Smithfields vie for ham supremacy

Everyone knows Smithfield country hams come from Smithfield…but would that be North Carolina or Virginia? Each Smithfield has laid claim to being the “ham capital of the world.” 

In 1985, the country ham processors in Smithfield and Johnston County, N.C., decided it would be fun to host a competition, and let a panel of judges decide which state’s country ham tasted better. 

Freelance journalist Emily Wallace of Durham (a Smithfield, N.C., native) gave her readers a taste of how it went. She wrote and illustrated “Ham to Ham Combat: The Tale of Two Smithfields” in 2015. 

The contest provided great theater and cooked up a whale of publicity for the country ham processing and packing industry. 

The country ham plants in Johnston County decided to call their event the Ham & Yam Festival and extended an invitation to Virginia’s Smithfielders.

 About 8,500 residents live in Smithfield, Va., which is located in the highly populated Hampton Roads region of southeastern Virginia and situated on the Pagan River, a tributary of the James River. 

Smithfield, N.C., the county seat of Johnston County, has about 13,000 inhabitants, but is largely rural in character. 

The Smithfields are separated by about 162 miles…and a whole lot of attitude. The bad blood began to boil during early colonial times. 

William Byrd II (1674-1744), considered to be the founder of Richmond, Virginia’s capital city, was a bit of a boorish snob. He viewed North Carolinians as a “porciverous” population whose “only business…was raising and eating hogs.” That was not meant as a compliment. 

The first Ham & Yam competition in 1985 drew the attention and support of Jim “The Sodfather” Graham, who was North Carolina’s longtime agriculture commissioner. Wallace said Graham offered to fork over a passel of Atlantic Coast Conference men’s basketball tournament tickets to the opponents if the Virginia side won the competition.

The festival’s hospitality committee welcomed the competitors from Virginia, the judges and dignitaries on Ham & Yam eve at Becky’s Log Cabin steakhouse in Smithfield, N.C., so everyone could sample local bourbon and get in the spirit. It was like a pep rally for country ham. 

Wallace said: The Virginian-Pilot newspaper of Norfolk, Va. reported that on the day of the contest, “the judges – two food scientists and one ham-maker – ‘pondered their decisions prayerfully in the shade behind Smithfield’s Primitive Baptist Church with a pitcher of water.’” 

Ranks were doled out according to fat-to-lean ratio, trim, taste and overall appearance, and Jim Graham announced that North Carolina took three of four categories, “so I consider we won it.” He kept those “basketball tickets safely in his clutch,” Wallace said.

The 1986 rematch offered a total of eight awards, with North Carolina winning five and Virginia three. The Smithfield (N.C.) Herald headline read: “Johnston Hams Send Virginians Home to Lick Salt from Wounds.”

 

“That was the last time Smithfield, Va., officially came to town,” Wallace said. “The festival shifted to a competition among North Carolina curers. By the early 1990s, the festival had dwindled into a sort of craft fair, with less emphasis on pork and potatoes.” 

Smithfield, Va., retained rights to the Smithfield brand, and Smithfield Foods grew to become America’s largest producer and processor of pork. In 2013, Shuanghui International, a Chinese-based company, based in Hong Kong, purchased Smithfield for $4.7 billion. 

In January 2014, Shuanghui International changed its name to WH Group. It is the largest pork company in the world, with Smithfield Foods continuing as its U.S. subsidiary.

‘Country ham’ belt links Carolina to Missouri

America’s “country ham” belt is the geographic region that extends through North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri. 

There is a small group of great country ham producers concentrated in eastern North Carolina. 

Stevens Sausage Co. in Smithfield is one. The business was launched after the Korean War (post-1953), when Army veteran Needham Sloan Stevens Jr. returned to Smithfield. He and his parents formed the company as an extension of the family farm. 

“Junior” remained active in the business until his death in 2013. Today, the company is operated by the third generation – brothers Mike, David and Tim Stevens. 

Dr. Dana Hanson, an associate professor at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, is a renowned meat specialist. 

Dr. Hanson said: “Today, most ham is sold pre-sliced ready for the skillet. The key to success when preparing this product is knowing when to quit. Country hams do not like to be overcooked and dried out. Lightly fry it…slap it on a warm biscuit…and breakfast is served.” 

Dr. Hanson recommends “supporting American food heritage” by patronizing the country ham producers in eastern North Carolina. He suggests Westwater Country Hams of Warsaw in Duplin County; and WayCo Country Hams in Goldsboro and Nahunta Pork Center near Pikeville, both in Wayne County.

In the western mountain region, a major player in the country ham business is Goodnight Brothers of Boone. The family business has a long-standing relationship with the Dan’l Boone Inn restaurant in town as its exclusive country ham supplier. The inn serves up platters of country ham biscuits to hungry diners who come to enjoy family style meals. 

Since 1977, Goodnight Brothers country ham customers have included two familiar North Carolina fast-food groups – Hardee’s and Bojangles’ restaurants. 

Crystal Light Faulkner, who grew up in Asheboro, N.C., and is known for her blog, MrsHappyHomemaker, prefers to separate her homemade country ham and buttermilk biscuits on a plate, so she can “drench the biscuits in savory and salty red eye gravy.” 

“Red eye gravy is a very thin gravy made from country ham drippings. It’s incredible and so easy,” she said. Remove the ham, and “add in 1 and 1/4 cups of water as well as 1/2 cup of strong, black coffee. Stir it up and scrape all the browned bits from the bottom of the skillet. Bring it to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.” 

Some folks use a cola soft drink instead of coffee, and others use a 50-50 coffee-cola blend. 

How did red eye gravy gain its distinctive name? 

Eric Troy of the CulinaryLore website said the name can be traced to Gen. Andrew Jackson, who was an American field general from 1814-21, known as “Old Hickory,” which was a preferred wood for the smoking and flavoring of country ham. 

Troy said that one day Jackson asked his army cook to make lunch. “The cook had been helping himself to liberal doses of moonshine, Southern corn whiskey or ‘white mule.’ Observing the cook’s bloodshot eyes, General Jackson instructed him “to bring some country ham with a gravy as red as his eyes.”

Troy said: “The ham drippings form numerous small droplets which, some say, resemble little red eyes. As the gravy sits, however, the fat forms a single translucent circle on top, surrounded by a darker, liquid non-fat part on the bottom, making the whole thing look like a big red eye.”

 

No biscuits? No problem, ladle some of that salty gravy into a serving of creamy grits.

Country ham has roots in eastern North Carolina

Southerners savor their country ham. The salty, seasoned “hind leg of pig” remains a bit of a regional delight, according to famous kitchen brothers Matt and Ted Lee of Charleston, S.C. 

“Country ham is a wonderful thing – cured in salt, sugar and seasonings…then left to age in a dry environment for months,” the Lees said. “During that time, the meat is transformed into “a transcendently delicious, rosy ham that’s super-concentrated…and very salty.” 

Country ham is a far different creature from “‘city ham,’ the pink supermarket staple familiar to most Americans.”

 Country ham is the original American ham, dating back to the days of the North Carolina and Virginia colonies. Pigs were slaughtered in the winter when the cold temperatures would help preserve the meat as it cured. 

Second generation curemaster Rufus Brown at Johnston County Hams in Smithfield, N.C., was interviewed recently for an oral history project associated with the University of Mississippi. 

Brown described the process: The initial stage is salting. “Each ham is hand-rubbed with salt twice and rotated top to bottom. Hams stay in the salt room for 42 to 45 days at 38 degrees,” he said. 

“You have to have 4% salt concentration to be called a ‘country ham,’ and ours have always ranged on the low end, 4 or 5%. Some other hams can skyrocket up to 10%, which is real briny.” 

Next, Brown said, “when the hams are ready, we bring them out to wash them down, and we put them in stocking nets and hang them with the shank down. We move them into an ‘equalization room,’ which is maintained at 50 degrees.” 

It takes about two weeks for the salt to “equalize throughout the tissues.” (A little smoke generated by burning hickory wood chips may be injected into the room for a brief period to introduce distinctive flavors that make country ham unique.) 

After equalization, hams are ready to be aged for flavor development. The aging room is maintained at 80 degrees. The minimum aging period is about 45 days. 

“Country ham is not something that you can rush,” Brown said. “You just wait it out.” 

In 2015, the Tasting Table social media site celebrated “traditions that make Southern food so special.” Justin Kennedy reported that one of Tasting Table’s five favorite country hams was Johnston County Hams’ Curemaster’s Reserve. 

“Rufus Brown creates country hams that are quickly becoming recognized among the world’s best,” Kennedy wrote. 

“In particular, his Curemaster’s Reserve hams are worth seeking out for their silky, delicate smoothness and pristine, earthy flavors – simply unparalleled among American cured hams,” Kennedy opined. 

Who was the first cook to slice open a piping hot biscuit and insert a slab of country ham? 

Historians say the late Edna Lewis (1916-2006), an admired African-American chef and cookbook author, described making country ham biscuits in her hometown of Freetown, Va., near Charlottesville. 

The community was formed after the Civil War by freed former slaves, including Edna Lewis’ grandparents. 

Country ham biscuits were always served at Sunday Revival, and Lewis said that each one contained a “flannel-soft, thin slice of ham.”

 

Don’t underestimate the importance of the biscuit. Editors of Garden & Gun magazine, based in Charleston, S.C., have two favorite gristmills in North Carolina. One is Sanford Milling Company, based in Henderson in Vance County. Its premier brand is Snow Flake Short Patent Self-Rising Flour. 

The other is Boonville Flour & Feed Mill in Yadkin County, which produces Our Best Bleached Self-Rising Flour.

Let’s count our way through pop music history

Have you ever wondered…what are the best songs with a number in the title?

One, two, three and four are frequently mentioned…but “16” is a bit of a magical musical number. Several once-popular tunes refer to a “sweet 16” birthday girl. 

There was a brief period about 50 years ago, when early rock’n’rollers recorded chartbusters that formed fond memories. From 1958-61, six notable “16” tunes got a lot of radio airplay. 

The first of these “16” songs debuted in January 1958. It was “Sweet Little Sixteen,” written and recorded by Chuck Berry. Singer-songwriter Sam Cooke had a major score with “Only Sixteen.” 

In 1986, Chuck Berry and Sam Cooke both were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, members of the “first class” of artists to be so honored.

 

Chuck Berry

Sam Cooke

Berry is remembered as “a founding father of rock music, whose pioneering career influenced generations of musicians.” Cooke was widely regarded as the “king of soul.” 

Neil Sedaka’s “Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen” was also a chartbuster. He was a prolific songwriter as well as a vocalist. (Sedaka is not in the Hall of Fame, but he should be.) 

Some say the two best “16” songs from the “oldies era” were “16 Candles” performed by The Crests, and “You’re Sixteen” by Johnny Burnette. 

These two songs were introduced to a new generation of listeners when they were selected to be part of the soundtrack of the 1973 film “American Graffiti.” 

Remember the show tune “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” from the 1959 musical “The Sound of Music?” The image of the pending 17th birthday of the sparkling blue-eyed Liesl von Trapp just may have inspired Paul McCartney and John Lennon of The Beatles.

 

Charmian Carr  as Liesl

Their song in 1963, “I Saw Her Standing There,” helped secure the band’s financial future. Ironically, the song begins with a numerical “one-two-three-four” lead in: 

….Well, she was just seventeen / You know what I mean / And the way she looked / Was way beyond compare. 

So how could I dance with another? / Ooh, when I saw her standin’ there? / Well, my heart went “boom” / When I crossed that room / And I held her hand in mine. 

When sung, that last word sounds like my-eee-ee-een (rising in pitch)…as a tribute to Buddy Holly perhaps.

The Beatles were big-time “numbers guys,” and “Eight Days a Week” was a smash hit in 1964. 

Never content to rest on their laurels, the Beatles took number 16 and multiplied it by 4 to come up with another song title – “When I’m Sixty-Four.” The song was released in 1967 on the legendary “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album. 

It gets better. Band member Paul McCartney wrote the song when he was 16 years old. It’s about a man who sings to his woman about what it will be like for them to grow old together. 

When I get older losing my hair / Many years from now / Will you still be sending me a Valentine Birthday greetings bottle of wine? 

Will you still need me, will you still feed me / When I’m sixty-four?

 Images continue to flow: knitting by the fireside, Sunday morning drives, gardening and pulling weeds, a summer rental cottage with grandchildren on the knee. 

Some readers who are advanced seniors can say: “Been there, done that.” Good for them (and us). 

The Beatles were part of our extended family, and so many of life’s treasures connect to their music.

‘Strowger Switch’ invention bypasses local call operators

Almon B. Strowger is in the National Inventors Hall of Fame as the creator of telephone switch and dialing systems in 1889 that revolutionized the telephone industry. 

His automatic telephone switching system, patented in 1891, including a rotary dial. It became standard equipment in telephone systems worldwide…until replaced by the advent of touch-tone calling in the late 1970s. 

Strowger, who was born in Penfield, N.Y., in 1839, was a teacher before volunteering to join the Union army during the Civil War. After the war, he moved west and was a country school teacher in Kansas. He later became an undertaker in Kansas City, Mo.

The communications officer at the Spark Museum of Electrical Invention in Bellingham, Wash., offers a colorful account: 

“Imagine you’re an undertaker working in Kansas City in the late 19th century. You’re one of just two undertakers serving a city of more than 50,000 people, so business must be booming, right? Not if your competitor is stealing all of your clients.” 

The museum spokesperson said that in 1888 or thereabouts, “the wife of the other undertaker in town worked at the local telephone exchange, and whenever a caller would ask for Strowger’s services, she’d put the call through to her husband, instead. This left Strowger’s business in grave straits.” 

“His complaints to the telephone company management proved unfruitful, so Strowger took matters into his own hands – by cobbling together hat pins and electromagnets to invent the first automated telephone exchange.”

 

Essentially, Strowger’s switch eliminated the need for a caller to go through the switchboard operator to place a local telephone call. He boasted that his system made using the telephone “cuss-less, out-of-order-less and wait-less.” 

He immediately began to regain market share in the funeral business. 

Strowger also invented the 11-digit Strowger Potbelly Dial Candlestick, the first dial telephone. It had numerals 1 through 0, and an 11th space for “long distance” calling.

 

He and his nephew, Walter Strowger, formed the Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange Company in 1891 and moved operations to Chicago. 

Their first system was installed in La Porte, Ind., in 1892, with 75 subscribers. 

At the time, Strowger anticipated a negative reaction from female operators whose jobs were likely to be eliminated eventually, due to his invention. 

“In reply, I would say that all things will adjust themselves to the new order. Water will find its level,” Strowger said. “As the telephone replaced the messenger boy, the new switch will displace the telephone operator over time.” 

Writing for the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond (Va.), David Price said the new telephone technology spread first through rural areas, not the urban hubs. Alexander Graham Bell’s companies maintained its operator-driven network. 

The “new telephony frontier,” as it was, belonged to small, independent companies that were dedicated to serving small markets and grew like wildfire. 

Yet, by 1910, only about 300,000 U.S. telephone subscribers had automated calling service. Another 10.7 million subscribers did not; they were still connecting through their “number please” local operators. 

The Bell officials said “manual switching” was so much easier. The customer just needed to “pick up the phone and tell the operator” to place the call, rather than do the work himself or herself. 

“In some ways, it’s an upside-down story of technology adoption,” Price noted. 

As a result, phone operator jobs actually increased in the United States each decade into the 1950s. 

You’re old if you remember “party lines”…and even older if your family had one.

We used to dial fictional places like ‘Murray Hill’

One of the famous props from early television’s most popular situation comedy series was the vintage black Western Electric rotary dial, desk-style telephone. 

It rang frequently in the New York City apartment of Ricky and Lucy Ricardo, primary characters in “I Love Lucy.”

 

You might be a TV trivia expert if you knew the Ricardos’ number by heart – Murray Hill 5-9975. 

Nick Greene, former editor-at-large with the Mental Floss online magazine, commented that what seemed so normal in the early 1950s may “sound gibberish to modern phone users.” 

The “I Love Lucy” show aired on CBS for six seasons, from 1951-57, and the Murray Hill “prefix” was actually an exchange within the New York Bell Telephone Company. 

Originally, Murray Hill 5-9975 was an “unused number.” But when it was entered into service, the phone company gave the show’s producers a new number to use. (Over the course of the show’s run, Ricky and Lucy also were assigned Murray Hill 5-9099 and Circle 7-2099.) 

In those days, to call a number in the Murray Hill exchange, for example, all one had to dial was the “MU,” followed by the five numbers. 

Each rotary dial phone had letters that corresponded with the numbers. The configuration is a bit quirky, however. Each number, 2-9, got three letters assigned to it. Within this scheme, Q was omitted.

 

The phone company didn’t assign any letters to the number 1, because Bell wanted to reserve 1 for special functions. Zero was used to signal the operator and was given the Z, a letter not used in any of the exchanges. 

By 1955, engineers at Bell were well into their plan to move the nation into “All-Number Calling” – no letters, just digits. 

Megan Garber of The Atlantic magazine said Bell anticipated users of the telephone system would likely resist the change. So, Bell officials built in long grace periods for people to gradually adjust and adapt to “modernization.” 

“Still, people protested,” Garber said. An “Anti-Digit Dialing League” opposed what it termed “creeping numeralism.” 

To use the old rotary phones, “you placed a finger in the hole of the number/letter you intended to dial, then rotated the dial clockwise until you hit the phone’s metal finger stop,” Garber said. “What this translated to, as far as the phone was concerned, was a series of clicks. Lower numbers on the phone, starting with 1, registered fewer clicks than the higher numbers.”

“Bell’s engineers had also planned for the addition of the three-digit area codes,” Garber said. “New York, the most densely populated area of the nation, got 212 – containing the lowest number of clicks offered on the rotary phone. Los Angeles got 213, while Chicago got 312 and Detroit got 313.” 

“Anchorage, Alaska, on the other hand, got 907, which required 26 clicks from the person doing the dialing.” 

Garber said the first test-run of the area code system occurred in 1951. “With 100 guests watching, Mayor M. Leslie Denning of Englewood, N.J., dialed 415-523-9727. 

Exactly 17 seconds later, Denning’s call was picked up by Frank Osborn, the mayor of Alameda, Calif.

Garber wrote: “Bell engineers called the cross-continental conversation a ‘historic first in communications.’” 

She said that even The New York Times was impressed by the test-call. The reporter covering the story wrote: 

“The vine-like network…will grow like an atomic age descendant of Jack the Giant Killer’s beanstalk.”

Who you gonna call? ‘Beechwood 4-5789’

What’s the most memorable telephone number in pop music history? It’s probably Beechwood 4-5789. Can you sing along with the Marvelettes? 

The song “Beechwood 4-5789” was released in 1962. It was written by Motown heavyweights Marvin Gaye, William “Mickey” Stevenson and George Gordy. 

The song’s title is derived from the now-defunct use of telephone exchange names in telephone numbers. In this case, the significant portions of the exchange name were the first two letters of “Beechwood” (BE), and the remainder of the number. 

In a more modern environment, this telephone number would be listed numerically only as 234-5789. 

The pioneering Motown female group that became the Marvelettes was organized by Gladys Horton, the lead singer, and some of her classmates at Inkster (Mich.) High School, near Detroit.

 

(Sticking with the “communications” theme, the Marvelettes had an even bigger hit with “Please Mr. Postman.”) 

Another great telephone song also debuted in 1962. It was “Don’t Hang Up” by The Orlons. Rosetta Hightower at Overbrook High School in Philadelphia was the lead singer. She was backed up Shirley Brickley and Marlena Davis. Stephen Caldwell sang bass.

 

The song is about a “misunderstanding” between two young lovers and the girl reminds her fella:

 …Making up is fun to do;

Don’t hang up;

…No one else will ever do but you;

Don’t hang up, oh don’t you do it now.

(The Orlons also had a national hit, “The Wah-Watusi,” which triggered the Watusi dance craze.) 

The late Russell Shaw, author and contributor to the ZDNet business technology news website, affiliated with CBS, had his own list of favorite telephone songs.

 

Among them was “Rocky Top,” first recorded by the Osborne Brothers in 1967. “The song is a city dweller’s lamentation over the loss of a simpler and freer existence in the hills of Tennessee,” Shaw wrote. Here’s a short verse: 

Wish that I was on ol’ Rocky Top

Down in the Tennessee hills.

Ain’t no smoggy smoke on Rocky Top;

Ain’t no telephone bills.

Shaw also liked the country telephone hit “Here’s a Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares),”written and recorded by Travis Tritt in 1991.

In the song, the woman has left her man, but has regrets and now wants to “include herself in his life once again.” However, Tritt sings that the guy no longer trusts her because of her “Runaround Sue” lifestyle and infidelities. 

So, he flips her a quarter (the common price for a local pay telephone call in 1991) and tells her to phone someone who cares to listen…or words to that effect. 

(Pay phone calls started out at 5 cents, then bumped up to 10 cents, before settling at 25 cents by the mid-1980s. Soon, they will all be nostalgic relics of a bygone area…or restored, reclaimed and repurposed.)

Grits are a 'Southern comfort' food group

North Carolina is “grits country,” and the corn-based gastronomic delight is engrained in the culture and heritage of southern living. Do tell. 

If you were born north of the Mason-Dixon Line but have relocated to one of the southern states…and hope to “fit in”…you have two options. 

Either dig in and savor a big old bowl of creamy grits…or hush your mouth on this subject. 

“I’m always sketchy of people who don’t like grits,” wrote Jaycee Ford, a contemporary author and a native of Louisiana.

 

Janis Owens of Marianna, Fla., who has published multiple cookbooks, offers a historical perspective: “Grits are hot; they are abundant, and they will by-gosh stick to your ribs. Give your farmhands (your children) cold cereal for breakfast and see how many rows they hoe. Make them a pot of grits and butter, and they’ll hoe till dinner and be glad to do it.” 

Judy Peiser, co-founder and executive director of the Center for Southern Folklore in Memphis, Tenn., comments: “We Southerners grew up eating grits. Even today, they are still a staple of a Southerner’s diet, a tradition. I guess you could say that grits are the cement that holds the South together.” 

Author Sid Kirchheimer of Floridana Beach, Fla., makes the point: “Like noodles and potatoes, grits are chameleons of the kitchen, a neutral food whose character changes depending on what is served with – or on – them.”

Grits were introduced into southern cooking when the Native Americans served pots of “grits to Sir Walter Raleigh’s men and the subsequent Jamestown colonists,” according to Ciera Jade-Henry, a student at the University of Hartford (Conn.) and a contributor to the Spoon University digital media platform. 

Southern Living magazine tells us that the word “grits” actually comes from the Middle English word “gyrt.” It is the outer bran of any whole grain. The whole grain found in grits is corn – white, yellow or mixed. 

Sheri Castle, a storyteller at Fearrington Village in Chatham County, says: “Grits double dare us to like them. When a freshly cooked pot of high-quality grits is dolled up with butter and enough salt, it’s easy to see why they’re peerless on a North Carolina plate. In the right hands, grits are full of promise and potential.

“A thriving gristmill was once a strong predictor of a growing local economy,” Castle said. “Community planners usually built gristmills before schools and churches. Townships bloomed around them, and roads radiated from their sites. A few historic water-powered gristmills still turn in our state. 

“They’re often picturesque,” she said, “sitting alongside the millponds, swift creeks and natural waterfalls that turn their works. Heavy millstones waltz the corn into grits to the tune of the babbling water.” 

“When slowly simmered and attentively stirred, stone-ground grits are creamy, chewy, nutty, earthy and delicious,” Castle noted. “Instant grits often turn out insipid and…and there’s not enough cheese and hot sauce in the land to prop up that stuff.” 

Christin Mahrlig of Fort Mill, S.C., creator of the Spicy Southern Kitchen blog, agrees. She said: “No self-respecting Southerner would eat…or serve…instant grits.

In eastern North Carolina, Atkinson Milling Co., is a historic site. The original mill opened in 1757 on Little River in rural Johnston County, about midway between Selma and Zebulon. (North Carolina was still a colony when the mill was built.) 

The Atkinson Mill is the only water powered grist mill still operating in the region. Free tours are available. Go to www.atkinsonmilling.com.

What’s in a nickname? Dogs dominate in Albany, N.Y.

Officially, Albany, N.Y., is nicknamed the “Cradle of the Union,” referring to the Albany Congress that occurred in 1754. 

Seven of the northern colonies participated, and representatives adopted the Albany Plan of Union. It was the first important proposal to view the colonies “as a collective whole united under one government.” 

Benjamin Franklin opined in his Pennsylvania Gazette that the colonies either “Join or Die.” His colonial colleagues balked, delaying any official declaration of independence for another decade. 

Citizens of Albany – fondly known as Albanians or Albanyites – do appreciate being known as the “Cradle of the Union.” 

Yet, younger generations suggest “Nippertown” as a more upbeat nickname for Albany. (Does that make them Nippertonians?) 

Nipper is the name of a real dog – a mixed breed terrier – that became the famous Radio Corporation of America (RCA) trademark. Nipper became associated with the Victor Talking Machine Company and began appearing in the company’s print advertisements in1909.

When RCA acquired Victor in 1929, Nipper was retained and became the face and the voice of the RCA Victor brand. 

Nipper was “reintroduced” in 1990 as a “live-action dog.” He acquired a new sidekick – a puppy named “Chipper” – for a series of television commercials to advertise RCA home theater systems with surround sound. 

Today, Albany’s “Downtown is Pawsome,” as several litters of Nipper statues have emerged. Each has been painted by an eccentric local artist. The Nippers are displayed all around the central city area. 

Each stands 3 feet tall. Visitors are encouraged to find them all. (The statues are moved to “indoor homes” during the winter months.) 

Another famous canine looms as the BDOC (big dog on campus) at the University at Albany, State University of New York (UAlbany). He is the college’s Great Dane mascot named “Damien.” (He resembles the cartoon character “Scooby-Doo.”) 

Brandon Mendelson, a freelance writer based in New York City, confirms that “no other college in America has the Great Dane for a mascot.” 

UAlbany’s athletic teams became the Great Danes in 1965. Students held a contest, and the Great Danes won out as the nickname, replacing the “Pedagogues,” which had been carried over from the days when the school was known as the New York State College for Teachers. 

Back then, the mascot was “Pedguin, a professorial penguin caricature.

 The student who suggested Great Danes was Kathy Earle (Class of 1967). She told the student newspaper at the time: The Great Dane “has an imposing stature. It is clean, graceful, proud, quick and alert.” Besides, Kathy said, the name would be easier for sports writers to spell than Pedagogues. 

Great Danes are considered gentle giants. They are moderately playful, affectionate and good with children, yet they will faithfully and loyally guard their home. (In athletics, it’s vital to defend one’s home field or court.) 

The Great Dane, known as the “Apollo of dogs,” is considered to be “the most handsome” of all breeds. Apollo was a Roman god who influenced the music, poetry and the civilized arts. 

The mythology link is ironic. Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom, has been an enduring symbol at UAlbany since 1913. Her image appears on the university’s official seal. 

She was regarded as the wisest of all the Roman gods and goddesses. Minerva spurned advances of mortals and gods alike in order to retain her virginal purity. She never married and was childless.