There is so much chatter about the oil explosion in the Gulf, but so little action. We do know now that possibly every Friday, Obama will walk the coast and talk to strangers. When he returns, nothing happens. We in the people watch media images of talking heads, oil-soaked birds, oiled crab and sick dolphins. I have not seen any action. So, I ask myself every morning, “Why doesn’t the government do something?”

Send the Navy, send in the Marines. Send the unemployed. Isn’t contaminating the world more important that wars and hate? There is nothing to be patient about…this is a tragedy of world proportions. If the oil globs are on Florida beaches today, tomorrow…the Islands of Novia Scotia, all too soon oil globs will reach “The Halls of Montezuma.”

What happened to the old American way of life, have we forgotten all that our parents and grandparents taught us? It used to be that each generation taught their children to stand up and claim their mistakes because it made us a better person. Now it is standard to blame problems on your neighbor’s political party. This is not the American way.

Our fathers and mothers once taught us the importance of respect for ourselves and others. Back in a time, “a handshake was as good as a contract and things were built just so.”

I grew up country. A farmer’s child. My parents grew up during the depression. My mother had to quit school and help run the house when her mother became too ill to care for her eight brothers and sisters. My father was the eldest son of five children. His father became ill and he took his place running the farm, this meant he quit school at sixteen. My father worked the farm until noon, Then he would eat dinner, shower, and change into a suit. He was circulation manager of the western counties. He never came home from work before 8 p.m.

I was raised around people who grew up during the depression and frought World War II. Many of them had not had the privilege to complete high school. If a job needed doing…their generation, and our grandparents got it done. They built America.

Why are we, the children of mighty forefathers standing dumbstruck passively watching the Gulf, the sea, and the oceans being poisoned.

Are we so separated from the ways of nature that instead of becoming a land of opportunities, America has become the land of the silent peasant watching the angry peasants. This is so sad because we all live on this one earth. In this time of change, instead of pulling apart, why aren’t we pulling together? Especially, at a time when we all are losing a way of life. Has anyone noticed that harm is done to the earth in our name?

Where are the farmers who could ship loads of hay? If hay is the answer will someone place it along the wetlands and retrieve it to save the day?

If Kevin Costner has spent millions funding a device that can separate oil water…why is it not in use now. But, the whole Gulf oil mess broke down along political parties. This at a time when Anerica’s resources are dwindling.

It is time to remember that America was shaped by people working together. We are the government. We are America.

Does anyone hear the individual voices of America, not anymore. We have done this to ourselves and we need to help each other not fight over Liberal or Conservative. Didn’t our ancestors want us to pull together for each other where there was trouble.

As fathers drive their boats across America’s rivers and lakes, remember all that is nature belong to the Eternal, the God of many names. It is up to us to keep America safe and clean. It is time to label ourselves Americans, roll up our sleeves, and throw away individual labels until our world is repaired. It is the American Way.

I own a cemetery and it is occupied by relatives. This might seem like a strange sort of investment holding, but there’s nothing untoward here. I had nothing to do with the demise of any of the relatives, and the cemetery is not in my backyard beneath the rose bushes. Instead, it is unmarked and obscured in deep woods. This dear piece of earth came to me through a quick claim. I was fortunate enough to be hired for a research project. I needed money. I certainly never had any intentions of acquiring said cemetery.

In the fall of 2002, I convinced a friend to hire me to research the history of the Riverbend community. Well, one thing led to another, and in the spring of 2003, I drove to the Gaston County Courthouse, gave the Clerk of Court the filing fee, signed my name on a deed and became the owner of an old and ancient graves. Through a curiously circuitous journey, I was led to these forgotten relatives.

During my history project, I interviewed everyone I could find who would sit and answer questions about Riverbend, including the peninsula historian, Calvin Hart. Calvin knew someone who had an old map of the peninsula. Another person came up with letters and photos of the old Henderson place, and the location of the Henderson ferry which took them across the river to one of the area’s first church, Hopedale on Beatties Ford Rd. I read the tombstones in the Lineberger Cemetery at the end of the peninsula. I spent days shuffling through the archives in the Lincoln County Museum.

I met cousins, grandparents, uncles, and aunts, most of who were dead. I read about ancestry that claims blood kin from Pocahontas and Norman Vikings. Family legend states that John Abernethy, one of the first pioneers to ford the Catawba, arrived from Virginia, and told that one of his grandmothers was Pocahontas. I read of a relative who died in a duel, another was appointed to a government office and when he was excused from the office, he refused to leave.

In Gaston County records there is a reference to an Abernethy family operating a ferry in 1764. This same ferry would be purchased in the next century by Richard Rozzelle, my great, great, and great-grandfather.

Among the early pioneers were Jacob Forney (arrived in 1752) followed by multitudes of new back-country settlers. Among the next wave were the families of Johnson, Mauney, Alexander, Abernethy, McCorkle, Cansler, Rhyne, Hoke, Lineberger, McLean, Howard, Reid, Reinhardt, Reep, Warlick, Chronicle, Dellinger and Ramsour. The Dutch pioneers arriving from Pennsylvania to settle along the Catawba were from the Palatinate Region of Germany. The Scots-Irish were peasant from the Plantation of Ulster.

It was in a conversation with a friend that sent me in search of a forgotten graveyard. I followed my instincts and parked along a country road one bright fall day…I entered the woods looking for a “supposed” cemetery. Leaves crunched beneath our footfalls. Unseen mourning doves called from the brush, periwinkle carpeted the ground, and the trees were thicker than rush-hour traffic. My feet were deep in leaves dropped by many fall seasons, it was quiet. It was spooky. I glanced into the trees one last time before turning back. Suddenly, I saw five tombstones standing among the trees.

These moss-covered slabs marked the final resting place of the first pioneer families to carve out hoe on the Riverbend Peninsula. More than one grave was sunken and most tombstones were broken, scattered, and in various states of disintegration.

Among the tombstones are all are proof of lives that are now long forgotten. James A. Henderson (b. 1796-d. April 18, 1888) rests here as does his wife, Linia Parr Abernethy (b. 1811-d. November 20, 1888). Beneath the fourth tombstone lies their daughter, Mary Adeline Craig, wife of S. W. Craig. Mary was born in 1831 and died April 20, 1855, one month after giving birth to her daughter, Mary Laura Elizabeth Craig.

James and Linia doubtless made many sad pilgrimages to this graveyard. They buried two sons, William Adolphus Henderson (b. 1842 d. 1862), James Lawson Henderson (b. 1839 d. 1864) and their granddaughter, Mary Laura Elizabeth Craig (b. March 5, 1855 d. 1868). Mary Laura Elizabeth was only thirteen at the time of her death. James and Linia Henderson carried on with the task of living for more than 20 years before they joined their children in the cemetery.

According to a letter written by James Abernethy Henderson on September 19, 1962, James Abernethy, one of Henderson’s ancestors, arrived in the Riverbend/South Forks area in the summer of 1769. He traveled to the area with his brother-in-law, Robert Abernethy, Jr. and Robert’s wife, Sarah Abernethy. Robert’s elderly parents were traveling with them as were his two brothers, David and Miles Abernethy, James was known in the family as Cousin James.

They crossed the river at Beatties Ford and settled on the western banks of the
Catawba River. The letter further states that James married Elizabeth Cox Abernethy and they were the parents of seven children. Among the children was a set of twins, Elizabeth and Mary who was nicknamed Polly.

Elizabeth married William Henderson. They had 10 children. Their first born child was James A. Henderson who rests by his wife, Linia Abernethy, daughter of Miles and Susan Paar Abernethy. Her sister, Mary (Polly) Abernethy married Richard Rozzelle and they had six children.

Richard and Mary Rozzelle settled on what became Old Plank Road and were neighbors of Anna Morrison, wife of Civil War legend Stonewall Jackson. Though the Jacksons lived in Virginia, Mrs. Jackson settled in the Charlotte area after the war.

The landscape changes, and decades pass, but as each generation births a new generation into their life’s journey to experience laughter, contentment, and tears; mortgages, weddings, and wars; ancestors are forgotten. If we do not know our history, our forefathers, if we erase history; how will we know who we are?

“Think of all that has happened here, on this earth. All the blood, hot and strong for living, pleasuring, that has soaked back into it.” William Faulkner, “Big Woods”

Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean
over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you,
you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.
~ Winnie-the-Pooh
A.A.Milne

In a moment, my arms were empty and I would never, again, see her happy smile. Our life changed the moment Sassy died. Diabetes killed her. Her doctors had tried valiantly to save her, but her pancreas, smaller than a thumb, gave out…this time we would not bring her home. We made the only decision a caring parent of a pet-child can make.

Her small fox-like face and black fur were particularly pretty against the soft blue blanket I had wrapped around her. I held her like a swaddled infant and sang softly to her as I had done so many times in our years together. Then, in a moment, she closed her eyes and left. In a moment, everything changed. She will no longer scratch at my leg when I have been writing too long. My arms will always be empty of her black fur, nor will I again, see her mischievous, happy smile. In a moment, our hearts broke. Our world changed.

For the past three years, we had adjusted our life to caring for Sassy. We fed her on a strict schedule and prepared her meals in our kitchen. Our weekend activities began or ended only before or after Sassy had been fed and given her last insulin shot for the day. We never gave a moment’s thought to any other choices.

Sassy must have known that her time on earth would be limited to almost six, short years. Sassy was a black toy Pomeranian I rescued from a puppy mill. The cages behind the double-wide were guarded by large, high strung dogs. We followed instructions and stayed in the car.

After a short wait, a woman appeared out of the trailer carrying a puppy wrapped in a towel. I stepped out of the car, took the wet puppy placed it underneath my winter coat and held her under my heart.

You were so tiny and shivering, all black fur and small enough to fit into a ladies glove, you became mine the moment our hearts met. Lee paid the agreed upon bail and we drove away. Leaving what would have been a short, unhappy life of a puppy-mill bitch-dog. Lee named her. I sang to her. And Jipper, her three year old brother, also a Pomeranian, licked her face. You were six weeks old and not as long as the television remote. As you know, we spent most of that first night watching you. We were family.

As she grew, Sassy became, not the seven-pound toy Pomeranian, instead, Sassy was a dog. Sassy grew to fourteen pounds and was sassy. She trained her father to take her out at 2 a.m. two or three nights a week. She convinced him to rise and walk her by licking his bald head until he relented. Their nightly sojourns continued until she left us.

Once, when the four of us, Lee, me, Jipper, and Sassy, were visiting our home in North Carolina, we had a picnic. During the evening someone gave Sassy a spear of cooked broccoli. Since, she was probably already full, she buried the broccoli. We left for Los Angeles the next day, not to return to our home in NC for three months. The morning we arrived we were all out checking the garden on the back patio. Sassy dug up her broccoli and ate it.

In Los Angeles, there are claw marks on the Palm tree on the corner, where the squirrel waited for Sassy on morning walks. It was a game of seek and catch, the squirrel never lost because between the two of them; only the squirrel could climb trees. A fact which had not gone unnoticed by Sassy who during her lifetime made several attempts and did learn to climb the palm tree until gravity won. Sassy loved to run, she would run in circles until she tired and then she would fall asleep. like an innocent in summer grass. Each day we fell more and more in love with our little angel clown. Sassy and Jipper adored each other. Like all sisters and brothers, they picked on the other and kept each other company at the vet’s office, and when we were absent.

Life with Sassy was never boring and Sassy seemed happy even when she was sick. But I would say that the happiest day of Sassy’s life was a December day on a small farm outside Los Angeles. It was a curious and handsome house and you explored every nook and cranny. We spent the day with friends who raised twenty or so chickens. If we were outside, Sassy was chasing a chicken or chickens. They were running and trying for take-off’s that would land them safely on the lower limbs.

The squawking was louder than a Lady GaGa concert. Once, the chickens tried a strategy; they all gathered in the henhouse waiting for Sassy to run into their domain where they would peck the little aggravation in the head. Sassy trotted over to the hen house…stuck her head inside, and decided her job was done. She cut and ran for the porch. No one, there was no distraction that could stop Sassy from chasing the chickens. It lasted all day tiring all.

We left as the sun was beginning to spread across the horizon. By this time, the chickens were exhausted and so was Sassy. Both were too tired to run. As we walked to the car, a chicken would step from the crowd and take their turn walking in circles and letting Sassy sniff her feathers.

Sassy’s last trip was to the Atlantic Ocean. It is a natural…a beach and a dog. She ran straight into the sea. She chased every bird that had the audacity to land on her beach. She followed them into the water. I saw her jump over sea foam and seemed startled when the water was deeper on the other side. We walked up and down the beach and when Sassy tired; we carried her home. Sassy, you were my perfect angel and the only dog I ever raised from a puppy.

We knew she was not feeling well, and when we got home; we took her to the vet. We did not know that seven days later; she would be worse not better, ready to come home. It had been a week of tubes and shots, but she lay in her cage and smiled at everyone who passed. We visited her twice a day and she brightened with each visit. But, she was far too sick to recover. Her pancreas was destroyed.

Before noon, on Friday, January 22, 2010, I kissed her goodbye and together her parents grieved for our dog-child. She gave us laughter and unconditional love, I read once that God created dogs to show us unconditional love; hoping maybe we would learn from them. We said goodbye to our wonderful companion. Sassy was of another time. A time when there was a land called Pomerania where a proud breed of dogs known as Pomeranians herded sheep…and chickens. Some say pomeranians could climb trees.

Early word has it that the surgery on Judy’s back went well and she is in recovery. The doctor says there is hope for a speedier recovery than had been predicted earlier.

Mules. They are half breeds and the result of a mixed relationship. The father is a jackass and the mother is a horse. The progeny is a hybrid known as a mule, an animal that is stubborn, strong, smart and peculiar.

Gerald McClure says comparing mules to horses is like comparing diesel fuel to high octane gas. Mules are smart, hardworking, sturdy animals, but there is nothing classy about them. Baxter Black posted his opinion of mules on The Mule Store website. He said: First they are not real. They are the equivalent of a Caterpillar body on a Volkswagen chassis with Cadillac suspension, a Cummins diesel and lawnmower wheels.

Our farming forefathers depended on them for many chores from plowing to transportation. This compulsory partnership created a wealth of tales concerning what happened when a mule’s stubbornness challenges a farmer’s resolve. It was always a chaotic experience that would pitch man against mule, the world’s most defiant and all knowing beast of burden. I love mule stories because the settlers who followed the Wilderness trail were society’s pack-mules.

I grew up around mules, Poppa Link had a couple of mules, My dad and brother plowed spring fields with our mule, Sunshine. An unfortunate name for a mule who thought he was Socrates. If you farmed, you needed a mule.
I like mules and I delight in mule stories…only if tale does not involve hurting the mule. For some reason, when a farmer locked head and horn with his mule. They both took it personally. I have heard tell of one farmer who out of desperation, frustration, and fatigue shot his own mule.
I recall an ex-husband bragging about his father cold-cocking a mule. The father was a stout strong man who just didn’t like the mule he had recently purchased. When the mule expressed the same opinion of him, well, it wasn’t pretty.
It went like this…one afternoon after hours of plowing, the tired mule just stopped. After a short time of prodding the mule, which still refused to budge, he simply assumed a boxer’s stance, balled up his fist, threw his best punch and knocked the mule out. What he got out of that tale was entirely different from what I took from the from the story.
On The Mule Store website I also read that people, who lost their temper, lack tolerance and empathy, are highly domineering or aggressive and will probably dislike mules.

I have always been fond of the peculiarity of mules and that is probably a reflection of my own personality. However, I first fell in love with mules when I read the following paragraphs about a mule race written by Mark Twain:

There were thirteen mules in the first heat; all sorts of mules,
they were; all sorts of complexions, gaits, dispositions, aspects.
Some were handsome creatures, some were not; some were sleek,
some hadn’t had their fur brushed lately; some were innocently
gay and frisky; some were full of malice and all unrighteousness;
guessing from looks, some of them thought the matter on hand was war, some thought it was a lark, the rest took it for a religious occasion. And each mule acted according to his convictions. The result was an absence of harmony well compensated by a conspicuous presence of variety–variety of a picturesque and entertaining sort.

The thirteen mules got away in a body, after a couple
of false starts, and scampered off with prodigious spirit.
As each mule and each rider had a distinct opinion of his own
as to how the race ought to be run, and which side of the track
was best in certain circumstances, and how often the track ought
to be crossed, and when a collision ought to be accomplished,
and when it ought to be avoided, these twenty-six conflicting
opinions created a most fantastic and picturesque confusion,
and the resulting spectacle was killingly comical. Eight of the thirteen mules distanced. I had a bet on a mule which would have won if the procession had been reversed.”

It happened in much the same way as Mark Twain described the race, it took some pretty prodigious mules to settle the Carolina Backcountry, and the farming families who settled the western wilderness for they were also, stubborn, strong, smart and peculiar.

There is much to say about mother-daughter relationships. Sometimes, two spirits travel in tandem until they discover the beauty in each other throughout. I could not have been me without my daughter’s feminine spirit to hold to and lean-on. Have we spun through lifetimes sparing and jostling each other? Have we spun through lifetimes gathering strength from hard-won wisdom? I hope so.

There is much to be said about the families we weave, but I believe that families, sisters, daughters, women, and mothers, sons, husbands, and lovers meet in different spaces in unseen universes because we always find solace and strength among these spirits. This time, I got to be Mom.

Where do you need to be when the world is weary? Where do you need to be; when the world turns odd and out of bounds, where do you need to be? What do you seek? Where is your contentment?

When you pray or meditate and muse on rhyme and rhythms, Greed, taxes, Repubs, liberals, superstars, and transformers and Gods. When you pray or meditate on things that are right and wrong. On all things important, where do you go to find peace?

Mama Jo kept a yardstick above the doorframe of each room and she measured and balanced her life as easily as tracing the tip of her nose to the tips of her fingers. She stayed close to the teachings her German ancestors bequeathed to her and measured life by the yard.

Every other Sunday, after Sunday dinner, Daddy would drive through the county taking Mother home to see her family. It was a forty-five minute drive and it was taken every other Sunday come rain or snow. Mama Jo touched home base twice a month.

All nine brothers and sisters met back home in the living room where they spent their youth and where they discussed their challenges. On those Sunday afternoons, each member of the family brought home, dates, friends, new husbands, babies and in-laws. All that became family were brought to Poppa Link’s sprawling brick home on Sunday afternoon and the lucky ones drank from the back-porch well.

This is where Mama Jo came together with her sisters and brothers to tend to hearth fires and to see to each other. Before eventide, when the livestock was getting restless and there were chores to be done, when the pie was finished and the last swallow of tea. When we were ready for Monday, Mama Jo and my father stood up from their rocking chairs to begin the saying of the goodbyes.

When I had kissed the grandparents goodbye, I turned in the back seat to watch the cousins as they wave goodbye, when we pulled out of the driveway, the rocking chairs were always left behind crunched together in a tight circle. Where is your rocking chair?

We all need a safe place to call home with space for a rocking chair. It can be a familiar bed, a room with curtains that can be drawn open or left alone, or not at all. A place where we speak with ourselves; scratch our tush unseen; and whether singing along or making dreadful noises, no apologizes required?

Where I find sustenance and courage, others look away, and seek other places to call home; other places that holds their spirit content? Home is a place where only I can be me, but there is a larger question?

Like elixirs, and perfumes, where do you keep the essence of you? Where do you begin to tell the story of your life? From what point do you begin to trace your life, your roots, the best years, the learning years, and the comforted years?

Is an anchored rocking chair important in our world today? Is it very important for individuals to have strong connections to places and people?

We live in a portable world of quantum physics and narrow spaces with built-in plugs, and outlets, the world is only a plug away. We exist on trains, planes and automobiles and the cubicles of corporate fiefdoms. We live in a universe where relationships begin and end without the touching of flesh. In this universal space I can fly like a bird over the rainbows.

With the flick of a finger, I can swoop down onto the forests of the Carolina Piedmont dipping and diving above woodland maps that are more than 3,000 miles from source. Sitting on a satellite I can see the spit of land where the Abernethy Inn once existed. At the widest point in the river they operated a ferry across the Catawba River. Do we need rocking chairs, at all? How portable must a man be before he floats away?

Masks are required in a global world, but when the masks fall away; who will we be? Is it important to remain tied to a region, to carry colors and hymns of other places with us today? Is it important to know who we were to be able to find and sustain a home in the rushing currents of today?

If only the “now” counts, what is there of yesterday? Where do you put the baggage, the memories, the family myths, the truths of life? In the most technical of worlds; in the most beautifully-blended societies and cultures, it still holds true that the sum of the parts is as strong as the whole.

My story begins in Shuffletown, a once semi-scenic crossroads community nine miles from the square in Charlotte, North Carolina. Like Mother, I have yardsticks above the door arches in my home. Shuffletown is my home. These are my people. For generations, they abided in yesterday and taught me how to shoulder today.

This is my home. And, even though, I wrote the biography of home in my book, Shuffletown USA, in 2003, I still rely on what I learned in Shuffletown to get me through today. Shuffletown; the banks of the Catawba River and the land thereabouts is my home.

The currents from the Catawba River have fed and clothed my family since the NC State Hwy 16 was an Indian path; when the American Colonies were puppies; when the British Colony was christened Carolina by King Charles I, The Abernethys came to land that became their home.

As the story goes, James Abernethy and his sister, Jane, settled on the banks of the Catawba River and built cabins. Their second-cousin Jim had travelled with them on their journey from Jamestown, Virginia to the river that runs at the edge of the western wilderness. Jim married Jane, his second cousin. While James probably married the first Dunn to settle near by.

For a bit of silver or gold, they ferried travelers from one shore to the other. In their Inn they provided food and hearth for those who journey. The Abernethy Inn and Ferry was the last stop for supplies and sustenance before the pilgrims entered the western wilderness. My ancestors have tilled the same land and ferried the same river since the America Colonies were nothing more than a bag of puppies.

I think about home. I think about how other friends are able to pick up roots and relocate far from their birthplace and their growing years to find home. There are many who seem to find home along their wandering paths. I do not believe that needing a sense of place can be defined.

I often state that, “I am only one-generation away from the plow. The blood of my Scottish, Irish, English, French, and German, African and Cherokee ancestors still runs strong and it is easy to recall their yardsticks. I know because I watched my elders my fathers, mothers, and brother laid the seeds into these spring grounds life following life.

It was a time when the world ran on good sense; when we understood the importance of insincerity, and sometimes, today, in this most portable of worlds, every other Sunday I desire rambling country roads, counting cows and white horses in pastures and watching meadows roll down hill into farm ponds. Then I will dust off my apron and be on my way towards Monday.

Today, I pulled up my rocking chair and thought of Sister’s recipe for rock stew to remind me that I am only one generation away from the plow and I come from good strong, sturdy material. Shuffletown and the lands thereabouts; Southfork, Belmont, Woodland, Riverbend, Lincolnton, old Tryon County, is where I keep my rocking chair.

My sister called today to discuss my forth-coming spinal surgery. I prefer not to speak of my surgery, at least, not often and then in hushed tones. Each time I speak of the surgeons operating on my back through my stomach. Well, I have to be there when it happens.

We moved on to the subject of the serial killer who terrorized the small town of Gaffney, South Carolina, and had been shot as a robber somewhere else. My nephew and ex-housemate…her son, Jay, lives in Gaffney, South Carolina.

“Have they caught the right man in Gaffney, South Carolina. What does Jay say about all that went there on last week?”

“Well, he didn’t go out much while the murdurer was on-the-loose. He matched the man’s description. they were looking for someone who was six feet six inches. Jay is. He had a bald head. Jay has a bald head. The killer weighed about the same. Jay stayed inside except for working hours.”

“Really,” I asked.

“Yeah, they were armed from house-to-house. When the Gaffney police told everyone to arm themselves, you couldn’t buy a bullet in the town.”

Before Charlotte became the Mecca of towering corporate fiefdoms and a world class city, it was the home of many eccentric citizens who failed to conform to customary behavior patterns. As a native of Charlotte, I was fortunate to have known a few of them.

These eccentric, odd, quaint and unique citizens are the foundation of Charlotte. Without them, Charlotte could not be the mighty city it is today. I hold the memories of them in my heart. They gave me laughter.

The esteem I hold for the city is built upon my acquaintance with these marvelous folks. Before they are forgotten in the busyness of life, it is time to recall how they shaped and anchored Charlotte preparing it for the future.

One couple I remember fondly, Claire and William (Bill) Allen, were the essence of quaint. In 1976, they rescued the Duke Mansion from what could have been a dire fate. If they had not stepped forward and purchased this magnificent mansion, it could have faced destruction.

Today, it is in the safe hands of the Lynnwood Foundation which is dedicated to maintaining and preserving this national historic site as a unique meeting facility and community gathering place.

In the 1970s, we lost many historic homes, but fortunately, the Allens set the mansion on a path of restoration. Once they occupied the mansion the Allens lived in a manner befitting the history of the home.

In order to understand how Claire and Bill were at that time the perfect owners of the mansion and lived up to the unique and eccentric heritage of the mansion we must explore the history of the Duke Mansion. The story begins with a father, James Buchanan “Buck” Duke, who doted on his daughter, Doris.

Step back in time to the era when it was possible to acquire vast fortunes. Buck Duke had accomplished this feat, when he built the Duke Mansion, he owned homes in Manhattan, Newport, and New Jersey. When he added the Duke Mansion to his list of homes it was with the intention of providing six-year-old, daughter, Doris with a genteel southern upbringing. He purchased what was then known as Lynnwood, an eight year old estate at 400 Hermitage Rd., in Charlotte’s prestigious new neighborhood known as Myers Park. However, as with the “best laid plans,” things went awry.

Business also brought him to the area, he needed to be close to the operations of his hydro-electric power company – today’s Duke Energy company — but his prime motivation in buying Lynnwood was to give Doris the benefit of growing up in his native North Carolina. Duke purchased parcels of land surrounding the estate between 1919 and 1922 transforming the already substantial home into a majestic mansion of 45 rooms and 12 baths. The Duke Mansion was the first of many grand homes in Charlotte designed in the Neo-Colonial style.

In the front lawn of the estate, as the crowning jewel, Buck installed a fountain that sent plumes of water as high as 150 feet, and was quite a local attraction. The fountain, his car, a Rolls-Royce, and his daughter, Doris, were his pride and joy.

Fountain View Street is off East Blvd. was so named because it afforded a view of the water spires from the Duke Mansion fountain.

However, Mrs. Buck Duke, the former Nanaline Holt Inman of Macon, Georgia, preferred her residence on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue to the quiet righteousness of Charlotte. I guess back then it could be said that “what happened in New York stayed in New York.” Often when her mother traveled to New York, Doris remained behind with her father and received part of her early education at a private school in Charlotte.

But in 1925, when Doris was 12 years old, Buck Duke died. Quickly, Nanaline Duke sold Lynnwood to C. C. Coddington, a car dealer, and thus deprived Doris of the southern upbringing her devoted father had desired. Possibly, it is not a stretch to say that if Doris had remained in Charlotte her life could have been happier, but instead Doris married twice unsuccessfully and in the end, it was her final relationship with her bizarre butler, Bernard Lafferty, who wore his hair in a pony tail and catered to her every wish.

Except, unfortunately, he was accused of hastening her demise with a fatal overdose of morphine and Demerol — but not before she changed her will leaving her estate to him. Three years after Doris Duke died, Lafferty himself passed away, prompting an amusingly morbid tale in the in the Los Angeles press. Prior to his death, Bernard had agreed to a series of interviews with a reporter, but died rather inconveniently before the interviews were complete. The reporter resorted to a medium who contacted Lafferty on the “other side.” When asked if he ever say Doris in heaven, Lafferty replied that he did see her, but only from a distance because she was in a section reserved for the rich and famous. So apparently, you can take it with you.

The Duke Mansion is also haunted by Jon Avery who briefly owned the home. The story goes that his wife was permanently hospitalized due to mental illness; and during his tenure in the mansion he fell deeply in love with another woman. But his love was unrequited. One fateful night the woman, accompanied by a friend, went to the mansion to break off the relationship. When they opened the front door Jon Avery walked past them and spoke the words, “Dead or Alive.” Unknown to them, Avery had died a few days before due to an illness.

In 1929, the mansion was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Martin L. Cannon, one of the 10 children of James Cannon, founder of Concord’s Cannon Mills fortune. The Cannon’s named the home, “White Oaks.” (John F. Kennedy, the future president, attended their daughter’s wedding here in 1940.) Mr. and Mrs. Henry Lineberger of Belmont bought the mansion in 1957. In 1966, the house was almost destroyed by a fire, after which the Linebergers did an extensive restoration. After the death of Henry Lineberger, in 1976, the mansion entered its White Elephant stage.

It was around this time that my friends, Claire and Bill Allen bought the mansion for approximately $250,000, which was a steal for a 45-room home, even then. They moved into the main part of the house with their five dogs and many cats. Bill often told me that he owned the last dog in America named Rover and he adored the dog and all the other animals. In truth, they made PETA look timid.

At that time, I lived on Huntley Place, a street beside Myers Park Hardware. Before the home was purchased by the Allens, my children and many neighborhood children played about the lawns of the mansion. They hid in a hollow of an old oak tree that stood in the front lawn and played hide and seek around and about the house.

It was on a Sunday afternoon when the Allens had moved into the mansion when I was in search of my yellow striped cat, Beowulf, that I was to make their acquaintance.

When I knocked on the door and asked if I could search their premises for Beowulf, Claire gave me permission for the search and invited me inside for a drink. I found Beowulf; and eagerly returned to the mansion. When I arrived it was time to feed Claire’s favorite cat, whose name now escapes me, but the cat and its feeding was memorable. The poor cat had suffered a stroke and was physically challenged. Like Beowulf, he was a sweet yellow striped cat, but resulting from the stroke, he would list to the left and, mostly, walked in circles. She fed him in the enormous kitchen where many servants had once sliced and diced vegetables while preparing large meals on a huge chopping block; if the chopping block had been a table, it would have seated twelve guests. A brass foot railing ran along the bottom of the solid wooden block.

When it was time to feed the cat, Claire would carefully lift him up to the top of the block and set a plate of tuna in the middle of the chopping block. They had so many animals this was the only way the cat could eat in peace. Then we would sit nearby at a small table drinking cocktails while keeping close watch on the cat– listing to the left, circling the tuna until by fate and fortune he located his meal. Under Claire’s watchful gaze, the cat never toppled off, but it usually took him four to six long minutes before he bumped into his meal. He lived out his days on a circular journey to being well-fed.

Sunday cocktails with Claire and Bill became a habit. Their story was very romantic. When they were very young, Bill had fallen in love with Claire who was an opera singer. Once again, if memory serves me correctly, it was her leading role in the opera, Madame Butterfly, which stoked the flame of love in Bill’s heart. Many years later, when Claire returned from her operatic career in New York City, Bill was a widower. After a chance meeting, and a short courtship, they were married.

Often cocktails led into dinner; a short Sunday afternoon visit with them would often extended for hours; by the time the subject of dinner rolled around, the main course was still frozen. By the time dinner was ready, I often walked to dinner as unsteadily as Claire’s cat.

During my visits I met many other quaint citizens of Charlotte; one of them was a fiftyish female attorney who bragged to me that she had never lost a rape case. Later, I discovered that she always represented the accused (males). She was, however, a delightful guest. Her stories were always entertaining and very humorous, but she scared me.

However, during one Sunday dinner, she saved my life. Someone had said something funny; I laughed causing me to choke on a piece of steak. She jerked me up, slapped my back determinedly and dislodged the steak. Afterward, she admonished me that it would have been extremely rude of me to die during dinner; the fact being, the great tragedy of Bill’s life was that his first wife had choked to death during a meal at a dinner theatre. I am forever grateful to her that my death did not coincide with my final faux pas.

They also rented out sections of the house as apartments to an ever-changing array of tenants. Their occupant renters were sometimes unique. One couple, of whom they were very fond, was eagerly waiting on FDA approval of a patent for an invention that we now know as Krab. It is seen today in most grocery stores and some restaurants. I hope, somewhere, they are carrying on in the art of fine living in the tradition of Claire and Bill Allen.

The Allens loved to entertain and I enjoyed many lively parties there. During one party two of my friends, who shall remain nameless, stopped by looking for me after I had already departed. The next day, Claire reported to me that some of my motorcycle friends had stopped by and they were very delightful.

My favorite memory of those days is a Scottish themed party. They hired a bagpipe band and Scottish attire for the guests was encouraged. It was a beautiful site to see: about fifteen men in swinging plaid kilts marching down the large hallway escorted by five tail-wagging, barking dogs towards the living room. By request, undaunted by the barking, the bagpipers and entourage were to repeat their march several times. It was a night the Allens recalled with pride.

One of my last parties at the mansion was during the week-long festivities of the premier of the NASCAR movie, “Stroker Ace,” which starred Burt Reynolds. The Allens invited the guests for lunch where they were fed a traditional southern meal complete with fried chicken, potato salad, black-eyed peas, greens and many other traditional native dishes. Tea and Bloody Marys were served in blue mason jars. The meal was prepared by Ellen Davis who now owns the McNinch House, one of Charlotte’s finest restaurants. The Fincannon brothers, Craig and Mark, who are now extremely successful movie casting agents, sent invitations to the cast. It was a star-studded occasion. Jon Ponder and I were in charge of arranging the party and specifically, to oversee that the Allens would be standing when the guests departed. However, I am not sure any of us were totally vertical when the last guest departed. What I am sure of, to this day, is everyone involved recalls the flowing hospitality of the effervescent Allens.

Jim Nabors, one of the cast members, attended the party and arrived early to request a tour of the home. Jim Nabors, you may recall, played Gomer Pyle on the “Andy Griffith Show.” He was then a neighbor of Doris Duke in Honolulu. Doris had regaled him with stories of her youth in the mansion. She had specifically asked him to visit the mansion.

Unlike Doris Duke, the story of the Duke Mansion has a happy ending. It was later divided into condos, and eventually rescued by Rick and Dee Ray, owners of the Raycom media company. With Duke Power and others, they set up the Lynwood Foundation. They even have the fountain working again…

Ed’s note: Jon Ponder, my former partner in the now-defunct, but still imfamous, advertising agency, Haley, Garland & Lahr, assisted in the writing and complilation of this article. We probably made unintentional mistakes in our recollection of those days. But, that is to be expected. Jon lives in West Hollywood, but he still calls Charlotte his hometown.