AB1 Tour 2014 - Week 12 - Chapel Hill, Durham, Cape Hatteras, NC

You know, when we started on this trip, I figured that whenever we’d arrive in a different part of the country,things would be markedly different. I’m not sure how … just “different.” Like if we were going to “Oz,” there’d be one town where you’d have people who were all three feet tall and wearing flower pots for hats and all the houses would be multi-hued. Then we’d be off to another town where everything would be green, glassy, and gigantic. “Imposserous!” you might exclaim, but emotionally, not intellectually, that’s how I felt things would be, should be, could be.
     However, we as a society have progressed to such an extent, modernized so much, that no matter where we go, except for the historical areas, there’s almost total similarity from one town to the next. The sameness, the franchising of businesses that begets the franchising of entire towns, that‘s what I’m talking about. So much of this country looks similar from one area to the next, unless you really hunt out the historical or unique features of each area. So that’s what we pledge to do, if not for us, then for you, poor, dear reader, who is living a part of your life through us as we jet (RV) from one state to the next. We’ll continue to do our best to keep you entertained.
     … What was THAT all about?
     OK, onwards to Durham and Chapel, Hill, NC.
     

On Sunday, June 15, we made it to a very rural RV park just outside of Chapel Hill, rural enough that deer felt no fear walking right up to AB1. We did our mandatory set up, and then “Mellow Mushroom” ‘ed it that night. 
Diedre was ready for a break the next day, so I was turned loose on that NCAA-multi-basketball-champion campus, Duke University, which I had watched for oh-so many years as their nutty students, nicknamed “The Cameron Crazies,” showed blind obedience and loyalty to their always-strong basketball team, the Duke Blue Devils.
     You’re probably aware (or maybe you’re not … that’s pretty presumptuous of me to say) that my favorite animal is, of course, the tiger, being born in the year of the tiger and having had a cat(s) as a pet since the age of four. But what you more likely didn't know is that my second favorite animal is that native of the island of Madagascar, the “lemur.” I just love watching these variously-colored, bright cat-monkeys do their thing . And Duke University, of all places, has a “Lemur Center” to study and help in keeping these clever animals safe from extinction.
     Apparently, however, I’m not the only one who so loves these furry denizens of the trees. When I got there, I sadly found out that the slots for tours of the lemur facility were booked up a month ahead, meaning I couldn’t see the facility till July 16 when we’d be in New York City, and that would be one hell of a day trip. So grudgingly, I moved on with my Duke University self-guided tour.
   

 Unlike last year’s trip to Notre Dame University or this year's earlier stop at the University of Texas, the athletic facilities at Duke were not all locked up tight. At the Wallace Wade Football Stadium, it was wide open. I walked in unencumbered. There were kids playing soccer on the field as students and faculty ran the track. It was a beautiful summer day and the college was letting all enjoy it.
     Similarly when I got to the venerable “Cameron Indoor Arena,” I was able to walk right in and watch a bunch of youth basketball games being played. Cameron is a great old edifice, being built in 1939. Attached was the “Duke Basketball Museum & Sports Hall of Fame.” It was just a wonderful tribute to the great names of the past. I was glad to note that one of their Hall of Famers was swimmer Jon Connor, so I was glad he was able to regroup and get past that whole “Terminator” problem he was dealing with.

     So just like at Duke, the same openness to facility could be said about the Durham Bulls brand new minor league baseball stadium downtown when I walked by for a look-see. I especially loved the giant sign they had standing above the left field fence in fair territory. It was a bull standing on green pasture land. The sign below it read to the players: Hit The Bull, Win a Steak; Hit the Grass, Win a Salad!”

     All this freedom of facilities was so nice to behold. It was only when I tried to check out the old Durham Bulls minor league baseball stadium (1926-1994) where the Kevin Costner movie, “Bull Durham” had been filmed, that Durham’s graciousness to tourists ground to a screeching halt. The OLD stadium was LOCKED!
     Really?!
     I stopped for some nourishment (a pizza slice and a Diet-Coke”) at Durham’s “Mellow Mushroom” where they had the World Cup soccer game on. As long as I’m already cranky about the old Bulls’ Stadium, I’ll continue on in the same vein. I must be getting old, because everywhere I go, they’ve got soccer on and not baseball.
     Again … really?!
     Maybe it’s all the immigrants here now who love “futbol” so much. In my day (there’s a phrase I thought I’d never use), soccer would have never gotten a second look by the neighborhood kids. Back then, it was baseball, basketball, and football during the day, and a stirring game of “Off to See the Ghost Tonight” in the evening. I mean, we were serious athletes, but we were still kids.
     I’m on a roll now. Another “dagnabit” moment (a phrase Diedre and I use when we sense the other one is acting a bit too crotchety for our age) occurred later at the Duke book store. I was there trying to just buy a simple blue T-shirt with the word “Duke” on it over the breast-pocket area. But try as I might, I couldn’t find anything there without a Nike logo. I mean, the “swoosh” is ab-so-frickin-lutely everywhere! I hear they’re even changing the NCAA name so that it’ll soon be the “NIKE Collegiate Athletic Association.” Oh, and the Duke T-shirts were $30 … not gonna happen! I didn’t get a Duke T-shirt.
     On Tuesday, I crossed the tracks and made my way over to Chapel Hill to the campus of the arch nemesis of Duke, the North Carolina University Tarheels. Diedre decided to join me that day, sort of. We did parallel hikes and agreed to meet up later. She saw the campus’s “Playmakers Theatre,” then stopped by The Old East. Built in 1793, it’s the oldest state university building, not just in North Carolina, but in the whole darn country. How about that?

    

 I spent more of my time obsessed with college basketball. I made it to The Dean Smith Center, the University’s esteemed basketball arena which was similarly open and available to the public. Not to be outdone by Duke, they, too, had a basketball museum, this one highlighted by the accomplishments and glory of one Mr. Michael Jordan.
     Back in Arizona, one of my softball buddies, Mike Graf, has been a longtime Tarheel basketball fan, even though he’s never been to the campus. Mike played high school basketball in Illinois in the mid 1960’s, so I sent him a postcard of the “Dean Dome,” dated it February, 1966, and wrote on the backside as if it was a recruiting card. I signed it from Dean Smith who was the coach back then. I figured that should make Mike’s day finally getting recruited by North Carolina.

     My Carleton College friend Bob Strauss (“Oh great, not another college friend story” you’re probably saying) who we would be seeing in the next two weeks in both Atlantic City, NJ, and Philadelphia, PA, put us onto a restaurant run by friends of his. It was called, simply enough, “Kitchen.” It was a great place, and the owners, Dick and Sue Barrows, were so nice. Diedre had the mussels in a Thai red-curry sauce, a very unusual and tasty recipe. Being the ever-daring culinary explorer I am, I went with the hamburger. It was good, too.
     On Wednesday, June 18, we did a rarity for us and pulled up stakes midweek. This all had to do with us making it to a Washington Nationals baseball game on Sunday, June 22, the only home game they would be playing during the week we would be in Washington D.C. That only gave us three days at Durham/Chapel Hill and three in the Outer Banks, a destination I had looked forward to for 11 years.
     Back in 2003, the Phoenix newspaper had done a series of articles celebrating the Wright Brothers and the centennial of the first heavier than air, powered flight. In reading about how they traveled from their home in Dayton, Ohio, to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, for several years to test their theories, I became enthused with their story. I had to see these “Outer Banks.” And now, I was there.

That spec of a person in the field is DK.

   We started off slowly the next day with a trip to the Cape Hatteras Light House, the tallest brick lighthouse in North America. It was constructed in 1870.
     This lighthouse, and others like it, were crucial to this area as you’ll see by our next destination that day: “The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum.” This place was great! They had stories and remnants of over 600 shipwrecks in the area caused by anything from shoals to storms to wars. You don’t think of World War II taking place in the waters off North Carolina, but the seashore along The Outer Banks came to be known as “Torpedo Junction” because of how many Allied tankers and cargo ships were sunk by German U-boats. They even had parts of the Civil War ironclad, the U.S.S. Monitor, there. It had taken part in the first ever battle of two iron-clads ships when it fought with the Confederate “Virginia” early in the war. Naval warfare was never the same after that.

   We finished the day with a nice but windy walk along the ocean.  From there, we made a protein stop at a storefront that had caught our attention earlier: the aptly named “Try My Nuts” store. One item that particularly caught me and my warped sense of humor was an apron that read: “Many Have Eaten Here … Few Have Died.”

    It’s amazing what the housing boom has done to Cape Hatteras. Everywhere you looked were giant, colorfully painted, tall houses on stilts. There were absolutely tons of places to rent.  We enjoyed just driving and admiring the architecture of the area.

     There was some incredibly sad news awaiting us that night when we returned to AB1. An e-mail from my cousin Sydney informed us that her sister, my cousin Alex Smith whom you had met last year in our Dallas, TX, blog, had passed away after a short illness. This was an incredible shock. Alex was only 64. We had such a great time with her last September and even took in a Rangers baseball game with her. I especially love the photo of Alex, her nephew Alexander, and me. I called it: “Alex-Cubed.” Rest in peace, dear cousin.    

 Friday was our big “Wright Brothers Day” and boy, was I ready for something uplifting … plane-speak wise, I mean. At the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, we climbed all the way to the top of Big Kill Devil Hill to pay our respects to the Brothers’ Memorial. This was where they first utilized unmanned gliders which helped answer any of a number of critical questions about how flight works. The monument, built in 1932, reads as follows:
     “In commemoration of the conquest of the air by the brothers, Wilbur and Orville Wright,
     conceived by genius, achieved by dauntless resolution and unconquerable faith.”
     The Wright Brothers chose Kitty Hawk because they needed three things to achieve flight: wind, sand, and solitude. With Kitty Hawk, they got all three and then some.
     It seems obvious now, but one of their first tasks was to design and build the first effective airplane propeller. It proved to be one of their most original and scientific achievements. The power they would need for flight would come from a 4-cylinder, gasoline powered, 12 horsepower engine.
     On the morning of December 14, 1903, the brothers brought out onto the flat area beneath Big Kill Devil Hill their 40’, 605-pound “Flyer.” Wilbur had won the coin toss to determine which of them would get the opportunity to be the first man to fly, but he then lost that chance when he over steered on take-off causing the Flyer to climb too steeply, stall, and then dive back into the sand. The first flight would have to wait three days while the Flyer was being repaired.
     December 17, 1903, the landmark day, really started at 10:35 a.m.  Orville had the first success! With the wind at 27 mph, the brothers proceeded to have four successful, heavier than air, sustained powered flights. Next to a reconstructed hangar and a workshop simulating their 1903 structures stands the “First Flight” boulder which marks the exact point where man left the ground to soar in the air. I had to stand next to that one. 

Subsequent stone monuments mark the landing points and distances of each of the four flights: 120’, 175’, 200’ (the first three each took about 12 seconds), and finally, 852’. During this last flight lasting 59 seconds, pilot Wilbur was considering going all the way to Jersey City, but he hadn’t packed a lunch, so …
     Actually, the Flyer crashed after that epic fourth flight and would never fly again. It was damaged too badly.
     Nearby an artist had created a huge sculpture of the entire “First Flight” scenario complete with a sculpture of the actual photographer who was there and who took the epochal “First Flight” photograph. We lucked out and were able to get Diedre on top of the sculptured plane’s position that Wilbur had taken on nearly 111 years ago. I got the photo of Diedre and just to add to the authenticity of our photograph, I somehow was able to take the picture in black and white to simulate 1903 photography. At least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

 The adjoining museum had an exact-size replica of the “Flyer.” Only a week later I would be able to see the original at the Smithsonian’s “Air and Space Museum” in Washington D.C.
   
Our excited duo finally took a breath and grabbed lunch in the little town of Duck, NC. You may be aware that my e-mail address starts with “alexduck” and that the softball team and tournament I started in Minnesota back in the late ‘70's and is still in operation is named “Duck Soup” after my favorite Marx Brothers movie. I am all things “ducky,” so being in the town of Duck meant a lot to me.
     

While we were waiting for our lunch orders to be delivered, Diedre found on-line a recipe for “chocolate-zucchini bread.” She asked me what I thought. I ruminated pensively for a moment, then gave her my answer:
     “It sounds like the battle between good and evil.”
     And that’s the truth … THPTHH!!
     Next stop: Washington D.C.

AB1 Tour 2014 - Week 11 - Charlotte, SC and Tryon, NC

We watched the Hobo's fire.

Neil Patrick Harris as Hedwig at the Tony's

On Sunday, June 8, we raced on, this time from Atlanta to the RV park in Forest City, a distant suburb of Charlotte, NC, in order to set up camp on time and then tune in for Broadway’s version of the Academy Awards, “The Tony Awards.” The diminutive campground did not have a Tony Awards party as we had hoped; all we could find were four guys and a gal sitting around a garbage-can campfire seeing who could grow the longest cigarette ash. Hope your party was better than ours.
     

This week’s part of our seven-month odyssey was supposed to be mostly about Charlotte with a day-trip to Tryon, NC, a noted resort area a half-hour away, to visit with Rosemary Pleune, a first-cousin of Diedre’s mother Barty. We figured Rosemary would have a lot of her own stuff going on, so we only planned on a day. But as it turned out, this plucky, sharp-as-a-tack 93-year old was up for doing whatever we wanted to do and for as many days as we wanted. She was a riot. We ended up spending a great deal of our week in Tryon and loving it.
     The next day, we had a lovely lunch with Rosemary and Bob, her close friend and neighbor, at their retirement community. 
We then went off on our own to walk the town. This one was a bit smaller than most of the town-walking-tours we’re accustomed to, but we still enjoyed the sites. We strolled over to the oversized symbol of the town, the famous children’s toy, “The Tryon Horse.” Then, a short distance away was a small park dedicated to “The High Priestess of Soul,” Nina Simone. There is a wonderful, life-sized bronze sculpture of Nina sitting at a piano. 
     From there, we stopped by the town’s old movie house to take in a World War II flick we had figured was long gone out of theaters. “The Railroad Man” was just excellent, and the theatre even served beer, only you had to walk outside and use the separate entrance to the balcony (originally built during segregation when blacks could only sit upstairs) to get your beer from the projectionist in the projection room. A different approach to concessions, but what the heck, this place had it all.
     Tuesday was our day to go to Charlotte , a.k.a. “The Queen City,” which is the second largest financial center in the country. Who knew? We planned to walk around a bit and then catch a ball game. We did just that, only the order got switched.
     On the previous day, the interweb had informed us that the Charlotte Knights, a AAA affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, would be playing Tuesday NIGHT. But when I picked up a newspaper the next morning, the sports section had in print that today’s game would be a DAY game starting at noon. That put a bee in our bonnet. With Charlotte a good hour away, we raced through breakfast and then took off for the ballpark. Fortunately, we got there with time to spare.
     The Knights play in a marvelous, two-month old stadium in the heart of the city. Since this would NOT be a night game, we changed our usual ticketing choice. Instead of front row seats, we opted to buy something up a bit higher in the grandstand in order to be in the shade when the sun hit 90 that day. We got the fourth row from the top, but it was the last row of shade on that very sunny afternoon.
     As the game progressed, we slowly got closer to the field, not because we had somehow magically upgraded our seats, but more because of the dreaded “two-footed-seat-kickers.” First, two bored kids tried to combat their ennui by kicking the backs of our seats to the tune of “The William Tell Overture.”
     So, we moved down a row. The shade moved with us the next inning.
     Sure enough, as soon as we left those seats, a Little League coach with seven 10-year old boys moved into the vacant seats right behind us. They were in OUR seats! The kicking started again, this time in a more “new wave” beat than classical. Getting fed up, I mustered up the nerve to ask the coach to tell them to cut it out. He acquiesced, but as you might guess, that lasted two minutes, tops.
     So … we moved down yet another row. And of course, the instant we moved, the coach and his Little Leaguers up and left.
     Huh?!  

Our mobile ticket-seating stopped there, thankfully. We turned our attention back to the field where the Knights were being absolutely trounced by the Columbus Clippers. Note well: Clipper first-baseman Jesus Aguilar is a player to watch in the future. He clouted two monstrous three-run homers and reached base two other times to lead the Clips. Columbus as a whole was on fire. Eight of their nine starters each had at least two hits. The hapless Knights made it exciting for a moment during the second inning when they hit back-to-back home runs; unfortunately, the Baby White Sox only garnered one other base-hit the entire game while striking out eight times.
     Final score: Columbus-14, Charlotte-2.
     Being a bit worn out by the seat moving and the day’s intense heat, we abbreviated our walking tour of Charlotte, wanting to avoid the awful rush-hour traffic we would run into if we did the entire prescribed route. We did walk over to the city’s historic fourth ward to talk a gander at the “75 Grand Old Ladies.”

No, it wasn’t some kind of twisted AARP beauty contest. It was a series of colorfully painted, Victorian era mansions in the old “classy” part of town. One of the “ladies” actually had a bar as its lower level, so no dummies us, we stopped in for a frosty beverage, thus mercifully ending that day’s mini-tour.
     June 11 was “Asheville Wednesday” (not “Ash” Wednesday). The nearby (to Tryon) city was voted the “Eighth Most Beautiful Place in America” by ABC-TV’s “Good Morning America” show. Famous for its fresh mountain air, mild climate, and abundant mineral waters and hot springs, Asheville had been the hastily arranged substitute for yesterday’s brief walking tour.
     We secured a brochure for the city’s 1.7 mile “Urban Trail and Public Art Walking Tour.” It was very different and a lot of fun. Each stop had significant street art somehow attached to the historical perspective, all the way from metal sculptures located on working park benches to stone carvings depicting memorable events of the city’s history. Here were the day’s highlights:
1) a stop at the venerable Asheville Community Theatre where movie screen legend Charlton Heston once directed;
2) a chance for me to fill the size-13 footprints (literally) of Asheville native and great American writer Thomas Wolfe. As you’ll probably recall, Wolfe was most famous for his 1929 autobiographical novel, “Look Homeward Angel” that we all (except me) read in tenth-grade English class. Tragically, Wolfe only lived to the age of 38. He’s buried in nearby Riverside Cemetery not far from acclaimed American short story writer O. Henry (see April 6-12, Austin, TX, blog regarding O. Henry);
3) I was so taken with Wolfe’s story that I had to sit down in front of Wolfe’s mother’s boarding house and immediately put my deep thoughts down on paper. My “deep” thoughts turned out to be that day’s grocery list. Whatever ;
4) a photo op of some bronzed piglets on the actual “Buncombe Turnpike” rails. This throughway was originally a path used by Native Americans and then, since 1827, settlers. The sculpture represents the thousands of drovers from Tennessee who took their pigs, turkeys, and cows to southern markets for many years;
5) a bronzed top hat and cane on a park bench that so typified the art on this tour. This particular location was where the Grand Opera House once made this area the center of culture;
6) a gigantic iron particularly grabbed Diedre’s attention. It’s a replica of the ones used by local laundries and references the nearby “Flat Iron Building” built in 1926;
7) cat sculptures on a retaining wall (catwalk) that once held up a 70’ tall hill;
     

Needing a sustenance break, Diedre found our new best fallback restaurant in the south, “The Mellow Mushroom.” Not only does this place always have great pizza, but their décor is bright, colorful, and anything out of the ‘70s. I was particularly taken with a Mobil gas sign with its characteristic “flying red horse,” reminding me of the very fine “Flying Red Horse” softball team out of Eden Prairie, MN, with whom I played for five happy years.
     We then made a quick stop at “The Wicked Weed Brewery” in order for Diedre to feed her newly found compulsion: the purchase of a “Growler” of locally brewed beer. For those of you who, like me, haven’t a clue, a “growler” is a half-gallon sized glass container that breweries allow you to buy refills at bars or taverns for home consumption. Apparently, it’s much better than a six-pack of Bud Light, or at least, so I’m told.
   

 We had heard about how very scenic the Blue Ridge Parkway was, so we took a slight detour to see for ourselves on our way back to Tryon. We even had a chance to stop at the very scenic “Looking Glass Falls” right before the rains started.

One of the main rules of the intricate Kaye-Stuart relationship, besides the one about not wearing underwear more than two days in a row, is that we don’t go to AFTERNOON ball games, and we don’t go to theatre MATINEES. Soooo, on Thursday Rosemary, Diedre, and I took in a theatre matinee … yes, if you’re keeping track, that’s two of our main rules broken in the last three days. But this was worth it. 
The Flat Rock Playhouse, now in its 62nd season and reminiscent of Minneapolis’s fabled “Old Log Theatre,” put on that old warhorse, “My Fair Lady.” I was sure it was going to be painful. Thankfully, it was not. The 13 thespians making up the main cast were all members of “Actors’ Equity Association,” meaning we were going to get a professional show that day. And we did. I’d seen “My Fair Lady” before, but this was definitely the best effort I’d seen. And a packed, daytime audience agreed with me as the thunderous applause went on and on during the curtain call.
     Friday, June 13, was both Diedre’s Aunt Jane’s birthday (you blog-met Aunt Jane last year during our time in Charlevoix, MI) and her cousin Rosemary’s birthday. The amazing Rosemary turned 94 that day, although if you met and talked with her, you’d swear she couldn’t be older than 70. Our plans for her birthday included a driving tour of Tryon and its countryside and then an impromptu birthday bash at a palatial family manor.
     

The Tryon area is also big horse country. After seeing the “mini-urban” sites of where Rosemary lived for the past 25 years, we made it into the countryside to check out some competitive dressage horse arenas.
     From there, we drove up the oh-so scenic White Oak Mountain and made a stop at “Shunkawaken Falls,” one of the highest waterfalls in the Southeast. Yes, I did say “Shunkawaken” … c’mon, bloggers and blogettes, say it with me:     “SHUNK … A… WAKEN! SHUNKAWAKEN!”
     There. Wasn’t that fun? Now go get yourself a treat. I’ll wait.
     Also on White Oak Mountain at 3,000 feet is “Sunset Rock.” It overlooks Tryon, but if you really check out the view, you can see parts of three states: South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia.

   

To really celebrate Rosemary’s big number 94, we went out into the woods and the hills to an extremely nice area full of big homes on large lots. And there we came to the house of her son, Scott, and his wife, Gay. It was a beauty, tucked away in the hills on a very private lake. And it had everything. And Rosemary knew where everything was as well as every little detail about the exquisitely built house. And she should.
   She was the architect who designed it. Yes, in another life, Rosemary was an ace architect in a time that very few women held that position.
     Now that’s a pretty tricky proposition having your mother/mother-in-law design the place you’ll be living in for the next thirty years. This scenario is fraught with all possible problems. But they pulled it off without a hitch (pretty much).
   

 Scott and Gay were out of town at the time but had graciously extended the use of their lovely home for our little birthday soiree. We had stopped at a fine deli earlier in the day and had picked up the sumptuous fixings for a picnic dinner, complete with lovely cinnamon rolls which Diedre made into a birthday cake. Scott and Gay left us a very nice bottle of red wine. We had also purchased at the deli a giant bucket of perfectly ripe strawberries, so they went on the cake as well as in the makings of a strawberry margarita for me. It started to rain just after we arrived, so our wonderful picnic moved indoors, but that didn't matter. It turned out to be a great birthday celebration.
     When we got back to Rosemary’s that night, we went in to tell Bob all about our day. Diedre said that she had left her purse in the car and would I get it for her. I had left the car unlocked, so I hustled down the walkway to get the purse. In the distance, I spotted a senior lady walking from the parking lot and into her apartment. And then, horrors upon horrors, I could not find DK’s purse! It was not in the car!
     I went into immediate “Columbo” mode. I was all set to go medieval on the old gal, picturing how I’d bust into her apartment knocking over sundry Lladro figurines and framed photos of family members. “I may have to wrestle this 90-year old woman,” I thought, “but she asked for it.”
     Luckily for her and, as it turned out, for me, I had the superior judgement to check back with Diedre before my vigilante spider-sense took over. And of course, it turned out that Diedre hadn’t left her purse in the car after all. Rather, it was on the floor … of Rosemary’s living room … right next to where Diedre was sitting.
     ARRGHH!
   

 We ended the celebration of Rosemary’s birthday with Diedre and my tuneful rendition of that Minnesota classic, “The Casey Jones Birthday Song.” Ask almost any Minnesotan of a certain age. They’ll explain it to you.
 (Happy happy birthday

to every girl and boy.
Hope this very special day
brings you lots of joy.

Hope this birthday presents
you get from Mom and Dad
will make this very special day
the best you ever had!)

     Now for Saturday. You may want to note that this day is heavy on baseball, so some of you non-baseball types (if there really is such an animal) may want to go out into the lobby until this whole thing blows over.
     To whit (To what?), the morning of Saturday, June 14, broke early over little Tryon. The family (Diedre’s) celebrated older brother Doug’s 70th birthday. I dropped Diedre off at Rosemary’s so that she and Rosemary could do a little RV cooking to fill up our pantry. Diedre Kaye did most of the cooking while Rosemary acted like a relief pitcher (I told you this was going to be a lot of baseball gook today). She would get called in late to “save” the cooking whenever Diedre wasn’t able to figure out how to use one of Rosemary’s appliances. The mixer, era 1955, was the prime culprit.
   

   I had learned about and was now on a sacred quest to see the hometown and museum of one of baseball’s greatest and most mysteriously misunderstood ballplayers, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson. I set my sights on Greenville, SC, and off I went.

     Shoeless Joe (1888-1951) was born to a poor family, the oldest child of six boys and two girls. He was forced to go to work with the rest of the family at the age of six in the local textile mill. This was the main reason he hardly had any formal schooling and therefore never learned to read or write. This fact would become prominent during Joe’s involvement with the 1919 Black Sox scandal.
     Joe took to baseball right away, playing on the mill’s men’s team at the age of 13. His hitting was way above anyone else’s at that age and his fielding was so good, his glove became known as a place where “triples go to die.”
     As a rookie for Cleveland in 1908, he hit .411, the highest average ever for a rookie; his lifetime average was .356, the third highest in baseball history. Babe Ruth himself said he copied Joe’s style, that Joe was the greatest natural hitter he’d ever seen.
     “He’s the guy who made me a hitter,” Ruth said.
     Ty Cobb, the man generally known as the greatest hitter of all time as well as the one with the biggest ego, was quoted as saying, “Whenever I got the idea I was a good hitter, I’d stop and take a look at Joe. Then I knew I could stand some improvement.”
     Even “The Big Train,” Walter Johnson, one of the greatest pitchers of all time, said Joe was the best he ever faced, and Walter pitched in the American League when Cobb and Ruth were doing their damage.
     The infamous 1919 Chicago White Sox had eight players who were accused of taking bribes to throw the World Series. These “Black” Sox were so named not because of their being “dirty” and cheating in the World Series but more so because penurious White Sox owner Charles Comiskey was so cheap that he charged the players $.25 each to wash their uniforms. This was the last straw for the players; they revolted, refusing to pay “laundry dues,” and thus played in dirty uniforms. Hence the name “Black Sox” came to stay.
     It’s always been questioned whether or not Joe was one of the players who intentionally tried to lose games in the 1919 World Series. I think Joe played only to win. In the eight games, he hit .375, the best on either the Sox or the Cincinnati Reds. He hit the only home run in the Series and his 12 hits were the most by any player on either team. It was actually a World Series record at the time. He had six RBI’s and accounted for 11 of the White Sox 20 runs. But even more important to my point, he played errorless ball in the field and, get this, threw out five men at home plate. He even came all the way home from first on a single to score the winning run in one game. That just doesn’t sound like a man trying to lose on purpose.
     I think Joe’s only crime, most likely, was that he knew about the plot but didn’t come forward and tell anyone. Loyalty to teammates and all that. But going by that, the entire team should have been suspended as I’m sure they all knew which guys were on the take.
     And that’s what I think.
     Trivia question: Who is the greatest pitcher of all time? Walter Johnson? Sandy Koufax? Greg Maddux?
     Trivia answer: No, it’s none of these. The greatest pitcher of all time has to be Dickie Kerr.
     “Dickie Kerr?” you say. “Who’s Dickie Kerr?”
     Well, I’ll tell you. Dickie Kerr was a pitcher for the 1919 Black Sox. He’s the greatest pitcher of all time, because he won two games in the Series WHEN HIS TEAM WAS TRYING TO LOSE!
     Joe maintained his innocence for the rest of his life. He was still suspended even years after his death, even after a resolution by Congress and a 100,000-signature petition sought his reinstatement to baseball. Even the great, yet hard ass, Ted Williams was quoted as saying regarding Joe, “I want baseball to right an injustice.”
     OK, off my soapbox.
     

Joe’s house has now become his museum. They moved it several blocks so that it could be right across the street from the charming little new minor league stadium built for the Greenville Drive. When the team came into being, the owners and fans wanted to call the team “The Joes” because they loved him so. Major League Baseball said, “No,” so the team became “The “Drive.”
     I had to walk around Joe’s little town to get a feeling for where he came from. In the heart of the village was a wonderful double-waterfall that runs right through a most idyllic city park. I then visited “Shoeless Joe Jackson Memorial Park,” a ball field located right next to the old Brandon Mill where Joe worked as a six-year old floor sweeper.
     In the words of the great Amber Kirkeby, “IS THIS ALMOST OVER?”
     And in the words of the great TV detective, Columbo, “ONE MORE THING … “
     My final stop was to pay respects to Joe at his grave site at the Woodlawn Memorial Park in Greenville. There were several thousand graves there, so it took me awhile, but when I happened upon Joe’s, I had to smile. Surrounding his marker were about fifteen baseballs left there by ardent admirers. And one more thing lay atop his marker:
   

 a solitary baseball shoe.
     Rest in peace, Joe.
     Now, on to Durham, Chapel Hill, and the Outer Banks. See you there.
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Diedre here - just had to share the picture of the strawberries and margarita!  We so loved our time in Tryon with our dear sweet Rosemary and look forward to a return trip in three years to celebrate her 97th!