91. Richmond County -- Rockingham -- 3/15/08
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond_County%2C_North_Carolina
I hadn't crossed into Richmond County since the day of the Kelly Pickler Parade when I was with Laura doing the Stanly/Montgomery/Anson/Union/Mecklenburg loop back in the day. I remember thinking how sad it was to drive through a tip of a county and not chase its courthouse. But it was all good. Today, we were definitely gonna chase that courthouse down.
This entry is dedicated to my cousin's father, from Richmond County, who passed away last year.
First, though, Martin and I had to make some stops. Oh, and by the way, Rockingham, the city, is not in Rockingham, the county. It's fun to confuse people that way.
Our first stop was THE ROCK! North Carolina Motor Speedway is a former NASCAR track. I mean, people in NASCAR still use it, but it doesn't host any more races. It's also in movies, like Talladega Nights. I came to a race here with the UNC band. They had College Band Day at the Feb. 21, 2003 Subway 400, but the only two schools that showed up were ECU and UNC. We stood on the track and played intro music for the drivers, but it was so unorganized, it sounded terrible--if we could be heard at all. There weren't really any microphones that I remember, and the track, being a mile loop, really didn't help anyone to hear our music. Then, they randomly asked our two bands to play the National Anthem. But since schools don't really have the same National Anthem, we just let ECU do it. ECU's band, which was made up of anyone who felt like making the trip (like us), had a tough time playing the Anthem in the environment and lack of instrumentation. It was also extremely windy. For some reason, that didn't stop the paratroopers, who jumped from a plane. The poor paratroopers were tossed around like ragdolls in the air, with some not even landing in the speedway, one who landed HARD on an RV in the infield, and then fell off onto the ground, and one who landed HARD on the track probably 100 feet from me, and, what I learned later, broke his back (he wasn't paralyzed, thank goodness). Medics came in and had to help the injured paratroopers off the track, infield and parking lot. I remember standing there, amongst the failure of College Band Day and hailing paratroopers saying, "I bet someone lost a job over this." But we all got to walk through and slap hands with the drivers as they got in their cars. That was cool.
I had worked for a shipping center, similar to Mail Boxes, Etc., and shipped a lot of UPS stuff. The overnight envelopes at that time featured Dale Jarrett driving the 88 car. Since Dale Jarrett is from NC and is a Carolina fan (even though that's most of them) and I had to look at his face everyday on the UPS envelopes, I became a Jarrett fan. And guess what! On that blustery day in February, Dale Jarrett took home the checkered flag. That ROCKed my face off. Check out his victory...wasn't that awesome? NASCAR is extremely loud...you have to be there to believe it. Or, you can probably imagine it. Bring earplugs...seriously.
This time, however, there wasn't a race going on. It was sad. But at least the track's still used for testing and other racing. The big grassy parking areas with the 1970s painted steel signs were empty. But, we found another Geocache. We also drove around the track! The outside of the facility, that is. I went pretty fast, since there was no one anywhere. One of the gates was open to drive into the infield, and I thought about it, but the big sign that said ABSOLUTELY NO TRESPASSING seemed to anticipate my curiosity and killed the cat. Instead, we drove up to the top of the track and peered in. It brought back the glory days of Dale Jarrett's stunning victory. Yessiree.
We then got ANOTHER Geocache.
Then, we headed to Hamlet. Hamlet is the birthplace of John Coltrane, who was awesome. When I was in San Francisco, I went to the St. John Coltrane Church. That was pretty awesome. The Bishop came in in his robes and a tenor saxophone and said, "Let us come to the presence of the Lord," and a jam session broke out. The people in the congregation are encouraged to play instruments, and we would sing Psalms to the tune of A Love Supreme (or listen here) and other Coltrane pieces. My friend and I served lunch to the hungry after the service, which they do every week. You're right, this has nothing to do with Hamlet, NC directly.
But, in our local Hamlet, Martin and I visited the National Railroad Museum. It reopened about 3 years ago. The website is really old. The same people that moved Cape Hatteras Lighthouse picked the station up, turned it 180 degrees, and dropped it on the other side of the track(s). I've never seen so many railroad tracks and crossings in my life. The museum is in the Amtrak station, and had been in the middle of about a thousand tracks on either side. Ok, not really that many. But it was (and is) crazy. They were starting to lock up the museum (2 hours early) when we got there, but the guy was nice enough to give us a personal tour! Both Moore and Richmond County folks went out of their way to be nice. We were the only visitors all day, he said (though I noticed one more person in the guest book). They still haven't moved all the artifacts back in yet, so there wasn't much in there. But there was a Model T and the most amazing train set I had ever seen. They created a scale model of the town of Hamlet from the 1930s as a train set, with a few million dollars worth of pieces. Absolutely incredible.
Martin and I talked to a lady on the board of directors of the museum for a long time. She gave us a lot of good info on Hamlet and the station. Hamlet is still a major train hub to this day.
Hamlet is also one of those towns where the tracks separate the rich from the poor. It's a night/day difference.
Martin and I then hung out by the train tracks and watched the trains go by. Well, except the one we were watching, which sat there. The conductor and some guy in a car were hanging out. Then, finally, the conductor got back on his train and moved it. It was a very long train. Then we watched more trains. If you want to watch trains, Hamlet is the place to do it. If you haven't figured it out, trains are important to Hamlet, and they're everywhere.
FINALLY, we drove to Rockingham, the county seat. It was raining in torrents when we got there, which limited our walking and experiencing the town. Downtown Rockingham noticeably sits on a hill. At the bottom of the hill lies...a noticeable bypass. And what does that mean to many small towns? Yup, a downtown that has seen better days. But, despite many empty store fronts, there weren't TOO many, and the downtown was very clean. Downtown Rockingham has a big R.W. Goodman Co. furniture store across from the courthouse. It's taken up tons of space left by other places, so it's HUGE. And it brings back memories of a time before me, back when Dale Jarrett was just starting out, of furniture stores with big store fronts. Very nice. I noticed a sign in the window of Ken Goodman running for school board. Something tells me he's related to the furniture people. Good luck!
I was fascinated by the area near the courthouse called Harrington Square. "Town Square" areas, yes, in the shape of a square (I wrote this following sentence before reading the Wikipedia article!), are usually around something like a courthouse or something else. Here, it's a block away from the courthouse, and two sides have (probably) been demolished. There are two banks, and RBC Centura and a BB&T over there now, not in the square. It's an interesting Town Square. There is a fountain in the middle, boarded up due to probably the winter and the drought, as well as the Confederate monument and a Time Capsule! The Time Capsule is to be opened in 2084, Rockingham's 300th anniversary. I hope to come to the opening!
I actually did this out of order. We went to the Courthouse before going to Harrington Square. We took the picture--in the rain--and then went for our walk around--in the rain. Martin and I HAD to experience downtown Rockingham. The courthouse has a water (drinking) fountain in front of it. One of the things I still can't explain, is the prevalence of drinking fountains in front of courthouses! For every Confederate Monument, there's a drinking fountain. It's just crazy. Some are dedicated by groups of people, some have doggie drinking areas, and some have horsey drinking areas. I think it's really funny. Also, we noticed a crazy owl balloon hanging from the railing on one side of the courthouse. I'd never seen that before on a courthouse, or really anywhere. I guess it's keeping the birds off. But it's still crazy.
If we hadn't had enough of the rain, as we were driving out of Richmond County, we made a quick stop at McKinney Lake National Fish Hatchery. The sign said it was closed, but the gate was open, so we drove in. I've been to fish hatcheries before, but this one was ENORMOUS. There were lagoons that went on forever. We jumped out, took goofy pictures with the sign, and headed back on the road, to listen to UNC beat Clemson in the ACC Tournament. Huzzah!
Martin and I stopped in Sanford (Lee County) to eat some pizza at La Dolce Vita. Good pizza. As I was coming out of the bathroom there, I opened the door, and an elderly woman walked SMACK into the edge of the door. She didn't seem to happy. I don't know how she did it. I had the door open for like 2 seconds before she ran into it. Poor lady. If you're reading this, I apologize again!
Then we made it, safe and sound, back to Orange County. What a day!
This entry is dedicated to my cousin's father, from Richmond County, who passed away last year.
First, though, Martin and I had to make some stops. Oh, and by the way, Rockingham, the city, is not in Rockingham, the county. It's fun to confuse people that way.
Our first stop was THE ROCK! North Carolina Motor Speedway is a former NASCAR track. I mean, people in NASCAR still use it, but it doesn't host any more races. It's also in movies, like Talladega Nights. I came to a race here with the UNC band. They had College Band Day at the Feb. 21, 2003 Subway 400, but the only two schools that showed up were ECU and UNC. We stood on the track and played intro music for the drivers, but it was so unorganized, it sounded terrible--if we could be heard at all. There weren't really any microphones that I remember, and the track, being a mile loop, really didn't help anyone to hear our music. Then, they randomly asked our two bands to play the National Anthem. But since schools don't really have the same National Anthem, we just let ECU do it. ECU's band, which was made up of anyone who felt like making the trip (like us), had a tough time playing the Anthem in the environment and lack of instrumentation. It was also extremely windy. For some reason, that didn't stop the paratroopers, who jumped from a plane. The poor paratroopers were tossed around like ragdolls in the air, with some not even landing in the speedway, one who landed HARD on an RV in the infield, and then fell off onto the ground, and one who landed HARD on the track probably 100 feet from me, and, what I learned later, broke his back (he wasn't paralyzed, thank goodness). Medics came in and had to help the injured paratroopers off the track, infield and parking lot. I remember standing there, amongst the failure of College Band Day and hailing paratroopers saying, "I bet someone lost a job over this." But we all got to walk through and slap hands with the drivers as they got in their cars. That was cool.
I had worked for a shipping center, similar to Mail Boxes, Etc., and shipped a lot of UPS stuff. The overnight envelopes at that time featured Dale Jarrett driving the 88 car. Since Dale Jarrett is from NC and is a Carolina fan (even though that's most of them) and I had to look at his face everyday on the UPS envelopes, I became a Jarrett fan. And guess what! On that blustery day in February, Dale Jarrett took home the checkered flag. That ROCKed my face off. Check out his victory...wasn't that awesome? NASCAR is extremely loud...you have to be there to believe it. Or, you can probably imagine it. Bring earplugs...seriously.
This time, however, there wasn't a race going on. It was sad. But at least the track's still used for testing and other racing. The big grassy parking areas with the 1970s painted steel signs were empty. But, we found another Geocache. We also drove around the track! The outside of the facility, that is. I went pretty fast, since there was no one anywhere. One of the gates was open to drive into the infield, and I thought about it, but the big sign that said ABSOLUTELY NO TRESPASSING seemed to anticipate my curiosity and killed the cat. Instead, we drove up to the top of the track and peered in. It brought back the glory days of Dale Jarrett's stunning victory. Yessiree.
We then got ANOTHER Geocache.
Then, we headed to Hamlet. Hamlet is the birthplace of John Coltrane, who was awesome. When I was in San Francisco, I went to the St. John Coltrane Church. That was pretty awesome. The Bishop came in in his robes and a tenor saxophone and said, "Let us come to the presence of the Lord," and a jam session broke out. The people in the congregation are encouraged to play instruments, and we would sing Psalms to the tune of A Love Supreme (or listen here) and other Coltrane pieces. My friend and I served lunch to the hungry after the service, which they do every week. You're right, this has nothing to do with Hamlet, NC directly.
But, in our local Hamlet, Martin and I visited the National Railroad Museum. It reopened about 3 years ago. The website is really old. The same people that moved Cape Hatteras Lighthouse picked the station up, turned it 180 degrees, and dropped it on the other side of the track(s). I've never seen so many railroad tracks and crossings in my life. The museum is in the Amtrak station, and had been in the middle of about a thousand tracks on either side. Ok, not really that many. But it was (and is) crazy. They were starting to lock up the museum (2 hours early) when we got there, but the guy was nice enough to give us a personal tour! Both Moore and Richmond County folks went out of their way to be nice. We were the only visitors all day, he said (though I noticed one more person in the guest book). They still haven't moved all the artifacts back in yet, so there wasn't much in there. But there was a Model T and the most amazing train set I had ever seen. They created a scale model of the town of Hamlet from the 1930s as a train set, with a few million dollars worth of pieces. Absolutely incredible.
Martin and I talked to a lady on the board of directors of the museum for a long time. She gave us a lot of good info on Hamlet and the station. Hamlet is still a major train hub to this day.
Hamlet is also one of those towns where the tracks separate the rich from the poor. It's a night/day difference.
Martin and I then hung out by the train tracks and watched the trains go by. Well, except the one we were watching, which sat there. The conductor and some guy in a car were hanging out. Then, finally, the conductor got back on his train and moved it. It was a very long train. Then we watched more trains. If you want to watch trains, Hamlet is the place to do it. If you haven't figured it out, trains are important to Hamlet, and they're everywhere.
FINALLY, we drove to Rockingham, the county seat. It was raining in torrents when we got there, which limited our walking and experiencing the town. Downtown Rockingham noticeably sits on a hill. At the bottom of the hill lies...a noticeable bypass. And what does that mean to many small towns? Yup, a downtown that has seen better days. But, despite many empty store fronts, there weren't TOO many, and the downtown was very clean. Downtown Rockingham has a big R.W. Goodman Co. furniture store across from the courthouse. It's taken up tons of space left by other places, so it's HUGE. And it brings back memories of a time before me, back when Dale Jarrett was just starting out, of furniture stores with big store fronts. Very nice. I noticed a sign in the window of Ken Goodman running for school board. Something tells me he's related to the furniture people. Good luck!
I was fascinated by the area near the courthouse called Harrington Square. "Town Square" areas, yes, in the shape of a square (I wrote this following sentence before reading the Wikipedia article!), are usually around something like a courthouse or something else. Here, it's a block away from the courthouse, and two sides have (probably) been demolished. There are two banks, and RBC Centura and a BB&T over there now, not in the square. It's an interesting Town Square. There is a fountain in the middle, boarded up due to probably the winter and the drought, as well as the Confederate monument and a Time Capsule! The Time Capsule is to be opened in 2084, Rockingham's 300th anniversary. I hope to come to the opening!
I actually did this out of order. We went to the Courthouse before going to Harrington Square. We took the picture--in the rain--and then went for our walk around--in the rain. Martin and I HAD to experience downtown Rockingham. The courthouse has a water (drinking) fountain in front of it. One of the things I still can't explain, is the prevalence of drinking fountains in front of courthouses! For every Confederate Monument, there's a drinking fountain. It's just crazy. Some are dedicated by groups of people, some have doggie drinking areas, and some have horsey drinking areas. I think it's really funny. Also, we noticed a crazy owl balloon hanging from the railing on one side of the courthouse. I'd never seen that before on a courthouse, or really anywhere. I guess it's keeping the birds off. But it's still crazy.
If we hadn't had enough of the rain, as we were driving out of Richmond County, we made a quick stop at McKinney Lake National Fish Hatchery. The sign said it was closed, but the gate was open, so we drove in. I've been to fish hatcheries before, but this one was ENORMOUS. There were lagoons that went on forever. We jumped out, took goofy pictures with the sign, and headed back on the road, to listen to UNC beat Clemson in the ACC Tournament. Huzzah!
Martin and I stopped in Sanford (Lee County) to eat some pizza at La Dolce Vita. Good pizza. As I was coming out of the bathroom there, I opened the door, and an elderly woman walked SMACK into the edge of the door. She didn't seem to happy. I don't know how she did it. I had the door open for like 2 seconds before she ran into it. Poor lady. If you're reading this, I apologize again!
Then we made it, safe and sound, back to Orange County. What a day!
posted by Charles @ 12:08 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I just came across this. I was in ECU's band and played the anthem that day. You are right...it was very very windy and hard to play!
I just came across this. I was in ECU's band and played the anthem that day. You are right...it was very very windy and hard to play!
I just came across this. I was in ECU's band and played the anthem that day. You are right...it was very very windy and hard to play!
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