Saturday, August 31, 2013

Back to school special edition

Sometime during the last 43 years I lost my high school senior yearbook.  It's been many years since I've seen it.  It's the only high school yearbook I ever owned.  It was for the year 1970,  It was an unfortunate loss.

I went to Southern Alamance in Graham, NC.

During my epic search for the lost yearbook, I did manage to come across a 1969 Southern High yearbook.  It was posted online at Classmates.com.

The online 1969 yearbook photos are a tad fuzzy, but they did bring back some memories - some of them not so fond.  Academically, high school was pretty much a waste.  But, at least it got me into college.

Here's a few yearbook photos that I found interesting:


This is a photo of the administration at Southern High.  Principal L.M. Adcock, a not particularly warm and fuzzy man, is shown at the top right.  He died before I became a senior.  The second in command (bottom), Robert Stockard, assumed control of the regime.  Stockard also taught some sort of science course while he was assistant principal.  Mr. Stockard was a monotonous bore.  He made an excellent replacement principal.  In Mr. Stockard's day it was not necessary to have a personality if you were a principal or teacher.

I was once called into Stockard's office for him to lecture me about how playing music outside of the school band was a guarantee of going straight to hell.  Mr. Stockard used all of his personality to persuade me.  It didn't work.  I am sure my mother put him up to it.

The secretary was Mrs, King.  I don't have anything to say about her.


This is Mrs. Dismuke.  Poor, poor woman.  She taught me Latin for four years.  It was a total waste of both my and her time.  She got paid and I got nothing for my effort.  Latin was not even accepted to fill the foreign language requirement when I went to college.   I was never told of the inadequacy of Latin.  I had to start over in college with Spanish.  Thank you so much, Mrs. Dismuke.


These are three farmer teachers.  I never took any farming courses.  I figured farming to be about as useful as Latin.  I only show these farmers because I find it amazing that Southern High had three farming teachers.  The farming courses were only for boys.  No girls allowed.  The girls had to take Home-Ec.


I still remember this woman.  It's Mrs. Hadley.  Formerly known as Miss Newlin.  Mrs. Hadley was a pathetic excuse for a teacher.  She taught physical science.  Mrs. Hadley didn't know shit from shinola about science.  I am convinced she was only one chapter ahead of the class in the textbook.  For 9 months she believed CRT was an abbreviation for Cathode Ray Tray, not Cathode Ray Tube, as in a television screen in the olden days.  Her faux pus was so egregious that almost 50 years later I still remember Mrs. Hadley's Cathode Ray Tray.

Miss Newlin (later Hadley) was a former Southern High student.  She was Associate Editor of the So-Hi newspaper in 1962.  It's unfortunate for hundreds of her future students that she chose a teaching science career.  She was also a bus driver and member of the bus drivers club, the science club, Future Teachers club, a marshal, the French club, and had perfect attendance for three years.

Mrs. Hadley/Newlin should have grown up to be a bus driver, not a science teacher.

Her personal 1962 student slogan was: "As pure in thought as the angels are."


This is Calvin Jarrett.  He taught sociology and economics.  Mr. Jarrett had a personal hygiene issue.  He didn't bathe very often, but he had a Masters degree.  Mr. Jarrett enjoyed talking about his Masters degree and how other teachers didn't have a Masters degree.  Many years after high school I would learn Mr. Jarrett liked to collect western novels.  I learned this when he came by The Bookstore, when Reidsville had a bookstore, and tried to sell his western novel collection.  He did not make the sale.  Mr. Jarrett's Masters degree had not taught him nobody reads westerns.  Mr. Jarrett reminded me of comedian Jonathan Winters.


This is Mrs. Janet Loy.  I had her for four years of Accelarated English.  She was a pretty good teacher.  She was good enough that her seniors threw an after graduation party to show our appreciation.  Mrs. Loy took her Accelerated English senior students on a trip to New York City.  She was frequently the object of Calvin Jarrett's bachelor degree jokes. Her husband was a pro golfer.  She really liked a student who was also a golfer.  I heard the student committed suicide after he graduated.   Last I heard of Mrs. Loy she became a travel agent of sort and was investigated for taking money for planning student trips to NY that were never fulfilled.  I'm not sure how that turned out. If she's still living, she must be in her 80s or 90s by now.


This is Mrs. Miller, at least I think that's her name.  The fine print under her photo looks like "Mrs. Miller."  Funny I don't remember her name, but I remember she taught me advanced composition.  I also remember her assigning me a short story to write.  She read it and loudly exclaimed in her thick yankee accent - "God, you're so dynamic!"  i was never sure what she meant by "dynamic."


This is Mrs. Price.  I never had her for a teacher, but I remember she ran So-Hi, the student newspaper.  Apparently I whined about the quality of So-Hi, so she challenged me to write an article for the newspaper.  She promised she would publish whatever I wrote.  I wrote an article about the foolishness of the Vietnam War.  I turned in the article, she read it, and then ripped it to shreds in my face and yelled, "You're a Communist!"  At one time it was considered quite fashionable to call someone a Communist, but the fashion was fading in 1970.  By 1975 Mrs. Price was very much out of style.

Not surprisingly, I never wrote anymore articles for the So-Hi news.
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This is Elbert Rhodes.  He was a math teacher, but was drafted to teach band when somebody heard he once played an instrument.  I have no idea what instrument because in the four years I had him for band I never heard him play a single note on any instrument.  The band teacher he replaced was said to have run away to join the circus.  Elbert should have given up teaching band and joined the circus.

I and a few other band members had a routine called "chaos."  Whenever Elbert would be leading the band and turn his back to us, we would begin to shuffle our feet and mumble quietly.  We would make quite a fuss for a few seconds.  Elbert would whip around to see where the noise was coming from.  As he turned we would immediately stop the "chaos".  The poor man never figured it out, probably thought he was hearing things, perhaps going insane.


This is Chesley Rimmer.  Chesley is a math teacher.  I remember taking geometry with Chesley.  I also remember Chesley snatching me out of class and him giving me a stern lecture in the hall about how I would grow up to be a total failure and a useless excuse for a human being.  It's amazing how perceptive geometry teacher Chesley was.  Chesley was not married and I believe he lived with his mother.  Chesley wore a lot of sweaters.  I seem to remember his 1970 photo showed him in one of his sweaters.



This kid is Ricky Farrell.  Ricky and I were friends for a very long time, starting in elementary school.  With the exception of this class photo, Ricky always looked like a slob.  All his clothes were wrinkled and ill fitting.  Sometime during high school Ricky died.  Apparently it was during late 1968 or early 1969.  It was all very mysterious.  Ricky reportedly committed suicide, but no adult would confirm this.  Hardly anyone would ever talk about what happened to Ricky Farrell.  It was also said that he ate snow that had been contaminated by Russian nuclear fallout.  It was a strange time.


This is Terry Johnson.  He was a year ahead of me.  I mainly remember him from elementary school when he would bully all the other kids.  He grew to be President of the 1969 senior class, a SBI narc in Reidsville, and the Sheriff of Alamance County.

These photos don't show it, but I discovered Southern High had about five black teachers and quite a few black students.  By quite a few I mean maybe 10 percent of the student population which is much more than I would have guessed.  I never had any black teachers, but I do remember two black friends - Roger the Drum Major and Cynthia, a pretty black Drum Majorette.  This is all the more interesting when you know we were known as the Southern Confederates.  The Confederates turned into the Southern High Patriots in 1971.

There were also a lot of club sponsors and attendants for this and that.  I have no idea what a club sponsor or attendant is, other than a gaggle of pretty, young girls.  Which reminds me...I discovered there were really a lot of pretty girls at Southern High.  I didn't think so in 1969, but looking back from 2013 it all seems different.  I should have spent less time studying and more time chasing snatch.

I discovered my photo was nowhere to be found in the 1969 yearbook. It was like I didn't exist, but I'm almost certain I did.

If you have a 1970 Southern High annual that you would be willing to donate or loan out for a few weeks, please let me know.  I can be contacted at 4327513@bellsouth.net

Friday, August 30, 2013

had be caught

By the time the perimeter of the campus was secure, the school received word that the suspect had be caught, said Hyler.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

The dollar store's dark side

Dollar General, Dollar Tree and Family Dollar -- you know they are springing up everywhere in Rockingham County, but do you know the dark side of the dollar store?  Click here to read all about it.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Mayonnaise on Gitmo sandwiches

It's pretty hard to find someone who writes more gibberish than Reidsville Review reporter Danielle Battaglia.  She's no Bev Smalls, who is best known for copying her unedited notes directly into the Review, but she is mighty impressive when it comes to making up total nonsense.

To read an example of Danielle's mixed up crap, click here to read a report on Rockingham County District Attorney Phil Berger's trip to Cuba to witness the prosecution of terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Although Danielle never explains exactly why Rockingham County taxpayers sent Phil to Cuba, she does go out of her way to assure us that Khalid is being treated fairly by the U.S. justice system.  Berger reports Khalid was waterboarded only 183 times during his imprisonment for more than ten years awaiting trial.

Berger said Khalid did not appear malnourished and was allowed to pull out a mat and pray before court proceedings, something we here in the USA are not allowed to do when we go to city council and county commissioner meetings.

On the downside,"one prisoner complained about mayonnaise being on his sandwich."

Berger had to bear his own burdens.  While at Gitmo, he lived with no Starbucks, no cell phone service, and very limited wi-fi, which sounded like living in Rockingham County.  It was not a pretty thing.

Even Rihanna was embarrassed

miley

It was so ridiculous that even stripper Rihanna was embarassed by Miley Cyrus' twerking.  But it wasn't too inappropriate for the Reidsville Review to feature on its web site.  Click here for a highly edited version.

While the world is talking about Miley's ass-shaking, Robin Thicke crotch-grabbing, and tongue-poking and how it will traumatize young Hannah Montana fans, hardly anyone even noticed Kanye West's auto-tuned performance in shilouette.  It's a real gem.  Kanye is shown in shilouette, jumping about like a moneky with his ass on fire.  I acutally laughed out loud during the Kanye spectacle.  It wasn't supposed to be funny, but it was hilarious.

It's sad how the entertainment industry is pushing this crap and how the Reidsville Review in an outrageous attempt to remain relavant is eating it up with a spoon.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Harvest Ridge Music Festival: Where were you?

Click photos to enlarge


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For the second year in a row you weren't there.  I know you weren't there because I was and I didn't see you.  In fact hardly anyone was there.  Last year the weather was rainy and miserable, so I made excuses for you.  But, this year the weather was terrific and there were even fewer of you.  Damn, you still weren't there.  Most of the people who were there were dancing in front on the stage as headliner Mason Lovette Band closed out the evening.  You can see them right here having a good time.  This is more than half of the entire crowd.  Pathetic.  Note the guy on the far left playing a banjo.  He will be mentioned later.

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I don't know who this guy is, but he was there and having a wonderful time.  I think he was some sort of event "official" but he was pretty juiced up  He did a lot of jumping around, turning the stage lights on and off, starting and stopping the fans above the stage, hamming it up at a microphone, and spinning around the pond in the yard on a four-wheeler..

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This is the bass player for the Mason Lovette Band.  I thought he had an interesting face.  If he weren't playing in a band, he should have been a fisherman out on a boat in the ocean.

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This is Tobacco Apache, a three piece rock band that never played a single Cream song.  They were very loud.  Not sure if they were good, but they were definitely loud.  I liked their name - Tobacco Apache.

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These three young women were After Jack.  Beautiful harmonies, excellent vocals, and kinda cute.

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A shot of Mason Lovette.  I liked the guitar in the foreground  and organist in the background.  I asked where the name Mason Lovette came from.  There is a Lovette in the band, but no Mason.  I was told the band thought the name just sounded good.

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You may or may not recognize the guy on the left.  The guy on the right used to be called Billy Faucette.  He is now known as Bill Faucette.  It's been 43 years since these two saw each other.  During their time apart, Bill lost the "y" on the end of his first name  They used to play in a big horn band called Non-Stop Flight.  The guy on the left is now retired.  He hasn't played his saxophone since 1973.  Bill(y) Faucette still plays his Hammond XK3 organ for the Mason Lovette Band.  The guy on the left said he was very honored to get to meet his old friend on the right and was delighted to know the guy on the right is still making music.

Now back to the Mason Lovette Band banjo player.  His name is Clint Rhodes.  He is 52 years old.  He said he remembers as a grammar school kid seeing Non-Stop Flight perform and hoping to one day be in a band. Well, now he is.  Small world.

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The Harvest Ridge Music Festival featured more than twice as many bands as we mentioned here.  Of particular note was The Heritage Band, a young funk band with a couple of horns. It's very unusual to see a funk band these days.  If you don't play rap, country, or bluegrass, you are going nowhere.  The two black buys pictured here on bass and sax represented the entire black race at Harvest Ridge.

Of course you would know that if your lazy ass had come to Ruffin's #1 music event.  Be there next year or there might not be a music festival in Ruffin on a corn and tobacco farm. Then you'll be sorry.

Click here to see the Mason Lovette Band perform with the Go-Go Girls.  The audio is not very good (what can you expect from a cell phone camera?) , but it's fun to watch young Go-Go Girls wiggle.

 

 

Friday, August 23, 2013

Heidi's Side Boob in Review

Hurry, look now because it won't last long:

The Reidsville Review is featuring a video of super model Heidi Klum and her famous "side boob"

Look here if the Review has removed the video.

It all makes perfect sense

The University of Cincinnati quarantines "demonstrations, pickets, and rallies" to a very tiny portion of its 137-acre campus, requires students to request permission to use the zone a full ten working days in advance, and threatens students with criminal prosecution for violations, warning that "[a]nyone violating this policy may be charged with trespassing."

For this draconian policy, the University of Cincinnati has been selected as the #1 worst school for free speech.

Normally this information would be of minimal interest to Rockingham County.  The interesting part is Reidsville Review reporter Katie Mann is a 2013 graduate of the University of Cincinnati.  Now it all makes perfect sense.

 

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Ron's Manifesto About Everything

ronpricebible
Ron Price takes the oath to support and defend the Constitution

Rockingham County School Board member Ron Price not only regularly makes the news, he now writes the news.  Price is the newest columnist for the Reidsville Review.  Click here to read Ron's  manifesto about everything.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Shame on you, Mr. Ron Price

“Shame on you, Mr. [Ron] Price.” - Rockingham County School Board member Hal Griffin lectures fellow board member Ron Price for stirring up citizens about Common Core standards.  Common Core has been proposed by both state and federal governments.

Common Core opponent Janette Goode, a Ron Price supporter, said “Everybody knows that when I ran for office I ran against technology,”

Goode believes Common Core wil soon enable iPads to read a student's blood and deliver a report to the government and to corporations.  The information will be used to decide who is hired.

“You need to get rid of it now or you’re going to be on the road to serfdom,” Goode said. “The government is going to tell you who digs a ditch and who gets to work for Microsoft. That’s the bottom line.”

Hal Griffin warned the anti-Common Core crowd to change the TV channel, “Those of you who spoke against the Common Core tonight need to stop watching so much Fox News,” Griffin said.

The Price/Goode Group wants a special school board meeting to discuss Common Core with parents.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Funny of the Month

The North Carolina Department of Commerce is reporting that during 2012 visitor spending was up in all 100 counties.  This includes Rockingham County where the county's #1 tourist attraction, Chinqua-Penn, went belly-up.

Where in the hell were visitors spending their money in Rockingham County?  Our only guess is at the giant, plastic Reidsville Christmas Tree on Scales St.

It could be worse

At the end of June, 2013 the unemployment rate in Rockingham County was 10.3%.  The unemployment rate in Caswell County was 9.3%.

Scotland County has the highest unemployment rate at 16.2%.  Can you imagine what it's like to find a job in Scotland County?

scotlandcounty
In case you don't know, here's Scotland County.

If it makes you feel any better, of the state's 100 counties, 37 have an unemployment rate higher than Rockingham County's.

We thought you might like to know.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Taco Bell Crisis

Reidsville Review "journalist" Katie Mann reports:

"The Taco Bell on Freeway Drive in Reidsville is out of sour cream and nacho cheese, just in case anyone goes to Taco Bell as much as I do."

 

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Balloons Are Gone

I hope you recall our report on all the dozens of escaped balloons on the ceiling at Lowes grocery.  Now I am reporting that with the "remodeling" of Lowes in order to compete with Walmart, all the balloons, except one above the vegetables, are gone.  It's a mystery how someone got up so high to capture the escapees.

Other notable changes include 25% off all meats, the entrance has been cleared of all trash, especially the flower area, and frozen chicken strips are now only $6.99.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Ties to the United Kingdom

The Reidsville Review is reporting an old/new tanning salon on Scales St. has ties to the United Kingdom.

DID YOU KNOW?

wings


DID YOU KNOW:


Reidsville's own Golden Corral received the coveted BEST CUSTOMER SATISFACTION award in 2010.  Reidsville's winning rating was 78.54.

Also did you know Golden Corral's WING FEST is absolutely one of the worst meals you will ever eat.  If you like chicken wings, DO NOT eat them at Golden Corral.  They offer four varieties and they are all awful.  I honestly don't know how they could make chicken wings taste so bad.

 

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Pail Killer?

Does anyone read what they've written in the Review?:

 Area nonprofit puts spotlight on pail killer abuse


I should point out "L" is not near "N" on your keyboard.  Go figure.

Voting, Gummy Bears, Sharia Law, and Motorcycles

Rockingham County's very own Senator Phil Berger was the butt of the joke on The Daily Show with John Stewart last night. Temporary host John Oliver made fun of Berger's ridiculous effort to suppress voting in the state.  According to Berger, a single case of voter fraud last year justifies the state's strict new identification requirements on 4-1/2 million voters.  When you go to vote this year make sure you have your drivers license handy to prove who you are.  Also note you will have less time to register to vote and less time to vote early.

Oliver also took a few shots at the state's new anti-abortion laws.  North Carolina recently closed down nearly every abortion clinic in the state.  Oliver compared the new state law to gummy bears, Sharia law and motorcycle safety.

According to Oliver, North Carolina now ranks with Texas and Florida for foolish laws.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Don't Answer the Phone

Reidsville Review reporter Katie Mann reacts to conditions at the Review:

"I've learned the lesson to never answer the main line at the Reidsville Review. I only get really upset people that want to talk w/ AD sales"

And problems in the Crime Department:

"I think the lady that types up the crime reports was half asleep this morning because most sentences aren't completed."