by Charly Mann

Corrine Howell, UNC Coed

One of the lessons I learned as a freshman at the University of North Carolina in 1968 was that Aristotle believed that there was a set of universal standards for physical beauty. The most important he said were balanced bodily proportions including symmetry. According to scientists symmetry is a very accurate predictor of one’s genetic ability to stay healthy. Our brain by nature responds positively to a beautiful face. I have always believed that Chapel Hill has the highest proportion of highly symmetrical women of any place on earth.

Nina Ford, UNC Homecoming Queen 1980

Over the decades I have amassed a vast collection of Chapel Hill and University of North Carolina photos going back more than 150 years. Contained in my library are several thousand photos of beautiful women. The following is a random selection of these photos from the mid 1960s to the early 1980s that represent a sampling of perfect Carolina symmetry. I have also created a musical medley that pays tribute to all the women of Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina.

Madonna Bentz 1971 (at 16), cover of The Trangle Pointer weekly, photo by Roland Giduz, Madonna managed A Southern Season in the 1980s

Janet Fullenwilder, UNC Coed 1970

Tweet

by Charly Mann

People often reminisce about how things used to be when they were young. Unfortunately, most of us see the past through rose colored glasses, and the way we remember things are not really how they were. Throughout most of its history the favorite extracurricular activity among University of North Carolina students has been pairing up with members of the opposite sex. In the 1950's this ritual was called dating, and, though challenging, it worked exceptionally well for finding romantic relationships for most students.

 
UNC fraternity party late 1950's. There were usually plenty of alcoholic drinks, live music, and lots of beautiful sorority sisters at these frequent events.

In 1956, I was seven, and not particularly interested in finding a girlfriend, but I was curious about why so many students I saw seemed to enjoy holding hands or sitting very close to members of the opposite sex. My father was a math professor and often had graduate students he advised or gifted undergraduate math majors over for dinner. My passion has always been asking questions and starting that year I often asked these students about this behavior. By 1959, I had become an expert on the dating rituals at UNC.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students dating in late spring of 1957

In 1956 the enrollment at UNC was at an all-time high of 6,500 students. Of that number, only 1,000 were women, and they were only juniors and seniors. At the time, UNC did not admit freshmen and sophomore women. The 5.5-to-1 ratio of men to women made finding a female difficult for UNC male students. For freshmen and sophomore men it was almost impossible because the coeds would only go out with upper classmen. That would seem to leave only local town girls for the 4,000 unlucky male students, but in those days these girls were not particularly desirable by UNC students. Instead the "happy hunting ground" for UNC men was the three women's colleges in Raleigh, Peace, Meredith, and St Mary's, and Women's College in Greensboro (which is now known as UNC Greensboro). During the first few weeks of each school year dormitories at these women's schools often invited an entire dorm of UNC men over for a social mixer.

In the 1950's it was often said "all roads in Chapel Hill lead to Greensboro... or Meredith (College in Raleigh)"

Since NC State men often competed with their UNC rivals for the attention of the girls at the three Raleigh women's colleges, Greensboro became the favorite destination for UNC students who were often heard to say "all roads in Chapel Hill lead to Greensboro." In those days, that meant an almost two hour drive on the poorly maintained two-lane Highway 54 which went through Mebane, and then on to Burlington, before reaching Greensboro. Interstate 40 and 85 had yet to be built. This was also a time when few students had a car. Just having a jalopy (meaning a beat-up old car) would make you very popular on campus in the 50's. Freshmen especially had it hard starting in 1956 because UNC mandated they could not have cars. If one could not bum a ride with a friend to WC, as Women's College in Greensboro was usually called, students often took to the sides of the road to hitch hike over there (hitch-hiking remained a popular means for students to get around the state until the late 1960's).

Near midnight at a female dorm at WC (now called UNC Greensboro), a visiting UNC student has fallen asleep next to his dreaming date of the evening

More often than not Carolina men headed to Greensboro without even securing a date. A primary reason for this was that it was all but impossible to just pick a phone and call the girl you knew at WC or one of Raleigh colleges. It was not until 1956 that dorms at UNC even got telephones, and then it was one for an entire floor. The women's dorms at the girls' campuses often only had a single phone at what was known as the reception room where visitors would come to meet and spent time with their "dates." The trick for finding a girl if you had not arranged a date was simply to get to the women's dorm and go into the reception area looking lonely and forlorn and ask the first girl you met if there was an unattached young girl who might like some company. Usually an available could be found who would like the company of a Tarheel lad. On the weekends men could stay in the reception areas of these women's dorms until midnight. This meant a late ride home for young men who were physically exhausted but high on hormones on a very dark road. There were often serious and fatal accidents involving these young men when returning to town.

UNC Phi Kappa Sigma men with their girlfiends late 1950's

For those wanting to find female companionship without leaving Chapel Hill the best solution was usually to join a fraternity. UNC fraternities often held parties with UNC sororities, and there always seemed to be an even distribution of the sexes at these get-togethers. These parties were usually loosely chaperoned and had plenty of alcohol and live music which made for more intimacy. If you were not in a fraternity, the best place on campus to get a date was Wilson Library. The reserve books reading room was often called the "date bureau". There, male students would sit down to study at one of the long tables near a coed they were interested in. After an hour of "focusing" on course work they would look up and introduce themselves, and then suggest they go over to the nearby Pine Room snack bar below Lenoir Hall for a bite to eat

Two UNC students in Reserve Reading Room at Wilson library making a first date which would lead to a long and happy marriage

Classroom dating was more casual and usually meant asking a girl to have a coke and sandwich at Y-Court after classes. The 50's were still a time when far fewer women went to college than men, and for many men that meant importing their former high school sweetheart to Chapel Hill on the weekends. Most long term relationships in the 1950's at UNC started when people met in extracurricular groups that included both male and female members, including religious organizations, student publications (The Daily Tar Heel and The Yackety-Yak), student government, and musical groups such as choir and the Tarheel Marching Band. Common interests, then as now, produce couples who have the happiest and longest marriages.

Y-Court on the UNC campus late 1950s. During ten minute breaks between classes students would have a coke or coffee, pet one of the campus dogs, or have a short date with one of their classmates. 

Tweet

by Charly Mann

The University of North Carolina has fielded NCAA champions in Men's Basketball six times, Men's Lacrosse four times, and Women's Soccer 20 times, but has always had a reputation for a mediocre football program. Over the course of the football team's history of more than 120 years they have a winning percentage of only 56%, and most of these wins came over much smaller schools with weaker rosters. Nonetheless, football is a beloved sport in Chapel Hill because it is played in the most beautiful stadium and setting in the country, usually under gorgeous autumn skies. While the weather may be ideal, the coeds in attendance beautiful, and the smuggled in alcoholic beverages invigorating, the final score of most important games is usually disappointing.

Famous Amos Lawrence rushing for a UNC touchdown in the 1980 season

In 1980, something quite amazing happened in Chapel Hill. Not only did UNC field a great football team, but they were in Chapel Hill Memories unbiased estimation the college national champions that year. The team was incredible on both defense and offense, and could have held its own against any NFL team at the time. UNC crushed virtually all of its opponents holding most of them to less than 10 points, while its offensive juggernaut led by the two greatest running backs in Carolina history, "Famous" Amos Lawrence and Kelvin Bryant, was unstoppable. Not only did UNC go undefeated in the ACC, but the only league game that was even a challenge was beating Clemson 24-19 at Death Valley.

Lawrence Taylor, UNC's greatest defensive player, sacks another quaterback

Kelvin Bryant (44) and Amos Lawrence (20) celebrate that UNC is the #1 football team in 1980

As a small footnote, UNC did lose one game that season to highly regarded Oklahoma on their home field in Norman, Oklahoma under the helm of the greatest college football coach of all time, Barry Switzer (can you tell I now live in Oklahoma?), but that game is really irrelevant. You see on December 31, 1980 at the Bluebonnet Bowl in Houston, UNC defeated Texas 16 to 7. Now this is significant for those of us determining the national championship for that year. UNC beat Texas in the state of Texas on a field that was almost like a home game for the Longhorns. Two months earlier Texas had beat Oklahoma at their annual Red River Shootout at the neutral Cotton Bowl in Dallas 20 to 13. It does not take a math genius to see that UNC vindicated their one blemish to clearly establish that they were the best team in the country in 1980. For the record, three of the teams that various polls awarded the National Championship to that year, Florida State, Nebraska, and Oklahoma all had worse records than UNC at 10-2. UNC was 11-1.

The University of North Carolina beats Texas in the Bluebonnet Bowl on Dec 31, 1980 to avenge their only defeat of the regular season

Among the stars of this great team was Amos Lawrence (1977-1980) who had an incredible four seasons at UNC where he rushed for over 1,000 yards. As a freshman he rushed for 286 yards in one game against Virginia. In 1980, he carried the ball for 11 touchdowns. His fellow running back Kelvin Bryant had three consecutive 1,000 plus yard seasons at Carolina. They usually ran behind All-American guard and team co-captain, Ron Wooten. The defense was anchored by the greatest defensive player in the history of football, Lawrence Taylor. As a linebacker he was so intimidating that he instilled fear in our entire opponent's offense. In 1980 alone Taylor sacked the opposing quarterbacks 16 times. His jersey, #98, was later retired in his honor. Fellow linebacker Darrell Nicholson was almost as great as Taylor, and also was an All-American that year. Defensive tackle Donnel Thompson was so good at stopping running backs that his linebackers could concentrate on blitzing the quarterback or additional pass defense.
 

UNC's 1980 regular season football record. They also beat Texas in the Bluebonnet Bowl to finish 11-1. This was UNC's best season record ever.

Tweet

by Charly Mann

Even though the times are always changing, Sutton’s Drug Store is the one place in Chapel Hill that has retained the quintessential element of community, diversity, and comradery that makes our town so unique and wonderful. Little has changed about the business since James Sutton and his partner James Alderman founded the store in 1923. It has always been the only downtown drug store where one could sit down and enjoy a handmade soft drink, shake, or burger. Sutton’s has always been locally owned and operated by a pharmist who focused on providing personalized service. It is not unusual today for the current owner, John Woodward, to drop off perscriptions to his customers after he closes the store.

Sutton's was known as Sutton and Alderman Drug Store for the first ten years of its existence. This ad is from 1926, right after they installed a full-sized soda fountain.

The original owner J. L. Sutton (1891 to1950) was a workaholic like another legendary town duggist, John Carswell, owner of Colonial Drug Store. The store was always open seven days a week, and he was usually there by 6:30 in the morning and did not leave until the store had closed, which was often after 7 PM. Sutton was a stern man who was not particularly warm to his customers, but his wife, Lucy, who there as much as he was always seemed to wear a smile, and was beloved by all of their customers. The couple never had any children. John worked his employess as hard as himself, and in 1936 was found guilty of requiring his female employees to work ten hours a day seven days a week. At that time the North Carolina labor law stated that no female could work more than 55 hours a week, and no one could work more 10 hours in a day without a thirty minute break after 6 hours. John never gave anyone the required break , and he also did not post North Carolina's employee labor rights, which was required by law.

Sutton's became the town's hangout in the 1940's during the Swing and Big Band Era when it actually resembled a classic American Malt Shop more than a drugstore. Even though their booths had yet to be installed, there were 24 to 28 orange swivel stools and a brighly lit juke box that continually played the current hit songs. In those days their malted shakes were especially popular. Early in the 1950's Sutton's added eight green booths and almost immediately attracted a loyal breakfast and lunch crowd. From the grill behind the counter they have had a number of fabulous short order cooks making the best scambled eggs in the South on a cast-iron skillet. The breakfast crowd is largely made up of older town residents, while the lunch crowd is primarily younger, and made up of UNC students who enjoy their freshly made burgers, fries and shakes. Many of the University of North Carolina's best known sports stars have been lunch regulars including James Worthy, Phil Ford, Bob McAdoo, Michael Jordan, Mia Hamm, George Karl, Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Phil Ford, Larry Brown, Billy Cunningham, Sam Perkins, Jerry Stackhouse, Rasheed Wallace, Lawrence Taylor, and Natrone Means. Sutton's has always provided full service to it's black patrons.

There is no food so wonderful as a well made malted milk-shake. Sutton's made the best in Chapel Hill from the late 1940's through the1950's. This ad is from 1948.

My favorite treat at Sutton's when I was young was their chocolate Coke which was made by combining Coca-Cola syrup, carbonated water, and a squirt of chocolate syrup. Flavored sodas were especially popular at Sutton's from the 1930's through the early 1960's. The people who made these drinks were called soda jerks at other drugstores, but never at Suttons. Cherry Coke was their most popular flavor in the late fifties, followed by vanilla. They cost 10 cents for a medium sized glass, which was not cheap. A similar sized root beer at other places in town was only a nickel.

Throughout its long history, the pharmacist-owner of Suttons has known most of his patrons and their ailments, and was always there to answer their questions and give advice. Today, curent owner and pharmist John Woodward, a Carolina grad, fills perscriptions and chats with customers and employees throughout the day like his predecessors.

Before the Sutton building was built in Chapel Hill in 1923, these two stores stood on the same site. Foister's Camera Store was on the right.

It seems like only yesterday when I would be walking down Franklin Street with a couple of friends after school and one would say, "Are we stopping at Suttons?" Inside, we would usually find more of our junior high school friends drinking fresh squeezed lemonades and orangeades crowded into a booth while waiting for their egg salad and grilled cheese sandwiches to arrive. I would usually stop by the magazine and book stand at the front to pick up a comic book or Mad Magazine to read while I waited to order a drink. The store was always busy with customers buying cigarettes, sunglasses, perfumes, pipe tobacco, thermometers, suntan lotions, newsapapers, and candy bars. There was also a pay phone booth that was always being used.

Sutton's was not always promoting good health. In 1956, they sold White Roll Cigarettes at 14 cents a pack and $1.29 a carton. Major brand cigarettes were then 20 to 25 cents a pack.

In the 1950's and 60's there were four other downtown pharmicies. All but one, Eubanks, had a soda fountain and sold ice cream cones. Village and Colonial drugstores were on West Franklin Street, and Sloan's and Eubank's were downtown. Eubank's, which later became Court's drugstore downtown had a large scale in the front of the store where you could weigh yourself.

Tweet

by Charly Mann

There are many well known individuals who spent part of their lives living in Chapel Hill, but very few notable people who were actually born there. Perhaps the most talented of these people is Loudon Wainwright III, who was born on September 5, 1946 in Chapel Hill, exactly nine months after his father returned from serving in World War II. Wainwright left Chapel Hill soon after he was born and grew up in a wealthy and privileged family in Beverly Hills and Westchester County, NY.

Loudon Wainwright III, born in Chapel Hill, NC 9/5/1946

Wainwright's name is not exactly a household word. He is best known for the 1973 novelty song Dead Skunk, yet he is a highly respected serious songwriter and actor. He is also the father of three of today's most highly regarded singer-songwriters, Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, and Lucy Roche. In forty years since his signing to Atlantic Records in 1969, Wainwright has released more than thirty albums, each one usually better than the last. He is also recognized for his movie and TV roles including his appearances on the M*A*S*H television series as the singing surgeon Captain Calvin Spaulding, as well as a big band singer in the Martin Scorsese film The Aviator.

Loudon Wainwright III with his son superstar Rufus Wainwright  

Wainwright's Chapel Hill and North Carolina roots have regularly surfaced throughout his remarkable career. In the 1980s he starred in the Broadway version of Pump Boys and Dinettes, the county rock musical which was written in Chapel Hill by Jim Wann, John Foley, Mark Hardwick, Debra Monk, Cass Morgan, and John Schimmel. He also delighted the many Americans who disliked North Carolina's conservative senator Jesse Helms with the irreverent song Jesse Don't Like It. (You can hear this song in the selections at the top of this article.) On August 18th of this year (2009) Wainwright released the greatest work of his career, a double album tribute to the legendary North Carolina country singer and banjo player Charlie Poole (1892-1931) called High, Wide, & Handsome. The album is simply exceptional and with the help of family members Martha Wainwright, Rufus Wainwright, Sloan Wainwright, Lucy Wainwright Roche, and the Roches, he performs an array of great songs with arrangements that range from Gospel, Dixieland, old time country, to traditional parlor songs.

 
Loudon Wainwright's current album High Wide and Lonesome is a tribute to North Carolina country singer and banjo player Charlie Poole

Tweet

by Charly Mann

The University of North Carolina began holding classes in the summer in the late 1870s as crash programs to train teachers. The session was not called summer school, but was labeled as Summer Normals.

When Reconstruction ended, North Carolina's public schools were barely functioning. The state had stopped funding education because the federal government had required that both whites and blacks had to receive the same educational benefits. As a result, by 1877 illiteracy in North Carolina was widespread and the ignorance of the white lower class was considered a potential threat to social order. The legislature decided in 1878 that the University of North Carolina would be the training ground for a massive crash summer program to train teachers for the public schools. At the time most North Carolina school teachers were teenagers who had little or no formal education and only rudimentary knowledge of the subjects they were teaching.

The entire University of North Carolina faculty and President Battle (center) at the time the summer "normal sessions" started in 1878

The idea of having these normal school sessions to train teachers was highly controversial at this time. Prior to the Civil War teachers in North Carolina had been male, white, and from upper and middle class backgrounds. They were also primarily young men who would only teach for a few years while they looked for a higher paid profession or became a school administrator. The shortage of qualified teachers was so severe by 1877 that lower class men and even women were admitted into the UNC normal sessions. The admission of women into teaching was as controversial at that time as offering education to North Carolina's black population. Middle and upper class whites were then part of an aristocracy, and felt threatened that both the expansion of women into teaching and providing schools for the lower classes would dilute their privileges.

UNC Chapel Hill women students during the summer of 1917 enrolled in a teaching program

Becoming a teacher in the late 19th and early 20th century was about the only work a woman could get in North Carolina outside the home. The University's teaching program was also the only means a woman had for attending UNC.

Not until the late 1890's did UNC offer summer school sessions like we know today, where courses were offered in a wide variety of fields.

Tweet