Odd to even think about making a note of this, but there are certain things that delineate this “event” at home.
Making a Pastrami Reuben at home requires me to buy a loaf of Seeded Jewish Rye Bread. I like the flavor of the rye bread, but it is not a bread that I want to use for anything besides making a Reuben sandwich. I am planning on using the last few slices of this rye bread, toasted, and hit with a mound of egg salad. So tasty, and I am surprised at how well the egg salad stays on top of the toast, even when I have a high mound of it placed there.
I make the homemade Thousand Island Dressing to put on these sandwiches, and to mix with the sauerkraut as a side, but once done, I’m probably not going to make any more Thousand Island Dressing until the next round of Reubens.
And I’m probably not going to buy more sauerkraut until the next round also, although I do think this side of Kraut & TI Dressing would go well with a fried pork chop too.
And lastly, this time I used the Wegman’s White American Cheese instead of Swiss or Baby Swiss on my Reubens. If I had bought Swiss, it is something that I rarely use on any other sandwich, preferring the WAC flavor on various other things (Bill McMuffin, Hatfield Pre-Sliced Ham).
So, I guess my “Pastrami Reubens @ Home” might have similarities to special holidays, like Christmas or the 4th of July. They come, and because they are special, people go “out of their way” to make them special by buying things they might not buy the rest of the year, and preparing things they only do rarely, but enjoying the special event and thinking warmly upon it… and maybe even getting a little excited when they become aware of the next event, just before it arrives again.
I think there is a rush to begin & end this event by not wanting any of the Hillshire Farms Pastrami to go bad after I open the package, and this has happened in the past. So, when I make these sandwiches, I may pile on a little extra meat because I don’t want the bread to run out before the meat, or cheese.
Oh yeah, and why not have more Pastrami Reubens @ Home, or have them more often? Because they are fattening and they “throw off my Blood Sugar,” so they are special because they have to be filed under the category of “A Splurge,” or “Special Event.” Not something I can have every week, or even every month. Something like eating a large plate of spaghetti, or eating a whole half gallon of ice cream in a day, or two. A blip or spike on the Blood Sugar radar, but no more, by my choice. An event that satisfies my craving for that event, without becoming a habit that will kill me, or at least do me major harm.
The picture above is what I might consider, my “Perfect Pastrami Reuben” at home. But now, even this has to be “toned down a bit.” Instead of using two slices of rye bread, I only use one slice, cut in half, so the finished sandwich doesn’t look like the nicely, sliced in two, sandwich shown above. Still just as flavorful, but half the fat & calories. And, I don’t really miss the other half of a sandwich. I guess my age is helping me a bit here. When I was younger, I would have wanted that whole sandwich… maybe even needed it for the energy, but not now.
And that reminds me of how “falling off the wagon” with food can be so easy.
I really, really, really enjoyed the Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies from Aldi’s that I had for the first time, last Thanksgiving. I enjoyed them so much that when I returned home, a few days later I made a special trip to Aldi’s and bought a package of them. And “Yes,” they were just as good, each time that I bought them. They were so good that I included “one cookie a day” in my routine, and sometimes with a small glass of cold milk. Soft and sweet, just like I like my cookies.
But, after about my third package of these cookies, I noticed that my resting Blood Sugar Level was just a little higher “over time.” And, my weight was not trending down, not even slightly. Not necessarily going up, but just hanging… and at a level I wanted to eventually reduce. So, I forced myself to “not buy” another package of the Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies from Aldi’s when the last cookie was consumed. And it was a little like stopping a favorite drug, or stopping using white sugar. There was a slight tug on my will to stop.
But, after a few days, the tug went away, and I did note that my resting BGL and weight did start to trend in the favored direction, and if I looked at it seriously, those damned oatmeal cookies were doing me wrong;-)
I didn’t know when I started to write, that this article would morph into an insight on “willpower,” but it did. Making the Pastrami Reubens an “event” was a nod to “willpower” and decision making. Making choices. Wahl, in German, which can mean “to choose,” “a survey,” “to vote,” to make a choice. In this case, to make a choice of what and when to eat, thereby affecting my health in the long run, even when that run is near the end of my life, even if my life goes on another eleven years.
I’ve not always made good choices, or not consistently. At one point in my life, I was just a few pounds shy of weighing 300 pounds. Around the 295 lbs. range. How did I get there? And after losing about 60 pounds over a three months period, twice, and about nine years apart, why did I let my weight go back up? Part of the good decision making has gotten me in the 245 lbs. range now. That’s good for me.
Following my weight and Blood Sugar Levels on the MyFitnessPal website, almost daily, has definitely made the task easier for both tracking my results, and the FOOD section, for recording what I’ve eaten, and even what I plan to eat. *I don’t always adhere to the total daily calorie intake, but I’m pretty good about the sugar/carbohydrate levels, usually.
So, I think you should be able to see that my focus on food and what I eat, isn’t completely an obsession. Okay, maybe it is.
[NOTE 03/07/25]: Just happened to see this on the Web and thought if I could get it cheap enough, and it worked, this would be one of my presents for next Christmas. I ordered this package of 3 from Amazon for under $7 and it is supposed to arrive tomorrow. The first price I saw was about $14 for just one of these. It is supposed to work on boiled eggs and raw eggs.
The advertising video they showed made it look so easy. They put three hard boiled eggs in one of these, one at a time, and it only took a second or so before they opened it back up and dumped the whole boiled egg out. I guess you just reach in to pull the two empty shell halves out. *I do not have a trick for peeling eggs successfully. Sometimes they peel easily and at other times the boiled egg white begins to peel off with the shell. Frustrating.
I started smoking these “Original” RamRod Cigars many years ago. I came upon them first at a smoke shop just across the river from New Bern, beside Hwy. 70 heading toward Havelock, North Carolina. Eventually this smoke shop stopped selling these cigars. The owners of this shop appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent. I did find the RamRod “Deputy” cigar, but this was a little cleaner looking and about half the length of the original. The original was long and sort of gnarly (not a straight roll of the cigar) that was Bourbon flavored. I have driven past this location within the last three months and the smoke shop is no longer there, but it was there for many years.
I like the aroma and flavor of these Avanti Cigars. It is Cafe Mocha. I think I first tried these at JR’s off of I 95 at Smithfield, North Carolina, because they had stopped selling the RamRod Cigar. I rarely smoke, but do it maybe one in a three to six months period. I’ve said, and this was the original reason, that I smoke a cigar to “get in character” when reading something like “1984” or a “seedy” detective novel.
JR’s is now just a large smoke shop, but for many years JR’s was a large, sprawling department type store, with a large book section. I’ve bought many cookbooks there, for myself and as presents for Mary Ann and others. JR’s sold clothing, dishes, cologne & perfumes, and assorted “stuff.” This was one JR’s location, but I think the other that I knew of, and visited at least once, was located at Statesville, North Carolina.
I bought a pack of cheap cigars, GAME Expresso Martini. They were a pleasant smoke. I may have bought Swisher Sweets BLK Cocoa flavored. If so it smoked fast, but had a pleasant flavor. The plastic tips begin to melt when the cigar burns near it.
I guess this posting will morph into a story about things that were, and are no more. “If you live long enough… and even if you don’t.”
I’ve mentioned elsewhere that there was a LIDL in Havelock that I shopped at when passing through the area. This was just off Hwy 70 that passes through Havelock as you are going between Morehead City and New Bern. I’ve also mentioned that I now see the blatant evidence that they are working on a bypass for Havelock. But one time, I bought a gallon of milk and a jar of dill pickles and was surprised that the pickles cost a little more than the gallon of milk. *Maybe that’s why LIDL didn’t last at this location. But, I took a picture, with the jar of pickles, the gallon of milk and even the register receipt (that’s readable, if you zoom in far enough).
I think there’s another LIDL location, in Rockingham, North Carolina that I shopped at a couple of times before they closed. I think that location has been repurposed, but I don’t recall to what purpose.
But recently, I’ve started shopping at LIDL in Fayetteville more than in the past. I’ve found that they sell the “Hatfield” Brand of hams. I first bought a pre-sliced Hatfield Ham at Harris Teeter, and then couldn’t get another. And then was recently surprised by seeing the LIDL sells the Hatfield Brand, and I bought one there. *But, they also had good looking carrots, so I bought some of these also. Pre-Covid, I could get a small bag of carrots at Food Lion, near me. After Covid, they and other groceries began to sell larger bags of carrots, and not the small sized bags. LIDL also sells the Hillshire Farms Brand of “Beef Polska Kielbasa.” Both LIDL and Walmart have good prices on the Hillshire Farms products.
One of the meals @ FATZ in Cheraw, SC
If you travel to Cheraw, South Carolina you could drive by the former location of FATZ Restaurant. I enjoyed eating at the restaurant chain several times. They were sort of a Yuppy environment, and I had some delicious “Honey Balsamic Brussels Sprouts” there. They were so good that when I came back home I tried to make these at home and was successful. There was/is a FATZ in Rockingham also, but I’m not sure if it is still open for business.
I’ve been to Rockingham quite a few times. I fell in love with the fried chicken (and other buffet items) at the Seaboard Station Restaurant in Hamlet, North Carolina. Hamlet is a short distance from Rockingham, and I will normally also visit the library in Hamlet and then go to the library in Rockingham. I’ve bought books at both locations several times. I’ve also bought books at the library in Laurenburg, North Carolina. They usually have a large selection. Most of the books I buy are not for me to read but as books to leave in various “Little Lending Libraries” at various locations, in assorted cities & towns, or to give as gifts to family & friends.
But in mentioning libraries, the main library in Asheboro, North Carolina is vibrant. They keep a large selection of book on counters for perusing. The library in Laurenburg has also done some remodeling inside and “looks good.”
Normally I do not drive on Hwy. 70 directly between New Bern to Havelock and then on to Morehead City. I have recently, but that is the exception.
The new New Bern bridge crossing the Neuse River.
I normally will drive across the bridges at New Bern and over to the Bridgeton side of the river.
Growing up, I would cross the old New Bern bridge, between New Bern and Bridgeton, riding on a Trailways Bus heading from Jacksonville, North Carolina to Portsmouth, Virginia. This was a low bridge, near the water that headed directly across the river. This bridge was torn down years ago.
Leo on one of his boats.
*A note, I had a good friend, Leo Taylor, who hired me to work in the IT department at Fayetteville State University. Leo’s parents (“Silver” was his mom.) ran the Trailways Bus Terminal in Washington, North Carolina. I call Washington, NC, “Little Washington” as most of us did. So, no telling if I ever saw a young Leo as I was passing through on the bus (either heading to or from Portsmouth).
My mom worked at the Naval Hospital in Portsmouth for several years and I continued to live with my Aunt Sis (mom’s sister) in Hubert, North Carolina until I graduated High School in 1972. I then went on to college, and when I returned to the area, lived with my mom at our house in Jacksonville, North Carolina (204 Johnson Blvd.).
The house at 204 Johnson Blvd. was torn down several years ago and the lot remains empty, but the property is owned by my cousin, Raymond Sharpe.
Then on to the Minnesott Beach Ferry and taking the 20 minutes ride across the river, and from the Cherry Branch side, I will normally head back to Havelock and then find the route to head back to Swansboro. But when I have much more time, I might “take a left” and head away from Havelock and find my way, the “back way,” to Beaufort, North Carolina. I then try to drive down the waterfront. For many years there was “Down East Gallery,” the art gallery of Allen Cheek, but that has been gone for quite a few years now.
LaVaughn’s on the Beaufort waterfront.
There was also a gift shop, “LaVaughn’s” from which I bought several Mangum ceramic mugs. That shop too has been gone quite a few years. *But, I have gone to the Mangum store in Weaverville, North Carolina. Weaverville is about 9 miles north of Asheville, North Carolina. I visited this gallery the last time I was in Asheville, which was about 5 weeks before Hurricane Helene came through the area. *I happened to find a picture of LaVaughn’s storefront on my old Flickr site, otherwise I would have never recalled what the name was. *I found the owner’s obituary online: LaVaughn J. Hendricks
These were the Mangum mugs I bought at LaVaughn’s over the years. I also bought a large serving platter in this pattern, and a creamer. Seems like I also had a sugar bowl too, but I think I’ve gotten rid of the platter, creamer & sugar bowl. I use the largest Mangum mug regularly, usually for coffee.
Last Thanksgiving I was visiting my favorite cousin, Mary Ann in Hubert. Her daughter was also visiting, with her husband, and she had brought several things to eat. One of those items was “Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies” from Aldi’s.
I’m a Type 2 Diabetic, so I shouldn’t be trying a sweet cookie, like this, but I did. And, “boy oh boy,” the cookie was delicious. I love a soft cookie, usually not chocolate or pecan, and this cookie was just about perfect. I like the flavor of cranberries and I knew I liked the flavor of an oatmeal cookie.
So, after Thanksgiving I am back in Fayetteville and I decide to go to the nearest Aldi’s to see about buying a “Stolen” Cake to give as a gift to a good friend for Christmas. The friend had introduced me to this German “fruit cake” several years ago, and she had bought hers at Aldi’s. The two flavors that are common are almond and cherry flavored fruit fillings. *Stollen is mostly a cake, in the shape of a baguette, and sprinkled profusely with powdered sugar, and down the center of this cake is a pureed fruit or nut filling. Only one flavor of either a fruit or a nut.
*When you mention a “fruit cake,” I always think of the Claxton Fruit Cakes that we always had at Christmas time when I was growing up. A Claxton (Claxton Bakery, Inc., Claxton, Georgia) fruit cake is a densely packed dried fruit & nut cake, with not much cake between the various fruits & nuts: California raisins, pineapple, papaya, pecans, cherries, walnuts, almonds, and lemon and orange peel.
Several years ago I made a pilgrimage through Georgia just below Interstate 16, on State Road 280. The two towns that I was interested in visiting were Claxton and Vidalia. Claxton for their fruitcake fame and Vidalia for their “sweet onion” fame. I did buy Claxton Fruit Cake in the Claxton Bakery, in Claxton, Georgia. And later, I also bought Vidalia onions in a grocery in Vidalia, Georgia. The heads up: I found when I returned to Fayetteville, that I could buy a bag of Vidalia Onions for the same price in my local WalMart as I had in downtown Vidalia. And a couple of years ago, Harris Teeter had a special on Claxton Fruit Cakes for about $2.99 each. I recognized that price as being noteworthy, and bought several and gave them away as Christmas presents. *I think the Claxton Fruitcake this past Christmas season was selling for $4.99 each.
[03/26/25]: On Monday I drove to Hamlet, North Carolina to have lunch at Seaboard Station Restaurant. They have consistently great fried chicken, and their thin cut pork chops are pretty good too. After lunch I drove past the regional airport and a short distance away was a small, IGA, local grocery.
A glass door freezer, without the Hershey’s advertising all over it.
I’ve visited there once before, and stopped in to see if they had the Hershey’s Roadrunner Raspberry ice cream I like. No, but I bought a small container of their Black Cherry, and the checkout clerk, wrote down the name of the ice cream so she could ask the Hershey’s delivery guy if they could get it. Her wedding buffet was supplied by Seaboard Station. *Beside the Hershey’s “Glass Door Ice Cream Freezer” were Claxton Fruit Cakes on special. They were listed as 2 for $4. So, I bought 4 of them and I’ve already given away two, before I made it back home. [end]
I haven’t done it in a while, but I like to freeze my Claxton Fruit Cakes and slice off a chunk and have it with either cold milk, or hot tea or coffee. **And, when talking about freezing cakes, I also liked to freeze the pound cakes that Bill Korver’s wife, Marcia, made quite a few years ago.
As I was driving along State Highway 280 in Georgia, it must have been harvest season for those Vidalia onions because I passed a large, long field that had been plowed and had several rows, side by side. But, the unusual thing for me was that there were large bags of Vidalia onions (possibly 50 lbs. each) stacked beside each other along each row, and as if each was propping up the next. A string of bags of onions like falling dominos.
… I always thought he was German.
As I mentioned the bags of onions lined up like falling dominoes, I realized that this was one of those rare events that a person can only experience “by being there.” And, I recalled the android character in “Blade Runner” (the original movie, and played by the Dutch actor, Rutger Hauer) as he is dying and waxing philosophical about the things he had seen in faraway galaxies. I too have seen things that only I or a select few have seen.
So, I was in Aldi’s looking for Stollen, but they didn’t have any. I went looking for the Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies and found them. I bought a package and when I got them home and tried one, the cookie was just as delicious as the one I had back at Thanksgiving. I would definitely recommend these Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies from Aldi’s! A soft, sweet, oatmeal cookie and I like cold milk with mine.
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A Heads Up: After a holiday like Thanksgiving or Christmas, there are certain items at your local grocer that may be temporarily “out of stock.” I’ll mention only a few: milk, eggs, bread, and orange juice. I usually forget about these shortages until, just after the holiday when I am in the store and come to the milk section, and there is a gaping hole where the half gallon of regular milk should be. My first thoughts are, “Why can’t the store plan better? They know that there is going to be a ‘run’ on these items. It’s not like this doesn’t happen every year.” And then the other awareness comes, “Why can’t I plan better? You know there is going to be a ‘run’ on some of these items. It’s not like it doesn’t happen every year.” From me to me, “Just plan better Bill.“
And a further note for next year: “If you want to buy Stolen at Aldi’s next year, you should buy it early and not wait until it is completely out at two different Aldi’s locations in Fayetteville.” Does that sound like I am speaking from experience? Recent experience? “Yes I am!” *Now, I did get a ‘heads up’ from someone that “World Market,” which I had not visited in Fayetteville until a short time ago, also sold Stolen, and they might still have some. *I did go to World Market, and found the rack on which they had their Stolen for sale. But, I was disappointed on two levels: The size of their Stolen cake seemed much smaller than what I had purchased a couple of years ago at Aldi’s. And, the price for this extremely small looking cake seemed a little too expensive. They did have a much smaller Stolen cake, but it was priced at about what I thought the “full sized” Stolen cake should have been priced. But recall, that I don’t currently want to pay $7.49 for a single Country Ham Biscuit for breakfast, either.
[01/05/25]: I was talking with someone in Fresh Market yesterday and they gave me a “heads up” for next Christmas. Check in a day or so before Christmas and you should be able to get a good deal on those Christmas items, like Egg Nog.
I bought some of this Homestead Creamery egg nog at Fresh Market a year ago, and I kept the bottle & cap after I was through. Not too long ago, I poured my Half-n-Half into this container and put it in the fridge. I like the feel of the cold glass on my hand when I get it out of the refrigerator and pour it into my hot coffee or tea.
I didn’t have any egg nog this year, and then just yesterday (01/04/25) I got the urge to have some egg nog. It may be that I’ve been writing about the Christmas presents I received as a child & boy over the years. I knew that most grocery stores don’t have any egg nog as soon as Christmas is over, but I went searching anyway. That was one reason I stopped by the HT across town, but they had none. And, later last night I stopped in the Fresh Market hoping they might still have some of the Homestead Creamery egg nog I had seen in the store earlier in the season. But no, there was none there. The clerk said they usually put egg nog on special just before Christmas so that there will be none to return to the milk supplier. [end].
[ADDENDUM 03/01/25]: I just wanted to add a few photos from the LIDL (near the Mall) in Fayetteville, North Carolina. I have found several items worth buying. I’ve highlighted green beans, bagged carrots, Camembert cheese and half gallons of 2% Milk (@$1.29 a half gallon/limit 6), but recall that they have a good price on Hillshire Farms Beef Polska Kielbasa and Smoked Oysters.
When I grew older as a child, mom and I stopped giving presents on Christmas. If we wanted something we usually got it as soon as we could afford it. We? As soon as mom could afford to buy it, whatever it was. But I want to try to remember some of the special Christmas presents I received and put them in order, if I can. I am guessing that the more cerebral presents came later.
One story I was told was that when I was very young, they (my mom or someone) had asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I had told them I wanted a “Turden Tation.” They didn’t understand what I was saying and kept asking me, and I kept repeating “a Turden Tation” and becoming more frustrated each time. I don’t know how they figured it out, but at some point they came to understand that I was asking for a “Service Station.” I’m not sure if I got a Service Station for Christmas, but I don’t recall it.
We had a long staircase in the old house which went straight upstairs from just inside the front door along the right hallway wall. The Slinky did work as far as walking down the stairs, but not as well as you would see on TV.
I recall getting a football at least once, and probably a Slinky, a couple of Duncan tops and probably a checkerboard. I had the Duncan tops in the 4th Grade because someone stole one of them, but they may not have been Christmas presents. *I just googled for “Christmas toys for children during the 1960s” and was reminded of several toys that I had forgotten.
An interesting aside regarding the stolen Duncan top (I think it was wooden & purple.) was that 30 years later, the person who stole the top admitted it to me at one of our class reunions. His act had worried him for all those years until he finally got it off his chest. I admired him for this admission, and said to myself that if I needed to trust anyone I would choose him because if that one dishonest act worried him for that long, he surely wouldn’t do anything worse. An honest man learns from his mistakes, and does not repeat them.
WIND UP TIN TOY BOAT
This may be the earliest toy I remember having and I was living at 204 Johnson Blvd., in Jacksonville, North Carolina.
The only memory I have of this boat was that I was playing on the porch and mom was out there also doing something else. I wound the boat up and then went over to her and said something like, “Let me show you something.” She bent over and I stuck the boat, aft first, in her hair and turned the propeller on. Her hair immediately wound around the propeller and she was caught fast. She jumped back but the boat went with her and was hanging beside her face dangling from her tangled hair. At some point I think she said something like, “I’m going to have to cut it out of my hair.” I don’t recall if she did have to cut it out, but that might have been the case.
TONKA CEMENT MIXER
The Tonka Cement Mixer was one of the earliest toys I remember getting for Christmas. I think my mom bought it at the store at Palo Alto, which was on the road between Belgrade and Swansboro.
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Palo Alto was the name of the plantation owned by David W. Sanders, the maternal grandfather of Daniel L. Russell, later a Governor of the State of North Carolina. Governor Russell and his wife are both buried a few miles further up the Swansboro-Belgrade Road from the Palo Alto Plantation house shown here.
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TINKER TOYS
I loved building things with Tinker Toys. I never had Lincoln Logs, nor wanted them.
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HOWITZER CANNON
I think my little cast iron Howitzer toy was a cheaper version of the one shown here. I think it was painted army green. But, like the one shown, it originally had little projectiles that actually could be shot out of the cannon. I remember the projectiles as being red and wooden, but the ones here are yellow and look like plastic. I recall playing with this toy, on the floor, in the upstairs junk room.
The cannon had a little trigger that you pulled back, put a projectile in the barrel and then tripped the trigger, shooting the projectile out. *I remember taking a straight pin and sticking it in the barrel so that I could stick it in a plastic Army soldier. He looked like he had been hit by an arrow as I spun him around.
LARGE PLASTIC GREEN TOY SOLDIER
I had one of these large plastic soldiers. Perhaps they came in a set of two or three. It was probably five or six times larger than most other little green plastic soldiers. I don’t recall if my soldier had this same pose, but I do recall that the jagged base of the soldier was the same.
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BALSA WOOD GLIDER & RUBBERBAND PROPELLER PLANE
These toy airplanes were made of the extremely lite balsa wood. They flew, but broke easily. The glider had a metal nose because they often flew into things, or hit the ground hard, nose down.
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The propellered version had a rubber band that you tensioned by turning the propeller in one direction, letting go and as the rubber band lost it’s tension, the propeller turned causing the plane to fly. I don’t recall which parts of these toy airplanes lasted the shortest time, but wings and rubber bands were high on that list.
I just realized that I needed to add some non-present items to this posting in order to get a better feel for Christmas. This is a Christmas tree stand like the one we used for several years. With the live tree, we had the fancy glass ornaments, the colorful electric lights (old style), and loads of tinsel. I’m not sure we ever had the fancy glass tree topper, but I think we probably had a frilly angel to sit askew the top of our tree.
I liked eating the Claxton fruit cake, and drinking the seasonal egg nog from Maola Milk. And, there was plenty of Christmas candy. I liked those pure sugar candy canes, and if we could get some peanut brittle and orange slices, that would be good too.
Watching the story of Rudolph on a black & white TV, with his red nose, and listening to Burl Ives sing, “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas,” while Charlie Brown and his friends were running around, and then settling into the story of “A Christmas Carol.”
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MARX MYSTERY SPACESHIP
This was a fascinating toy because at the heart of the spaceship was a gyroscope. You would crank the gyro up and hear it hum. You could then do tricks with the spaceship, like balance the red top knob or bottom know on a string and the toy would stay without falling, until the gyro ran down. There were two control seats on the top of the spaceship that had clear plastic domes. You could sit one or both pilots in their seats and then close the clear dome above each. There were small plastic astronauts, like plastic soldiers, and space aliens along with rockets that could be fired.
I no longer have the original toy I got for Christmas, but I bought two of them online several years ago. Neither toy that I bought had a gyro that worked, and one had a broken dome. I would imagine that if you could cut the top from the bottom and reach the gyro mechanism, it would be simple to fix, but I don’t have a schematic of how it is supposed to work, nor do I know of a good way to cut the yellow plastic and then glue it back together.
I said it was fascinating. I remember thinking that you could actually build a full sized spaceship and send it into space with a similar but larger gyro motor.
ETCH A SKETCH
I did enjoy playing with an Etch A Sketch.
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AMF ROADMASTER JR. BICYCLE
I’m not sure if the Roadmaster bicycle was a Christmas or birthday present, but I think mom bought it down at the Western Auto Store in Swansboro.
This wasn’t the full sized bicycle but a smaller version. It was probably just like the bicycle shown in the advertising promo. It was green and off white, and had training wheels. The training wheels had been removed and I had asked my mother to remove the rear carrier shelf. When she tried to remove the rear carrier, a nut was loosened and that allowed the rear wheel to move slightly closer to the front. This caused the bicycle chain to become slack and fall off the gears, as shown in this picture.
This bicycle wasn’t made to ride through sandy soil and grass so I don’t recall using it very much. The tires were made of hard rubber, with no air in them.
FOOTBALL
I recall getting at least one football for Christmas. I know this because I remember going outside and throwing the ball to myself. It rarely snows for Christmas down near the coast. In fact I may only recall snow during the winter months a few times when I was a child.
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AURORA HO SCALE SLOT CAR SET
This was an HO Scale Slot Car Race Set from Aurora. The advertising featured the British Formula 1 race car driver, Stirling Moss. The track was a simple Figure 8 with plastic supports that raised one part of the track above the other to allow the cars to run beneath.
The “slot” part of the track was where a little plastic pin attached to each car fit. This kept the car from sliding too far either left or right, and that meant the metal brushes on the bottom of the car would be in the correct position to transfer electricity from the track up to the car’s little motor. The controller for each car had a little chrome plated steering wheel which actually controlled the speed of the cars. There was also a forward and reverse switch.
I set the track up on our kitchen dining table but one car did not last long. It went too fast around a curve and flew off the track, and then rolled off the table onto the floor below. When it hit the floor a little electrical connector popped out of the car and disappeared somewhere, perhaps in a crack in the floor or the baseboard. Without this little piece, called a commutator, the electricity wouldn’t be conducted to the motor and the car wouldn’t run.
HO Gauge Straight Track Section
GILBERT CHEMISTRY SET
The Gilbert Chemistry set had a bunch of bottles for various chemicals. I seem to recall the set having powdered yellow sulphur and a bunsen burner with a white wick. I think the bottles were square with metal lids. I think there were a few test tubes and maybe even a flask, but I’m not sure.
I don’t recall the “molecular models” item and I don’t recall how many bottles of chemicals, or which chemicals were included in the set. I recognize the metal test tube holder.
MICROSCOPE
I had a black microscope with some glass slides. It had a wooden carrying case with several slots for the slides. I think there were some already example slides with labels. The microscope didn’t have a lamp but had a dual mirror beneath the stage. It wasn’t that powerful of a magnifier. It did have a wooden carrying case with a metal latch.
I think the carrying case had some slots to stick glass slides into.
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MAGIC 8 BALL
Who didn’t have one? “It is unclear. Try again!”
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WALKIE-TALKIES
I almost forgot these. I didn’t have anyone to play with and these required batteries. I think sometimes I could hear Short Wave radio broadcasts, but to my frustration I almost never could understand what they were saying.
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BATTLESHIP NORTH CAROLINA MODEL
I put one of these together, but I don’t recall the red keel.
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CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON
This was one of the monster models that I put together. I may have also had the Wolfman.
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THE VISIBLE MAN
I recall making this model of the male human body. It included the skeleton that you put together and eventually you put the see through plastic over the whole thing. I don’t recall if you had the circulatory system and various human organs, but I guess you did..
SKATEBOARD WITH METAL WHEELS
Another toy I almost forgot, the Skateboard (with metal wheels). The only place I could ride my skateboard was across Hwy. 24 at the old Swansboro High School. And really there was only one place over there that was suitable. The walkway leading from the Gymnasium to the Cafeteria and running along side of the Shop. The walkway was made of smooth concrete, and the double doors leading to the Gym were several feet above most of the walkway, so there was a considerable rise to the doors. There was also a railing for a short distance near the doors. This was ideal. You could take your board to the top of the rise, steady yourself by holding onto the railing, while you were “mounting” your board, and then let go. Gravity would start your downhill journey and you had a smooth, but narrow, path for quite some distance. *This never really caught on with me so years later when the equipment took an enormous jump forward, I didn’t jump at all.
I do recall that they had a skateboard race event at the Mullet Festival that year. The race was being held down a steep street, Spring Street (at the top was Chestnut Street and at the bottom was Walnut Street). The surprise was that Billy Owens won the race, I think. Billy was a “big boy” but that was to his advantage because his weight and gravity, and his dexterity to stay on the skateboard, all worked in his favor. And, it didn’t hurt that his house was just a long block away (literally). And as I look at the incline of Spring Street on Google Street View now, it doesn’t appear anywhere near as steep as it did when I was a boy.
COX THIMBLE DROME STUKA J-87 DIVE BOMBER AIRPLANE
I had completely forgotten about getting this gas powered airplane. I don’t recall ever getting it to start the engine. I was afraid of this toy. You would fill a small gas tank and then I think there was a spring with the propelle r and you would use your finger to prime the propeller and the engine should then start at a high spin speed with loud noise.
There was a simple hand controller that was connected to the plane by two thin strings which controlled the plane’s flaps and that would make it go up and down. Since the plane was attached to you by the controller handle, you would stand in the middle and the plane would fly in a circle around you. The tail fin was skew slightly to make the airplane always be trying to fly out and away from you.
I think I went over to the Swansboro High School once and found an empty field, maybe part of the baseball field to try and fly this, but I never got it started. I’m guessing I got this toy about 1966 or 1967. *I moved with my mother up to live with my Aunt Sis, in Hubert, after 8th Grade.
FISHING GEAR
This was the last Christmas present I recall getting as a child. I was probably fourteen or fifteen years old when I got this for Christmas. Mom and I went down to Bogue Inlet Fishing Pier that cold morning to try my new fishing gear. Neither one of us had a clue about fishing and needless to say I caught nothing that Christmas morning. The picture of the No. 9 Penn Peerless reel is the actual present I got that Christmas, but the copper colored tackle box was like the one I had, but no longer have.
GLOBAL STAMP ALBUM
I would suppose that I received this gift when I was older. I don’t recall if I got the fishing gear first or after I got this album. It was a thick multi-page book. Each page was double sided with large sized black & white pictures of each stamp that belonged at a certain position on the page. The pages were organized by country, so I guess the first pages would be Angola, Australia and Austria and toward the end, United States and perhaps Yemen. I don’t recall if their was a holding place for Qatar, but there were quite a few colorful, ornate stamps from the various countries. Some island countries had especially beautiful stamps.
I recall going to a Stamp Shop in downtown Norfolk, Virginia. I don’t remember if I bought any stamps that day, but downtown Norfolk is extremely cold during the winter. My album was stolen when I left it in the attic at 204 Johnson Blvd., in Jacksonville, North Carolina between the time I went off to Seminary (1981) and returned in 1984. There were many stamps in the pages, but quite a few empty spaces.
PETER GANINE GOTHIC SCULPTED CHESS SET
Once again I do not recall when, or if I got this chess set as a Christmas or birthday present, but I did like playing with it. I might have played with it in the 10th Grade. I don’t remember if I played in the Swansboro High School Chess Club my Senior year. The set was weighted with felt bases.
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TRANSISTOR RADIO
PORTABLE TAPE RECORDER
I don’t recall who made the little reel to reel tape recorder that I had. It had an external microphone with a cable. I think it was beige in color, and both reels were the same size and looked like those shown. The mike was similar to the one shown in this picture, and I think there was a little viewing window like the one shown. It was just a very simple tape recorder.
I do recall taping part of an episode of the original Star Trek from the TV so that would have been from 1966-69. This was when you would have to hold the microphone up to the TVs speaker. I must have recorded on the portable Zenith TV since my recollection was being in the master bedroom of the old house.
CASSETTE TAPE RECORDER
I’m not sure when I got my cassette recorder, but I do recall buying a new TDK tape in Jacksonville a few blocks away from my house on 204 Johnson Blvd. TDK was unknown at the time but they had a good price on the cassette and it ended up being a good buy because TDK went on to produce quality tapes.
I really don’t recall what my cassette recorder looked like. It probably was a Sony, and had the basic components as shown in this image.
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MONOPOLY
Did I actually have one of these, or just play the game on other people’s boards? I don’t know.
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It was not my original intention to wax philosophical regarding the Christmas presents I received through the years, but the question came to me, “what was the best present I ever got for Christmas.” Of all the presents listed above, I think the chess set might have been my favorite, and I’m not sure it was a Christmas present. It would have been the most used and I liked chess and played a lot in high school. Second would be the Global Stamp Album just because it was rewarding to collect the beautiful stamps.
Having gone through this list, which may or may not be complete, and how unthankful I seem to be, to the contrary. My mother was an amazing, quiet spoken (most of the time until sufficiently riled) divorced woman who worked diligently for over 40 years, most of those as a “Clerk Typist” aboard the Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base, and a few years at the Naval Hospital in Portsmouth, Virginia. She provided for my food, clothing, shelter and almost all of my needs. She may have “done without,” but I rarely did, as you can see from the above stream of “Little Billie pleasing” presents.
She learned to sew most of her clothes, on a Singer “Zig-Zag” sewing machine. The different shaped disks were used to create different stitch patterns.
She bought several pairs of new shoes, at the twice a year “cheap shoe sale” at the Thom McAn’s Shoe Store. Those shoes may have been as cheap as a $1 a pair, but they hardly lasted six months until the next sale.
She bought a brand new 1964 1/2 Mustang 2+2 Fastback, Prairie Bronze in color and as a High School Senior present she bought me a brand new 1971 Blue & White Pontiac Lemans. The Mustang cost about $2,800 which, at the time, was about her year’s salary. *Amazing when automobile prices began to jump from about $3K to $30K and now on “to the Moon & beyond.”
Day before yesterday I took my Toyota Camry in to have scheduled maintenance. While there I walked around the showroom and looked at a mid-sized Toyota truck. I then looked at the price and it was around $53,000. A full-sized Toyota Tundra was close by, but the rear door window was so tinted that I couldn’t read the price on it. Oh, I think I knew the price. “Out of my reach, yeah that’s it.”
On a Saturday, just before school would start each year, we would either drive to Jacksonville or Kinston, North Carolina to buy my new clothes for the school year. In Kinston, we would go to H. Stadiem Men’s Store, in Vernon Park Mall, and to their “Hub” Department (Fine Men’s Section) and I would buy a couple of sweaters, several shirts and pants and normally I would buy at least one item that by the time school came around, I would be too embarrassed to ever wear to school. But we would never return those items to H.Stadiem.
Two examples of the unwearable items were: a silky white button shirt that had all sorts of colorful old style (a “penny farthing”) bicycles all over it — and another year — a short sleeved shirt, with a colorful African Dashiki design. I’m not sure why I ever thought that I would wear these to school, but my guess is that if I ever had, I would have been severely laughed at all day.
So mom, I know you’ve been dead almost 45 years, but I just want to thank you for loving me and providing for me in so many ways. I am an unthankful son, but I do thank you!
I was visiting Mary Ann and family down in Hubert, North Carolina for Christmas 2024. There is only one other person in the household that likes to get up and have breakfast. I’ve always loved eating breakfast and basically go by the adage that “a good breakfast is necessary to have the energy to start every day.” You don’t need a large meal at dinnertime, although I might not have faithfully adhered to that suggestion most of my life.
So, I found myself on Christmas morning, up early with no place to go… to get a good breakfast. Since Mary Ann doesn’t eat breakfast, there usually are no breakfast foods in the fridge. There usually are “left overs” from a previous meal, and sometimes that works for me. But I decided to go out for an early Christmas morning drive. Every breakfast restaurant was closed, except for a Starbucks over in Cape Carteret. I did have a hot cup of Taylor’s Scottish Breakfast tea before I left Mary Ann’s.
Looking out the Swansboro Burger King at the old farm place.
I did a brief tour around the family cemetery (QC Elementary) and then drove around the Burger King, and then on to Swansboro for a brief drive down the waterfront. Then I went through Cape Carteret, over the bridge, and on to Bogue Island.
— a memory —
Sometimes when I am crossing this bridge I think back to one of my high school proms. I think John Sharp had his dad’s truck that had a camper on the back. John, Steve Cooper and myself went down to “The Point” after our prom and spent the night, drinking “Boone’s Farm Apple” and “Strawberry” wine. I had bought brand new shiny black shoes to go with my rented tux, but they were too tight to wear for very long.
Anyway, next morning, I was planning to go see Debbie, who lived on the other side of the Waterway across the “not yet opened” bridge. The bridge was completed but it hadn’t been opened to traffic yet, so I had John drive me up to the bridge and let me out. He would have to drive all the way back to Morehead City to cross the bridge there, and then all the way back down Hwy. 24 past Cape Carteret, thru Swansboro and on even past Hubert to where he lived at Piney Green.
I was wearing my new black dress shoes, the only ones I had with me. I don’t think I even had socks on, but I started walking across the bridge. I’m not sure if I made it all the way over the bridge before I had worn blisters on the back of each of my heels. I took the shoes off and continued to walk beside the road.
They hadn’t opened the bridge yet, but they had planted grass seeds beside the road and spread straw over it and sprayed black tar on the straw to keep it from blowing away. A great idea unless you are walking barefoot, with blisters on your heels. As I walked the tar stuck to the bottoms of my feet, and then the straw stuck to my tar coated feet. After a short distance, I had a wonderful shoe made of my straw & tar coated foot. I would have walked past the Cape “C” Shopworth convenience store on my travels. This was the only store along Hwy. 24 here, nothing else but woods. I think the Circle K convenience store is either built on or on top of where the Cape “C” Shopworth was located.
I must have been a sight as I walked up the driveway to Debbie’s house. If you had only looked at my feet you might have thought of me as a perverted version of the Scarecrow from “The Wizard of OZ.” They took pity on me, but I couldn’t go inside with my tar covered feet. And, it was no easy matter to remove the tar & straw mixture. I think Debbie eventually drove me in the little Blue AMC Gremlin back to Sis’s house in Hubert. I manually pulled off some of the straw and tar, but I think we also tried to use something like paint thinner or some other solvent to remove the tar. Eventually I got the straw & tar off my feet, and could wear shoes again, but not the black dress shoes anytime soon.
— present day —
I decided to drive down to the end of the island, where an old Coast Guard Station had been located.
— another memory —
Along this route is where, long ago, when I was back in high school, I went riding with John Sharp & maybe Steve Cooper. John had a small light grey/blue VW station wagon. A nice little car for a student, but not as nice as the 1971 Pontiac LeMans mom got me for my Senior Year present. But John found himself racing someone he knew down this road. John was slightly behind whomever he was racing when he came to a sharp curve. It was here that John decided to drift to the right, around the outside of his fellow racer, instead of the inside, where he should have tried to pass. Well, the guy ahead must have looked back for John, but was looking inside to his left, and he began to drift to the right, where John was actually going. Yep. He hit John, not bad, but they hit each other. John was going to have to explain the damage to his car to his dad, but the car was still very drivable and we went on.
— present day —
So 2024, and I am driving down this road, past various colorful beach houses, and almost to the end of the road, either a turn around, or drive onto the beach. I saw a couple of people, a man and woman, walking beside the road. I saw they were each carrying some kind of “walking stick.” But, I had never seen a walking stick like these.
The one stick that I could describe from only a few moments as I passed the man, was it had a small round shiny metal head, with what appeared to be a large chain link net. I had never seen something like this before and I looked in my rearview mirror before I turned the corner to see if they were carrying any bags. My quick thought was that maybe these sticks were actually used for scooping up dog manure, but if that was the case the couple would have had a “doggy bag” to put the feces in, and they didn’t have a bag, that I could see.
I was near a turn around and this was surrounded by several beach homes. I stopped by an uninhabited house and took my phone to google for “walking stick with a shiny metal net on one end.” I had no clue what to call it so I just tried to describe all the distinguishing features I had seen. Nope, what came up looked nothing like what I had briefly seen. They were all normal looking walking sticks. I said to myself, “I will be wondering about this all day. What were those sticks.”
I turned around to retrace my route, and kept looking for the couple with the strange walking sticks, but they were no where to be seen. I figured they either lived or were renting one of these beach homes and had already made it back home. I did a circuitous round through the neighborhood and forgetting them turned to continue back the way I had come. It was then that I saw the couple, about to get into their parked silver colored Dodge Ram extended cab truck. *I’ve owned a blue & silver, Dodge Ram 1500 extended cab truck, so I know what they look like.
I first started to pull into the parking lot, but saw a Exit sign so I quickly whipped back onto the road and around to the Entrance. I was rushing to try and get to their truck before they were safely inside with their doors closed. If that had happened I wouldn’t have stopped to bother them.
But no, the man still had his driver’s side door open and I called out to him, “Excuse me sir, but I noticed that you and your wife were walking along the road and you had some unusual looking walking sticks that I’ve never seen before. One seemed to have a shiny round metal net on one end. I’ve never seen a walking stick like that.” He laughed and walked around to the rear passenger side door and brought out the two sticks they had been carrying and brought them up closer to my car window. He then explained that they were “shell scoops,” for digging shells. His wife’s scoop had an aqua colored plastic scoop that looked a lot like a large spaghetti fork. I said I had never seen anything like these, but I had grown up in the Swansboro area. I asked for clarification, “So you scoop into the sand to dig up the shells,” and he replied, “yes.” He told me these scoops were available at the local hardware store. I thanked the both of them, and said loudly, “Merry Christmas,” to which they both replied the same, “Merry Christmas,” and I heard them both laughing as I drove off. *This shell scoop has a telescoping handle, so you don’t have to bend over much to scoop.
What a pleasant interchange on a Christmas morning. Meeting a friendly couple willing to share their knowledge to satisfy my curiosity. A small present on Christmas morning.
After I left the couple, I drove on and down by the Islander Hotel that we had our 50th Swansboro High School Reunion a few years ago. Instead of driving through the hotel parking lot, I drove around the Public Beach Access parking lot next door.
Next I went down to the parking lot at Bogue Inlet Fishing Peer. *I’ve probably been down there several times through the years, and many times on cold Christmas mornings and I’m always reminded of a Christmas morning long ago.
— a memory —
My mother had gotten a co-worker of hers, “Rip” Jackson, to buy fishing “stuff” for my Christmas present. She was working at the Naval Medical Field Research Laboratory in Building 66 as a Clerk Typist. Rip Jackson lived in Sneads Ferry. He had also gotten my dog “Lassie” for me some years earlier. Mr. Jackson worked with the test animals at Building 66.
For my Christmas present, I had gotten a rod, and a No.9 Penn Peerless fishing reel, a copper colored fishing tackle box and several lures, hooks, weights, connectors, and even some fish bait oil (that smelled sweet & maybe like almonds).
The one lure I recall was a pearly white shrimp, that had two three pronged hooks attached. I’ve thought this lure would probably scare away more fish than it would attract. The lure shown to the right is close to the shrimp shape and the double three pronged hooks, but my lure was a solid pearly white with no other colors.
I still have the Penn Peerless rod in my bathroom, above the medicine cabinet.
Neither my mom nor I were fishermen. Not a clue. But we bundled up and drove down to the Bogue Inlet Fishing Peer on the cold, slightly windy Christmas morning. I might have been about 14 or 15 years old at the time. We got out and went onto the pier. There were just a few fishermen out that morning. There was one old fisherman, near where the waves were breaking far below the pier. He was pulling in one fish after another, and we were catching nothing. At some point, mom suggested that we move near this old fisherman. We did, and in a little while, he moved away from us. I think we moved close to him once again, and since we were probably scaring the fish away from him, he moved again. Eventually, we left, having caught no fish. But now that I think about it, “What a mother I had!” Maybe that is what mothers do. Get up on cold Christmas mornings and go out with their child onto a fishing pier in the Atlantic Ocean.
— present day —
After Bogue Inlet Pier, I drove back over the bridge that crosses the Intracoastal Waterway, and then turned to drive by the house where Debbie had lived. I think her address was 305R Holly Lane, Cape Carteret, North Carolina. The present day address shows as 305 without the “R.”
Where the current garage is located, was just an open car port when Debbie was living there. I think her bedroom was in the front right (facing the house) of the house, but I think I only went in there once.
If you look closely below at part of Holly Lane, you may be able to see that the street widens slightly, and there is a middle portion of discolored asphalt. When Debbie was still living down there, there was a tree growing in the middle of the street. It was there for many years.
Eventually, I drove back to Mary Ann’s in Hubert, but before I did I did a brief detour through the old part of Hwy. 24 that went through Hubert proper, glancing at where the Gurba’s used to live, and to my left as I passed where Rafe Williams’ barbershop was located.
— a memory —
The aside regarding Rafe’s barbering was that I had gone to Rafe for probably at least 15 years, and even while I was living down in Alabama (at age 29), I went without a hair cut for about three months. I came all the way back to Hubert, a very shaggy young man, and got another haircut from Rafe.
So, after I returned permanently and was living in Jacksonville again, I drove down one morning (probably a Friday) to Hubert and went in to have a haircut. Rafe didn’t even turn on the lights in his shop. I sat in his chair as I had so many times before, as he went through his barbering motions and finished, and I think I paid him $2 for the haircut. I walked out to my car, got in and as I began to back out, I looked in my mirror. I immediately saw that my right and left sideburns were very different. I put a finger at the base of each sideburn and realized that they were at least 2 inches different. One side I might call “high and tight” and the other was regular length (what I normally had). I turned around and drove back up to the front door of the barber shop.
I went inside and told Rafe that my two sideburns were very different and would need to be corrected. As we all know, or should, you can make a sideburn shorter, but you can’t make it longer. Rafe cut the regular sideburn shorter to match the other “high-n-tight.”
Later that morning, I had to go to the Baptist Association to have a meeting regarding the next year’s Youth Camp. All during the meeting I kept griping about how my barber had ruined my hair and I started saying that I was going to cut it all off. Rev. Jim Kelly, my best friend at the time, was also at the meeting. He told me not to cut my hair off because it would make him laugh, if he looked up while he was preaching and saw me bald.
It may have taken me a day of griping to finally get serious about it. But Saturday night about midnight I finally decided to get serious about removing my hair. Then you have to figure out how to do this. Do you shave it all off with a razor?
I went to my bathroom, looked in the mirror and cut a very small portion of hair off about where my “cowlick” came to a point. I looked. I hadn’t gone so far that I couldn’t stop, and no one would notice. But after a short while I got serious about cutting it all off. I cut the long parts off with my scissors, and then when it was short enough, I finished the job with my razor. I went to bed bald, on a very cold January night, and woke up with my shaved head under the covers the next morning. Let me say this. A person loses a lot of heat without hair, so don’t cut your hair off in the winter.
I showered, and went to church and sat where I normally sat in church. After the service I came up to talk to a friend. He told me that his wife had kept telling him to look at Bill Gibson, and he kept looking around the bald guy to see where Bill was. Funny, huh? It took several months for my hair to grow back, but it did grow back, and I still have most of it, to this day, but strangely, I never went back again to have Rafe give me a haircut, and I’ve had several good barbers since… and another careless one too.
— present day —
When I got back to Mary Ann’s she was still the only other person downstairs.
I have pointed out the many components of this one photo taken of me, by Mary Ann (age 22), in 1960. I’m not sure if she took this picture in February, or possibly in January either on my birthday, or a short time later. I was born on January 18, 1954 so I would have been six years old in this photo. I think this shirt and pair of pants looks really good on me, and I have a good haircut for the time.
*Over the 2024 Christmas holiday, I checked with Mary Ann, and she doesn’t recall if the photos were taken on my birthday, or a short time later. The “FEB 1960” tag on the edge of the photo was probably the date the photos were actually developed, not taken.
But now, lets take a look at the various components of this picture.
I am on the back porch of the old home place that was located on the corner of Highway 24 and Queens Creek Road. This house would be moved a short distance down Queens Creek Road and Uncle Bob (Robert Preston Morton, my mother’s brother.) and his family would live there for the rest of the life of the house. Without checking, I think Bob died in 1992, twelve years after my mom’s death in 1980.
The back porch is wooden, and look at the edges of the porch. They are razor straight, which means that this porch was relatively new. It had probably been replaced maybe only a year or so prior to this picture. A wooden porch, with age begins to deteriorate around the edges. The wood breaks off because maybe someone stands on the edge to jump off. I think it may be painted, or would be painted, probably a gray color. This would help the wood to last longer. Not the color of the paint, but the paint itself.
To my back would be a couple of doors that were access to/from the kitchen. There were no other doors to the kitchen, so you had to either come onto the porch from the yard, or you came onto the porch from the back door of the house. There was another door from the bathroom onto the back porch, but it was almost always closed and rarely used. Another thought with old houses is that they settle with age and the doors and windows don’t open or close without “sticking.”
There were two sets of steps for the back porch. One set was about mid length of the porch, about where the front bumper of the car is nearest the porch, and the other steps are at the end of the porch. As you walked off the back steps, there was a large Propane gas tank (a 100 gallons tank) just to the right sitting up off the ground on short cinder blocks, and on the other side of the gas tank was a flat topped water pump house. *The Propane gas was used for our kitchen stove. The cinderblocks were meant to keep the metal tank from touching the ground and becoming rusted. The tank was this shape, but the whole thing had been painted with a silver colored paint.
Notice the tangle of vines just in front of me and the bicycle. These were part of a Wisteria vine. It is highly intrusive, and will climb up a porch post, or up a light or power poll, or up a tree. It will kill a tree or will slip into the eaves of a house and cause a place for water or air to leak into the roof. The redeeming features of Wisteria are that they have a pretty purple flower, and it smells good when in bloom.
I’m sitting on my new bicycle that had been bought at the Western Auto Store in Swansboro. It was an AMF Roadmaster and was green and white in color. The chain is off the bike as a result of mom trying to take the rear seat off the bike. I thought the back shelf looked stupid and didn’t want it on the bike, but to remove it you had to unbolt some bolts and this changed the distance of the back wheel from the front and as a result the bicycle chain became loose and fell off the spokes. Someone besides my mom probably had to fix the bike. Neither she nor I had the mechanical acumen to correct this problem.
I think I see the edges of a couple of wooden chairs behind my rear bicycle tire, perhaps rocking chairs that might have been on the back porch.
The car seems to be parked too close to the porch & porch steps. It was an old Chevy, a Chevy Styleline, beige in color, and maybe from the early 1950s because of the bumper grillwork. Nothing fancy. A neighbor, Mr. Gilbert Trot, owned a black Chevy like ours and drove it back and forth to the Marine Base where he worked for many years. We thought he must take really good care of car for it to last so long.
*Bob had an old Ford that was also a beige color, and was probably from about the same time period. I think his next car was a little white (or light colored) Ford Falcon. Our next car would be a brand new1964 1/2 Ford Mustang, Prairie Bronze in color, and a Fast Back 2+2.
After the Mustang, I would get the next new car, a 1971 Pontiac LeMans, blue with a white vinyl roof (the vinyl had a little knobby texture), for my Senior Year at Swansboro High School. Mom would take this new car the next year to drive to her work. This was my first year at Carolina (Chapel Hill) and Freshmen couldn’t have a car.
Off the back corner of the porch you see a little house, almost a shed, but it was an old lumber jack’s house that had been bought so Aunt Lyde (Lyde Glynnister Jones) could live separately from the rest of us. Lyde like several of the Morton brothers and sisters had Tuberculosis (TB). TB is a contagious disease.
The little house had enough room for a single bed, a shelf that ran the length of the building and on which to keep a hot plate to heat water, and not much else that I recall. There had to be room for a few clothes. I rarely went into this house, but I seem to recall being inside one sunny afternoon and windows rand along on wall from the front to the back and the shelf was just below the window. Maybe there was even a plant on the shelf, and a single burner hot plate.
If you look just behind my head/neck, there is the old mule with his ass facing the camera. I don’t remember feeding him, or recall his name, (I’m sure he had one.) and I never played with him, and eventually he was sold, and I don’t know to whom. He is standing in a pasture, on the other side of the drainage ditch that ran along the back side of the kitchen. There was an electrical fence that ran around this pasture to keep him inside. *I remember early one sunny morning, that the dew was glistening on the colorful Morning Glories that were dangling down from the electric fence.
This was also the pasture in which the old “pack house” was located. To his left, just beyond his nose was the Queens Creek Road and in the distance above the mule’s head was the old tobacco barn, the one that burned down. It’s difficult to tell, but between the mule and the tobacco barn was Queens Creek Road (QCR).
The main part of the farm was located across QCR from the old home place and the pack house. *The pack house was used to pack the cured tobacco into large burlap sacks (a large square of burlap that could be brought together by the corners and tied into a bale, of tobacco leaves). The cured leaves were placed with the stalk end of the leaf facing outward, and forming a large donut shaped stack of tobacco.
At Market where buyers could walk along and examine the quality of the tobacco.
The uncured (green) tobacco leaves were first tied onto a long wooden pole with tobacco twine. Tobacco twine is thicker than thread. The twine needed to be thick enough to hold the tobacco on the stick while it was being cured in the tobacco barn, but weak enough to be easily broken by hand when you wanted to remove it from the tobacco stick.
The green, uncured tobacco leaves were first tied to a long wooden stick, about three leaves together at a time, and the twine looped over the stick to hold the leaves on. When finished each stick probably held about 45 leaves hanging straight down in a line.
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The sticks with the tobacco attached to them would then be put up in the rafters of the tobacco barn, which basically would become an oven, heated to draw the moisture out of the tobacco leaf, and turn it golden brown (thus the name Gold Leaf). You didn’t want so much heat as to burn the leaf, but just “cure” it. The rafters of the barn were far enough apart so that the long tobacco sticks would be held up, but hot air would be allowed to flow upward through all the leaves. I’m not sure if the heated air was recycled back down and then up again, over and over, but that would make sense.
What I have described above is “old school.” It is the way that tobacco was cured and then tied into bundles (burlap sacks) to be driven to market during the 1960s. I know there were markets in Greenville & Kinston.
Tobacco was “big business” during this time. In fact, I think few people thought that tobacco would every not be big business. The North Carolina Economy was dependent upon King Tobacco. But as with many things since that time, health concerns nation and world wide became more important and tobacco became much less important.
Another example would be Sears. Sears was the “only game in town.” We didn’t have the Internet, Amazon, or a local WalMart from which to buy all our needs. Sears didn’t sell groceries, but it did sell just about everything else. And we learned about what it had to offer by getting thick paper catalogs filled with pictures, product descriptions and prices, and an order form several times a year. There was a summer, winter & Christmas catalog filled with ideas for men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing, underwear & shoes. Toys & games for all ages, including adults. Household goods, like coffee pots, irons, and various electronics like radios & TVs. There was no Cable or Streaming TV, but the three basic networks, ABC, CBS & NBC were all being pushed out over the invisible “air waves” to provide entertainment and commercials to let us know what we should want. If you needed something immediately you might drive to Jacksonville to buy some items at Rose’s Department Store, or the local Sears. *How have Rose’s Department Stores continued to the edge of the new year, 2025?
A trip to New River Shopping Center in Jacksonville might be once a week, or every two weeks. There was a grocery in Swansboro, but Jacksonville had the Colonial Store. And one Saturday morning, Rick Tash, a TV personality from Wilmington. came up to the Jacksonville Colonial Store and made an appearance giving away balsa wood gliders to the children, of which I was one.
As promotional gimmicks, you could get the latest volume of the Golden Book Encyclopedia and eventually obtain the entire set of16 volumes from A thru Z. What colorful covers each volume had, with various symbols for that lettered volume.
Another gimmick was a set of Golden Wheat dishes, but you could only buy one type of dish each week. It may have been more than each week, but you could buy the cups one week, and the saucers the next, and the salad plate, and next the dinner plate, and eventually when you had several place settings you could buy the special gravy or sugar bowl, or creamer or covered butter dish.
Finally, I should mention Gold Bond Stamps. These were like S&H Green Stamps. You received a certain number of Gold Bond Stamps for the amount of each grocery purchase. Spend more money, get more stamps. You pasted the stamps in a Savings Book. The idea was that when you collected a certain number of filled books, you could redeem them for various items. e.g. a portable radio, an iron, a game or toy, etc. You would take the filled savings books to a “redemption center” and get your preferred item.
Papa at Back Corner of Old Home PlaceMary Ann in High School1st Grade1960s Swanboro Elementary Auditorium1960s Swansboro Elementary from Play Ground Area1960s Swansboro Elementary CafeteriaPapa, Onnie & Thalia Front Yard & Hwy. 24Looking Out Swansboro Burger King Drive Thru Window Toward Old FarmBurger King Swansboro Corner Hwy. 24 & Queens Creek Road
Notes on the above photos & images:
Lawrence deLafayette Morton (“Papa”) died in 1950 (see obit at bottom of page). In this photo he is standing at the back corner of the old house. He is looking toward the photographer, who is either standing beside Queens Creek Road or in it. The house still has wood siding, but by the time I can recall they had put light colored asbestos shingles on the outside of the house & a smooth sheeted asbestos shingle skirting (to keep the cold air from blowing beneath the house. I see a rocking chair sitting on the back porch just outside of the back door. *But, there is no wall for the bathroom, so it had not been built yet. Mary Ann told me that there were steps here to make it easier to go to the Smoke House and she thinks the bathroom was added in the 1940s. You can see the branches & leaves of some of the tall oak trees which grew near the front of the house.
The picture of Papa, Yvonne “Onnie,” and Thalia show them standing in the front yard of the old house when it was still on the corner of Hwy. 24 and Queens Creek Road. Years later, the Swansboro High School (from which I graduated in 1972, not the current new one) would be built on the other side of Hwy. 24. They would be where the current Swansboro Burger KIng is located. Note the large oak trees.
Mary Ann Kellum (Sharpe) is pictured here still in high school and she might be near the age of 16 which I was born on her 16th birthday, January 18, 1954. She took the photos of me on the back porch with my bicycle and in the living room next to our TV in 1960.
This is my 1st Grade photo. I don’t recall if this is 1960 or 1961, but because of my birthday, I was one of the oldest students in my class. There were just a few others older than myself.
I attended Swansboro Elementary School from 1st through 5th grades and I have several photos of a May Day celebration when this facility was still the Swansboro High School c1952. Mary Ann participated in the May Day but is not recognizable in any of the photos. Several years ago some of the buildings in this facility (the cafeteria & auditorium sections) were demolished as were the 1st & 2nd grade buildings. But the remaining two story structure is still there and is now part of a nice apartment complex (See below on Google Street View.)
I was either in 4th or 5th Grade in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I recall that my classroom was upstairs in the back of the existing building. An aid or another teacher came into our classroom and whispered something to our teacher. She was telling her that President Kennedy had been shot. I think the President’s funeral procession was televised on Saturday morning, and I remember wishing they hadn’t taken off my favorite cartoons to show his funeral.
My story on the Auditorium is that one year our class was putting on a presentation for all the grades in the auditorium. One group of boys was singing “King of the Road,” which was a popular song, and I wanted to be in that group, but wasn’t. I was part of a group that was singing & dancing to “I’m Telling You Now,” by Freddie and the Dreamers. We were dancing, “The Freddy,” which required you to flap you arms and legs alternately to each side of your body. I’ve seen video of this from the original group on YouTube. On the day that we performed our song & dance (two performances, one for the younger grades & one for the older) our group was standing on the stage side by side. We started singing & dancing and part way through the presentation I looked down on the front row of the audience and saw some people staring, poking each other and laughing. I looked down and my “fly” was open. I don’t recall if I turned around and continued to dance, or not, but we finally finished the song to my relief.
I recall working as a student helper in the Cafeteria. There was a little window where students brought all their dirty dishes & used milk cartons on their trays and placed them on the window’s shelf. The trays would then be taken and the paper products thrown into the large gray rubber trash can. The remaining food would be scraped off from the dishes into a “slop” container and the dirty dishes, silverware and trays would be put where they would be conveyed into a steam cleaner, to be cleaned for reuse the next meal. After doing this several times, I decided that I didn’t want to do it any more, and didn’t.
One day we had sauerkraut as part of our meal. We probably also had those thick red sausages that were slightly curled from cooking. I don’t recall what other sides went with this lunch, but I do know we had a half pint of milk (Maola). as always. On this day I didn’t want to eat the sauerkraut, and I noticed other “boys” instead of eating their sauerkraut, they were stuffing the sauerkraut in their milk cartons. I normally would not do something like this, but I really didn’t want to eat the sauerkraut. But, I also still had a half full carton of milk, but I put my sauerkraut in the half filled milk carton anyway. I then got up and headed with my tray and dishes to the window. But just before I got there there were a couple of teachers standing talking. One teacher stopped me and lifted my milk carton and then told me, “You haven’t finished your milk. Go back and finish it.” I didn’t realize it then, but thinking back on the situation, I wouldn’t be surprised if she hadn’t seen me stuffing my sauerkraut into my milk carton, and was giving me my ‘just desserts.'” I went back and tried to drink the milk/sauerkraut mixture but let me say the two do not combine into a drinkable drink. I gaged, and didn’t drink any more, and fortunately the teacher either was gone or didn’t stop me on the way to put up my tray.
The result of this event was that I didn’t eat sauerkraut for a long, long time afterwards. It may have even been 30 or 40 years later before I put some sauerkraut on a Pastrami & Rye Reuben sandwich and enjoyed it. I have since found that mixing a little Thousand Island dressing along with the sauerkraut makes a delicious side dish, after all you mix the two to go on the Reuben sandwich and that tastes good.
On the first day that the Swansboro Burger King opened, a Sunday, I went down and sat in a booth by the Drive-Thru and looked out trying to imagine where the old kitchen & smoke house had been located. The view in this picture looks out across Queens Creek Road and on to the old farm, which now has the new Queens Creek Elementary School. The new Swansboro High School is next to this elementary school, and the Morton Family Cemetery (my mother, her parents & a brother and sister are buried there) are located here.
Lawrence DeLafayette Morton Obituary (Daily News 1950)
Onslow County NcArchives Obituaries.....Morton, Lawrence DeLafayette June 22, 1950 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/nc/ncfiles.htm ************************************************
File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Bill Gibson bgibson@uncfsu.edu March 25, 2006, 8:28 pm
Jacksonville Daily News Jacksonville Daily News “The World That Gives A Whoop About Onslow County” - Tuesday, June 27, 1950
LAWRENCE D. MORTON
Lawrence D. Morton, 78, died at his home near Swansboro Thursday morning. Funeral services were held Friday at 3 o’clock at the graveside conducted by Rev. R. L. Wethington, pastor of the Swansboro Methodist Church. In addition to his wife, he is survived by five daughters, Mrs. Lyde Jones, Charlottesville, Va., Mrs. Earle Hughes, Portsmouth, Va., Mrs. Zeta Littleton, Portsmouth, Mrs. Raymond Kellum, Hubert, and Miss Vivian Morton, Hubert; and two sons, Edgar and Robert, both of Hubert
Additional Comments: This is Lawrence deLafayette Morton, son of Westley Edward Morton and Marinda Caroline Thomas. His wife was Thalia Alma Freshwater. He was buried in the family cemetery which is now located in front of the Queens Creek Middle School, just outside of Swansboro, NC.
This is a doctored image of a book cover that I saw in Michael’s (I think that is the hobby shop.). There was no color on the front cover, just black & white, and the ink was raised. You could feel it to the touch. On the back was the same image, but the ink […]
I’m watching a re-run of the old Outer Limits episode called, “the Premonition.” The intro to this episode included video clips from the actual X-15, and the B-52 used to lift it into the sky. I recall, at the time, that there were ice cream/popsicle trading cards which included airplanes, the X-15 and I think things like rockets such as the Nike Zeus. *Although the name “Nike Zeus” stuck in my mind, the image I recall was apparently called “Nike Hercules.”
But the realization I just had was that I never thought, as a boy, “I’d like to be a part of that, maybe fly that aircraft,” or, “help build that aircraft, or whatever the next best thing is.” I never thought, “I’d like to work for NASA.” And, that’s something that I think a boy should think, or be taught to think, whether they grow up to work for NASA, or become a ditch digger, or policeman.
I understood many things, and thought of many things in a more “worldly” way, that I attribute to having watched a good deal of television when I was growing up. I didn’t think about being a farmer, or growing tobacco, although my family (mother) owned “the family farm,” and tobacco, corn & soy beans were grown on this land, by “the Fat Farmer,” Frank Howell. I came up with the name, “Fat Farmer” because he drove around in a big truck to the various farms he had leased from different people, and he had a big belly that flopped over his waist band. I think we received $3,000 a year for his leasing our farm, and the majority of that amount was due to the Tobacco Allotment. I’m guessing the Tobacco Allotment was determined by the Federal Government, and based upon the amount of tobacco that could be grown on our farm that year. The Fat Farmer would combine these tobacco allotments from the various farms, but would actually grow this combination of tobacco on one or more of these farms. That would make sense, to grow a crop on land that would produce the most. You could concentrate your equipment & workers, and raw products, seeds, fertilizer & pesticides on a few acres, not have to actually move them from small plot, to small plot on many farms.
El Catrin a previous visit.El Catrin as it was last week.The Rollator near me was Neldas.
[NOTE 10/31/24]: Last week when I was visiting Mary Ann we met at El Catrin. There were a couple of ladies from her group that were already there. I didn’t catch the name of the woman sitting next to me but we talked for quite a bit during lunch, but at the end she mentioned that Frank Howell was her father. I had never met her. She had moved from the area and worked as a Cooperative Extension Agent (I think.) for 30 years before retiring. This was down in South Carolina in the Clemson area. When she said that Frank Howell was her father I asked her name and it was Nelda Howell. Mary Ann said she never married. I told her we called him the “Fat Farmer” and she laughed because she had never heard that name before. I also told her the story of once they were hauling large bales of tobacco (the cured leaves packaged up like a big tobacco doughnut and tied up in a large square burlap sack) on the back of a small pick up truck. There was a young teenage black boy sitting atop about 5 bales which put him fairly high in the sky. There was nothing tying these bales to the truck, and it was moving slowly and turned up Hwy. 24 where Queens Creek Road meets 24. As the truck turned, the bales of tobacco swayed slightly. The boy on top would have been severely hurt if the bales had actually fell. [end NOTE]
For years, mom paid taxes on the family farm based upon the size being 70 acres. But, when the farm was finally transferred to the New River Baptist Association (many years after her death) and the land actually surveyed, the total acreage was 79 acres.
Mom worked as a Civil Service Clerk Typist for over 40 years, most of that time was aboard Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base. She worked at Building 66 – Naval Medical Field Research Laboratory for a few years. I think two of her co-workers there were Barbara Brainerd and Robin Short. There was also a Robin Short, a daughter of mom’s co-worker, that attended Swansboro High School, and was a few years older than myself.
Not my tackle box, but exactly like the one I had.
At Building 66, mom had a co-worker named, Rip Jackson, who lived down in Sneads Ferry. One year, mom had him buy fishing gear that she gave to me as a Christmas present. I don’t recall, but there had to be a fishing rod, and I still have the Penn Peerless No. 9 reel. There was a copper colored tackle box and inside were some lures and fishing hooks & lead weights. I do recall one lure which appeared to be an ivory white hard plastic shrimp with a couple of 3 pronged hooks hanging down. I think there was also a bottle of fish ointment, meant to attract fish. You were supposed to put a little of this oil on a lure. I think it smelled like almonds, but maybe not.
My Penn Peerless No. 9 reel.
That Christmas, mom & I drove down to the Emerald Isle Fishing Pier. She nor I had any idea about how to fish, in the Atlantic Ocean, or anywhere else for that matter. This was way before the Internet, where I could now go online and watch YouTube videos and read about fishing, and then at least have some idea of how to fish. But, then, nada.
Rip Jackson was also the guy that got me Lassie, my dog, which was to be one of the test subjects at the Lab. *This time period would have been during the Vietnam War, and I recall some story about one of the tests at the lab being putting an actual cadaver foot in a combat boot and blowing it up to see the effects of the blast on a human foot. I never actually saw this, but that is a mental image that has stuck with me ever since I was told it, when a child.
Not sure if I was going fishing, but one time during cold weather, seems like it was also on the Emerald Isle Fishing Pier, the Atlantic Ocean was dead calm (no waves at all, glassy, unusual), but the steam was rising off the water, almost like smoke.
There were a few people on the fishing pier, Christmas day, that year. There was an old guy, near where the waves were breaking below, near shore, and he was pulling in fish, one after another. Mom and I would move close to him (probably causing the fish to move away from him also) trying to get some of his “luck”, but we didn’t catch anything. And, shortly after we moved close to him, he would move away from us. Not sure that I went fishing ever again with that equipment. Years later, I did go fishing with Ervin Wilkins (Aunt Pete’s long-time boyfriend.) in his small boat. He looked kindly on a fatherless boy, and we went out from Aunt Pete’s dock, in front of her house at 521 Riverside Drive in Portsmouth, VA.
I recall that once, we left the dock almost too late. The tide was going out fast, and we came close to being stuck in the mud, a short distance from her dock. Not sure if we would have tried to walk back to shore, in the deep mud, or just wait for hours until the tide came back in. But, we got out. And, not sure if it was this time also, but we were in the James River, between Portsmouth & Norfolk, and both Ervin and I had our lines in the water. We both snagged something at about the same time, but on different sides of his boat. We started reeling our lines in, and after a while it became obvious that our lines had become tangled together. And then, our hooks had snagged the same Toad Fish, an extremely ugly fish, and not good for eating and the lines had wrapped around each other, to the point that Ervin just cut both lines, instead of trying to unwind them.
Lassie loved to chase cars, and one morning, she chased her last car. Seems like the car had those large fins on the back, maybe a Plymouth Fury. The car had turned down Queens Creek Road from Highway 24, and heading toward Queens Creek and Lassie chased it. I did not see this at first, but heard Lassie yelp as she was hit by the car. I think I looked out from our kitchen window, and maybe that is where I saw the car briefly, and saw Lassie as she ran from the side of the road, and past the kitchen and around the back of the house (where our smokehouse was located). I ran out of the kitchen and off the back porch and found her dead (I say her, but I honestly don’t recall if lassie were male or female.) in the back yard. Painful, but that’s what happens if you chase cars. *Oh, the car did not stop, and I didn’t expect it to. And, having seen the dog run a good distance around past the kitchen, the driver may have never known that they had killed my dog.
[NOTE]: The photo of my Penn Peerless No. 9 above also shows three carved wooden fishermen. I bought several, maybe 10 or 12, of these carved wooden figures more than 30 years ago. I think they were $1@ and I got them at the specialty store in New River Shopping Center. I was living at 204 Johnson Blvd. which was a short distance away.
Several times through the years, I’ve thought about trying to buy some extra carved figures in order to make a complete “fisherman” themed chess set. Haven’t found any figures that are about the same size, and each one is now too expensive to make a chess set. There would be a problem with how to color the two sides, but I like the shape of the fisherman in the yellow rain slicker & hat, to be used as a Bishop. There were no female carved characters. Last year, I came up with the idea of using carved pilings with a perched sea gull as a Rook.
I was trying to recall the name of the specialty store, in New River Shopping Center, where I bought the carved figures. The store location was where the old Sears had been located. I also bought a set of dishes there, made by Gibson Company, and I have used them, and continue to use them to this day, for about 30 years.
But, this reminded me of some of the other stores that had been in NRSC in my years growing up. There was the Colonial Store (they had Gold Bond Savings Stamps – equivalent to S&H Green Stamps) on one corner & the Center Theater was in the same block, on another corner. One Saturday, Rick Tash, a TV personality from a Wilmington, NC TV station came to the Colonial Store in Jacksonville and gave away Balsa wood airplanes. I don’t recall, but this little airplane glider might have had had a red plastic propeller and a rubber band set up that, once wound up, would propel the plane a short distance. *I show you the glider here because it seems so close to my memory of what I actually had (several times) as a child. The nose had a metal clasp to protect the nose of the toy when it hit something hard. And, the plastic wrapper seems so familiar, and only 10 cents.
There were also dishes with a wheat pattern. I think you could purchase a dish item (cup, saucer, dinner plate, bowl, etc.) if you had bought a certain amount of groceries, but I don’t recall how many groceries, or if you had to pay for the wheat patterned item.
There were also the Golden Book Encyclopedias. I think there was one volume available, not sure if it was every week, or every month, so you would purchase Volume 1 and take it home and wait until the next volume was available. There were 16 volumes total in the set. I bought a set of these, as an adult, that also included about 5 or 6 extra books that were geographical specific. I still have them. They were small volumes, but had lots of colorful pictures to illustrate the various topics, and the volume covers were each distinctive. Not sure how much each volume cost.
Roses Department Store was a favorite visit. Ron-Cor was a hobby store that at one point had a large slot car track. Bill Rollis’ Steakhouse was on the corner down from Ron-Cor, and across the parking lot from the Center Theater. I think I took a date (maybe even Debbie Sutton) there once, and we both had steak & lobster dinners for a total of $20 (not each, the two). *I had almost forgotten that next to Ron-Cor (or thereabouts) was Peck’s Bakery. I don’t know that I ever went in this bakery, but I always equated the phrase, “Peck’s bad boys,” with this business. Years later, and maybe from something online, I realized that the bad boys were sons of a different Peck, not this baker, in Jacksonville, North Carolina.
There was a “red-haired” girl that was interested in me, and her brother worked or managed the Center Theater. Seems like I/we went, for free, on a couple of Saturday mornings to the serials they were showing. Not sure if the serials were a Western or maybe Flash Gordon (SciFi). I think movies only cost 25 cents.
Down from the Center Theater, there was a jewelry store, and that may have become a Men’s Clothing Store, or was next to it at a later time. I bought a nice Herringbone “London Fog” Overcoat from this clothing store, when I was a college student. I kept this coat for over 20 years, maybe 30, and then when I looked closer, I saw moth holes in the sleeve. And then I threw it away, but it was a very nice, classic men’s overcoat.
Perhaps the men’s clothing store was around the corner from the jewelry store, or it seems that was the location of the entrance to the clothing store. And, the clothing store might have been owned by a Popkin (Jewish).
Formerly the Center TheaterFormerly Roses Department StoreEach year the corner became Santa’s HeadquartersTo the left, near is where I bought the Herringbone London Fog Overcoat. In front & across the way was Bill Rollis’ Steak House & Ron-Cor.
On the inside corner of the building, next to the men’s clothing store, was a little enclosure, with a cross-hatch wooden ribbing & I think it had some glass. I never went into this little cubicle, but each year, at Christmastime, Santa would make this place his connection to a long line of kids & their parents who waited to tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas.
In later years, just around the corner from Santa’s hut, and facing (across a large parking area) the old Sears location, was a health foods store. I have a vague image of looking at a large plastic bottle of some kind of vitamin or supplement in the health foods store.
Down, and around the corner was a drug store. Don’t recall which one or if it was just local. And next to it was a small US Post Office location. Next to the Post Office was a Peebles, which I recall had clothing, and maybe some household goods. Not sure if Peebles had taken over the old Colonial Store (which had been closed a long time) location, or if it was next to it.
Oh, and across the street from the old Center Theater location, there was a local grocery store built (I think built years after the Center Theater was no longer a movie theater.). Not sure if it was an IGA grocery store location, could have been a Piggly Wiggly, but definitely had a “country” vibe to it.
There was a bank near where the old Sears location was, and across the parking lot from the Post Office was a building that was a washerette. And, this reminds me of a gas station & mechanic that was next to the washerette, on the corner. Just down the street, about a block away was the New River Baptist Church. I started attending NRBC about 1977 and mom started going there also. She eventually helped tend the children’s nursery.
I’ve eaten a bunch of steamed cabbage recently. I love the flavor, and if you give it just the right amount of sweetness, it is a delicious side dish. But, salt & margarine, and maybe some bacon grease can only go so far. I thought, what might spiff up steamed cabbage, and immediately thought of adding a mustard sauce. *I really, really, really don’t know why I thought of a mustard sauce. I hadn’t seen anything, recently about this, and I don’t think I’ve ever had steamed cabbage with a mustard sauce. It may be like the time I was walking down an isle in my local Walmart and thought that I might like to make hummus at home. There were the cans of garbanzo beans on the shelf, so I chose one (may have been Hanover), took it home and googled on how to make hummus. I like making hummus, every so often, and having a veggie meal, with olives, smoked oysters, sweet bell pepper and sweet onion, carrot sticks, etc. Surprisingly, even though I like celery, I don’t like celery and hummus. **Not all canned garbanzo beans are equal;-) I found that some companies cooked their beans longer, some shorter. So the canned product may either be too hard, or not. And, when I first made hummus at home, I was using my older, smaller, Braun chopper (came with a chopper, whisk, & stick blender) which wasn’t powerful enough to grind an entire can of garbanzo beans into hummus. I since bought a larger Braun unit which has no problem with a whole can of garbanzo beans. ***The chopper also does excellently on making homemade salsa.
So, I thought “mustard sauce” and googled for a recipe, if that was a valid food combination. Sure enough I quickly found a Cabbage with Mustard Sauce recipe online and looked. It seemed to be a very easy recipe. Steam the cabbage wedges. Sautee diced onion in olive oil. When translucent, remove the onions from the oil. Add a small amount of flour to the oil, then some milk, and finally add the onions back to this sauce. Pour the sauce over the steamed cabbage wedges, and then sprinkle with black pepper. *The recipe is simple, and I even wrote the above from memory. That is something I just memorized about 30 minutes ago. And since, I’ve been online buying microplane spice grinders, Grains of Paradise, and Indian Long Peppers for Christmas presents, via Amazon.com, but came back to write this entry.
I have no illusions that these gifts will be appreciated, or even used, except for the Grains of Paradise. This was a gift that I gave to Danny a couple of years ago, and he mentioned it to me in thanking me for it sometime later. So, I’m planning to give Danny another package of Grains of Paradise seeds this year for Christmas. **I did see online that there is an Alligator Pepper from West Africa. They appear to be pods, which have seeds in them. But then I noted that these seeds are actually Grains of Paradise. Who knew? Certainly not me.
I gave a small sample of the Indian Long Peppers last year as Christmas presents, and no one let me know, “yea or nay” as to them. But, they are difficult to process, with a special pepper mill, or a mortar & pestle (which most probably do not have). I even found using the mortar & pestle mildly difficult. You had to hold your hand over the bowl so that the pepper being ground did not jump out.
So, I’ve been happy with the special “microplane” grinder that I found online. This grinder will grind nutmeg (probably the most “wear & tear” on the grinder), Indian Long Pepper, cinnamon, and various other hard spices. This grinder was well planned and even had a storage compartment in the top grinding handle… but, it is made of a hard plastic, and the threads to the storage compartment seized up and I haven’t been able to twist it open for quite a while. I just add my Indian Long Peppers from an external source and the grinder works fine!
NOTE [ 11/17/23 ]: So after several months, probably 4 – 6, I tried again to open the storage part of the grinder, and today, the seal broke and I was able to get to the contents inside. I found quite a few Long Peppers in it, and took them out and put most of them in the grinder. But later I found that the grinder wouldn’t function properly with too many items, so I took all but a couple of peppers out, and the grinder works fine.
From a comment that Lawrence made some time ago, I’m not going to give him an assortment of flavored teas… although, I wouldn’t mind getting an assortment. Well, I probably wouldn’t want an assortment because I already know what I like and have a pretty good selection at home of what I regularly like: Constant Comment & Earl Grey being my longtime favorites (probably the 1980s and Rick & Linda Bell). Finding Chris, what a horror that must have been. And Raspberry Royal from my trip to Lynchburg, VA. I have several other flavored teas, but none repeatedly satisfy like the three mentioned above.
This microplane grinder was extremely well thought out. I put it in a similar category to the old Northwest Airlines logo, which I deem as the perfect logo for an English speaking audience. Their old logo consisted of two interconnected images. There was a circle with a small triangle pointing to the northwest quadrant, signifying a compass pointing NW. But, the small triangle also helped form an italicized N into a W. Wow, what a brilliant creation. I’ve never seen any other logo that spoke so well, with no wasted space. “This was poetry.”
So, I made the mustard sauce this afternoon and hated it. There wasn’t enough mustard, and I’m not sure if there ever could be enough mustard. I tried adding some horseradish and that wasn’t the right direction. I tried adding some Splenda, because I do like a sweetness to my steamed cabbage, but nothing actually worked. I did try some other BBQ type sauces, and mixing horseradish with them, but had no steamed cabbage to try those sauces on. One sauce had a tomato-ey base and the other a mustard-ey base, and I like both, but not sure either would add to steamed cabbage. **Just saw a suggestion to flavor the steamed cabbage with Soy Sauce. I like Soy Sauce, and that would be a different direction for flavoring. But that also gets me thinking about Toasted Sesame Oil, which I equate with fried rice. Perhaps Soy Sauce & Toasted Sesame Oil together would be a good combo with steamed cabbage. But, might be too overpowering depending upon what else it is served with.
A Well Thought-Out Spice GrinderAnother Flavored Tea from BigelowThe Perfect LogoMustard Sauce on Steamed Cabbage
[NOTE 02/16/24]: As I said above, I hated the mustard sauce from the recipe above that included flour, but just recently I wanted to try mustard (yellow) on some steamed cabbage. I added some of the Creamy Horseradish from Inglehoff, and some Splenda Sweetener, and put this on the cabbage, and it was good. [end NOTE]
The Hinnant Vineyards website. Hinnant Vineyards is located a short distance from Selma/Smithfield, North Carolina. I’ve tried their Muscadine/Scuppernong wines, but this time I tried their non-alcoholic Muscadine grape juice. Chilled, this juice is delicious.
Camelia Lady Cream Peas
I don’t recall from where I bought these dried peas originally. I probably had the pound package (Camelia Brand) in my cupboard for a year. But, the mood hit me and I probably googled to see how to cook them. They are flavored and shaped like a black eyed pea, but don’t have the black eye and they are much smaller in size. And, they hold their shape after being cooked, but are “melt in your mouth tender”.
I used some country ham to flavor these beans and they turned out well, but their tenderness became an annoyance. Odd! The next time, I decided to cook two types of beans together, choosing some Green Split Peas along with the Lady Cream Peas, and some seasoning meat and a little onion. I had forgotten that the green split peas would break down on their own, and both beans took a short time to cook, about 40 minutes. The split peas formed a bright green broth, and the Lady Cream peas were little white islands floating in the sea of green.
I have also added carrots to this soup, and I guess those colors: green, white and orange could represent the Irish flag. What I haven’t tried yet, but think would also go well, would be adding leeks and seasoning with tarragon. *I have a garden pea & leek soup that is flavored with tarragon that I know is distinctive and delicious.
As I said, I don’t recall where I first purchased the Lady Cream Peas and then found that I couldn’t find any more locally. The Camelia Company sells various types of dried peas, but even in stores selling the Camelia brand, there were no Lady Cream peas. I finally had to go online and found that I could buy Lady Cream Peas at Amazon.com. Perhaps their availability is seasonal, even though they are a dried bean. Camelia Lady Cream Peas at Amazon.com
Camelia Green Split Peas
Nothing special about this pea other than its “earthy flavor” and bright green color. Seasons well with ham bits. Camelia Dried Green Split Peas at Amazon.com
Suncrest Farms Country Ham Chunks
I’ve found this brand at Food Lion and the company offers what I might call a pork knuckle, and country ham with bone and without. I do use other seasoning meats, but this is good in black eyed peas, lima beans and the lady cream peas. Suncrest Farms Country Ham Chunks at Food Lion
Claxton Fruit Cake
Claxton Fruit Cake was a standard Christmas icon when I was growing up in eastern North Carolina. I’m not sure I even had another brand of fruit cake until I was much older, and then I was spoiled by my “first love”. *I am aware that these heavy, fruit & nut filled logs are the brunt of jokes and that some people definitely don’t like a Claxton Fruit Cake.
I have been in Claxton, Georgia twice and visited the Claxton Fruit Cake Company both times. Vidalia, Georgia isn’t that far away but famous for those sweet Vidalia Onions. But I found that there was no reason to go to their place of origin for either Claxton Fruit Cakes or Vidalia Onions. You can get either at WalMart for a good or even better price.
The price of a Claxton Fruit Cake has gone up severely due to Covid, but I recently found Claxton Fruit Cakes for a really good price at Harris Teeter.
Season Anchovies
I originally bought the Season Brand of Anchovy at WalMart, and then they discontinued Season Anchovies. These were so good that I ordered the Season Brand online. I hope these are as good as what I tried several years ago.
Many people would never try an anchovy, but I like them on pizza and I have added them in cooking various things. They do “break down” and don’t have a fishy flavor. I think the term is that they add an Umami flavor. Umami is one of the five basic tastes, along with sweet, sour, salty and bitter taste sensations.
I think I was watching an episode of Emril Legasse Basil Pesto or Basil Anchovy Pesto. This Legasse recipe doesn’t include anchovies, but the one I saw did include anchovies, pine nuts, garlic and basil. When this is blended the pesto is a bright green. This goes really well with a steak. Not something I would expect with a steak, but deliciously different! Season Anchovies at Amazon.com
Walnut Oil
I’ve not tried this oil, but saw it as a “close out” at Lowe’s Foods in Southern Pines. I find this grocery chain to be expensive. I would guess that this would be a good oil for “finishing” a salad, or some other uncooked dish. I googled and it said that this has a mild walnut flavor. *I know that Avocado oil might be used for a similar purpose, or one that imparts almost no flavor to a dish.
Coconut Sugar
One of the grocery stores I shop at regularly is Sprouts. A few weeks ago I noticed an Organic Coconut Sugar in one of their bins. I tried some.
Even though this sugar is made from coconuts, the flavor in coffee, reminds me of cocoa. But, this is sugar and not cocoa.
I have also added a little of this sugar, along with some extra cinnamon to Egg Nog. It definitely heightened the flavors.
[01/01/25]: Sprouts no longer sells the Coconut Sugar, but I did find it sold in packages at the local WalMart. That works for me.
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Murray River Salt
I don’t have much use for this salt, but it is unusual because it is in “flakes”. That way you get more salt because instead of grains you have small salt flakes. I’ve read this salt is best used in “finishing” different dishes, at the table. Murray River Pink Salt Flakes at Amazon.com
Long Pepper
As with many food items, I probably purchased this (at the Savory Spice Shop in Raleigh) because I had never seen this before and wanted to try it. My last couple of visits haven’t turned up anything new that I want to try, or try for their price. I came across a small packet of these Indian Long Pepper and decide to google for what to do with them. They are long and hard and need to be ground before using. I have a small mortar-n-pestle that I purchased several years ago. I rarely use it, but for grinding these Long Peppers, it was a good tool. Still had to cover the top with my hand so that the pepper bits wouldn’t jump out onto the counter.
*A small coffee grinder would be great for this because this is a good, intense pepper flavor, that you wouldn’t want to grind too much in advance. Indian Long Pepper at Amazon.com
[01/01/25]: After writing the above comment, I found the Microplane grinder on Amazon, which works fine for grinding the Indian Long Pepper. I’ve written about this grinder elsewhere in detail.
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Everlasting Pencil
I think I’ve seen this item advertised as both a pen and a pencil, but since it doesn’t include any ink, and works on the same principle as a pencil, I will call it a pencil. I’ve also read that each writing nib (comes with a nib and a replacement nib) is the equivalent of 22 No. 2 pencils. So that is 44 No. 2 pencils worth of writing. You don’t need to sharpen this pencil, so it never becomes shorter to hold. It does come with an eraser, but you have to unscrew the pencil to get the eraser out. Everlasting Pencil on Amazon.com
NOTE:
I was watching a cooking episode of Jamie Oliver in which he suggested trying these Borlotti/Cranberry Beans. I found a Borlotti Bean and Chard recipe online which I tried. This turned out to be a delicious, savory dish worthy of being tried repeatedly. *Surprisingly now that I am aware of these beans, I see that they are also called Roman Beans and can be purchased in a can at WalMart, or as dried Cranberry Beans at IGA.
I had bought a bunch of Swiss Chard at Fresh Market, which was an unusual purchase for me, but the red color in the spines of the green leaves was attractive.
[NOTE 05/07/24}: Early May at the Farmers’ Market in Raleigh at Moore’s, I bought a bunch of Red Velvet Sorrel and a single stimmed live Basil plant. The plant was $5 which I thought was a little expensive since I had seen a multi-stimmed plant at Publix the previous day. The Sorrel looked as if paper had been painted with the red and green design.
Bill Gibson, II 