November 8, 2007: Georgia/North Carolina Trip Day 6
	November 6, 2007: Georgia/North Carolina Trip Day 4
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Visiting My Old House on Somerset Drive

Well, today is certainly going to be "Old Home Week" for me. I plan on dragging Fred along to some of the places in Charlotte where I spent a good deal of time. This is Fred's first time in Charlotte, although we have been to my sister's in Elon before.

I want to take Fred to the house I grew up in, so I thought that we would make some stops along the way. These stops, of course, are for me, since Fred has no connection to any of them. But he is being a real trooper and allowing me these trips down memory lane. Our first stop is the condominium where my mother lived for about 20 years between the time she sold our house on Somerset Drive and the time she moved to Dallas.

To get to Village on the Park, we just headed into town on I-77 and then took Tyvola Road over to Park Road. Cranford Road, where Mom's small condo development was, is just a few blocks from that intersection.

There were just two buildings in the small development, with six units in each building on three floors. Mom had a ground floor, two-bedroom, two-bath unit, and it was just perfect for her. She had friends in the complex, rides to play bridge and some shopping nearby. I visited her fairly often, and on holidays Judy and Bob and Ted and Jeffie would often come dow as well. But by the mid-1990s Mom had gotten too old and unsteady to walk to the grocery or do a lot of things by herself, and many of her friends had moved elsewhere. That's when I brought her to Dallas so I could keep a closer eye on her.

If you'll take a quick look at the map at the left, I've marked out the next three points of interest here during old home week. I wanted to show Fred the Park Road Shopping Center (which figures prominently in one of my favorite stories that he has heard before), my elementary school and, finally, the house where I spent years 5-21.

After a quick turn through Village on the Park, we headed into town on Park Road, crossing Woodlawn and passing the Park Road Shopping Center, where I had won my first bicycle in a contest so many years ago. When we first moved to Charlotte, Park Road was a two-lane, almost-country road with dirt shoulders- even as far in as the Somerset Drive house. The shopping center you see here, and everything around it and south of it were not here at all.

But, as has been true all my life, due to my exalted status as one of the earliest "baby boomers," it always seemed that, just when I grew old enough to need something, be it a school, better transportation, stores, shops and entertainment and just about everything else, it magically appeared. Consequently, almost everything was new or very close to new. I was in the fourth or fifth class to use my elementary and junior high schools, and the sixth class, I think, to use Myers Park. Even so, each had to be expanded as the members of my generation began to use them. I was quite used to temporary, then new buildings.

The Park Road Shopping Center, one of the very first in Charlotte, was completed, I believe, in 1956, when I was 10. As part of the grand opening festivities, there was to be a drawing at which 50 bicycles would be given away. I was determined to win one, and collected almost 2,000 entry forms from the stores in the center. I painstakingly spent many evenings filling them all out by hand and filing the stubs in a big box. Every time we went shopping there, I took my completed forms and dropped them in the entry boxes. On the day of the drawing, my whole family was in the middle of the parking lot around the huge drum that had the entries in it. I was so excited when my name was the third one called! I was also excited when my name was the next one called as well. I got a little embarrassed when my name was called every three or four times as entries were drawn. Finally, I was called back up on the platform where I was asked how many entries I had filled out. The crowd laughed when I told them. They laughed again when the MC leant down with his microphone and told me sternly "You know we're only giving you one bicycle, don't you?" I remember that, after the drawing, I went up to lok at the drum full of entries. I could see mine sticking out everywhere.

Just beyond the shopping center, we turned into Reese and then onto Haven Drive so I could go by my elementary school- Park Road Elementary. It's a Montessori school now; I don't know if that means it is still in the Charlotte school system or not. I did notice as we turned on Hillside that the Catholic Church at the corner of Hillside and Park Road still does not have an aboveground chapel- it's been twenty-five years since they built the foundation and entry for it; you'd think they'd have gotten enough contributions by now. Then we went north on Willow Oak, the street that I rode my bike to school on, when I was old enough, and one of the streets on my paper route.

We hung a left on Willow Oak and continued north to Princeton, then left on Princeton to Somerset Drive. This area hadn't changed much, except that a lot of the small homes that I remember have been torn down and McMansions of various architectural styles have been put up in their place.

We turned onto Somerset Drive, pulled up in front of my old house and parked.

I suppose that anyone who returns to a place he hasn't seen in forever feels the same way, but that wasn't exactly my situation. I'd left Somerset Drive to go to Davidson in 1964, but my folks were still there, of course. I returned often during college, and fairly often after I graduated an while I was in the Army. During my first few years in Chicago, I alw went home three or four times. After my Dad died in 1974 and Mom sold the house and moved to Cranford Road in 1976, I returned to the old house every few years when I would come to visit Mom (I visited more often, but didn't see the need to return to the old house each time). After Mom moved to Dallas in 1996, the next time I saw the house was in 2000, when I went back to Charlotte for Ted's wedding.

That was when the house really changed. It had evidently been sold again sometime in the mid-1990s, and the new owners had made lots of cosmetic improvements and also put an addition onto the back of the house where the old garage had been. My Dad bought the house in 1951 for $14,000, and my Mom sold it in 1976 for about $80K, which I thought was pretty good for such a small house. Now, of course, I am sure it is worth much more- particularly since there's a Mercedes-Benz parked in the driveway! One of these days, if I can avoid appearing to have some ulterior motive, I'd like to see what the new owners have done to the inside of the house. I should send them a picture of the house as it looked in the 1950s; that might establish some credibility.

One amazing difference on the property is the change in the magnolia tree in the center of the front yard. When we moved to Charlotte, it was about ten or fifteen feet tall, and the lower branches were very close to the ground. So much so that nothing would grow under it, and we kids had to continually crawl underneath and collect the seed cones when the fell. Take a look at the magnolia tree now, though. It has to be sixty or seventy feet high, and now there is plenty of room to walk under it; grass, apparently, even grows in its shade now. The tree used to hide the house; now it frames it. Whether all that happened naturally, or owners since my Mom have had the tree trimmed, it looks much nicer now than when I grew up here.

Fred and I took quite a few pictures of the old house from various angles. If you are interested in looking at some of them, just click on the thumbnails below:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

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Visiting Freedom Park

Seeing the old house is always interesting; I sometimes wonder how long it will be before it gets demolished and something different gets put in its place.

Anyway, we headed up Somerset Drive and turned right on Lilac Road.

Lilac Road used to be part of my paper route; as we traveled towards Freedom Park, our next stop, I noted that while lots more trees had grown up, most of the houses were still the same. As you can see from the map, Lilac Road hits Freedom Park about in its middle (and then has to turn and go north around the park). We stopped in the parking area.

I always thought that Freedom Park was huge when I was little. And, indeed, it is still Charlotte's largest park, I believe. It always seemed to go on forever, from Princeton Avenue on the south to East Boulevard on the north- probably well over a mile. Now, though, like most other things do, it seems smaller, but it has been kept up so well, and improved so much, that it would still be great to live near it.

As soon as we left the car and walked down to the lake, I thought I should begin by making a movie for Judy of what the park is like now; I have no idea when the last time was that she was here. So I did a complete turn from where I was standing, and you can watch that movie using the player below:

One of the first things you'll see in the movie is the amphitheatre, a natural "bowl" that backs up to the forest that forms the northwest part of the park. This has always been a popular place for all kinds of events, many of which I came to when I lived here. Even way back then there were concerts and such, and the Easter sunrise ceremony was always inspirational. Actually, the very first memory I have of an event here was in 1952, when then candidate for President Dwight D. Eisenhower came here to make a campaign speech, and my father brought me over. This event was reprised in 1960 when Richard Nixon came here for a similar purpose (and at that time I actually met the candidate).

We walked right down to the "shore" of the lake to take a close look at the new island that has been constructed in the middle of what was once just an open lake. I noticed that there had been another change, too. The shore of the lake used to be natural, and one of the things kids did in the summer was wade out into it, feeling the mud of the shore between our toes. Now, the shore has been bricked and walled. It certainly looks a lot better, and probably also discourages wading.

We walked around the north side of this part of the small lake, and then down past the arched stone bridge that's been built to afford access to the bandshell that has been situated on the island. The bandshell used to be on the shore right at the foot of the amphitheatre, but now there is lots more seating since it's been moved across the water. As we continued walking down the east side of the lake, we got another view back at the bridge.

The walk continued along the side of the lake until we reached a point just across Sugar Creek from the Nature Museum. Here, a suspension bridge has been built across the creek; I don't think this bridge was here when I was growing up, although I am pretty sure the Nature Museum was.

Anyway, we crossed over the bridge to the Nature Musuem (we'll visit there shortly) and to the woods that have always been right beside it. These woods seemed expansive when I was little, but in actuality they take up only an acre or so. Down near Sugar Creek there has always been this neat set of rocks that we used to climb on as kids. They seem much smaller now, of course. Fred took a couple of more pictures of me with the rocks and, while they are repetitive, I have so many memories of the woods and rocks that I thought I would go ahead and include them here and here.

We walked back to the suspension bridge and I crossed over to the lake side so Fred could get a picture. Then, I came back out onto the bridge so I should photograph Fred with the Nature Museum behind him, and then get a picture of Fred crossing the bridge. We didn't walk any further along the lake, although the walkway continued along towards Princeton Avenue and some of the new, larger homes that have taken the place of the smaller ones that used to line the other side of the street. I can see why some bigger homes have been built there; it is a prime location, across from such a large park, and with neat views of the lake fountain.

I can remember long ago that sometimes we would get a baby duck from the pet store for Easter. We'd feed it until it got too big for its cage, at which point we'd come down to the lake and turn it loose. There always seemed to be a large community of those white "Donald Duck" look-a-likes.

Now, though, there are none of them in evidence; they've been replaced, as he sign says, by geese that originally migrated down here but then neglected to migrate back. Now, there is quite a population of them (too many, apparently) and they are damaging the lawns and generally making a mess. So the sign admonishes visitors not to feed them (and encourage their bad behavior).

From the condition of the sign, it appears that at least some of the geese wanted to express their opinions- perhaps this crowd are the culprits. We didn't have time to find out, though, as we had to get on with the Charlotte tour, so we headed back along the walkway towards the car.

Our next stop was to be the Nature Museum, so to get there, we headed off up Lilac Road.

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A Visit to the Charlotte Nature Museum

Lilac Road eventually intersects with West Boulevard, where we could turn southeast and then south on Queens Road. Queens Road was always one of the premier addresses in Charlotte, and I wanted Fred to see that lovely, tree-shaded street with the broad median and beautiful homes. When we got to Princeton Avenue, we jogged over towards the park again to visit the Charlotte Nature Museum. (I didn't bother showing that little jog on our route map, but I did mark the location of the museum.)

The Charlotte Nature Museum is not a big place; it is really intended for young schoolkids, and hosts field trips of kids almost every day- and the day we visited was no exception. Most of the exhibits are aimed at those young kids, with lots of interactive stuff and learning exhibits. The Museum also has a small observatory where programs are available on some evenings. (There is no telescope; the city lights are way too bright for star viewing; the programs are projected inside the dome.)

We made a donation and wandered around inside for just a while. I took only a couple of pictures; all the wildlife inside consists of animals that are usually found in the city or nearby, so it is pretty tame stuff. I did get a good picture of a barn owl, and we also ran across a live example of the animal we'd seen at Biltmore the day before. Seeing it here was how we came to know it had been a woodchuck.

When we were done at the museum, we continued around Queens Road to Selwyn, out Selwyn to Colony and down Colony to the entrance to my old high school- Myers Park. Colony used to end at the school, but of course Charlotte has grown a great deal. Even while I was at Myers Park, Colony Road was extended past the high school, and now connects with Wendover Road- the same street that we could take to Ted's House.

We just made a quick circle through entry drive, and then went on to Wendover, following it all the way around the south part of town to Monroe Road and Ted's house.

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Lunch with Ted

We arrived at Ted's house to find him home from work and packing a bag to go to his mother's this evening. We had another stop to make in Charlotte this afternoon, and then we'll meet him there this evening.

We went over to a local place that he knew about to have lunch, and then came back to his house where I took some pictures of the inside. If you are interested in seeing what Ted's new house is like inside, just click on the thumbnails below to view the full-size pictures:

Living Room

Kitchen

Den

Guest Room

Bedroom

We headed out about three to let Ted finish packing and make one more visit.

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A Visit With Jenny Fallis

The last stop that I wanted to make in Charlotte was to see one of my oldest friends who still lives in town- Jenny Fallis. Getting to her house was easy, since her street, Providence Road, intersects Wendover (we'd crossed it a couple of times yesterday and today. She is just a mile or so in towards town from Wendover, in a very old and very upscale neighborhood. (Myers Park drew from two distinct areas of town. Jenny and all of her friends went to the new Alexander Graham Junior High, which was actually adjacent to Myers Park, and she and her friends lived in the area east of Queens Road- an area of big homes and a good deal of money. Those of us living west of Freedom Park went to Sedgefield Junior High, over towards South Boulevard. Our area was one of small homes and a lot less money. Arriving at Myers Park was a bit of culture shock, as the kids from AG all had their own cars and the latest fashions. But most of them were OK kids, even given the economic differences.)

If I've worked that far back in this album, you've already been introduced to her in pictures, but suffice it to say that I met Jenny when here junior high and mine combined their classes at Myers Park Senior High. We had a number of classes together, went out a fair amount and, on one particularly memorable evening, went to the Senior Prom and then an after-party at another classmate's house. It was there that I was introduced to that wooden puzzle in which one has to maneuver a ball bearing through a maze, avoiding dropping it through a hole, by tilting two planes in three dimensions. I rather rudely got mesmerized by it, and realized, when I finally completed it successfully, that I'd neglected Jenny for the better part of an hour. She was, and still is, good natured about it, and it is one of our amusing stories.

Jenny went to Duke when I went to Davidson, and we didn't see that much of each other after that. Not that anything would have come of the relationship, I guess, for even then I think I would have realized that it would have been a mistake. She ended up marrying and divorcing and pursuing a very successful career in Information Technology. She is now retired from Duke Energy (she's the same age as I am) and lives in her family home with her father, whom she diligently takes extremely good care of. He is in his nineties, but doing a lot better, physically and mentally, than my Mom.

We had a very pleasant hour-long visit, and she had a chance to meet Fred and he her; each had heard of the other through me, but this was the first face-to-face. I will always remember Jenny fondly, and I hope she feels the same way about me. Fred took three good pictures (one of which is excerpted at left); click on the thumbnails below to look at the full-size images.

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Viewing Charlotte's Downtown

Jenny's house was our last stop in Charlotte, so now it was the 2-hour drive to Elon. When we left Jenny's, the most direct way to go was back along the southwest edge of downtown to Interstate 77, and then the short way north to Interstate 85. As we passed close to downtown, Fred took advantage of being a passenger and took some pictures of downtown Charlotte. Absolutely none of the buildings in any of his pictures were here when we moved to town. In 1951, the tallest building was the Selwyn Hotel, and it was only ten stories tall and made of brick. There were a few new and taller buildings built in the next 25 years, but downtown really didn't blossom until the 1980s. The tallest building that you can see is the regional headquarters for NCNB (formerly North Carolina National Bank and now BankAmerica). There is also a Wachovia Bank tower. The rest are not single companies but your standard office towers and hotels.

Some of the buildings are quite attractive, and the downtown is really quite nice. If you want to look at the full-size pictures of Charlotte's downtown, just click on the thumbnails below:

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The Trip to Judy's House in Elon

The drive to Judy's was a very pleasant one on a late Fall afternoon. We avoided most of the Charlotte traffic, and made really good time going up I-85 to the junction with I-40/I-85 east.

To get to Judy's, one used to have to go to Huffman-Mill Road and double back, but now there is a new exit between the one for Gibsonville and the first one for Burlington, and that's where we got off.

Now the route to Judy's leads entirely around both Burlington and Elon, which is a good thing, given the growth of both towns, and the fact that it's now "Elon University," instead of small Elon College. Once you turn off the bypass on Elon-Ossipee Road, there is not much traffic. A turn on Lowe Road brings you to my sister's farm.

Judy has lived on Lowe Road for almost thirty years now; both Ted and Jeffie grew up in the house she still occupies. Down by the road is an old barn, and back behind the house is the new one that I helped her finance many years ago. That's where she keeps her horses, dogs (some of them), cats (all of them) and assorted other hangers-on. In front of the house, in the small copse of woods, she's build a wonderful horticulture trail, but we'll look at that tomorrow or the next day.

We arrived just at dinnertime. Ted was there, as well as Judy's friend Patrick. Patrick had been recovering from a bad cold, so he stayed at home while we went out to Hursey's BBQ. The evening was catching up and conversation, before we left to our motel about eleven.

You can return to today's index or use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	November 8, 2007: Georgia/North Carolina Trip Day 6
	November 6, 2007: Georgia/North Carolina Trip Day 4
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