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Dear management and staff of WFMY:

I am a life-long viewer of WFMY. Yours is the station that I have most associated with well-produced television. Growing up our own television was always tuned to one of two channels: the local PBS affiliate for Sesame Street and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and Channel 2. Until the time I was 8 years old I didn’t even know that there were other stations that did news, weather and sports. I will always fondly remember Lee Kindard’s hosting of The Good Morning Show, Sandra Hughes is one of the all-time most classiest ladies in the history of anything (Lord willing I will finally get a chance to meet her someday) and whenever the weather has taken a turn for the worst or (even better) threatened snow that would cancel the schools, WFMY was there. I still remember people like Arlo Lassen (whatever happened ...

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If you’re anywhere around Greensboro this next week, consider checking out Weaver Academy‘s production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. I attended the performance tonight and it was riveting! It was definitely a show that was a cut above most that I have seen. In fact, I’m feeling hungry for more!

(Awright, that’s enough of the puns…)

Anyway, the students at Weaver have put together a very good show and I’m glad for the opportunity to have been able to catch this. Sweeney Todd plays again on March 18th, 19th and 20th at Weaver Academy, located at 300 South Spring Street in Greensboro. Showtime is at 7 and tickets are $12. The only thing I regret to inform my readers about is that complimentary meat pie is not served during the performance… but don’t let that stop y’all from enjoying it as well! 🙂...

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It was fifty years ago today, on February 1st, 1960, that four freshmen students from North Carolina A&T strolled in to the Woolworth’s on North Elm Street in Greensboro, North Carolina for a bite to eat.

The lunch counter was segregated, as were many places throughout the country at the time. Only white people were served at it. Ezell A. Blair Jr., David Leinhail Richmond, Joseph Alfred McNeil, and Franklin Eugene McCain were black. They could order food at the Woolworth’s and eat it there, but they were expected to stand and not use the stools and chairs reserved for white people.

Blair, Richmond, McNeil and McCain sat down anyway…

The four young men weren’t served their lunch, and eventually left. The next day they came back and 27 friends joined them. The next day, even more people arrived. And very soon the sit-in movement spread like wildfire throughout other ...

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Holy cow!! Now I have seen everything.

Years ago there was a local television station called WGGT Channel 48, broadcasting from Greensboro. This was back when unaffiliated stations were extremely independent in their programming and such. Well, WGGT might have been one of the last to have what many people will fondly remember as a “horror host”: a home-grown character who presented various scary movies and sci-fi flicks on Saturday afternoons.

Except that WGGT did things a little different. It’s “horror” host was a goofy redneck named Billy Bobb, and his show was called Billy Bobb’s Action Theatre.

And believe it or not, someone somewhere has a trove of old recordings of Billy Bobb from WGGT and is now putting them on YouTube.

Here’s a set of promos for Billy Bobb’s Action Theatre…

And here are some commercials featuring Billy Bobb for area businesses…

I wonder whatever happened ...

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A trusted source in the Raleigh/Durham area here in North Carolina called to let me know that the price of regular gasoline there is now $4.89, with premium at more than five bucks and a lot of stations limiting purchases to ten gallons. It’s also been reported that at many stations the cars are lined up to the streets.

Also, I’m now hearing that this now how gas is going for this afternoon in Greensboro (about a half-hour south of where we are) and that some stations have already run out of the precious juice.

(If you’re one of this blog’s many foreign readers, this is more or less related to Hurricane Ike in the Gulf of Mexico, although how much of this is serious distribution shortage and how much of this comes from speculators going nutzoid on the oil markets, is anyone’s guess.)

I hope this doesn’t turn into ...

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A few days ago RF Micro announced it would relocate much of its work from its Greensboro, North Carolina plant to China. 80 local jobs will be lost at the microchip plant.

And yesterday Dan River, a textiles plant that has been in operation for 126 years in Danville, Virginia, announced it would be closing down. It was a little over a year ago that Dan River was bought by a company based in India.

About time to post on this blog a video of James McMurtry declaring the obvious: “We Can’t Make It Here Anymore”.

(By the way, I don’t agree with everything depicted in this video, especially about blindly supporting unions and the Democrat party… but I think otherwise the style of this clip describes things pretty darned well.)...

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There’s a very fascinating article in today’s News & Record about what Greensboro went through in April 1865, as the American Civil War drew to a close. Upon reading the story, one would easily get the impression that the spring of that year was the moment that forever defined Greensboro, as a relatively small town became a crossroads of military and political activity. Greensboro is where Jefferson Davis and his remaining cabinet fled to after abandoning the last officially recognized Confederate capital in Danville, and it was here that Davis received word that Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse. Thousands of soldiers filled makeshift hospitals throughout the town (including First Presbyterian Church, shown in the photo). The town also suffered an immense amount of looting and rioting as resources became scarce. Well worth reading if you’re into Civil War or local history....

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Last night Lisa and I joined my parents and my sister Anita for dinner at Arigato Japanese Steakhouse in Greensboro, to celebrate Anita’s birthday. This was the second time we’ve been to Arigato and whenever we’ve gone there, we’ve beheld quite a show. Chef Nawh (shown at left during one of the evening’s more spectacular moments) thrilled us not only with his outstanding cooking, but with his quick wit and displays of culinary acrobatics. The theatricality of the chefs is one of the things that I’ve come to look for most whenever I’m gauging a Japanese steakhouse, and at Arigato they do not disappoint. Indeed, I think that Arigato’s chefs are among the most colorful in the entire area. That alone is worth a visit.

And the food is outstanding, too! Last night I ordered chicken, with all three kinds of sauce – white, mustard and ginger – to sample ...

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So two days ago it was my birthday. Which in recent times that’s been a pretty rough thing for me to go through. I guess it’s because a few years ago I spent my birthday as a pallbearer for my grandmother’s funeral and the last thing approximating physical contact with her was carrying her casket to the graveside. Since then I’ve never been able to fully dis-associate birthdays from funerals, life from death. And my grandmother and I had been close, too.

There have been times that it hasn’t been so bad though. The following year after her funeral, during the first year of our relationship, Lisa went far in giving me a fun, upbeat, positive birthday. That included going to Olympic Park in Atlanta, then meeting up with my life-long best friend Chad where he worked at the CNN Building and he showed us around to a lot ...

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Yes you read that right (‘course if you are reading this now then it’s way too late to get there probably): Chris Daughtry and his band performing live at Hamburger Square in downtown Greensboro, in an absolutely free concert.

We tried getting in tonight but the place is absolutely nuts! Probably 20,000 people in there, and they’ve been gathering there since early this morning. Lisa and I opted not to try to get in, but have vowed to see him in concert eventually.

(I have an awesome record of making good on promises to see singing artists in concert, by the way: ask me my story about “Weird Al” Yankovic sometime, if I haven’t already shared it here 🙂

Anyways this whole area is quite proud of Chris Daughtry, so it’s a good thing to memorialize about here anyway, even if we aren’t there....

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