All through the summer of 1983, Jody Pope worked the streets of downtown Raleigh, peddling his wares and trying to stay one step ahead of the authorities. Jody was maybe 60 years old, with pale, yellowish hair pulled back in a ponytail, and a Betty Boop tattoo on his left biceps. He traveled light, selling […]
Melinda Ruley
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All tore up
So this ice storm comes racing hell-for-leather across Piedmont North Carolina, pretty much the very second I get into my car to go to Dale Earnhardt’s memorial service. Which is in south Charlotte, which is maybe three hours from my house. I figure the interstate’ll be OK, but it’s not. Northbound there’s an 18-wheeler jack-knifed […]
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Home Schooling
I don’t remember exactly when I took North Carolina state history, only that it must have been sometime in the mid-’70s, during those awful junior high years when social survival eclipsed everything else. I do remember some of the history, though–even a few final-exam-caliber specifics. Like how a North Carolina-born president named James Polk started […]
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Home Schooling
I don’t remember exactly when I took North Carolina state history, only that it must have been sometime in the mid-’70s, during those awful junior high years when social survival eclipsed everything else. I do remember some of the history, though–even a few final-exam-caliber specifics. Like how a North Carolina-born president named James Polk started […]
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Rest Stop
For many years, the old Howard Johnson restaurant on Hillandale Road was a sleepy, sunlit place where you could eat a caramel sundae and watch the traffic go by. The sundaes were small miracles, styled high with whipped cream and delivered by a waitress with tangerine hair and a ravaged complexion. The traffic was even […]
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The Cost of Living
North Carolinians as a rule dislike footing the bill when alleged murderers go to trial. It’s bad enough when the defendant is dirt-poor–some backwoods, raised-rough kid without two dimes to rub together. It’s worse when the defendant is apparently well-off–and much worse when he’s well-off in the way of professional athletes, those high-rolling, fast-living demi-thugs […]
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Just plucked
I read in Newsweek the other day that there are 5,700 spas in this country. Five thousand, seven hundred dens of dermatological decadence. I’ve never set foot in one, in part because I tend not to have the pocket change for a scrub, in part because these places scare me. I’ve peeked into spas at […]
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Angels we have heard
And so we have come, through Balmex and strained peas, through training pants and Teletubbies and bouncy seats, to this, my son’s fourth Christmas. Everything is different. Up to now, Christmas was something that happened to Henry. Toddling about in his flannel jumper, he was like a tiny figure in a snow globe; each December, […]
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When hell freezes over
Early this month, in a Greensboro city council meeting, Mayor Keith Holliday violated the highest and holiest edict of elected-official behavior. He thought out loud. Council members were discussing whether to call for a moratorium on the death penalty in North Carolina. Although the debate included plenty of pro-death penalty sentiment, comments tended to focus […]
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Win one for the Almighty
This summer, after hearing a case called Santa Fe Independent School District vs. Doe, the U.S. Supreme Court decided 6-3 that public prayers before high-school football games were unconstitutional. The decision has sparked protests and celebrations in school districts across the country. Self-professed Christian organizations gather at their local stadiums to recite the Lord’s Prayer […]
