‘Zoo’s Who’ for Downtown

            What’s the Chapel Hilliest slogan for our downtown – something more than generic, catchy but without hubris. and unique to the spirit of Franklin St.?
            The Downtown Partnership has considered and abandoned “Left of center, right at home.” That carries a relationship to the ideology of this community as a whole, but not particularly to downtown. Several other suggested phrases have implied contrived but non-distinctive pride.
            Orange County flirted with and abandoned highway signs that proclaimed  “You’ll be a fan for life.”  That’s a declaration without substance. The Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau is digging deeper. It has hired an experienced professional firm to recommend a “brand” that will be especially appropriate.
            So far we’ve seen nothing truly “downtowny” for our local business district.
            My own exploratory suggestion is simpler, sentimental, and easy to remember: “Zoo’s who – you’ll love it.”  Carp at that, but work around it. It implies the apocryphal story about Chapel Hill as the inherent natural spot for the state zoo. It carries a nod to our intelligentsia. And has an easy rhyme.
            –Now on to less important concerns, such as the high cost of living and global warming.
 

 

To be a real Chapel Hillian…

          The ranks of ecumenical immigrants to Chapel Hill are inevitably increasing and we welcome them. Unless they’re in the minority who bray about “how we did it up north,” they bring a healthy energy to our hometown psyche.
          Those who willfully adopt Chapel Hill by a deliberate decision to come here are particularly blessed. The few of us who are life-long locals appreciate them all the more because we didn’t exercise that franchise of mind. We simply stayed on and accepted the faith we were born with and inherited.
          Loyalty to a particular team is indeed commendable, there are limits to group-think — to Atlantic Coast Conference allegiance. So there’s one thing these enthusiastic, happy new Chapel Hill Tar Heels need to understand in the wake of the Blue Devils’ defeat by LSU in the NCAA basketball playoffs this week.
          Dookies (we must spell it that way) are understandably downcast. But don’t expect us true Dook haters to be unhappy.
          The mark of a real Chapel Hillian is, as the grand old song goes, “We don’t give a damn for Dook University…”
 

Cameron Henderson sees roles reversed

          The first day of spring in this hallowed Southern Part of Heaven was overcast and blustery. I hadn’t seen him for several months, but there he sat on the spot he’d claimed by long-time squatter’s right –the rock wall in front of the downtown Methodist Church.
          “You’re late, dummy,” he said — his customary grumpy greeting. I remembered he never said “Hello,” just burst right in like the self-proclaimed hometown patrician he believed himself to be.
          “Welcome home, good Cameron Henderson,” I said, grasping his hand in admiring fellowship. True to form, he withdrew from my grip and continued his chosen one-way conversation.  Cam, my life-long idol as the Oracle of Chapel Hill, needed no further provocation. He was back home from a winter down South, I realized.  With gratitude at his repatriation, I awaited the Gospel according to C.H.
          “Well, I see the nouveaus are at it again, blathering away.” 
          “Indeed Cameron, blather is perennial specie in Chapel Hill. Nothing’s changed in your absence. But what deserves your rightful scorn at this budding new season?”
          “It’s the same old ‘plaint,” he continued. “Griping about change in downtown. They all talk about how it was when THEY came here 10 or 15 years ago, and claim the new plans would corrupt paradise.”
          I realized he referred to the Town Council’s proposal for a public/private business and residential development downtown. “Yes, C.H., they would consider themselves saviors of the invisible vanishing village.”
          Cam wasn’t finished. “Sonny boy,” he said addressing me  more cordially as he realized I agreed with him. “The nay-sayers will  hang themselves on their own petard this time. Generally it’s the Town Council that’s against new development. This time the Town is the developer. Hah! With the roles reversed this will be a peculiar controversy.”
          Mystic that he is, he left the conversation at that, and huffed off down the sidewalk, heading for a cup of coffee at Sutton’s. I’d like to have heard more from him on the subject, and probably will. But at heart, I was just glad to see him back home and in such good characteristic form.

Interstate speeders beat the rap

            We try to drive safely and within the posted speed limits on interstate highways – but it’s dangerous.  It’s dangerous in the right-hand (slower) lane.
It’s more dangerous to drive within the speed limit in the left lane.
            The other motorists, particularly truckers – tailgate, toot, and pass at speeds 10 miles or more above the limit, be it 60, 65, 70 or 75.
            Occasionally a patrolman will clock and stop a speeder. But most drivers are wary enough with their fuzz buster instruments, cell phones or CB radios to elude the law. Truckers quite effectively give warnings about “Smokey” in the area up and down the highway through their constant radio conversation en route,
            In earlier days the cops hid behind billboards to spot speeders. That technique could nab a great many of these scofflaws. Patrolmen in unmarked cars, advantageously parked along or near the highway, could efficiently clock violators and radio a message to a stake-out ahead, or simply mail a speeding ticket by mail.
            Eventually the growing problem of speeding will make new techniques like this necessary. I wish they’d start doing it now.
   

 

McCorkle Place ‘assigned’

            This year’s UNC senior class gift will be a nice addition to downtown — a tastefully appropriate sign marker for McCorkle Place, the  wooded grove that’s a beautiful natural front porch for the nation’s first public university.              The Class of 2006 hopes to raise $40,000 to design and place a marker monument  near the rock wall of the sidewalk boundary of the original campus. Unique to this campaign is the first-time personal participation of the University Chancellor. James Moeser has pledged $20.06 to the drive if 15 percent of the senior students contribute to it, $200.06 if 25 percent of them do, and $2,006 if 35 percent participate – a noble gesture to encourage this campus beautification. Last year’s senior class raised $50,000, so this modest goal appears quite achievable.             Classmates voted for this project over a painted mural on campus or a faculty endowment. While the design is yet to be decided it will definitely embody stone work to complement the campus border stone walls built over 150 years ago by UNC Prof. Elisha Mitchell.             A sign for McCorkle Place revives the question about its namesake. Samuel Eusebius McCorkle was the eldest of 10 children (and father of 10 himself) of Irish immigrant parents. He was born in 1811 on a farm near Salisbury. His scholarly inclination was whetted at Princeton and by a mentor, the Rev. Joseph Caldwell, first President of the University. At six-feet-one, with blue eyes and sandy hair, he was said to resemble Thomas Jefferson, whom he once met.             The Rev. McCorkle was chairman of the committee that planned the course of instruction for the new university. He gave the address at cornerstone laying rites for the first building on Oct. 12, 1793, and predicted that the wooded site would be the focus of “an elegant village ..with the conveniences of civilized society.” Surely the prophesy has come true.             An attractive condominium development across East Franklin St. from McCorkle Place will complement it at its completion in a few months. It was to be called McCorkle Place Condominiums – a logical historically-based name. But the bureaucracy of Chapel Hill, in all its inevitable wisdom, decided the Fire Department might be confused by such an across-the-street name, so the developer chose as a formal handle something totally undistinguished and  generic – “The Condominiums.”             By whatever designation, a McCorkle Place sign and an attractive residence across from it will be a visual credit to the neighborhood and community, and a benefit to strangers and home folk alike.