9:54 AM Wed 5/26/2010
Your photos are fantastic. Are you a professional photographer? I loved the bird pictures on your Oklahoma BIrd website.
Alice Harper
9:07 AM Tue 5/25/2010
I love your photographs. I prefer seeing more articles on the natural beauty of Chapel Hill like this one than one's on neighborhoods.
Mary Thompson
5:35 PM Mon 5/24/2010
Bravo Charly! These are awesome photos which remind me how much I take for granted in the world around me. I look forward to seeing your piece on the Morgan Creek neighborhood. I had several childhood friends who lived there including Muffie Sprunt.
Check out our other website:
Investment strategies and advice about Apple Inc. and related technology companies by Charly Mann. www.appleinvesting.com
Investment strategies and advice about Apple Inc. and related technology companies by Charly Mann. www.appleinvesting.com
Chapel Hill is located on a hill whose only distinguishing feature in the 18th century was a small chapel on top called New Hope Chapel. This church was built in 1752 and is currently the location of The Carolina Inn. The town was founded in 1819, and chartered in 1851.
What is it that binds us to this place as to no other? It is not the well or the bell or the stone walls. or the crisp October nights. No, our love for this place is based upon the fact that it is as it was meant to be, The University of the People.
-- Charles Kuralt
Dark Side of the Hill -- Pink Floyd, the creators of the most popular album in history, Dark Side of the Moon, took the second half of their name from Floyd Council, a Chapel Hill native, and great blues singer and guitarist. He once belonged to a group called "The Chapel Hillbillies".
Check out Charly Mann's other website:
Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
http://oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com
Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
http://oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com
There would probably be no Chapel Hill if the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees in 1793 had not chosen land across from New Hope Chapel for the location of the university. By 1800 there were about 100 people living in thirty houses surrounding the campus.
The University North Carolina's first student was Hinton James, who enrolled in February, 1795. There is now a dormitory on the campus named in his honor.
The University of North Carolina was closed from 1870 to 1875 because of lack of state funding.
William Ackland left his art collection and $1.25 million to Duke University in 1940 on the condition that he would be buried in the art museum that the University was to build with his bequest. Duke rejected this condition even though members of the Duke Family are buried in Duke Chapel. What followed was a long and acrimonious legal battle between Ackland relatives who now wanted the inheritance, Rollins College, and the University of North Carolina, each attempting to receive the funds. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and in 1949 UNC was awarded the money for the museum. Ackland is buried near the museum's entrance. When the museum first opened, in the early sixties, there were rumors that his remains were leaking out of the mausoleum.
The official name of the Arboretum on the University of North Carolina campus is the Coker Arboretum. It is named after Dr. William Cocker, the University's first botany professor. It occupies a little more than five acres. It was founded in 1903.
Chapel Hill's main street has always been called Franklin Street. It was named after Benjamin Franklin in the early 1790s.
Chapel Hill High School and Chapel Hill Junior High were on Franklin Street in the same location as University Square until the mid 1960s.
The Colonial Drug Store at 450 West Franklin Street was owned and operated by John Carswell. It was famous for a fresh-squeezed carbonated orange beverage called a "Big O". In the early 1970s, I managed the Record and Tape Center next door, and must have had over 100 of those drinks. The Colonial Drug Store closed in 1996.
Sutton's Drugstore, which opened in 1923, has one of the last soda fountains in the South. It is one of the few businesses remaining on Franklin Street that was in operation when I was growing up in the 1950s.
Future President Gerald Ford lived in Chapel Hill twice. First when he was 24, in 1938, he took a law couse in summer school at UNC. He lived in the Carr Building, which was a law school dormitory. At the same time, Richard Nixon, the man he served under as Vice President, was attending law school at Duke. In 1942, Ford returned to Chapel Hill to attend the U.S. Navy's Pre-Flight School training program. He lived in a rental house on Hidden Hills Drive.
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Charly, your photos are absolutely beautiful. What kind of camera do you use? Do you retouch after taking photos? I used to do the wedding photography and I studied about photography, art and video. Your photos are gorgeous! You captured the creatures very artistically. Do not you want to take pictures at the Duke Gardens? I took many photos and I oil painted two of them. I am a good artist too. Please check me on www.oilpaintingbyrumi.com. Can you take UNC near the tower area in the spring time next year? I love to see photos of ocean and mountains too. What is complete web site of Oklahoma BIrd website?