by Charly Mann

This article is about my 1970 summer vacation which led to me interviewing Janis Joplin, and seventeen years later to a great concert in Chapel Hill by legendary singer-songwriter Eric Andersen. Included is a wonderful story about former Chapel Hill resident Carey Raditz, the subject of Joni Mitchell's great song Carey.

My interview with Janis Joplin took place three months before she died 

In 1970, I was twenty years old and had spent most of the previous two years working at the Record and Tape Center on West Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. That summer a friend and I decided to take a month off to drive across the United States. We did not have any planned itinerary, but I think we knew we would be heading to California. In Los Angles we attended several concerts at the famed Troubadour club where I got to see concerts by Ian and Sylvia and Eric Andersen. I also convinced Ian and Sylvia to do an interview with me which I intended to submit to Atlanta's underground newspaper The Great Speckled Bird.

This is my press pass for the Festival Express in Calgary in July 1970

The name of Ian & Sylvia's band then was coincidently the Great Speckled Bird, and included Buddy Cage (later of the New Riders of the Purple Sage) on steel guitar. I became friends with Buddy, and he took us to a fine Italian restaurant where we sat next to Jim Backus (Mr. Magoo, Rebel Without a Cause). Buddy told us during the meal that in a couple of weeks they would be playing in series of concerts throughout Canada with a number of other artists including The Band, Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, and Delaney & Bonnie, and that he could get us press passes to attend.

Eric Andersen performing in Calgary on July 4th, 1970. Other performers that day included The Band, Janis Joplin, Delaney and Bonnie, The Grateful Dead, Buddy Guy, Tom Rush, Sha Na Na, The New Riders of the Purple Sage, The Flying Burrito Brothers, and the Good Brothers.

We soon left Los Angles and headed up to the coast to enjoy the San Francisco music scene which included attending several shows at Bill Grahams' Fillmore West, before heading to Calgary on the Fourth of July to meet up with what was billed as the Festival Express Tour. As we entered the hotel in Calgary where the musicians were staying we first encountered Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir sitting in the lobby jamming with a couple of local musicians on acoustic guitars.

Before performing with the Grateful Dead at the Festival Express concert Jerry Garcia played steel guitar with the New Riders of the Purple Sage 

After securing our press credentials I decided to see if I could find some of the musicians on the tour to interview. I noticed that Eric Andersen, who we had recently seen at the Troubadour, and was also one of my favorite singer-songwriters, was one of the several dozen performers on the tour, and I decided to try to interview him. I ran into Buddy Cage at the hotel bar and he suggested I go into the hotel restaurant which he said been taken over by the musicians. I soon spotted Eric Andersen standing at the restaurant bar and asked if I could interview him. He agreed and said we should talk to all the people at the table he was sitting at, and invited us over.

All the musicians I met who took part in the Festival Express concert were friendly and talkative except for the members of The Band. Rick Danko, the Band's bass player, and years later a member of a trio with Eric Andersen, told me I would have to get approval from the band's guitar player Robbie Robertson before any member of that group would talk to me.

As I sat down next to Eric I noticed on my right was Bonnie Bramlet. Across from me was Eric and his new "very good friend" Janis Joplin, who just happened to be the most popular female rock singer in the world at that time. What a journalistic coup I thought; part of my interview could be with Janis Joplin. As it turned out Eric soon graciously bowed out, and I had a ninety minute off the cuff rollicking conversation with Janis Joplin. During the interview she talked at length about her future and how she envisioned the music industry in ten years. She also told us all about her current musical interests, the breakup of Big Brother, and lot about her personal life - which included showing us her latest tattoo on a fairly private part of her body.

This is Ian and Sylvia on the left with Eric Andersen and Bonnie Bramlett singing Will The Circle Be Unbroken in Calgary 7-4-1970. Jerry Garcia is playing the steel guitar.

Sadly exactly three months after this interview, on October 4, 1970, Janis Joplin died, and I believe this was last full length recorded interview with her. In 1975 I sold the master recording and the rights of the interview to "The Estate of Janis Joplin Deceased." I have however included the beginning of the interview here for you to get a sense of what a wonderful time was had by all.

Eric Andersen and me at my house in Chapel Hill in 1987, shortly before he performed at the Cat's Cradle

While I enjoyed talking with Janis Joplin, for the next seventeen years I felt bad about not getting the interview I had intended with Eric Andersen, so in 1987 I invited him to perform at the Cat's Cradle in Chapel Hill. For the last two decades he and I have remained friends and he has several times stayed with me in my homes in Chapel Hill and Austin.

Poster for the Eric Andersen concert I produced in Chapel Hill on April 5, 1987 partly to make up to Eric for interviewing Janis Joplin instead of him in 1970

Included in the audio portion of this article is the first part of my interview with Janis Joplin, the tribute song Eric Andersen wrote about his friend Janis Joplin called Pearl's Goodtimes Blues, a Chapel Hill radio interview with Eric Andersen from 1987 in in which he talks about Carey Raditz, Joni Mitchell's song Carey, and a story about Townes Van Zandt and his signature song Thirsty Boots from the April 5, 1987 Eric Andersen Cat's Cradle concert.

by Charly Mann

I have enjoyed receiving e-mails from Chapel Hill Memories readers every day, and some of the most interesting and informative have come from former UNC students of more than fifty years ago. I recently arranged to interview three of these individuals over the phone to discuss their experiences as students and their reflections about Chapel Hill and the world we now live in. These people are alumni of the UNC classes of 1942, 1950, and 1954. One of the individuals wished to remain anonymous because she thought her relations might be hurt by some of her statements, so I have simply identified all of these people by the year of their graduating class. Class of 1942 and 1954 are men, and Class of 1950 is a woman.

UNC Chapel Hill students in a dormitory store in 1942

Charly Mann: Thank you all for agreeing to this interview. I would like to start off by asking each of you to briefly describe what the University of North Carolina was like when you were a student.

Class of 1942: I started UNC in 1938 at the height of the Depression and left to in 1942 to fight in World War II. The years in Chapel Hill were the best of my life. Everybody knew everybody and there were so many wonderful things to do.

A UNC coed in front of the Bell Tower in 1950 

Class of 1950: I loved Chapel Hill and the campus. I lived in Spencer Dorm which I recall was like living in an elegant manor house. UNC must have had 5,000 students in those days, so I never felt like I knew everyone at UNC by name, but there was hardly an unfamiliar face, and I knew almost every coed on campus.

Class of 1954: I grew up near Sparta and had hardly been away from home until I entered Carolina. It was such a magical place. There was always so much to do in and out the class room. In those days all students automatically got tickets to basketball and football games, and I think the majority of the students went to home football games. I know I never missed a game. My son went to UNC and my granddaughter is currently a junior. Today only a fraction of UNC students get to attend football and basketball games.

Class of 1950: Yes, that's terrible and I understand it is a multi-step lottery students must enter to get tickets to any basketball or football game.

Class of 1954. That's true. My granddaughter told me you have to go to the Internet and fill out a request for each game just to get a chance for a ticket in the lottery.

Class of 1942: That is a shame. UNC football in my day, and basketball and football today, are what creates the common bond and spirit of being a Carolina student.

1950 UNC Cheerleaders and Ramses

Charly Mann: Besides attending sporting events what did students do in their free time when you were there?

Class of 1942: We did not have TV, computers, or video games so students were more self-motivated to try a variety of things. Almost everyone I knew was part of an inter-mural team as well as working with some student publication or volunteer organization. We also had six big dance concerts a year where the top bands in the country would perform at UNC, so one thing we did was practice our dancing.

Charly Mann: What types of dance steps did you have to know?

Class of 1942: I recall we would have to be able to at least do the foxtrot, waltz, jitterbug, and the lindy hop.

Charly Mann: Wow! Did most students dance?

Class of 1942: Everyone did, and finding a date for a dance could be a big challenge.

Class of 1950: Dances were still going strong during my UNC years, and I always had at least five invitations to everyone of them. Of course there were at least six times as many male students as women in those days.

Class of 1954: I remember at the Spring 1953 Germans Dance three of the biggest orchestras at the time performed - the Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey Orchestras, as well as Ray Anthony, and as if that was not enough Kay Kyser who had one of the most popular bands in the country in the 1940s also performed.

1953 orchestra leader superstars at UNC Spring German dance. Left to right: Jimmy Dorsey, Ray Anthony, Tommy Dorsey, and Kay Kyser

Charly Mann: You all have children and/or grandchildren who have attended Carolina. Do you see much difference in students today than when you were at school?

Class of 1954: Most things are the same - learning to live on your own, being a diehard Tarheel sports fan, alcohol to an excess on occasion, and finding a girlfriend or boyfriend.

Class of 1942: Students today cannot read or write. They scan information and they communicate in tweets, which are just short sentences without much substance.

Class of 1950: We have gone from being literate people to visual ones. People no longer read anything with any depth, and I have not met anyone under the age of 30 who knows anything about history.

Class of 1942: I have kids who are in their late 50s and early 60s and they are obsessed with their media gadgets, cell-phones, laptop computer, and iPod. Even when I see them for a meal there is no time for conversation, since at least one person at the table is inevitably texting on a cell-phone which is not only distracting but prevents meaningful discussions.

Class of 1954: I have a 25 year old granddaughter who is a very nice and lovely girl. She graduated from Carolina two years ago, and sends me short messages by e-mail several times a month. The truth is though I cannot tell if she can write. I do not think I've really learned anything about her or her life from any of her messages.

Class of 1950: Have you noticed nobody asks real questions anymore? When I was at UNC that's all we did, and it just wasn't with people our own age, but with our parents and grandparents.

Class of 1942: That's how we learned most things.

In 1950 UNC Chapel Hill dorms were very crowded with four to a room

Class of 1954: Not today - I think all this technology makes people think they know too much - you know what is called information overload, but in reality they know very little.

Class of 1950: That's true - people cannot communicate their ideas - instead they send out e-mails with copies of something someone else said about a subject that they believe, or send you a link.

This is Franklin Street in Chapel Hill in 1954 (the first year I have a clear memory of downtown - I was 5).

Class of 1954: It's like our modern political leaders, they make speeches that someone else has written for them, and read it through a teleprompter.

Charly Mann: Well to wrap things up, what do you see for the future?

UNC Chapel Hill coed in 1942 surrounded by friends as she writes her boyfriend a letter 

Class of 1942: Unfortunately - I think it is pretty bleak because everyone now plays the blame game. The country is fairly evenly divided between the left and right, and each think the other side is screwing things up.

Class of 1954: I just look around and see so many people connected to their phones and computers, but they are more and more disconnected from life.

Class of 1950: I've noticed in my 82 years that better informed people are happier than those who are not, and I just do not see people anymore who are deeply curious or who have a passion for learning. 

article by Bea Witten (with photos provided by Charly Mann)

LAUREL HILL NEIGHBORHOOD HISTORY

The neighborhood now known as Laurel Hill was called Rocky Ridge Farm when first developed. Though small in scale, it is one of the earliest planned residential developments in North Carolina. The developer was none other than William Chambers Coker, who saw that he could simultaneously protect the area's magnificent trees and offer home sites close to the campus for University faculty.

Grand home on Country Club Road in Chapel Hill

Dr. Coker, the founder of the UNC Botany department, taught at UNC from 1902-45. He was a popular and inspiring professor who also worked to improve high school science programs. He very actively chaired the University Buildings and Grounds Committee for thirty years and, beginning in 1903, developed the Coker Arboretum on campus, with its exotic and native collections, from a boggy pasture.

As a designer, his taste was for "dignified, uncrowded buildings softened by informal plantings". He exercised these principles not only in the campus setting but also as the first landscaping advisor to school planners across North Carolina; and he applied his ideas as an entrepreneur in real estate. Landscape design and urban planning had not yet emerged as distinct disciplines, but Coker was aware of projects like Myers Park in Charlotte and Shaker Heights in Cleveland, whose developers brought varied backgrounds to their projects.

Zoning laws did not yet exist. Coker laid out large lots and placed covenants on the deeds limiting the number of structures on the property, requiring quality construction, and barring both subdivision of the lots and the raising of cows or pigs. He also personally approved all building plans until one or two years before his death.

The former Chapel Hill Country Club building, now the Mormon Church

Coker undertook this venture in 1923 with the donation of land for a golf course with clubhouse adjacent to the Laurel Hill neighborhood and convenient to the campus. The Chapel Hill Country Club was something of a faculty club and inexpensive to join. Socially the faculty was a small and comfortable group. Academic salaries were low and were cut deeply three times during the Depression, but a number of members had other means. The early residents of Laurel Hill were senior faculty and department chairmen.

House at the intersection of Country Club and Ledge Lane in Chapel Hill

Blue Ridge Parkway planner T. Felix Hickerson laid out the neighborhood's winding roads to conform to rather than master the topography. He taught Civil Engineering and Applied Mathematics at UNC and, incidentally, also planned the sewer system of Chapel Hill. Low stone walls, so characteristic of old Chapel Hill and the University campus, were incorporated with the street plan to mark property boundaries or to retain a slope, but also for their traditional and picturesque quality. Chapel Hill's stone walls were originally, in the first half of the nineteenth century, a solution to the separate nuisances of geologic debris and wandering cattle, hogs, and sheep.

The population of Chapel Hill in 1930, when this development was getting underway, was below 3500, with UNC enrollment about 3000 and faculty and administration together numbering 210. Growth exploded with the Navy Pre-flight Training Program, the GI Bill, and the development of the medical school. Memorial Hospital and RTP were years away. In the 1940s Coker's land agent became Henry Roland Totten, who was his colleague and collaborator in writing Trees of North Carolina(1916), and himself a Rocky Ridge resident.

204 Laurel Hill Road - The Simone and Lillian Parks House

The main lots had all been sold before Coker's death in 1953, and the neighborhood was fairly built up by 1960. One change for gardeners since the old days is the deeper shade. Many pines have been lost over the years, and the denser oaks were ready to grow into their space. Laurel Hill was annexed by the town about 1956 and designated a National Register Historic District in 1989.

300 Laurel Hill Road, Chapel Hill

The Laurel Hill neighborhood in the 1950s and 60s was mostly made up of university faculty families and was a close-knit community. Everyone knew everyone, and they socialized a lot. The lifestyle was not posh, though it was usual to have a maid and a gardener once a week. There was a single family car, pre-owned; the driveway was unpaved; and a man took good care of his one suit. The surface of Laurel Hill Road was for many years Chapel Hill gravel below Round Hill Road. The children roamed widely in the woods, even to the area of the Totten Center, since there was no road before the Bypass.

The Crockfords who lived at 305 Country Club Road held an all-day Christmas workshop party in their roomy basement every year; neighbors pruned their shrubbery and brought their raw materials and a sandwich to the ping pong and card tables, and went home, maybe at the end of the afternoon, with their wreath and decorations, and the spirit of the season.

Chapel Hill was very small, and the country club was pretty plain and sparse, offering golf and later swimming, but no meals; however, it was a town-and-gown blender. Once a month the wives cooked dinner and carried it over for a dinner dance, spreading picnic cloths on the grass in warm weather.

The Lamonts, who lived at 300 Laurel Hill Road, planted hundreds of azaleas in their side yard that they had paid ten cents each in the 1940s.

360 Laurel Hill Road, Chapel Hill

Pine Lane was named for a huge tree that stood in the middle of the road until it was struck by lightning. One resident was Marjorie Bond, who led the effort to establish a public library in Chapel Hill. In the 1950s she oversaw first one, then two, rooms of books downtown in the McDade house, which stood beside the elementary and high schools where University Square is today.

The Farrars, who lived beside the Tottens (110 Laurel Hill road) , encouraged dramatics and had both an indoor stage and a mini outdoor theatre, now overgrown, where the children read poems and staged plays.

History of Selected Laurel Hill Neighborhood Houses

For five decades azalea blooms have cascaded down the long hill from Country Club to Raleigh Road around paths winding under great oaks and pines. This garden has sung its glorious Welcome to Chapel Hill! The property was originally owned by Bernard Boyd, Professor of Religion, and his wife Thelma who bought the 1¼ acre lot from Dr. Coker in 1950, when this corner was in Orange County, the road to Raleigh a two-laner, and the Institute of Government a pine forest.

Beginning of Laurel Hill neighborhood at Raleigh and Country Club Road

Dr. Boyd was not a born gardener. A few gift pots of azaleas, with these virgin woods and glaciated terrain, somehow sparked in him a passion for landscaping, and the garden grew under their eyes. He developed the design and did most of the work himself, with help from the many students who loved him. He followed organic-gardening principles. He cleared the garden down to Raleigh Road and avidly built gravel paths and stone walls. The stonework in front of the house he also designed and built, with the help of James Blacknell, the noted Chapel Hill mason. All the plants had embossed aluminum labels. The neighborhood children loved the azalea maze, and two young pranksters once gave new locations to all 300 labels!

Dr. Boyd died in 1975 and Thelma continued in the house until 1985, with considerable maintenance help from the Men's Garden Club. David G. and Harriet Martin bought the property in 1989.

The Dean Carroll House

This solid brick house was built in 1932 by Dean D. D. Carroll of the School of Commerce (now Business), for whom Carroll Hall is named. Eleanore Carroll designed the home in the Georgian style and sited it, though an architect worked out the specs. The Carrolls sold to UNC in 1957 and built a smaller house on the adjoining lot. The main house served as the Chancellor's residence for Aycock, Sharpe, Sitterson, Fordham and Hardin. In 1996 UNC sold it to Dr. and Mrs. Jeffrey Lieberman.

The brick terrace in back, where there had been a perennial garden and a serious badminton court, was paved at the time of Chancellor Sharpe. The terrace saw a lot of use, and was sheltered by a tent when it rained. Mrs. Sitterson recalls the tent's first use, at her husband's 35th college reunion in 1966. It was set up a day ahead, and then such a long deluge came that she spent the night poking a broom up against the pockets of water that threatened to bring the whole thing down in a heap.

Earlier, the Carrolls had had a rock garden with running water around the outcropping past the terrace, and a vegetable garden and chicken house beyond. One person only was accepted calmly, as a friend, by the chickens, a grandson aged 2, who also enjoyed chicken feed! Many households kept chickens during World War II. The Carrolls enjoyed having students in the house; they occupied the attic—calling it the Carroll Inn—in return for work instead of rent, and also an apartment over the garage. The Carrolls were Quakers and active in every stage of planning, building (1964) and enjoying the Meeting House across Raleigh Road. Eleanore was an energetic gardener and had an iris bed the elegant and sinuous landscaping of the front slope with native and familiar plants, and guttered brick walkways.

The Jake Wade House

Tom Krenitsky and Joe Sica moved here in 1970. It was the former home of Jake Wade, the sportswriter, which had been built in 1938 by Dr. Houston and Eula Buchanan. There was a little garden beyond oak trees and ivy in 1970. The house having a long axis, the garden has been designed for the many windows that overlook the back. In the front, mainly azaleas have been added. The garden in back is defined by a very varied collection of dwarf conifers, with the red of Japanese maples as a foil to the greens. From the second floor the ellipse of English boxwoods near the house forms a strong geometric pattern. JC Raulston was a close friend and influenced the design of the garden, the plant choices, and the use of statuary to complement them. Tom is a biochemist, and during his years with Burroughs-Welcome traveled frequently to England. Armed with lists from Raulston, he always returned with more rare plants. Tom describes JC as the most generous person he ever knew, and a "universal gardener". What he loved he shared, and he planted for the world.

This is one of the first houses on Laurel Road as you come around the sharp turn. It sits high above the road.

The Tottem House (110 Laurel Hill Road)

Dr. Henry Roland Totten had a horticulturally famous wife, Addie. Her vision here was an English cottage garden of the sort described by Vita Sackville-West, carefree and all running together. This, like the house, has been kept to the extent possible by the Tolleys.
The Tottens built this home in 1929, on an English model, and lived here until their deaths in 1974. She was a forceful person, he a gentle one whose words, though soft, were usually remembered. They left their property to the NC Botanical Garden, and the proceeds of the sale to Dr. Granville and Nancy Tolley were used to help build the Totten Center.

The Hayden House

The Hock house was built in the early '30s on a three-acre lot by Glenn and Helen Hayden. Dr. Hayden was Chairman of the UNC Department of Music and one of the country's outstanding musicologists in the '40s and '50s. The department was smaller, and entertaining was an important sideline. A reception followed every concert, often at the chairman's home, for students, their families, and faculty. Dr. Hayden, however, was devoted more to chess than to conversation, and a game was usually played out discretely on the mantelpiece, with the players coming and going through the evening.
Although the house has been twice enlarged, its siting made it impressive from the start. Conrad and Deborah Hock bought the property in 1993 and have built the carriage house and undertaken considerable landscape renovation since the arrival of city sewerage. The overall scheme for this landscape plan involved the clearing but preservation of the surrounding natural areas while refining & adding to the existing plantings.

The George Howe House

This, the first home in Coker's development, was built in 1928 by Dr. George Howe. He was Professor of Classics and a nephew of Woodrow Wilson. In the 1950s Jacques Hardré, a professor of French, used this garden as the setting for a murder mystery which he wrote to introduce the French to American culture. The present owners are Dr. and Mrs. Townsend Ludington.

Hunt House, Laurel Hill Circle, Chapel Hill

The great oak in front, scarred and repaired after storms, may have been topped long ago to make it a broader shade tree. There are other signs that there was once a farm or homestead here, and Buttons Road is named for one Buttons Norwood, a bootlegger who is thought to have lived here, had his still at Morgan Creek, and supplied UNC students during Prohibition. The island at the top of Buttons Road is called the Buttonhole.

The Whitney-Eason House

The home of John Whitney and Terry Eason was built in 1939 by UNC football coach Jim Tatum, and owned 1940-1989 by John Wright, M.D., and his wife Lillian. In the spring there were bulbs and flowering bushes everywhere. The front yard is still covered with bluets in spring.

601 Laurel Hill Road, Chapel Hill

The Goldfinch House

When John and Carolyn Goldfinch moved here ten years ago, they wanted a garden immediately. They incorporated horse manure and planted some perennials here at the curb, without feeling that sure of what they were doing. Someone was watching over them and began leaving other plants, each in a pot, as offerings to the garden. This garden fairy has never been identified.

The Goldfinch home, built in 1956, is the entrance to the neighborhood. Carolyn sees this sunny curb garden as a gift both to herself and to all the passersby, on foot and in cars, who stop to chat with her about it. It is a pleasure that spreads. The summer and fall flowers, wonderful roses aside, include hollyhocks, daisies, black eyed Susans, white yarrow, tuberoses, Money plant, Japanese lanterns, carnations, cleome, mums, crepe myrtle, many lilies, sedum, and more!

by Charly Mann

Edwin W. Fuller was a student at UNC from 1864 to 1867, and in his great, but largely forgotten, autobiographical novel the Sea-Gift (published in 1873) provides the first literary description about student life at the University of North Carolina. He was from Louisburg, a small town about 70 miles northeast of Chapel Hill, and was only 16 when he started at Carolina.

The 1873 original cover of the first edition of Edwin W. Fuller's Sea-Gift novel

What follows is a slightly edited excerpt from the novel that describes what it was like to be a UNC freshman at Chapel Hill in 1864. I think you will see that male UNC students have not changed much in 150 years. It is also interesting to see that owning a particular type of horse then had the equivalent status that a sports cars might have today.

We all talked pleasantly together during the few minutes it took the train to reach Durham. Getting off there we found a number of hacks waiting to convey us to Chapel Hill. There were many others going there, so we hastened to secure the best hack, and were soon jogging over that worst of roads. My friend Carrover secured a seat in another vehicle, but gave it up to a lady and child, and took a place with us.

We stopped only once to cool our horses under some large trees by a well, when Carrover opened his travelling case, and taking out a silver flask offered it first to Ned and myself. We both declined, but I found that, in this my first temptation, it was difficult to refuse, so afraid was I of seeming boyish. The other three all complimented its contents and became fully inebriated.

We finally reined up at a hotel in Chapel Hill and found the steps thronged with the Sophomores waiting for the hacks to bring in their victims. As soon as we got out we were surrounded by a score of them, all leering in our faces and yelling "Fresh! Fresh!" as if they had the article to sell.
With most impudent effrontery they gathered around us, each viewing with the others in casting ridicule upon us; nor were witty sallies alone the extent of their teasing; many of the coarsest personalities were indulged in. No one seemed to enjoy it much, and only an absurd sense of what was due a foolish college custom urged them on.

"Look what a big trunk," said one, striking my solitary piece of baggage with his cane hard enough to nearly blister the leather; "I'll bet he has homespun cake in there. Fresh, let me sleep with you," he continued, taking my arm, with every appearance of friendship, "but no, you are too dirty," releasing me with a gesture of disgust.

"Hoopee! what a foot!" said another, stooping down to take an exaggerated measurement of my foot. "Fresh, how do you get your boots on without a crane to lift your feet?"

"Well, Fresh," said a pert little fellow to Ned, "what is the price of tallow where you live? It ought to be very cheap if that is a sample in your face." As Ned was really very sallow this remark called forth a general laugh, during which we walked up the steps into the office, the crowd opening before and closing behind us in a continuous yell of ridicule and shame, heaped on us in every conceivable way.

Frank's friends all seemed glad to see him, but, even amid the storm of persecution that surrounded us, I could not help noticing that they all wore flash clothes, and had inflamed eyes and a profane swagger. Frank told us that it was out of his power to shield us from devilment in such a crowd, but that he would get us rooms for the night and we would be safe in them. He went in to see the proprietor and we were left standing in the midst of a deriding throng. I never felt so much like a culprit in my life. Nowhere could I look and find a single glance of sympathy. On every side were hoots, hisses and vulgar witticisms; and the attempt to utter a word was only the signal for such a roar as would drown every syllable. While standing thus, a tall, languid youth, with drooping side whiskers and a pair of gold eye-glasses, pushed his way through the crowd and asked, "What Fresh are these you have here? Introduce me." Someone shouted: "That is Mr. Danvers, Fresh; speak to him."

"How do you do, gentlemen? I am most happy to see you with us," said Danvers, offering his hand in the most cordial manner. Eager to touch somebody's hand that would sympathize, I extended mine gladly, but ere I touched his he drew it back with the sneer, "Oh, no, Fresh, you must wash yours first; you've been travelling, you know."

"Shame! shame! Danvers. A Junior devilling Fresh!" exclaimed several voices.

"I confess," said Danvers, turning off, laughing; "but it was such a good thing. They are greener than verdure itself, and will swallow anything you offer!"

We had scarcely bathed and gotten rid of the dust of travel when the gong sounded for supper. We went down and found the tables occupied entirely by the students, as there was little or no travel to such a retired village, from the outside world. A bevy of Sophomores rose on our appearance and escorted us to the table, and, drawing back our chairs, held them for us. Bewildered by their strange attentions, we attempted to seat ourselves, but, of course, found the chairs non sub nobis. I recovered myself, but Ned plumped heavily down upon the floor, to the boisterous merriment of the whole room.

At last seated, and served by the regular attendants, we attempted to eat, but every mouthful was declared enormous by those watching us, every action said to be ill mannered, and our whole demeanor so criticized that our appetites departed and we felt no desire for food. If we had, there would have been little opportunity for its gratification. If I chanced to turn my head, a teaspoonful of salt went into my tea. If I asked the waiter for a biscuit, my tormentor across the table would pour a dozen into my plate. Silver forks and napkin rings were dropped into my pockets, and the proprietor called to identify his property. When we rose we were escorted from the room by the same guard of honor, even to the door of our room, where they left us for the night.

OUR second day was spent in the ordeal of examination, in the selection and arrangement of our room, and engaging board at the most eligible place. Our room, at the suggestion of Mr. Carrover, was chosen in the South Building, and after innumerable expenditures, and Ned's taste for arrangement, it really looked comfortable and home like. We passed the different departments of study without any serious difficulty, and the bell for evening prayers found us ready for the session's work.

The cover of this later edition of Sea-Gift shows the Peter Dromgoole duel that has become part of the Gimghoul Castle legend

We took a little stroll after tea, and were fortunate in meeting no one. Returning to our room and lighting up, we got our books and commenced to prepare, with all the interest of novelty, our lessons for the morrow. We had not been thus engaged more than half an hour when there arose in a distant part of the campus the most diabolical din conceivable: a fiendish combination of all the disagreeable noises produceable. Tin horns, tin pan drums, bells, whistles, paper trumpets, and the vox humana in its loudest, harshest notes, all roared forth their terrible discord on the still night air.

We leaned out of our window and listened to this caravan of horrid sounds approaching, till it entered the South Building. Even then we did not suspect its destination, and not till we heard the procession tramping noisily up the stairs leading to our room did the truth flash upon us that we were the intended victims. It was too late to fasten the door. In a moment the room was full of our tormentors, each one trying to drown the other's clamor by extra exertion on his own part. They formed a circle around us and beat, and blew, and shouted till we were deafened and stupefied with the noise.

Suddenly it ceased--everything was ominously still, and with sober face every one commenced active preparation for the more serious business of the evening. The door was closed and locked, the bed was stripped and the sheets hung up at the windows, with their edges stuffed in the cracks. Each then drew forth from his pocket an enormous pipe, and putting tobacco in it, began to smoke. Not the ordinary puffs of a pleasure whiff, but lighting about half a pipe full they would put more tobacco in on the fire, and instead of drawing, blow with all their might, ejecting from the bowl of the pipe a stream as large, and almost as solid as a man's wrist. As soon as I divined their object I got up and lay down across the bed, taking the pillow in my hand, that I might lay my face in it if it became very bad.

The great volumes of smoke, rolling up to the ceiling, now began to spread into a thickening vapor that filled the room, growing denser and denser every second, and I found myself constantly coughing. Another minute and the moving forms of the smokers could scarcely be seen, while the lamp standing on the mantel was only a dim halo in the white fog. The smokers now had to relieve each other, placing a guard at the door to prevent our exit. Thicker and thicker grew the cloud, till the lungs, wearied with incessant coughing, almost refused to inhale the bitter, sickening air. My eyes streaming with water closed themselves in spite of me, and my eyeballs were crossed with the nausea. I pressed my face down into the pillow for relief, but even that seemed a bag of tobacco, that was driving its dust into my throat. Every particle of air had its concomitant particle of smoke, and with every wretched gasp I gulped down a wad of poison. 

A ton of weight seemed pressing on my chest, and my eyeballs almost started from my head in my intense efforts to feed my famished lungs, and to prevent the suffocation I was enduring. A few more gasps and a death-like sickness seized me; the smoke closed around my head like the band of the Inquisition, and pressed all consciousness and sensation out. With a blinding rush of darkness over my brain I fainted.

The first thing I knew as a fact of consciousness was a vague perception of the odor of camphor and brandy; then I knew that my hands were being violently chafed, and that something cold and wet lay on my forehead. My temples ached with a dull, unrelievable pain, and a deadly nausea seemed to pervade the very atmosphere. I opened my eyes and found that I was in a strange room, on a strange bed, around which were grouped half a dozen forms with anxious, fear-whitened faces. Some were holding bottles, some basins of water, and all intently watching my face for signs of returning consciousness. I swallowed a little of the brandy they held to my lips, and as it burnt its way through my system I found strength to speak. Sitting upon the side of the bed, with the support of two of those attending, I asked, in an idiotic way: 

"What--are--you all doing here? Where--am--I?" 

At last we were fairly inducted into college life, and commenced a regular routine of daily duties. Our room was pleasantly situated, and all our neighbors agreeable. As new victims continued to arrive we were forsaken by the Sophs, much to our delight, and were permitted to enjoy a good meal at the table unmolested. 

Ned and I had formed as yet no circle of acquaintance. We were together nearly all the time, and having made up our minds, according to the invariable rule, to study harder than anybody ever did, we did not care much for the society of others. We both studied hard, and our progress in the various branches of instruction was, we thought, satisfactory. There was this difference between us, however--Ned studied uniformly, while I studied by impulse. The was that while many of my daily lessons exceeded Ned's in preparation and recitation, yet his average was far greater than mine. Ned studied to learn all his lesson--to know every part of it; while I often picked over those points on which I thought I should most likely be examined. He studied to master the subject--to become acquainted with a language or to understand a problem; I studied to make a good recitation. He stored up for the future; I looked no farther ahead than the next morning's lecture. 

I remember well, when we got to reading Homer, Ned would worry a whole morning over an idiom; and passages that I found no difficulty at all in rendering would afford him an hour's work with lexicon and grammar. I had a shorter way of doing things. I would take my Anthon's Edition--great friend of the student!--and, with the aid of its voluminous references, and the notes in Kühner, I would easily cram all that it was probable the professor would touch upon. Simple, easy parts, that I was sure he would not notice, had to take care of themselves. When we went in to recite, all the portions I had prepared so carefully were given to others to render or construe, while I would be taken up on some part I had thought too simple for my attention, and would be found woefully ignorant. So, about twice a month I would make a brilliant recitation, the balance of the time failures.

I suffered, too, from that great cheat of life, the self-promise to "turn over a new leaf." Regularly every Monday morning, in accordance with the previous week's resolve, I would start afresh, and, after tremendous application and intense mental effort, would go to the section room and pass the hour without being noticed. Leaving it without having had an opportunity to manifest my diligence, I would feel a little less careful about Tuesday's preparation. After another day of silence I would merely glance at Wednesday's lessons; and Thursday, with just a peep between the pages, I would be called to recite, and fail signally. The mortification would then evoke the firm resolve to "turn over a new leaf," but, inasmuch as the next day was Friday, I would conclude to wait till Monday. So Friday would go without study, and the next week would come and join the retreating line of its predecessors, and nothing would be accomplished but a slowly increasing indifference to failure, and a growing inability to reform. And in all my life since then there has still predominated that fault, turning over new leaves, and letting the very first breeze of difficulty flutter them lightly back again!

Accordingly, when the bell for lecture rung, instead of going with Ned to the section room, I strolled through the campus and gave myself up to sweet thoughts of Lillian. It was one of my autumn days. The sun was shining with a still, mellow light through a golden haze, which seemed to have fallen on all Nature, so yellow were the leaves on the trees and the stubble in the fields. The air was still and dreamy, and the campus, usually so full of noise and life, empty and deserted. I tried to think of Lillian as the only one in the world besides myself; of the universe as being made for us two, and of how sweetly we would live for each other. But somehow my soul would not fall into the delicious reverie her name usually inspired. For the first time since I had met her I could not think constantly of her, but my mind was ever and anon recurring to father's letter and his admonitions. There was an aching at my heart, a restless unhappiness I could not understand. I wandered about for half an hour, then sought out the negro who rang the bell, obtained the belfry keys from him, and went up in the cupola of the South Building. Taking my seat on the window ledge, I gazed on the beautiful scene around. A large extent of country spread out before me, gently undulating, and specked here and there with lonely white houses or groups of negro quarters. The haze of the zenith softened down to a deep shaded violet as it met the horizon, and long lines of smoke stood stiffly around the verge, like gray sentinels guarding the Great Beyond. A little way off a herd of cows were grazing, and the hoarse monotones of their copper bells were just audible enough to be drowsy; while along the red line of the road that wound out of sight by the cemetery, a white top wagon, with sluggish horses, was slowly crawling on to Raleigh.

Patting down my conscience with these good resolutions, I chanced to look out on the scene again, and saw, coming down the road from Raleigh, a horse and rider. The horse was blanketed, but I knew by the lordly bearing and arching neck that it was Phlegon, and I clambered down from the belfry, and ran down to the hotel to meet him. The bell rang for the close of lectures at the same time, and the students were thronging from the various lecture rooms, and many shouted at me as I hurried through the campus. I reached the hotel just as Reuben rode up. I had hardly gotten through making inquiries about them all at home when the students, in large numbers, came down to the hotel, and commenced making comments on myself and my horse. Some of my friends, however, coming to me and desiring to see him, I made Reuben take off his blankets and move him up and down the street, to show his action. As Reuben stripped the cloth from his glossy hide, and the splendid form stood revealed in its matchless grace, a murmur of approbation ran through the crowd. And Phlegon was in every respect worthy.

An English thoroughbred, he possessed the marks of an aristocratic ancestry, lords of the turf for many generations. The sharp pointed ears, the mild dark eye, and the tapering mouse colored muzzle, with its red open nostrils, were a coat of arms as perfect as argent fields and unicorns rampant.

His color was a beautiful claret, and his coat as glossy as if just washed in the ruby wine. His limbs tapered delicately, but the muscles were round and full of strength. He had evidently been the pet at home since I had left, and it was with no little pride that I ordered Reuben to take him round to the stables I had engaged for him. I went back to my room, feeling a good.

Sadly Edwin Fuller died at the age of 28 in 1876. The novel this is excerpted from, the Sea-Gift, did not become popular until several years after his death. It soon was referred to as the "Freshman Bible" throughout the United States. The novel was largely responsible for popularizing the Dromgoole legend as it includes the story of the duel that took place on what is now the grounds of Gimghoul Castle. The book was also highly influential to the writing of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind and Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel which both borrowed key plot elements from it.

by Stanely Peele (7-2-2010)

Since 1996 the stone-and-shingle building at 523 E Franklin St. Has been used by the Chapel Hill Museum. It has become an integral part Chapel Hill history. The upstairs has two galleries, a retail shop, a directors, office, a volunteer room and a workroom. On the lower level is a meeting room, the museum archives storage space and the offices of the Historical Society.

The school education programs of the Museum have delighted our school teachers. The marvelous programs are far-reaching, covering local, state history and even the Lost Colony. They have never charged a dime for any of this.

Starting in mid 2009, the museum had a series of meetings with the town. The town asked the museum to submit the minimum amount they needed to continue operation of the museum. The museum felt that the town was in the process of taking over the expenses of the museum.

"Don’t ask for a lot of money," said the town, "Just request the very minimum." The Museum followed these instructions to the letter. They submitted a request for $49,250, and clearly stated that this amount was the very minimum needed. They were in a dire situation, right up against the wall.

The Town Council responded by authorizing $20,250 for the next physical year. This was to be paid out at the rate of $3000 per month for the first 3 months, then $1250 per month thereafter. The Town also had the option of cutting off the $1250 monthly payments.

The museum could not survive with these payments. The Museum board faced its darkest hour, and felt it had no choice but to close down. Alas!

Here is condensation of their statement:

In light of Town Council's recent funding decision, it is with great sadness that the Museum's Board announces that the venerable organization that has operated on the Town of Chapel Hill's behalf since 1996 will be closing its doors. While thankful for Council's gesture of support, funding offered does not come close to our very specific request.

The Museum is grateful for the efforts of many people who worked so diligently to allow the Museum to continue.
The Museum's birth had a goal of giving the Town a community resource that would conserve and present the Town's rich and unique history. Elected officials and the Museum planned that the Museum would be made a Town entity.

The Museum has been adversely affected by the recession and became paralyzed by the soaring costs of maintaining the Town's building. Holding ten to twelve fund-raisers per year, sapped staff and board alike, and while they allowed the Museum to stay open, they came at a great cost to regular Museum operations.

As the only organization to actively preserve and display significant historical milestones in Chapel Hill's history, such as the desegregation of the town's schools; the evolution of downtown; and the use of municipal history as a way to study the town's growth, the Museum's closing brings an end to an important community resource. Beyond documentation of the town's past, the Museum's award-winning education programs have served over 75,000 area school children. It is the Museum's desire that these programs will continue to be funded by their dedicated sponsors and all possible scenarios for their continuation are being explored.

The Chapel Hill Museum's Board, staff and hundreds of volunteers, have always shared the belief that you don't know where you are going unless you know where you have been. To this end, we say thank you for allowing us to shed a light on Chapel Hill's future while remembering its past and hope the Museum's efforts to celebrate the character and characters of Chapel Hill not be forgotten.

These elegant words have brought some people to tears. Others are angry. Something has gone dreadfully wrong.

There is some good news. I understand that the Historical Society will continue to use its room downstairs.

My personal hope is that The Town will allow the Museum to occupy the director’s office, the workroom upstairs, and the meeting room downstairs. One eventual possibility may be to allow the Museum to be a part of the new Chapel Hill Library.

The closing date of the Chapel Hill Museum is July 11, 2010, nine days from today.

In the last week I have received 8 letters or e-mails with hard copies or links to the following article. As a of this outpouring I have decided to share the piece with all readers of Chapel Hill Memories. As a former merchant in Chapel Hill I share, and have experienced, many of the same concerns brought up by Mr. Deconto.

This is from the News and Observer and was published on Sunday June27, 2010:

Businesses flee Chapel Hill

BY JESSE JAMES DECONTO

DURHAM CEO Ron Helms says his Rho, Inc., is "a company a Chapel Hillian can be proud of."

One problem: Rho is in Durham.

The biotech research company is among numerous businesses that packed up and left Chapel Hill when they found more space, cheaper rent or more parking elsewhere. The exodus costs the town and Orange County millions in lost tax revenue, forcing the county's homeowners to pay some of the highest taxes in the state.

Perhaps the biggest loss was Quintiles, now the world's largest pharmaceutical research contractor, with nearly $3 billion in annual revenues, 20,000 employees - 1,400 in the Triangle - and offices in 60 countries. Quintiles started in a trailer at UNC-Chapel Hill under Helms' biostatistics colleague Dennis Gillings. Now it, too, has its headquarters in Durham, in a 10-story, $70 million building that is a glassy landmark for drivers traveling east toward Raleigh.

"That nice big building on Page Road would look nice in Orange County," said Orange County Commissioner Barry Jacobs, "in the right place."
Chapel Hill serves as an economic engine and bedroom community for the rest of the Triangle, sending most of its commerce to Durham and some to Wake, Chatham and Alamance.

Two Targets, two OldNavys and two Barnes & Nobles lie within a short drive from Chapel Hill - each off U.S. 15/501 and at Southpoint in Durham. Dillard's is Chapel Hill's lone department store, while Kohl's, Macy's, Nordstrom, Sears, JCPenney and others cluster within a short drive. Orange County does have its own Walmart in Hillsborough, but Durham's are more convenient for much of Chapel Hill.

Residents often ask tongue-in-cheek where you buy a pair of socks in Orange County, which has the second-highest per-capita income but the 24th lowest sales tax revenues out of 100 counties in North Carolina.

It might be unfair to compare Orange and Durham's tax bases because their differences run back decades, to Chapel Hill's founding as a university town and Durham's as a tobacco town, said Kathy Neal, a spokeswoman for the N.C. Department of Commerce. Technology and medicine grew up in place of the leaf, but Durham remains a seat of industry. Each county's strengths benefit the other and the entire region.
"It's not an either-or sort of scenario," Neal said.

But playing host to UNC means Orange County's largest employer is tax-exempt. Low sales tax revenues force the county and its town governments to rely on property taxes to fund services, and with few high-priced commercial properties to tax, the burden falls to homeowners.

As a  result, 87 percent of Orange County property tax revenue comes from homes, pushing up an already high cost-of-living driven by high quality-of-life, anti-sprawl development rules and high-performing, well-funded public schools. Wake County, by comparison, collects 72 percent of its property taxes from residential property owners.

Chapel Hill has the highest per-capita property tax burden of any city in the state, while Orange ranks third among counties, according to analyses by the conservative John Locke Foundation.

Chapel Hill economic development director Dwight Bassett points out that the average residence pays about 77 cents in taxes for every $1 it demands in services, whereas businesses pay more than four times the cost of services they demand, making a balanced tax base even more important.

That has local officials trying to figure out how to keep businesses like Rho and Quintiles inside the county.

"Economic development is the one area where we can apply resources to help us get out of the situation we're in," said Orange County Commissioner Steve Yuhasz.

Every candidate for Orange County commissioner made economic development a key issue in this spring's Democratic primary, and commissioners declined to cut the county's economic development budget this month amid cuts to most other services.

This fall, they plan to pursue a new 1/4-cent sales tax by referendum, tentatively targeting the revenue for economic development, among other things. They also plan to talk about building new infrastructure such as roads, public water, sewer and flex-space to attract and incubate businesses that might otherwise locate outside Orange County.

Didn't want to move

That's good news for entrepreneurs like Helms, because lack of adequate facilities pushed Rho out of town. Helms said Rho is just the sort of business that politicians now say they want: high-paying and low-polluting with strong ties to UNC-Chapel Hill.
"I am ecstatic that the attitude has changed toward commercial ventures," he said.

Rho began in 1984 in Helms' basement just north of the Chatham County line. When Rho reached two dozen employees, it moved into the Chapel Hill Professional Village on Estes Drive, then into another office complex, both in Chapel Hill.

More than 325 employees now occupy a 94,400-square-foot building on Quadrangle Drive just across the Durham County line, where Rho moved in 2003.

"We found good space at a good price," Helms said.

The company paid $16,000 in Durham County taxes for its business equipment last year, and its landlord paid more than $200,000 in property taxes for its building.

"We didn't really want to move to the [Research Triangle Park] because of our love affair with Chapel Hill and the university," Helms said. "We just couldn't find anything in Orange County that was big enough for where we thought we'd grow into."

Space available

That's the same reason most businesses say they left, but it's a perception that outlives reality. Now the supply of office space so far outpaces demand that Bassett said it could take five years to fill the space already planned for construction.

"We have space available," Bassett said. "It's the first time that we've ever had this much available office space in our history."

On the other hand, Bassett said, Chapel Hill has enough demand to justify as much as 2 million additional square feet of retail space. Even a quarter or half of that would keep sales tax dollars from flowing to Southpoint and New Hope Commons in Durham, Bassett said.

Also, some companies need flex-space for lab work and light manufacturing, rather than office space. But getting that built, and filling office space that's already available, will require changing perceptions.

"Chapel Hill has an image of being business-unfriendly," Bassett said. "We accept that's our baseline. We have to begin telling success stories of how we're working to change that."

But the image persists. Bassett's economic development department at Town Hall, created in 2007, recently interviewed 16 small-business owners and found they had "few, if any, positive things to say about the town government's role in private efforts to open and operate a business in Chapel Hill." They said town permits were hard to secure, while Durham provides more straightforward development review, cheaper rents, more parking, easier highway access and greater access to low-interest financing.

Before it moved to Durham's Quadrangle Park in 2003, Rho's leaders had considered leasing space in Meadowmont but decided it was too expensive and didn't provide enough parking because the Town Council had restricted the number of spaces. That's an example of how high development standards have discouraged commercial growth in Orange County.

'Not very practical'

Helms said he understood the town's efforts to force commuters into public transit, but with employees traveling from all over the Triangle, adequate parking is critical to Rho's success.

"That is apparently anathema to at least Chapel Hill's government," Helms said. "Being a conservationist, I am on their side in terms of wanting to get people to take the bus ... [but] we sometimes have ideals, and we're not very practical."

jesse.deconto@newsobserver.com or 919-932-8760