Bill's World

Memories of Christmases past vivid still

Bill Williams — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 18:43:55 GMT

    It is getting harder for me to be nostalgic, because the older I get the less I can remember. My memory is quite vivid, however, on some Christmases past.

1945: Home for Christmas

    Millions of service men and women were still involved in trying to put out World War II fires. And back home, the effects of spilled blood across the oceans had drained the vitality of those working and waiting over here.

    A couple of days before Christmas, I stepped outside the gate at Dover Air Base in Delaware, joining the dozens of other GIs trying to thumb a ride. During those days, thumbing was a breeze. In no time, I was heading up the highway to Wilmington. There, I got aboard a train for Washington, D.C., where I would transfer to a train heading south.

    I got off the train in Union Station and realized that I was on one side of the gate and the southbound train was on the other. The problem was that when I went through the front doors I was at the rear of a throng of mostly servicemen — I’d say 8,000 to 10,000. Chances of my getting on my train were nil.

    I walked out of the station, looked right and left, and wondered if I would ever make it home by Christmas. Then I had an idea.

    I walked along the street, heading south, until I came to a spot where I could see the railroad tracks. I made sure that no one was looking and hopped over to the tracks and walked north. Within a few minutes, I was on the right side of the gate, and 10,000 would-be passengers were on the other side. When the train came and its passengers got off, I felt it my duty to be the first one on and to get a seat worth the best of my snoozing.

    Did I give one thought to some unlucky passenger who had the honor of being the first person behind the gate to have to wait for another train? Hee-hee-hee! (I know! I know! But the devil made me do it.)

Juanita’s kitchen

    That was also the year when Juanita, my new sisterin-law, and brother Floyd invited me to their house for a Christmas dinner. They still were practically on their honeymoon and were living temporarily upstairs in her parents’ house. Downstairs, her dad had once again put up his very intricate model train system. And once he had an eggnog or two and had donned his engineer’s cap, he could make that train talk and blow smoke.

    It wasn’t the train that made that night memorable, however; it was Juanita’s fabulous cooking. I don’t remember the various dishes that she brought out, and brought out; I just remember what a great meal it was and how thankful I was to have been a part of it.

    Juanita had received great training in the kitchen from her mother. In time, her reputation spread around Salisbury, her hometown, until she was constantly in demand among the folks who love to give great parties. Today, at 92, her oven only yearns for the day when it will turn cold.

A pokeful of gifts

    Back when I was 8 or 10, it was a practice in our church to give “Christmas Pokes” (read: bags) to everyone signed up for Sunday school. Generally, you were expected to pay 15 cents for your poke, but if you didn’t have 15 cents, that was OK. Somehow, the 11 folks in our family managed.

    On the Saturday before the Sunday on which the pokes were to be handed out, a committee of men and some boys filled the pokes. My buddy and I always volunteered to help.

    We knew. Oh, yes, we knew. We knew that there would be oranges to sample, along with English walnuts and other nuts, candies of various kind and flavor, raisins (whose box had somehow broken open), apples, whatever.

    Back then, in that small town, we knew it was Christmas when we came home from church with our Christmas Poke. For many people, that was the extent of their Christmas. Those were Depression days, and money for gifts was hard to come by.

    But we had our pokes. Oranges, tangerines, a grapefruit, raisins, chocolate kisses, candy canes, several varieties of nuts, flag candy, a pencil, a handkerchief.

    Looking back now, it wasn’t much; but it was something.

    And something, back then, was a lot more.

    (Bill Williams is a retired editor of The Gazette.You can reach him by e-mail at:

    bwilliams6864@carolina.r r.com )

BILL WILLIAMS Bill’s World

Beauty is where you find it

Bill Williams — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:02:30 GMT

He was standing there on the corner of Franklin and South, looking up at the cloudless blue sky. He had his hands in his pockets and was relaxed the way a man is when he’s deep in thought.

He had a happy, satisfied look on his face, much like a cat after a supper of fish heads and rice.

I was on my way to the barber shop and gave him a greeting as I approached. He grinned and returned the greeting.

“Beautiful day,” I said, for it was. One of the best. Not too hot. Not too cold. The sun was smiling as though it had returned from a long trip, which, I guess, it had.

“Ever’ day’s beautiful,” he said. Then, he went back to looking at the sky again.

I ambled on across the street, reached the other side, paused and glanced up at the sky a couple of times. Saw nothing unusual. No buzzards floating lazily. No hawks. No clouds falling around like animals at play.

The man’s words came back again: “Ever’ day’s beautiful.”

I said to myself: “Now, there is a wise man. He has come to accept the philosophy that life is a privilege and that the Lord’s gifts are innumerable, and that a person ought to be thankful for these gifts.”

I got my haircut but couldn’t get my new friend out of mind.

What he was saying was that beauty is where one finds it, and it is all around us.

It is there on the front porch as we watch the kids ride their bikes up and down a less-traveled street…

It is a walk through a woods noticing as the earth refreshes itself…

It is donning a heavy coat and going out in the winter time for a quick walk down the street.

Emily Dickson once wrote: “Beauty is not caused – it is.”

She probably had in mind long rows of well-kept houses at dusk, or a child running to its mother, or a farm boy going out to help his dad with the chores.

Or, a child’s face over his birthday cake…

The due on a morning rose…

Sunday school with children singing “Bless Him”…

A mare in the pasture with her new-born colt trotting by her side…

An old man on a swing talking to his grandson…

A night of moonlight highlighting the shocks of corn in a field…

This is beauty.

Things that are a joy forever.

Eating contests make me sick on my stomach

Bill Williams — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:37:28 GMT

I have a drawer or two in my bedroom that remind me of a picture I saw the other day.

This fellow had just eaten his way through mince pies in an eating contest, and had walked off with the money

Well, I’m not sure that he walked off. They might have had to carry him off.

The picture shows him sitting at a table with one hand on a glass of water and his other hand half way in the air. It would have been good if that hand had held a white flag.

His mouth was full to capacity and his cheeks puffed out like a plastic bedpan that had seen many years of activity.

This annual mince-pie-eating contest took place in Wookey Hole, England. Competitors attempted to eat as many pies as possible in 10 minutes. The prize was $2,000 and the chance to compete in a major speed-eating event in the United States – if he could make it.

Wookey Hole. Yep, that’s where that contest was held. Wookey Hole. That sounds like an experiment for a new brand of X-Lax that was put out to rise but didn’t.

Anyhow, if you win in Wookey Hole, you get to travel to the United States where we have a few wicky-wokey names attached to our cities. Odd names. Like Odd, W. Va., or Hell, Mich.

I think Sophoppy, Fla., would be a good place for a pie-eating contest – or Monkey’s Eyebrow, Az.

I am not sure what are the contest rules. For instance, how long do you have to hold down the food before you can splatter it on a far wall? And, is there a prize for hitting the most-distant wall?

I am not in favor of eating contests. I had a close relative some years ago who stopped off at a restaurant in Texas and ate the really beeg steak with all the trimmings. And there mounds of trimmings. If you ate it all in 10 minutes, you got it free. If you didn’t, you forked over $49.99, and that was in the ‘70s – a lot of money.

He forced the last bite down as the clock hurried to zero, and then had enough money to finish the trip out West.

He was the toast of his Boy Scout troop for a spell, even though he did look like somebody with a dead dog chained around his neck.

Which reminds me…I must do something about those bedroom drawers.

Some thoughts while delivering my papers

Bill Williams — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:36:39 GMT

(Note: I wrote this column a month or so ago (before retiring from my paper route) but somehow neglected to send it along to The Gazette. Read on, if you dare.)

I was tooling along the other morning, delivering my papers, when I got to thinking. Thoughts kept spinning and tumbling like a week’s wash.

“I wonder whatever became of old so-and-so…I gotta do something about getting a substitute for this route…it does get wearing at times…isn’t it about time I got another haircut?…isn’t it about time to replenish the bird feeder?…

Out there early in the morning when darkness is melting away and you can see the outline of branches in trees and spring is planting its spirit of love, you know that it is going to be one of those honey-warm days when you just can’t get enough of life as it is.

What I do in the morning is get in some exercise. I usually am awake about 6 o’clock, so instead of lying in bed with thoughts like snakes crawling all over me, I get up and get out.

I used to just walk. Then, I got the idea of moving newspapers from their tubes out front to residents’ front doors, or to their car windshields if their cars are parked in the dry.

My “customers” like that. They tell me in many ways.

On this particular day, thoughts go back to the days of my youth when thoughts keep buzzing in my head like crazy critters.

As a boy, I was a shoe-shine boy in my brother’s barber shop. Part of my job was to get up early enough to open the place and get it ready for business at 8 o’clock.

The floor had to be swept, a laundry heater needed fire in its belly for hot water, the parking area out front needed attention. And, if I was lucky, an early-morning customer would be heading out of town and needed a shine.

So, recently, I had some early-morning ruminations…and each as fresh as an apple waiting to be bitten.

My route takes me down Covenant Drive, turn right on Villagewood Court, go to the cul-du-sac, turn on my heels and back to Covenant where I pick up Betty and Frank Matthews' papers and leave them on the dry bench a few feet from their front door.

On down the street, I cross over and retrieve two papers from the tube of Betsy and Bill Lawson, climb the hill to their house and leave them on a table just outside their side door. When it’s raining, a garbage-can lid keeps them dry.

Back down the hill, right on Covenant and right on Dove Creek Court. Becky and Bynum Carter reside in the first cottage on the left. At one time, both were as clean and strong and healthy as young trees. Clouds moved into their lives, however, as both have suffered from ill health.

When you live in a place such as Covenant Village, your lives are united like fruit in a bowl.

We are, in a sense, elbow to elbow; and when someone gets sick, and sometimes dies, help is there; along with kind words and loving support.

I know them all, have known most of them for years. Not a few are widows who have been living alone for quite a while. They came to Covenant Village, settled in, enjoyed their time here together, and suffered through times of sickness and death. Some are men who have lost their wives. Some of them remain, alone, in their cottages; others choose to move into apartments in the “Big House.”

It happens here. Covenant Village.

Where life sometimes seems to hurt but where, most of the time, is as bright and happy as a pair of drawers flapping on a clothesline.

How a garage door chose to get even

Bill Williams — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:26:53 GMT

All my life, I had wanted to write a poem that folks would read, put aside, read, put aside, read, memorize, conceptualize.

And then, it happened. It took 83 years, but it finally happened.

And I really had nothing to do with it.

Let me tell you what happened.

Somewhere back there in the early fall, I had an email from my good friend and fellow journalist (Doctor of ministry, computer wizard, choral director, etc.!) Dave Leestma, also now editor and publisher of that fine Lake Lure newspaper, The Mountain Breeze (purchased from the Williamses a few years back).

What he wrote was that it would be nice if I could send him a Christmas column or two that would be used in the November/Decemher 2008 issue of The Mountain Breeze.

Well, I climbed out of a foggy morning a day or so later and sent along an account of how in the day before Christmas of 1945 (war year) I managed to get the first seat on a train out of Washington heading south -- just before the gates were opened to allow a buzzing, excited war-time crowd of 10,000 trying to get aboard.

Remember, now, I was the FIRST to get on board, even though I was one of the last to arrive at the station. Chicanery? You figure it out. (Ok, here's what happened: Went south several blocks on the street that paralleled train tracks until could see the tracks. Crossed over, walked tracks back until came to station. Was first aboard when the doors opened. No regrets.)

Anyhow, I sent that along to Dave, along with a clipping of a different Christmas poem, author unknown.

But, not for long. Thank you, Dave, for that byline. I can now retire. My life-time ambition has been achieved. And it’s all there in Mt. Breeze black-and-white, all 15 verses.

No, I didn’t write it, but if you haven’t read it, please do. It’s good. Ask my wife. She was the original clipper-outer.

I do believe that things have a way of leveling off, however.

Dave and Cathy throw an annual real-nice party for associates (writers, etc.) of The Mt. Breeze. They did so again this year. Had a gaggle of folks in mid October for drinks and eats. We had fun. Before the sun went down, we drank in the splendor of Bald Mountain lake, with colors as soft as a Mediterranean dawn. It could have been a psychedelic dream, but it was real.

Somebody came and figured that they might not get a seat, so they brought their own chair. Just one.

Dave figured that was me. Bad back and all.

The next day, he arrived at our house with chair in hand. Nobody answered his knock. So, he went around the house to the basement, found two garage doors, probably remembered the great story about “The Lady or the Tiger,” chose the door on the left and gave it a strong arm.

Locked down. Tight.

Tried the one on the right. It moved. A little extra effort, and it rose – all the way, he thought. (Shouldn’t think when dealing with garage doors.) It stopped three-quarters of the way up.

Dave had on a long-billed ball cap, however, and didn’t see that the door was grinning down at him. Waiting. He grabbed up the chair and, being late (as usual) took a quick, bold step forward.

It was the first time in history that a garage door was declared winner in a one-punch fight with a prize-winning choral director who also publishes a prize-winner periodical and could preach if called upon.

Before he left for church the next morning, he grabbed Cathy’s Cover Stick from her hand and smeared most of it across his angry, oozing spot on his angry, furious forehead.

Call it one spot across the brow.

I came home later and found a strange chair waiting for me, a half grin right where most folks sit.

Under the seat, I read a small label: “Fairfield Mts. Chapel.”

I accepted it as an invitation.

Went to church that day, took the chair. Put it back where it looked at home.

Felt somewhat cleansed, sanitized, justified.

Over all, garage doors have a way of getting even.

Economy's not the only thing in recession

Bill Williams — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:35:21 GMT

I don’t mind having people tell me that I have a bald spot hanging around on the top of my head, but it sure is challenging to get a picture of it.

I didn’t want anyone else to climb up on a chair and make a picture of hair that no longer is there. Some of the people I know are getting a bit long in the tooth (and short in the hair) and climbing on chairs is just about out of their range.

So, I said to myself: “Self, you have been making pictures since Mister Kodak took a shot through that first pin-hole camera. Take a few exposures when nobody’s looking and save yourself embarrassment.”

I really don’t embarrass easily, but the challenge was there. I got out both my trusty Sony Cyber-shot and the Canon EOS – each having recorded smiles through the years like holiday sunshine.

I went with the Sony first. Held it as high as I could and in my mind measured where it should be pointed. Got mostly nose.

Well, I thought, not bad. Next to my ears, the nose is the biggest part of my head.

A couple more shots, and I began talking to myself, like a drunk old uncle who carried a flask in his britches. I just couldn’t position the camera so that it would show the bald(ing) spot. So, I rested the Sony and picked up the Canon.

This camera has a lot of megapixels, and the more of those things (whatever they are), the better chance of getting a good picture. The problem was that when I figured the camera was in the right position and I had it aimed at the right (bald) spot, the little button that clicks the shutter was in the wrong place. It was in the wrong place, of course, because the camera, held high above my head, was upside down (looking down) while my hands were right-side up.

By then, little beads of sweat were beginning to pop out on my forehead while nasty thoughts were tumbling through my head like a week’s wash.

My Self started talking to me: “Why in the world are you doing this? You have the beginning of a bald spot on your head. You are not exactly the first one, you know!”

“Of course, I know. But I’m the one with bats in my mind, and I’ve got to find out what’s going on up there.”

Another couple of shots – always the same result. My head was too big, or my arms were not long enough.

Standing on tip-toe didn’t help. Neither did standing on a chair. The distance between camera and bald spot was always the same. And I was like a ship lost at sea.

This went on for 15 minutes. We were at Lake Lure at the time where trees hide a street 75 yards away. A couple of cars rolled by but nobody catcalled or yelled that they could see the bald spot “even from down here.”

We had company and I was sure that somebody would come back from their walk and surprise me in mid-shoot.

I heard a high, chirpy voice like a cricket. It was a cricket. A laughing cricket. A hooting cricket. A cricket that had been schooled in derision by a thousand others.

I finally gave up. I had a shot that showed most of my head, one ear and no nose. I had left out two of the most serious promontories of my entire body, and that stuck in my throat. Showing: one ear, no nose. I felt it – warm and tender as a wound.

I heard someone coming.

A cloud smothered the sun.

A light breeze gathered those beautiful, colored leaves and helped them to the ground.

Bald spot still there…

And growing.

Satisfaction not guaranteed.

Here's how to make the economy Shine

Bill Williams — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:40:45 GMT

I see myself as somewhat like a cat. Throw me up in the air and more than likely I’ll land on my feet.

Sometimes I don’t, but I don’t worry a lot.

I know. I know. I have given up my paper route at about the worst time possible. No sooner had I made that announcement when the stock market took a dive beyond all human reason. People in Washington are behaving like a drunken man on horseback. Set him up on one side and he falls off on the other.

So the paper route is gone but I have an ace in the hole. This might not be a reasonable alternative, but sometimes reason is not the best alternative in times of crisis.

What I think I’ll do is open another shoe-shine stand.

I do come with experience, you know. I was the best shoe-shine boy the town of Faith, N.C., had ever seen. (Some of my predecessors – all my deceased brothers – might pop from their graves to disagree. The one still alive would yawn and go back to sleep.)

For about three or four years when I was charging hard into the years of puberty, I put the shine on some of the best shoes in Faith – and more than that, I did the same to some of the worst. They came into my brother’s barber shop, where I had my stand, looking like nobody with common sense would wear shoes like that – and left with shoes looking like precious stones. (My opinion.)

I was proud of my work, and it seemed to have a beneficial effect on some of the worst-looking feet in town.

But, enough about the past. I am just trying to make a case of what seems to be lurking around the corner.

There has been no need of shoe-shine boys in the recent past. People had enough money to buy expensive, good-looking shoes. And since they rode almost everywhere they went, the little soil-merchants had to look elsewhere for ugly.

The times, however, they are a’changin’.

If you go sniffing around in the present economic climate, you are going to find that there is a bad odor, like things that have been dead too long. Probe a little deeper, and you get the idea that you might have just stepped in something.

Which you probably did, and of course which means that you need to get your shoes cleaned and shined. Maybe even deodorized. And that’s where I and my shoe-shine stand will come in.

I tried out that idea on a few friends at lunch the other day. My wife had arranged this little noon soiree at the Big House (Covenant Village’s rather warm description of where we eat), and so there we were. Five women and myself.

I eased into the subject by asking: “Any of you remember the old song, ‘Chattanooga Shoeshine Boy’”? Lydia Ragan said no. She was joined by my wife who figures that anything I bring up at lunch will end up smelling like an open drain. So, she said no. I am not sure what Martha Ann Lineberger said but she has a quiet sweetness about her that she could have said no but I took for a yes.

There was no doubt, however, about Marjorie (Morningstar) Nuttall and Annabelle Royster. Both of them not only remembered it but their faces lit up like moonlight on pond water.

I am sure that some of our friends at the closer tables might have figured that we were down for the count, especially when we tried to tap out the rhythm on the table – not very effectively – and when the lack of words only increased the intensity of our efforts.

My purpose is not to linger on this and, believe me, I could; for we tried, but failed, not only in naming who wrote the song but also who sang it.

The answers to all questions had to wait until the next day when perky Marjorie Nuttall had lunch with one of the best piano pickers in the county – Barry Long. In the quickening of a wink, he said that the song’s name is “Chattanooga Sheshine Boy, that it was written and first recorded by Red Foley, and that there had been numerous other stars who also had given it voice.

I know that I have drifted from my original task. But all of this is important. This also: The next day, I pulled the song up on my computer, dialed the number of Marjorie Morningstar Nuttall, cranked up the volume and held the phone out so that Marjorie could also hear the throb of the drummer in the background.

I know that Mrs. Nuttall knows good fortune when she finds it. I could tell by the sound of her dancing across the room and knocking over a prized lamp, and then coming back to the phone and finishing the song in high glee with the legendary Mister Foley.

All this while her wheelchair must have wondered what-in-heck was goin’ on.

I think I have nailed down the shoeshine stand franchise, but I’m waiting on a reply from my attorney.

P.S.: Annabelle Royster told me later on that she would like to hear the song over the phone. So, I dialed her number, got Betty and Frank Matthews by mistake. After I told them what I was trying to do, both said they would like to hear the song, too.

About the time the drummer got warmed up, I can imagine that Betty and Frank were jazzing around the living room like a couple who had just found religion.

Well, maybe not.

I’m not sure about Mrs. Royster.

Tomato plants meet the enemy, Jack Frost

Bill Williams — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 15:28:21 GMT

    I went out last week and gathered most of those green tomatoes that were hanging on the vines even though some of them demanded, “Hey, leave me alone! Let me grow!”

    I gathered about threequarters of a peck, wrapped them in old newspapers and stashed them away in a garage closet where the hot-water heater lives.

    Meanwhile, back there on the vines, a bunch of little ones were churning away, trying to make the grade before the first frost sneaked in. And sweet little blossoms, so young and unknowing that they would die, probably before the month of October turned out the light.

    Well, the light went out last week on the night Jack Frost rolled into town. I got up before the sun, looked out across the landscape and saw frost like I hadn’t seen since rabbit-trap days. (Never caught a rabbit, but it was good experience.)

    So what’s this all about?

    Three months ago, under the tutelage of tomatogrower Bill Banks, I ordered online one EarthBox. It was in my hands within three days, and six tomato plants soon were bending in the warm late July breeze.

    Three days later, they seemed to have sprung up at least a couple of inches. I told myself: “Self, I think we are onto something good.”

    Those little suckers outgrew two strands of fourfoot hog wire in six weeks. I went out one morning and discovered they had climbed three feet above my head. I almost swooned!

    There seemed to be a problem, however. No blossoms, and no little tomatoes.

    Nan Anthony, our neighbor down the street and a cultured horticulturist, told me not to worry. “They’ll be along,” she said.

    I waited, but, somehow, I had missed that first blossom. It had come and gone, leaving a wee, little green tomato in its parking place. And then another. And another.

    Suddenly, little tomatoes were everywhere. And those six little tomato plants were standing as proud and happy as any father of twin boys and three girls, which I know something about.

    I counted. Fifty-five little and bigger tomatoes. But not one of them turning red.

    That was two weeks ago, back when the temperature was delightful. I knew, however, what hovered just beyond the horizon — cold weather.

    October generally is a wonderful little month. It comes wrapped in those beautiful colors of fall, aided and abetted by shirtsleeve days and nights just cold enough to make one listen for the furnace to shout its first hello. It checked in last night and hung around while my stout-hearted tomato plants buckled under that first king-sized frost.

    I think the remaining tomatoes escaped Jack’s frosty fingers, so I shall pick them today, wrap them in newspapers and ease them into that dark closet to say hello again to those bigger brothers and sisters who had preceded them.

    If all goes well, we’ll have ripe, home-grown tomatoes about the time ol’ Santy comes sliding down the chimney.

    He’s the lucky one, for there will be a home-grown tomato sandwich, slathered with Duke mayonnaise, waiting just this side of the fireplace.

A godfather to many of Gaston's great things

Bill Williams — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 14:05:06 GMT

A long time ago – say about half a century – I met a fellow who kept popping up at meetings I was covering as a Gazette reporter.

He was somewhat of a persistent cuss, about like a turtle crossing a road. He was, of course, a lot more than that. He moved in a lot of circles but he knew where he was going. Somebody would come up with a suggestion about something that needed to be done, he’d get wind of it … and if he thought it was worthy, it got done.

On his stationary, the name simply is J. EDWARD STOWE.I guess I first started noticing Ed Stowe when he was using some of that built-in dogginess of his. He had found out about spots of deadly inertia in the public schools that stood in the way of teaching handicapped children. Learning, for them simply was non-existent. They couldn’t learn, because they were not in school.

Back then, if a youngster had a handicap, there were no provisions for his or her education.

Ed and Joyce Stowe had a handicapped son and somebody had told them that, sorry, but there simply was no program available for him.

* Jaycees Outstanding Young Man of the Year.

* Chairman of Myers Memorial Building Committee which built the new sanctuary.

* Organized special education foundation to train teachers for handicapped children.

* Chairman of United Appeal -- won best campaign of the year for North Carolina.

* Past President and life member of Gastonia Optimist Club.

* President - Gastonia Chamber of Commerce.

* Chairman of Gaston County Heart Fund Campaign.

* Chairman - Gaston County Hospital Study Committee leading to the new Gaston Memorial Hospital.

* Vice-chairman of the Hospital Bond Committee serving under Chairman J. K. (Buddy) Lewis for the $15 million bond issue to finance the new Gaston Memorial Hospital.

* Member of the Gaston College Study Committee -- served as trustee for 16 years, three years as vice chairman and 12 years as chairman.

* Received honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Belmont Abbey College for his contributions to education and his many other public service contributions and a leader in his profession.

* Gastonia Civitan Citizens Award.

* President North Carolina Trustees Association for community colleges.

* Winner of Allen Sims Award from Gaston Community Foundation.

* Awarded Paul Harris Fellow from Rotary.

* Chairman of City of Gastonia Traffic and Transportation Advisory Committee for many years.

* Member of North Carolina Association of CPAs.

* Member of American Institute of CPAs.

District lay leader of United Methodist Church for Gaston, Lincoln and Cleveland counties.
J. Edward Stowe
-- put him down as “fairy godfather.”

The time between then and now saw education for children with handicaps move two steps forward, one step back. Progress was slow, but it was sure. Today, physically and mentally challenged kids are being schooled in programs that were only dreamed about a half a century ago.

I have been a people watcher down through those years. It was my job. I was paid to watch people, and to write about them. Probably no other county in the state has seen so many of its young men born in the year 1924 rise to take leadership roles and to accomplish so much in so many different ways. Ed was one of them.

He moved from government to religion to education, from civic to charities to beyond, and never missed a beat.

When it came time to build a new hospital, he was chairman of a study committee that led to the new Gaston Memorial. He personally made a trip to Duke in Durham to talk with experts. All of them advised him to stand firm and insist on private rooms. He came home, told his committee of his recommendation, and then held on with that bulldog grip.

Today, we have Ed Stowe, primarily, to thank for those private rooms.

I know I am in danger of seeming to overstate what Stowe has done for this area. But, he got things done.

He ruffled feathers, tramped on toes. But, always, meeting goals, going forward.

A friend of Ed’s and a friend of mine is Hoyt Butler. Back about 1950, the two got together and formed the accounting firm Butler and Stowe.

I saw Hoyt the other day and asked him if he and Ed ever had any problems in the business. He answered the question with: “We began the business with a handshake, nothing else. And that’s the way it was all those years. He is one fine and solid individual.”

Here is a short list of items that reflect what the man has been doing all these years. Retired now, he’s not in business anymore, although he still goes to his office every day and looks after the affairs of a few old-time friends, most of whom can’t look after themselves anymore.

THE RECORD

So, one day Stowe stopped by the office of Fred Waters, then superintendent of the Gastonia School System. They chatted, and that was a beginning. He got Mr. Waters’ attention and an outline of how to begin started to take shape.

Sara Wellman knew the keys to the typewriter, and how to deal with reluctant kids

Bill Williams — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:24:02 GMT

(Sara Wellman...typing teacher, piano player)

A long time ago – a year before the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor – a freckle-faced, red-haired lad from a small town wandered into a high-school typing class and sat down at a strange-looking machine. It turned our to be a typewriter.

The typewriter was old but the teacher was young, and good looking. That mattered to 10^th-grade boys back then. Some things never change.

Her name was Sara Wellman, fresh out of college by a couple of years, and the lad is now writing this column.

I liked her class (the one she taught, and the way she was) so much that I signed on again for my senior year. Graduation, however, put an end to all that.

Now, fast forward to a recent Saturday. Sixty-eight years had skipped by as my wife and I pulled into Miss Wellman’s Landis driveway. We sat there for a while, taking in the scene – a broad, manicured lawn hosting a ranch-style house that could have been a relative of the one we had lived in for half a century.

The ramp that led to her front door had been installed a few years back to accommodate the wheelchair of her husband, the late Noah Dan Hamrick. For half a century, they had lived in that house, reared their two daughters and one son -- daddy Dan teaching, coaching and being high-school principal to schools in the Landis-Kannapolis area; and Sara teaching when birthing and raising three children allowed.

Dan (Noah) had been my basketball coach at Granite Quarry High. A tall, handsome athlete, fresh out of Lenoir-Rhyne College, he had coached basketball only one semester when the army beckoned, and off he went.

While he was at GQ High, however, the two found that they got on like twin souls, like bubble and bath. A big war intervened, however, and Dan would march with Patton through most of Europe and have to wait for five years before he would carry her across the threshold into a new and wonderful life.

For all those years, I kept peeping over the hills, figuring, I guess, that I’d find out what happened to my coach. I probably didn’t wonder much about the typing teacher. Then, I opened the paper one day and there was his picture. His obituary. Noah Dan Hamrick had died. I wrote about him, here, a few weeks ago.

I called Sara Hamrick, and we talked. I told her that our graduating class of ‘42 was having its 66^th reunion on September 20, and that Betty and I would like to stop by for a few moments. She said the door would be open.

And, so it was.

We chatted for an hour and balled up time and threaded through memories. Minutes ticked off as we tried to stuff many names and events into that short interval.

Pictures of Dan, pictures of their children, and pictures of their grandchildren were scattered like daisies in a field. Trying to cram them into our minds was like trying to stuff a cloud into a suitcase.

We had to move on, and so we did. But not until Sara agreed to sit down at her Baby Grande piano and let her fingers roll softly over those wonderful, memory-filled keys.

And then, we had to promise to take her best wishes to the reunion group, many of whom had sat under her tutelage and learned that an apple for the teacher simply can’t make one type better or faster. The only way to do it is…do it…and then do it again, and again.

So, we moved on.

First, a stop-off at the Faith home of Marcelle, the only other surviving member of the immediate Williams family. There are others in the family, however, and most of the hundred or more will show up for the annual Christmas party the first Saturday night in December.

The reunion was what one might expect after the passage of 66 years. We looked at pictures made back then, and we laughed. Deep down, however, I felt somewhat like symptoms named on a medicine bottle.

You can’t deny what time does. Sometimes, it is not pretty.

What was pretty, what was genuine were those smiles and those hugs and those words of concern and encouragement.

We used to be on the five-year plan, meeting every fifth year.

And then, every three years.

Now, it is two years.

With crossed fingers.

And being careful every step of the way.