Our North Carolina Home 1970-84 "We're relocating WHERE ? ", I fainted, lightly, incredulous, to my husband. And a few months later I wondered , "If God didn't come from North Carolina, Why is the sky Carolina Blue?" I love my home state, Connecticut, with all my heart. My family's roots for a century, and my home again. But I cannot remember North Carolina without feeling wonderful, and love it every bit as much, because of we spent those years of our lives there, that women cherish, and that can never be done again. This page is growing and shares just a few of the Golden and Glowing Memories of people, places and things, many of which are still going great and grander than ever! A few key links, to start: Wellcome Trust Today's Wellcome folks in Greenville/Raleigh, before Y2K-our employer. East Carolina University ECU's Wellington B.Gray Gallery The Greenville, North Carolina 'Daily Reflector Newspaper' online friends and one-time employer more to come..... The Story: It was 1970, and triumph was ours: the first years of our marriage, college ,and our son and daughter born and fine, and my husband, Peter's Military duty done, the happiest day of my life, till this day, is still the day my personal "Lieutenant" returned from Viet Nam intact, and, though tested, our love intact, as well. I married a man who made medicine, but his company Wellcome, was situated in New York, and I love New York and thought that if he wished to move closer to work, I would not mind at all. But North Carolina? Southerners! Not Catholic ! Drawls! Racism! Rednecks! Oh, Dear! The children's educational opportunities...I was thinking Yale. But the company, I learned was opening a door to opportunity, to be part of the now-famous RTP think tank companies, part of the new Southern Boom, about which I had read. I loved my life, and my husband and our babies....a fine miracle, and, since I did not like the image of me being loaded into the moving van in a rocker, against my will, I "got with the programme", and off we went. Connecticut is small and hilly. If you are a Hobbit fan, it is like "the Shire" and as dear...all 8 counties. North Carolina"s 100 counties spread from the Blue Ridge Mountains on the West, to the Atlantic Ocean on the east, and our home would be in Greenville on the Piedmont Plateau, in-between the two. So that first day in our new car, with our babies, all I could think of was the Carpenters' song, "For all we know" as I experienced the word "expanse" at the range of vision, so far along the flat but very green landscape. Outside town, the famous tobacco barns seemed to advertise themselves as icons. The flat land and temperate climate meant the roads were like the ones to the Emerald city....no potholes from freeze/thaw upheavals on our New England hillsides. My husband laughed at my astonishment...roads don't come this good! In return for my good adjustment to the move, I was given lots of latitude about our living arrangements. My family owned and did not rent, but I got into the idea of exploring first, and then buying a house, so we rented one of the first of the east coast condominiums. Later I called it our "Wagon Train", since nine of the immediate twelve units housed others from our corporate transplant. I found the sitter, the decorator and our new church - another marvel. Connecticut is home to very many Catholics and my schools were Catholic grades 2-12, but here in North Carolina only seven per cent were Catholic and two tiny parishes took care of us adequately. There were even fewer Jewish, and the nearest synagogue was forty miles away. Lots of food for thought. A native of the area warned us to be circumspect, since the KuKluxKlan was not much happier with Catholics than with Blacks, and there had been some resurgance of KKK activity. My husband and I promised to keep that one in mind, but none of the others seemed alarmed, so we calmed on that issue promptly enough. In fact, the past few years for Tarheels had shown them to be in the fore for all forms of racial integration, upgrades, equality and opportunity. I said nothing and just watched, wanting to make my own judgement on it, and was satisfied and even impressed. Our condo was comfortable, and our life ours. I will never know if it was the intensity of the demands of the previous five years, or relief that a more normal and safe and happy and prosperous path was ours, at last, but I fainted at break-time that first month of move-in...tucked the children down for nap, tidied from lunch, put the last nicknack on the shelf and ...... I woke up a few hours later, on the floor in the den, and rushed to see if my napping babies were ok...they were, so I smiled, and tucked the episode in my pocket to tell my husband one day when were old and reminiscing - I thought he'd find it entertaining, then. I am not a fainter, and was not entertained, but mildly horrified, and took a little bit more careful care of myself for a while thereafter. But I had no plans to add to my wonderful husband's stress at "just then". His job, as plant superintendent, construction and production startup under way, was a sixteen-hour-a-day thing at that time, and that, just after his VietNam military service and superhero performance as pioneer Natural Childbirth Father...which was the greater challenge, I will never know. My only demand of him, just then, was that he be sure to call when he was en route home, so his dinner would be a 'just-right" satisfaction, after such a day. Finally, the plant startup was in line, and we smiled at one another... a honeymoon, finally? Our wedding trip to Bermuda was elegant, but he and I had "no pulse" from stress, since he would be going to Viet Nam soon. He had just completed his officer's training, and before that, "straight A's" for senior year in college, and from the challenging days of trial for Officer's commission, with studies and military exercises at all hours, for stress-test, he was physically drained - it was brutal - and so, on our honeymoon, my first instincts were for his care, not romantic fun. Altogether, in marriage and baby things, we had moved seven times in four years. But "Yessssss" a honeymoon at last, with the Wagon Train included sometimes like a wedding party. A very happy time! The teens next door took the children to their home for our special evenings, and the rest is "classified", jubilant, exultant, and treasured till today! My sister, Lori and husband Tom, visited soon after and brought us a kitten, a brindle ( like a white-and-a-color calico, but with grey and white and some other color) we named Gretel, a well-behaved town lady cat, who soon matured and delighted our toddlers with a litter of kittens, and I think my memories of those happy days could probably cure diseases! For a moment, "just us". Amy loved her first important doll, Baby Anna, from Fisher Price, and Peter John's BigWheel would happily join the BigWheel Scrambles in the condo complex parking lot at off-peak hours...our unit was in the most private location, and safe for the fun. The parking lot large with a center island, just begged to be used as a Big Wheel Racetrack! Vroooooommm!!!! Ferocious four-year-olds proliferated! With my husband at work and things stabilizing, I soon was out the door and helping with a nice new help for the liberated woman, a thing called daycare. American Day Nursery was part church and part commercially owned, and even today, I can proud of the way of it; its rules were in the fore for excellence! There is so much to say about this part of the adventure, but for now, that it enlightened us all and put my Arts/redcrossy skills right to work, and made a great and easy day for my own two toddlers will have to do. Soon I was back on campus, with East Carolina University only five minutes away. I have saved and used some of the textbooks, till this day and the memory of a few very important professors truly inspired. I was 25. The Arts College had won a grant and new buildings were under construction, and jokes among us, as our quiet studios hummed along with symbolic reminders of the power behind it all, as heavy equipment and pile-drivers banged away in the background! And there was even the "I love Lucy" moment, to remember, as well, when, in a required class for manipulating wood as a medium my wood block caught the wrong way in the table saw and flew across the room, narrowly missing other students and denting a fuse box on the wall behind me. It was not the way I had planned to leave my mark at ECU! And "yesssss" Women in the Arts issues emerged on occasion. I had enjoyed tutoring and classes under mostly women and nuns, so I had to sign up for male teachers for a bit to balance it all out, if I wished to achieve my goals. Fine, and two of my three main male arts professors had zero issues with ladyarts, and I thanked God I was a wife and mother and a bit mature already, because it helped with the third, who could be provocative to the lady students, till they called him by an unflattering nickname. I merely wore my Jackie Kerouac black and white plaid and flared a nostril at him, and showed skill and aimed my carving exacto knife at my plaster sculpting, pointedly, only one time. He could be negatively robust, in class on occasion, and aim specifically at one. Essentially, I grew in skills and focus and brought my toddler son to studio once and let him outdo me at the work...he did! I still have some of the art he made in those days, rather ahead of his time! Our daughter was still too little, or I would have brought her along, of course, as well! I had work stats with the schools and high standards for proper environment for our children, and that studio was really just that nice! As for me, no issues! My husband, descended from suffragette maternal grandmother and career and educated mother and sisters, was only proud of my continuing education. Our romance blossomed more profusely than ever! And I made honors in my classes, with not one stress moment at home over it. Such was worthy of comment in those days, and I am specially proud of that, today. Our time at the condo lasted longer than we planned - from happiness - and for no other reason. The neighborhood had a fine pool and tennis court and party house and we bought bikes with child seats and toodled about in the sun, one way or another, in perfect delight and contentment, after several years of serious challenge! Thank you, Angels! The North Carolina way charmed me. Even a drawl-allergic type like me really loved the light and elegant lilt to the speech there. It might have been our Irish ethnic strength in common, for part of it. Or our happy social inclination. A pleasant path for us then. And the people behind the drawls were lovely! The intensity a bit lighter, and the hearts warm, but not overwhelming or soppy. Someone saw to it that each of the children's rooms had a shiny country rocker, and I sang "Summertime" and rocked our children and "lived the song"! I almost rejected the whole idea, of this relocation to a home in North Carolina, only months before! A few months later, and my feelings had so dramatically changed! "Gasp" at what we had almost missed! My husband smiled: "Almost doesn't count, 'cept in horseshoes and darts!" I learned about a thing called "Tarheels", and wonderful things like "pig-pickins'", the North Carolina version of the Barbecue. Every North Carolinian man worth his wage had a recipe for the right basting sauce for the noble porker, and I developed a passion for the crispy parts. Served with a thing called collards, and "new-patatas, new-patatas, new-patatas"... another new word for me in 1970 ...soon I was in complete agreement with the bumper sticker slogan "If God didn't come from North Carolina, why is the sky Carolina Blue?" Only my Connecticut Blue home state might compare, I thought! The "from around here" people forgave my issue with okra. But the rest was pure fun and new. But it was time: we were outgrowing our car and our condo, and would have to get on with it. The developer for our condo complex made it seamless, since he also was constructing homes. We quickly found one we liked and, grateful for the ease of it all, moved into our first home. "Floor plan, floor plan...you like to decorate, anyway....the rest you can change...but be sure of your floor plan." (wrong,wrong, wrong...first is NOT floor plan, but mortgage life insurance ... which we thought we opted for, but somehow overlooked, as impossible as it seems ). Slate entry, Living/Dining facing South, to Kitchen and Den, and three bedrooms and two full baths, with a huge attic and central everything. Heaven! Greenville on the plateau and our ranch house....both very "on the level". Another gift from the God's. Fun with decorating - The nightmare blue cabbage rose wallpaper in the kitchen was easy to replace with something easier to confront first thing in the morning, but the breakfast area and kitchen were perfect, otherwise. Full of windows and always sunny, it even got shutters later, as America became more energy-conscious..the electric bill came down by one-third in the warm months of central air conditioning, once the passive solar was better managed. Outside the kitchen windows our new neighbors were not parents yet, but we shared an interest in the new coached childbirth. Having gone that way with great success, I made a fine "auntie" for it, before long. And they played Bridge, so who could ask for more? "Field peas". The husband was a field peas expert, as well as descended from Bridge Pros. Both delicious. In fact, restraint was the thing, since we had almost too much in common, just then. Things at Wellcome were toodling along, on a sort of honeymoon, as well: all prosperous and halcyon after all the setup hubbub. I was so proud to be married to a man who made medicine, vof one of the best on earth! It was the early seventies, and the news was full of stories of sociological unrest and a new thing called terrorism. The Racial movement in North Carolina had grown beyond its tragedies, and a new day of enlightened action without violence gave us all a thing to do. Improving the quality of life for one, improves for all. Cats don't transplant all that well, if by chance, the move disorients them - they go looking for their old territory, and poor Gretel simply disappeared that first month in the new house. We searched, advertised, and finally accepted her loss. With the children so young, a new pet was on the list, and as soon as possible We had promised the children a puppy, but first had to find a new cat, missing Gretel. We went to the Shelter and rescued a kitten with no hair on its tail. I thought it a condition, but it was merely kitten fun, of a sort: one of his pen-mates liked chewing on it. Our kitten weighed one pound and was healthy and gold and white, and our toddlers called him "Oranges" for his color. Our vet gave him gold stars and worming pills for heart and health. And two happy toddlers had a new furry friend. But the pup - I had met a Brittany Spaniel on an outing with my husband and from that moment on, we would have no other, and bought a little lady Brittany Spaniel. Since our new cat was "Oranges" , we called her "Apples". Brittany Spaniels come in combinations of Liver and White, Orange and White and Liver Roan (speckled). Apples was the orange and white, most highly-prized of the colors, and was one of us, instantly. The site does not say much about it any longer, but the Brittany Spaniel's AKC ID has changed, since then, and there are two distinctive breeds now, when one says "Brittany Spaniel" it is no longer the same as "Epagneul Breton", but then the breed's distinctions ran a broader range, from its roots in Brittany, France in the 17th century. Apples was on the small end of the broad regulation size and we liked her like that , one of a large litter, she was supplementary fed with a bottle , since her mother was small too, and thirteen puppies were very demanding to nurse and wean. Apples and Oranges might be Apples and Oranges, but ours were a fine and happy pair till Apples outgrew Oranges, and then their romping about became a bit rambunctious, with lamps crashing to the floor, when their play had the growing Apples and feisty Oranges bumping too hard into the furniture. We had to step in a bit, but they seemed to realize, themselves, that things were changing, and soon they achieved a bit of reserve, were grown and more polite, but always good friends. If our son wanted to run with them, they ran; if our daughter wanted to dress them in doll clothes and wheel them about, in her doll carriage, that was just fine with them. But, in return, if Apples preferred to curl up in the emptied, scrubbed fireplace in the summer, behind the fern I put there, so she might enjoy the cool brick , that was fine, too. And if Oranges liked to entertain us in shrew season, catching any and all of the little cousins to the mouse that sometimes visited my young garden, we were expected, of course, to be full of praise for his might feat, and accepting of his desire to play with his catch for a bit, before he would let us dispose of it, and disinfect him, just in case. Soon, for civic and chidlrens group meetings, I had fun renovating the carport into a family room, and it became my salvation. All things messy and wild were encourged to the family room and expensive damage to the Living room things was stopped. Like our condo, our new home was part of a new and developing neighborhood and had an even larger pool and tennis court, and a community house for entertainment and meetings. We soon organized tennis and swimming lessons and summer olympics for the children and holiday fun events and our church was welcome to do the neighborhood community prayer groups and even masses in our homes, like the first Apostles. By this time, change was coming, but good ones: the children out of diapers and training wheels, and my husband recovered from warthings and the plant startup and me recovered from the heavyduty momdays, and money enough to grow. Two more babies, and maybe a new house, after awhile, to accommodate it all. My husband was one of six and his two older sisters had eleven children between them. We felt four would be tops for us, though we both wanted twelve when we married. "Stop at Two", said Ralph Nader, "Don't stop at all" , said the Pope.....and wisdom for our own abilities seemed somewhere in-between. In the meantime, PeterJohn and Amanda were a delight and were showing high IQs and happy personalities, that required very little bossing. My life with them was great....."good co-operators", I praised them...a lot...they earned it. The typical day was full for us all, and they seemed to love doing their part to keep things running smoothly. And my husband and I had a natural love for chldren and worked volunteer with sports and arts groups and so it was easy for us. But the bi-centennial was drawing near. The house and its people all took upgrades and off to Washington we went. (....to be continued. ) Circulation Secretary ~ Newsdays 70's Websurfing, thirty years later, I found the new web site of The Greenville, North Carolina "Daily Reflector" Newspaper. What a surprize! In 1973, I had been an employee, working at some changeover organizational tasks for the Circulation Department. I did the job, trained my successor and then went on to another committment. Although it sounds pretty unremarkable,that was not my experience. I was just 23,a Connecticut native, an infant on each hip and sassy, just moved to South,with my husband building the new Wellcome plant and making medicine, and home safe from war and normal. In fact, I was so "bus'open happy", according to the words of the paper's original family owner, Mr. Whichard, Sr. near 100, and son, David Jordan, of undisclosed age "Can't get her down!.....and we're tryin'!" Southern gentlemen WILL go too far to see to a lady....:-) Younger son, Jack Whichard, noticed I was sort of reeling from the unique brand of Southern Hospitality, and said: "She'll do o.k. here, we ARE the"North of the South". I was impressed by his act of diplomacy, and though my stay with the Reflector involved nothing more than re-doing a desk that had "gone to seed", and training my successor, and on to other things, it was unforgettable. The Whichard family bought and ran the paper for nearly a century. It was my first observation of newslife from the inside, since high school yearbook work and journalism class could tell me nothing like what I was learning now. The movies image did not fit the climate there...the Reflector's leaders maintained very high quality standards for the paper and themselves, not far removed from a religious commitment. The climate was very respectful, yet lively. The job with a southern data source was enlightening.I felt it a great spot to learn about the reality, rather than the stereotype of Southern Living. Laserphoto came in with me, and I enjoyed the idea of the coincidence at that age... brave new world and brave new tech and brave new me! Mr. Bonnie Rae Hardee was my superior, and sometimes we even related to one another. The majority of his responsibilities involved work out of the office, seeing to the preparation of the papers for delivery, the delegation of the bundles in correct numbers, to the delivery crew, printing and delivering USPS mailed subscriptions (places named "Swan Quarter" romanced me, conditions on the delivery routes (deliciously suspicious for a mystery lover), customer service(...do you issue hard hats?..nevermind...Mr.&Mrs.Soandso just walked in with their vacation stop and made it all better.), organizational meetings -my boss really looked like Lou Grant...who could ask for more?...the look was good for work ethic..., as he barrelled through his day from office to production, bundling and motor route responsibilities, and so only at circulation book-balancing time was he available for more than a moment, which was fine with me...artists love independent work climates. Nelson Adams, Mack Boyd, Tommy Forrest and others in the department kept my desk lively and friendly, as they checked in concerning their part of things..there was a lady carrier with hausband named "pistol" who amazed me for vivid...a Zena prototype with a dozen rings on her fingers and foot-wide smile. Never bored! My part of the job involved front-desk phone, subscription payments, delivery starts and stops, and customer service. The previous employee had been gone for a while before they found me, and the desk had been run by secretaries from adjacent desks and the manager in the interim. At 23, it was fun feeling the rescue person, and so over-qualified for the tasks. In fact, after a year at developmental daycare artmommy work, to stablilize our children, the job was supposed to be a bit of getting it together again, and it worked. Our lovely town house in Greenville was our seventh move in four years...just as I placed the last knickknack, and the children down for naptime, I fainted! I was not a fainter and so was disturbed and never told anyone: lesson - God is infinite, I am not. They were all happy moves due to upgrades in life, private and public, but I was accellerated and young. Then came the homesickness and concern about our family, and my husband phoning from work near midnight, to say he'd be home in twenty minutes, during the plant building stages, so I could serve him a warm dinner, and be sure he was handling the sixteen-hour days well. When the plant was going in schedule, our lives "got normal" and we junket-ed around, second honeymooning over the success of things, in general. We found two good bicycles and with the new childseats for the back, had fun "easy-riding - light", in a town with one hill, on the Piedmont Plateau...and I helped in the new idea of day care, and new nice rules for two-career households. In spite of the Yankee teasing at start-up, the people at The Reflector respected good work of quality, and side by side with the women and our babies, local and otherwise, I earned a pair of country rockers for our son and daughter, very quickly.....wish I'd had them bronzed!Not many women get lullaby "Summertime" like I did! Later in life it is such things that have value.....the life things. I was impressed that the staff of the traditionally crusty world of news were so sensitive...the moment-to-moment awareness and courtesy, the crazies when, "not from around here", it was still my turn to take a jibe, evaluation, and correction. One of the Whichard daughters was so gracious I sailed for a week, and her Mother a beauty, body-languaging shyness over it, to blushing. Top-dog reporter Stuart Savage covered lead stories, but in the office talked about his work and his mother's coin collection, but not too much.......for wisdom's sake...they said he was psychic, and respected it in him. Joan, at the switchboard, Black-American, was Mrs.Martin Luther King, as the staff showed a religious committment to doing integration right. The town became exemplary at it! Rosalie and John Trotman were social news and advertising, respectfully...and husband and wife, charmingly. Their son, Tony, was a toddler, too, at the time, though they were older parents...if I was good about not noticing their age to parenting , John Trotman would refrain from calling me "child"... not with the exact word, but in effect. He was genial, so I found it easy to co-operate on that point, and so they allowed me to celebrate it with them! Today I was thinking that I could use John Trotman's help at this moment... I am a fine artist, but am blind to some snag in the online marketing... and a lot depends on it going right! Second in line to Mr. Savage, Tom Baines was quieter...sort of working himself into it...relatively new, I think, and very nice. Finding the Reflector site, of course meant a note of reunion to the Reflector via e-mail. I received a reply today and writer/ layout vet, Woody Peale, was still among them....wow! ...still 29-and-holding-what does he eat? I think he did sports coverage. In my mind's eye, I can see him, also Don Schlienz, and hope the reader will correct me if time makes error here, slim, glasses, thinning fair hair, studying and discussing copy, at a desk, under flourescent lights. A most-respected guts of the operation, then....the movies kind of newsguy.....eggyheady...my eyes widened in respect when I encountered him....unless he didn't want it at that moment, and then I was happy to take myself elsewhere.....gently/instantly....Obi-wan-kenobi? a force field? I wasn't up to Lois....the accountant...she wrote our checks and the friendly office stopped dead in its tracks when Lois balanced the books, and did the payroll. With little ones, doing my life responsibly meant the job cost me five dollars a week, once my own expenses in child care and other conveniences were tallied. But my husband liked it for us, the experience and the things it brought into our home made it seem worthwhile, and I was enjoying it, so I stayed as long as I could. Our son, four at the time, later founded and runs part of the San Francisco Chronicle's site ,"The Gate", and so, I would be thrilled to speak with any of the staff from the old days.... "Got that newsprint in our blood now...:-) " Many times I have thought:....would they like comment, humor ,fillers, notes from me, since my widowhood meant moving back to Connecticut a long time ago...I am sure they have the finest staff and news services, but have had fun with the idea of sending the paper my observations at special times, like nine-eleven or since?...I have a rich if odd life up here, and would be happy to pass on anything of note...they would be welcome to pitch it or use it as they wished... Since then, a piece or two has found favor in assorted publications, and when my "adventure" brought losses that would not get to court, being able to write the book about it has helped: the good and bad of it make a reading, one intended to help and entertain, and the proceeds from the book should compensate me for some of the financial losses, with some for gifting those who helped, and so I have been "sleeping the sleep of the just". If not for the lively warmth and challenges of the right kind that the paper provided me, I wonder...the Fourth Estate was a lovely land for me in those days...that one time in a person's life when the adult rules are falling into place,I worked with straight, high-integrity people of letters, sensitive, alert, outward-bound and just plain good! The Greenville NC Daily Reflector Online Note on the graphic, below: It is my sketch of the "world" at the news office, to emphasize the importance the place held in my memory. Comment welcome...the job "cost me five dollars a week", due to daycare fees in those days. My Red Cross friends might remember the ARC Volunteer poster: "Best job I never got paid to do!" Some things are just like that, I guess. "Je ne regrette rien."