America remembers Emma Nutt – switchboard pioneer

Hello September. The first day of the month memorializes the late Emma Mills Nutt of Chelsea, Mass., who was America’s first female telephone operator. 

She was hired by Alexander Graham Bell and reported to work on Sept. 1, 1878. At age 18, she became a trailblazer of telephony. 

 

Emma Mills Nutt

Sept. 1 also is the birthday of comedy queen Lily Tomlin, born in 1939. Her portrayal of a 1940s-era telephone operator on the “Laugh-In” show debuted on U.S. television in 1969. It was hilariously popular and was the springboard for Tomlin’s acting career. 

Tomlin’s legendary character was known as Ernestine. Her sarcastic and nasally routine began with her placing a call from her switchboard station to the private line of unsuspecting customers such as General Motors, the Central Intelligence Agency or Cher.

“One ringy dingy; two ringy dingy,” Ernestine would count. When the call was picked up, she would say: “Is this the party to whom I am speaking?” Tomlin’s outlandish customer service skills…or lack thereof…and intermittent snorting made for humorous skits. 

Whereas Emma Nutt was the real deal. She was professional and savvy with a cultured, soothing voice, according to the archivist at the New England Historical Society in Boston. Her success opened doors of opportunity for women to be employed as operators. 

The archivist said: “The original telephone operators were teenage boys who had transitioned from being telegraph operators. These young men ‘didn’t do well talking to real people.’ They were impatient, they liked to play jokes and they swore. Customers complained that they spoke too gruffly to them.” 

Bell received the patent as the inventor of the telephone in 1876, and Bell Telephone Company was formed in Boston in 1877. He was appalled by the misbehavior and “rebellious attitudes” of the young male operators that he had hired.

As a solution, he dismissed them and began to hire women. Emma Nutt was the first. Before long, she had memorized the phone number of every customer in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, or so it’s told. 

The Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities noted that female operators “had to pass height, weight and arm length tests, in order to fit into the tight quarters provided to switchboard operators.” 

Jennifer Latson, writing for TIME magazine, said: “Today, telephones are omnipresent in the world around us. Almost everyone carries a mobile phone. The ability to talk to the people we need to, whenever we need to, is something we take for granted. But connecting a call wasn’t always so seamless. 

Back in the early days, “unless you shared a direct line with the person you wished to speak with, an operator would need to connect your call for you,” Latson wrote. 

“Nutt excelled at her job and set an example for what all telephone operators should be – gentle, patient and overwhelmingly positive. Customers could connect with their operator to find out the names and addresses of other local customers…the latest news, weather forecast or sports results.” 

Latson continued: “Particularly early on, they would often serve the same small group of customers every day. As such, they’d create a sense of trust and friendship with their callers, and so they’d also become a good source of gossip.” 

Ernestine epitomized that image of the telephone operator, spreading gossip with her pal Phoenicia, another operator. 

In the nonfiction world, Emma Nutt’s success as an operator triggered the use of “the female voice” in technology…a trend that has continued into the 21st century. 

Shag dancing legends remembered for their contributions

One of the cutting-edge pioneers of the shag dancing transformation was Malcolm Ray “Chicken” Hicks of Durham. He was attracted to the R&B sounds that flowed outward from the African-American groups who played at the Durham Armory. 

Hicks polished his dance moves by hanging out around the jukebox at Skinny’s Shoeshine Parlor. 

Philip Gerard wrote about the early days of “Carolina Beach Music” for Our State magazine. He reminded readers: “While black and white audiences were (once) separated by law, their music was not.” It was a shared rhythm. 

Hicks served in the U.S. Coast Guard, when, by his own account, he “washed up in Carolina Beach in 1943.” 

One summer at Carolina Beach, near Wilmington, Hicks hooked up with Jim Hanna, owner of the Tijuana Inn, and shared a “business plan.” It was pretty simple: Begin to stock the jukebox with some R&B tunes. 

“I got chummy with the jukebox changers,” Hicks said. “I got rid of Glenn Miller in the Carolina Beach jukeboxes.”

 

Meanwhile, Ocean Drive in North Myrtle Beach, S.C., was another shaggin’ hot spot. A key player there was “Big George” Lineberry of Greensboro, who was a talented teenaged jukebox mechanic. Whatever ailed those record machines was cured by Big George, who gave them a “double shot” of R&B. 

Harry Driver of Dunn, N.C., was the best shag dancer that Lineberry ever saw – bar none. 

Author Tom Poland of Columbia, S.C., said Driver earned the reputation as the “Father of the Shag” while dancing at the Crystal Club, a legendary shag haunt, at White Lake, N.C., in Bladen County near Elizabethtown. 

During World War II, when German U-boats prowled coastal waters, “blackouts” forced the dancers inland. People living near the shoreline were required to turn off house lights at night and put black tape over their car headlights to avoid lighting up targets for the U-boats. 

Driver said those White Lake dances were attended by multi-racial audiences. “We loved music, we loved dancing, and that was the common bond between us.” He would later marry Dottie Turner, a shagger from Florence, S.C. 

The couple also danced their way into the shag music national hall of fame, where they are enshrined along with Malcolm Ray “Chicken” Hicks and “Big George” Lineberry. 

The shag hit songs just kept on coming throughout the decade of the 1950s and into the ‘60s, said Stewart Tick, a noted musicologist, from Virginia. 

Tick posed the question for himself: “What happened to beach music when the Beatles arrived in the United States in early 1964? Nothing really.” 

R&B music grew stronger with the infusion of the Motown sound from Detroit.

 

In the summer of 1964, “Motown’s Mary Wells had one of the biggest beach records of the era with ‘My Guy.’ The Drifters also scored big that summer with their all-time classic ‘Under the Boardwalk,’” Tick said. 

“The next year, Motown did well again with shag dancers at the shore with “My Girl” by the Temptations. “In fact, ‘My Girl’ is still probably the most successful beach record of all,” according to Tick. 

“It Will Stand” may be the quintessential beach music standard – and the tune anchors shaggin’ music firmly into mainstream rock’n’roll. It’s a song that came out in 1961 and was recorded by The Showmen. Songwriter General Norman Johnson penned the lyrics: 

It will be here for ever and ever

Ain’t gonna fade

Never, no never.

 

It swept this whole wide land

Sinking deep in the heart of man.

In the Carolinas, we ‘Love Beach Music’

You know you’re listening to “Carolina Beach Music” if you hear it down to your toes…and your brain cells tell your feet to dance the night away with your partner doing the “Carolina Shag.” 

Beach music evolved from big band sounds and jitterbug jiving that transitioned to rhythm and blues (R&B) and swing dancing. Then, it was blended into the doo-wop craze…with a swirl of soul music on top. 

Out of all this emerged the first genuine beach music tune in 1951 – “Sixty Minute Man” by Billy Ward and The Dominoes, according to a posting by Stewart Tick, a noted musicologist, on “The Daily Doo-Wop” blog. 

“The new R&B music (of the 1940s) had a mid-tempo shuffle rhythm and a prominent light backbeat that were ideal for doing the shag, a then-new style of swing dance, characterized by smooth, fluid movements and often somewhat elaborate footwork,” Tick said. 

“Upper-body motion was held to minimum, and the turns and spins were slowed to an appropriate pace.” 

“‘Sixty Minute Man’ quickly became the original anthem of shaggers at the beach,” Tick said.

Kurt Lichtmann, who taught dance at Ithaca (N.Y.) College, said the shag “doesn’t bounce or hop – it glides. The shag is smooth…and really feels great with the right music.” 

College kids in the Carolinas liked to shag, reported journalist Allison Hussey, because it’s relatively “easy to keep a drink in one hand while stepping and spinning with their partners with the other.” At last...drinking songs and dancing songs melded. 

It’s important to remember: “Beach music is a lifestyle more than it is a definition of some kind of music,” said Ed Weiss, host of the syndicated beach music program “On the Beach with Charlie Brown” (his on-air name). 

Yet, in the late 1940s and early ‘50s, R&B records were hard to find outside of urban markets. 

Jerry Wexler of New York City’s Atlantic Records explained that “at some point (circa 1950), we became aware” that young people in the Carolinas were listening. “Every year in May or June, we came out with what was known as a ‘beach record,’ and it would be a hit in the pavilions – the bathing places – all through the Carolinas.” 

A few of the early hits were “Sh-Boom” by The Chords, “Searchin’” by The Coasters and “Love Is Strange” by Mickey & Sylvia. 

“The Circle” at Atlantic Beach on the Crystal Coast claims to be the birthplace of the shag. So does Atlantic Beach, S.C. 

Other locales that brag about being the cradle of the shag include Carolina Beach, near Wilmington, and Ocean Drive at North Myrtle Beach, S.C. “It’s a topic that has been twirled, pivoted and dipped to exhaustion and without resolution,” wrote Jim Schlosser of the Greensboro News & Record in 1993.

 Maybe the shag originated in the McAdoo Heights neighborhood of Greensboro, as five early shaggers who grew up there have been inducted into the Beach Shaggers National Hall of Fame. Growing up, they enjoyed dancing at the State Street Grill, the Pump Room and Pop Marshburn’s Cafe, all with jukeboxes. 

Bill Griffin, who owned the Castaways nightclub in Greensboro, said “the shag didn’t wash ashore.” 

“It started inland and spread to the beach,” Griffin told Schlosser. Griffin said the shag’s link to the surf resulted from inland shaggers congregating on the coast in the summer to “strut their stuff.” Boys and girls from ‘The Heights’ favored Carolina Beach.”

Was a tenor sax ‘the ticket’ into the White House?

Did the doo-wop song “You Can’t Sit Down” influence the outcome of America’s 1992 presidential election? “Shoo-boppity-bop and dippity-dip.” 

That translates to “a definite maybe.” The late Sir Charles Wheeler, a journalist with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in London, followed the Democrat party’s candidate Bill Clinton during the final days of the presidential campaign.

 

Wheeler’s BBC report included mention of Clinton’s jam session with The Dovells at a campaign rally in Cherry Hill, N.J., on the eve of the election. Clinton hoisted a tenor saxophone and belted out a few bars from a rockin’ oldie, “You Can’t Sit Down.” The band and the crowd went wild. Who knows how many people were home watching “on the telly?”

 

Wheeler went out on a limb to conclude that Clinton’s sax session may have helped more than it hurt.

 

The 1992 election was a rare three-way contest. The other contenders were: incumbent President George H. W. Bush, a Republican; and Ross Perot, a wealthy businessman, running as an independent. This trio of candidates were all lefthanded.

 

Neither Bush nor Perot was noted for his musicality. Bush was good at pitching horseshoes and sky diving. Perot enjoyed snow skiing and powerboat racing.

 

When the votes were counted, it was Clinton, the sitting governor of Arkansas, who heard the sweet song of victory.

Back to The Dovells: The group recorded “You Can’t Sit Down” in 1963; it rose to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The tune began as an instrumental, performed in 1959 by The Bim Bam Boos, a group that faded into obscurity.

 

Michael Jack Kirby, creator of the Way Back Attack music history website, said: “The Dovells marveled in 1961 at the instrumental version of ‘You Can’t Sit Down’ by the Phil Upchurch Combo, with the scorching sax track…and decided to do a vocal version.”

 

Bill Clinton was a big fan of The Dovells, and he extended the group an invitation to perform at 1993 Presidential Ball. The Dovells came back again in 1997 for Clinton’s second-term inauguration gala.

 

It seems as if the only celebrity who saw the band more often than President Clinton was Dick Clark of “American Bandstand.” 

In their heyday, The Dovells were one of Clark’s favorite go-to acts, because of their high energy. The group was part of the Dick Clark Caravan of Stars tour in autumn 1963. 

The tour bus pulled out of Wichita, Kan., on Nov. 21, 1963. “It was an arduous, seven-hour, 400-mile trip to their next stop in Dallas, Texas, for a show scheduled on Nov. 22,” reported Barry Levine of the Albany (Ga.) Herald. 

“Arriving in Dallas about 8 a.m., Clark and several of the performers decided to stand on the hotel steps and wave to the motorcade transporting President John F. Kennedy; his wife, Jackie; and Texas Gov. John Connally, and his wife, Nellie, through downtown Dallas later that morning. 

“Three blocks after the motorcade passed the hotel, Kennedy (age 46) was assassinated and Connally was seriously wounded,” Levine wrote. 

The Caravan of Stars show was cancelled that night as the nation was in shock, and all performers expressed condolences. 

The nation grieved again on April 18, 2012, when Dick Clark died at age 82. He was nicknamed “America’s Oldest Teenager.” 

One who expressed his sympathy at the time was Jerry Gross, lead singer of The Dovells. “Dick Clark was a legend who helped a lot of acts, including us, gain stardom and have many, many hit records. The entertainment world will sorely miss Dick Clark.” 

Ram-a-lama-ding-dong.

Who put the bomp…in the bomp-sh-bomp?

Philadelphia, Pa., was a hotbed of doo-wop music in the 1950s and early ‘60s, with many acts nurtured by Dick Clark, host of the “American Bandstand” television show.

 

Author Lawrence Pitilli, who is an authority of the progression of the doo-wop genre, said the use of logatomes, known as “nonsense syllables” or “pseudowords,” is one of the distinguishing characteristics of classic doo-wop.

 

Jack McCarthy of Philadelphia, one of the nation’s preeminent music historians, commented that doo-wop originated on urban street corners and featured multipart vocal harmonies. The sound appealed to everyone who listened.

 

The roots of doo-wop can be traced back to 1930 and Duke Ellington’s song “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing).”

 

Dizzy Gillespie scored a hit in 1947 with “Oop Boop Sh’Bam,” as “sh-boom, oop-shoop and bip-bam” were uttered as meaningless sounds to fill the beats and create background chants, according to Pitilli.

 

Other early doo-wop standards included: “When You Come Back to Me” (1951) by Savannah Churchill with The Striders; “Goodnite, Sweetheart, Goodnite” (1953) by Pookie Hudson and The Spaniels; “When You Dance” (1955) by The Turbans; and “In the Still of the Night” (1956) by The Five Satins.

 

Robert Fontenot, a journalist who specializes in musical history for the Dotdash social media conglomerate, compiled a list of “the most popular doo-wop songs of all time, as determined by Billboard chart rankings, which included sales and airplay.”

 

He stated: “These are not necessarily the best doo-wop songs ever…but they remain the most popular, the ones that have stuck with us through decades of changing trends and styles.” No. 1 is “At the Hop” by Danny & The Juniors, released in 1957.

Dick Clark took this group of clean-cut Philly boys under his wing and provided the platform for the group to “exceed expectations.”

 

Rounding out Fontenot’s list of “top doo-wop,” from second to fifth are: “Duke of Earl” by Gene Chandler; “Blue Moon” by The Marcels; “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by The Tokens; and “Stay” by Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs.

 

Those four tunes are loaded in my personal juke box, but the best of the favorites is “Blue Moon.”

 

The Marcels got their start in Pittsburgh, Pa., and were so named by Priscilla Johnson, whose big brother Fred Johnson sang bass. Lead singer Cornelius Harp sported a “Marcel wave” haircut. It was an “aha moment” for Priscilla.

 

Originally, “Blue Moon” was a slow-moving love song written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart in 1934, with early recordings by Billy Eckstine and Mel Tormé.

 

But, when Fred Johnson of the Marcels tore into it in 1961, with a flourish of “bomp-baba-bomps and dip-da-dips,” the newly doo-wopped rendition of the “Blue Moon” song became an instant astronomical delight.

 

The Marcels put “Blue Moon” into “The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.”

Barry Mann, a prolific rock’n’roll songwriter, had a little fun in 1961 by composing and performing the novelty song “Who Put the Bomp (in the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp).” The question mark is omitted, but nevertheless, Mann said the song made “my baby fall in love with me.”

 

“Dip da dip da dip…dip da dip da dip sets my baby’s heart all aglow, and every time we dance…she always says she loves me so…boogity boogity boogity shoo.”

 

The “American Graffiti” movie was set in 1962. How many of the 41 tunes in the soundtrack were doo-wop songs? Just about every single one…from “Little Darlin’” to “Get a Job.”

‘Kids in Bristol are sharp as a pistol…’

Good old dancin’ songs seem to be a rarity these days. Take us back about 60 years to the “American Bandstand” era. 

Meet Bonnie Nadley Silvestri of suburban Philadelphia, Pa. She gets her blood pumping each day by performing a fancy footwork routine while listening to her favorite song – “Bristol Stomp” by The Dovells. 

It’s a robust 2-minute, 18-second workout. The catchy, stick-in-your-head tune was recorded and released in 1961, when Bonnie was 15. She’s a grandmother now, but the retired special education teacher is still known as “Bristol Stompin’ Bonnie.” 

Two of the original members of The Dovells – Jerry Gross and Mark Stevens – continue to entertain and tour, keeping their patented doo-wop sound alive. 

Now in their “upper 70s,” they pace themselves. On cue, Bonnie makes a cameo appearance on stage to demonstrate the “Bristol Stomp” dance moves. 

She was one of the kids who were “sharp as a pistol” and danced on Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand” television show about 40 times in the early 1960s. 

Today, Bonnie serves as president of the The Dovells’ fan club.

 

Carl LaVO of the Bucks County (Pa.) Courier Times said music history was made inside the Goodwill Hose Company #3 in Bristol, Pa. It’s the fire house where the dance originated…and inspired the song. “The ‘Bristol Stomp’ is our anthem,” he wrote. 

In 1961, teenagers in Bristol, located about 20 miles up the Delaware River from Philadelphia, would gather for Friday night dances at the fire station. They invented the “stomp,” while dancing to “Every Day of the Week” by The Students, a group from Cincinnati. 

Meanwhile, Bernie Lowe, a record company executive, had just signed a local Philadelphia band that he decided to name “The Deauvilles,” after a new, swanky Miami Beach resort hotel. 

The band members balked…and the parties settled on The Dovells, to capitalize on the “el” sound as in the names of other popular doo-wop groups of the period – The Shirelles and The Chantels. 

Billy Harper, an aide to Lowe, witnessed the stomping beat at the fire hall and dutifully reported back. He said the stomp was a budding dance craze that could reel in millions of dollars for the Cameo-Parkway studio. Songwriters Kal Mann and Dave Appell put a song together in two days. 

In a tribute, The Dovells performed the song “to a packed house in Bristol at the Goodwill fire hall,” LaVO wrote. 

“It was deafening,” Jerry Gross said of the heels of the dancers smacking the floor in perfect timing with the opening guitar riff. “The sound they made shook the building. Incredible.” 

Al Barnes, of Levittown, Pa., was there, trying to act cool “and to meet new girls.” He told LaVO, “I thought the floor would cave in.” 

“I’ve seen every incarnation of the dance you can imagine, completely crazy versions,” said Gross. “But only the kids in Bristol knew how to do it right.” 

The “Bristol Stomp” soared to reach No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart but was unable to bump “Runaround Sue” by Dion DiMucci from the top of the heap in the fall of 1961. 

The Dovells are in good company, said music blogger Rob O’Connor, who researched No. 2-song artists. Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR) holds the record for the most singles (five) to reach No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart without ever scoring a No. 1 single. 

The five CCR songs – all recorded in 1969 and 1970 – were: “Proud Mary,” “Bad Moon Rising,” “Green River,” “Travelin’ Band” and “Lookin’ Out My Back Door.”

Base paths of ‘Catfish’ and ‘Mudcat’ lead to Oakland A’s

Only 537 baseball fans were in the stands at old Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minn., to witness the historic “battle of the fish” on Sept. 20, 1965. 

Rookie Jim “Catfish” Hunter of the Kansas City Athletics took the mound to pitch against the Minnesota Twins. Hunter was matched against the Twins’ wily veteran Jim “Mudcat” Grant, who was having the best season of his career. 

Major League Baseball archivists believe this game may have been the only time these two great athletes of southern origin with ichthyological nicknames actually faced off against one another as starting pitchers. 

The weather at game time was “perfect” – chilly and damp. Like old anglers like to say: “The best time to fish is when it’s raining and when it ain’t.” Play ball. 

(The Athletics were in the cellar, while the Twins were at the top of the standings. On this evening, Hunter got the win, and Grant took the loss.)

 Hunter and Grant later became teammates with the Athletics (now known as the A’s) in 1970, when the team moved to Oakland, Calif. Grant, now in the twilight of his career, was relishing his new role as a relief pitcher.

Indeed, Mudcat Grant had a very good year with the A’s in 1970, pitching in 72 games (nearly half the total games played), recording 24 saves (included 11 of Catfish Hunter’s 18 wins) and posting an earned run average of 1.82. 

Their stories are core to baseball lore. 

Grant, an African-American, was born in 1935 in Lacoochee, Fla., a small town in the central part of the state. 

He was scouted by Fred “Bonehead” Merkle, a former big leaguer, and signed by Cleveland of the American League, joining the team in 1958.

Interestingly, Grant’s boyhood idol, Larry Doby of Camden, S.C., became his roommate and mentor with Cleveland. Doby was the second player to break baseball’s “color barrier” in 1947, following Jackie Robinson of Cairo, Ga., who debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

One story about Grant’s nickname is that Doby called Jim Grant “Mudcat” because he was “ugly as a Mississippi mudcat.” Grant was actually quite handsome, but the name stuck. 

Baseball opened other doors for Grant. As a vocalist, he performed with bandleader Charlie Barnet and formed the group, “Mudcat and the Kittens.” Grant made more money singing than in baseball, reported sports journalist Steve Jacobson. 

Yet, he was a disciple of Jackie Robinson and early civil rights vibrations. Jacobson wrote that Grant once said: “You got to keep pushing; the rolling stone can never roll back, but sometimes it’s slow.” 

Grant’s best year as a starter was in 1965. His 21-7 won-loss record helped the Twins win the American league pennant that year. Grant was the first African-American pitcher in the American League to post a 20-win season, a baseball benchmark of excellence. 

He wrote a book in 2006 about “The Black Aces,” with vignettes about the only 12 African-Americans who have won 20 or more games in a season in pro baseball. Listed chronologically, they are: Don Newcombe, Sam Jones, Bob Gibson, Mudcat Grant, Fergie Jenkins, Earl Wilson, Vida Blue, Al Downing, J.R. Richard, Mike Norris, Dwight Gooden and Dave Stewart. 

Only three 20-game winners have come along since 2006 to qualify as “black aces.” They are: Dontrelle Willis, CC Sabathia and David Price. 

Grant wrote the book to offer inspiration to African-American youths. “Hopefully, we can motivate more young black kids to play the game,” he said.

‘Catfish’ Hunter: Northeast N.C.’s favorite son

One of the best Major League Baseball pitchers in the Hall of Fame is the late Jim “Catfish” Hunter of Hertford, N.C., who signed a pro contract after graduating from Perquimans County High School in 1964. 

Born in 1946, James Augustus Hunter was the youngest of eight children raised by Abbott and Lillie Harrell Hunter, who were tenant farmers. The five Hunter boys labored on the farm and worked odd jobs to earn enough money to buy baseballs. 

Early in his high school days, Jimmy Hunter was “discovered” by Clyde Kluttz, a former major league catcher from Rockwell, N.C. (in Rowan County). After a nine-year playing career, Kluttz became a scout for the Kansas City Athletics organization. 

The Athletics’ (known simply as the A’s) team owner was Charlie Finley, thought his 18-year-old pitcher needed a nickname. 

Bob Ruegsegger, a freelance writer based in Virginia Beach, Va., said: “Finley decided his prized rookie would be Jim ‘Catfish’ Hunter.” 

“Finley fabricated a story: ‘You left home when you were 6. When your momma and daddy finally found you, you had landed two catfish, and you had a third one on the line. They’ve been calling you ‘Catfish’ ever since.” 

Hunter balked, but Finley said: “I just gave you $75,000,” (a reference to Hunter’s signing bonus). “Yes, sir. My name is ‘Catfish,’” Hunter conceded. 

Hunter’s pitching record for his first three seasons at Kansas City was so-so, but he caught fire after Finley moved the A’s to Oakland, Calif., for the 1968 season. 

The A’s, buoyed by Hunter, became unstoppable, winning three consecutive World Series championships from 1972-74. Hunter was the American League’s Cy Young Award winner in 1974 – the best pitcher of the year, selected by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

 

Hunter made history off the field as well. A contract dispute with Finley was eventually settled, and Hunter was declared to be “free agent.” 

Matt Kelly, communications specialist at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., said: “For the first time since the 1870s, a major league player was free to offer his services to the highest bidder…a sweepstakes for baseball’s best big game pitcher, Catfish Hunter.” 

Kelly reported that Hunter inked a five-year deal worth about $3.2 million, along with a $1 million signing bonus, to join the New York Yankees for the 1975 season. The deal was engineered by Clyde Kluttz, who was then employed as the Yankees’ “director of scouting.” 

Hunter, as baseball’s first multi-million-dollar player, said: “I was probably the first player who broke it open for other players to be paid what they’re worth.” 

Hunter helped the New York club win back-to-back World Series titles in 1977-78. Hunter retired at the end of the 1979 season. His five World Series rings, earned over the course of a 15-year career, is quite impressive. 

Jimmy Hunter returned to his roots in Hertford, a town of about 2,000 people located at a bend in the Perquimans River, which flows into the Albemarle Sound. 

He and Helen Overton had been high school sweethearts; they were married in 1966 and raised three children. The Hunters’ goal in life was to make their hometown proud. 

In September 1998, Jim Hunter was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. He died at home about a year later on Sept. 9, 1999, at the age of 53. 

The Perquimans County Chamber of Commerce in downtown Hertford houses the official Jim “Catfish” Hunter Museum. Call 252-426-5657. 

Bob Ruegsegger simply suggests: “Go.”

Catfish deserve to have their reputation restored

Catfish have gotten a bum rap since the term “catfishing” came to be associated in 2010 with sexual innuendos and misbehavior perpetuated by online messaging. 

The practice of extending one’s bogus romantic interests toward an innocent victim is despicable and should not be tolerated. 

The unfortunate connection to the catfish, however, needs to be repealed and undone, because it is undeserved, unwarranted and unjust. 

Sadly, the negative implications associated with “catfishing” have smeared the catfish’s reputation and image. This species has tender feelings…through its barbels that resemble a cat’s whiskers. 

Darrell Taylor, an outdoor sports writer based in Camdenton, Mo., a gateway community to the Lake of the Ozarks, acknowledges that “catfish are not very likely to win a beauty contest for fish.” 

“They are the ‘piscatorial Rodney Dangerfield’ and ‘get no respect,’ but know this, there is a cadre of loyal anglers who love catfish and pursue them with vigor,” Taylor said. 

“Summer is prime time for ‘cats,’ as they often end up as tasty fillets on dinner plates in restaurants and in homes. These palate-pleasers can be prepared in many ways such as deep fried, pan fried, grilled over charcoal, baked with cream sauce, smoked or pickled,” Taylor said. 

“Catfish can be a healthy alternative to red meat,” he noted. “Missourians are blessed with 16 varieties of catfish.” 

Missouri is one of five middle-America states that have adopted the catfish as their “official state fish.” Others are Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Tennessee. 

Wonderopolis, a website of the National Center for Families Learning, based in Louisville, Ky., explained that the catfish barbels are “sensitive feelers.” 

The catfish lesson writer said: “Because catfish tend to live in dark, murky waters, their vision isn’t very useful. Their barbels help the fish search out food using their sense of touch.” 

“When caught, catfish make a noise that sounds a bit like a cat purring. But this may be where the similarities between catfish and cats end. Catfish can easily grow to become much larger than a cat – and sometimes even larger than a kid!” 

Case in point: At 0-dark-30 in the morning of July 20 (just a few weeks ago), Tyler Barnes of Pikeville in Wayne County, N.C., pulled a 78-pound, 14-ounce flathead catfish out of the Neuse River near Maple Cypress Landing in Craven County. 

The fish weighed about the same as an average-sized 10-year-old child. 

Barnes’ fish was a North Carolina state freshwater record for a flathead catfish. It was a true “trophy fish,” estimated to be about 30 years old. After the weigh-in at EZ Bait and Tackle Store in Goldsboro, the big ole catfish was released back into the river. 

Statewide, the news media’s outdoor sports reporters jumped on the story, and Barnes humbly basked in the limelight. 

For the full effect, readers are referred to the Facebook page of Emily Howell of Nahunta in rural Wayne County. 

She is Barnes’ fiancé as well as his regular fishing partner. Emily has reeled in her share of prize-winners as well. 

Watch the video produced by Catch The Fever Outdoors, based in Roxboro, N.C. 

Tyler and Emily manifest the “catfish lifestyle” that is so readily identified with the southern culture. 

One of the most entertaining catfishing advocates is Chad Ferguson of Saginaw, Texas, a suburb of Fort Worth. He’s a fishing guide, author and creator of the Catfish Edge digital media network. 

Ferguson can teach you how to clean a catfish in less than 15 seconds. 

Anglers cringe at negativity surrounding ‘catfishing’ term

Both wild-caught catfish and those raised down on the farm are victims of a massive disservice fueled by contemporary media outlets. Could it be outright defamation of the species? 

U.S. catfish fishing clubs as well as farm-raised catfish associations take exception to the contemporary definition of “catfishing,” which emerged about a decade ago. 

Aisha Harris, a respected journalist, begins to set the record straight. She did a lot of trolling, and her research has revealed that you can’t trust everything you see, hear and read that crosses your television or computer screen.

 A 2010 pseudo-documentary titled “Catfish” is the “culprit.” Producers coined a term for sexually oriented misbehavior via the internet – “catfishing.” 

The A.V. Club website said the “Catfish” film is “fishy” at best and questions whether it’s “a doc or a crock.” 

Harris consulted Ben Zimmer, an esteemed linguist, lexicographer and language commentator. He said that “catfish” used to simply be an innocent, tasty, Southern-fried fish dish. 

 

"But with the film,” Zimmer said, “a new definition for ‘catfish’ emerged to describe people who pretend to be someone they’re not and use Facebook or other social media to create false identities, particularly to pursue deceptive, online romances.” 

“The reasons people do this are complex,” Harris wrote. “Some people get a certain pleasure out of knowing they have managed to fool someone, and it gives them a sense of power. Some…may do it out of revenge. Maybe to get back at a person who they feel has wronged them?” 

Journalist Rachel Lenzi interviewed J.A. Hitchcock, an author and president of Working to Halt Online Abuse (WHOA). Hitchcock said the “catfisher” is intent on “reeling in a victim, someone to fall for him or her and keeping the relationship going online.” 

The most publicized “catfishing” scam involved Manti Te’o, who was an All-American football player at the University of Notre Dame. His “imaginary girlfriend” suffered a “tragic death” during his senior season in 2012. 

“This has multiple layers to it,” Dr. Michael Butterworth, now a professor of communications at the University of Texas, told Lenzi at the time. “It’s obviously a sports story but it feels like a soap opera. It’s going to appeal to a lot of people.” 

Te’o, a native Hawaiian, was thought to be dating Lennay Kukua “over the internet” before she “died” from leukemia. She reportedly attended Stanford University, but the whole thing was a hoax. The perpetrator was Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, an acquaintance of Te’o, who confessed to Dr. Phillip McGraw, host of the “Dr. Phil” television talk show in 2013. 

How much Te’o knew, and when he knew it is still debatable. Did he tell “the whole truth and nothing but the truth?” 

Now, in the fall of 2020, the ESPN TV network plans to air a “Backstory” documentary that reopens the Te’o case, according to John Buhler of FanSided.com. “It will be fascinating” to revisit “the entire hoax. If this incident didn’t epitomize ‘stranger than fiction,’ I don’t really know what does.” 

(Manti Te’o went on to play in the National Football League, with the San Diego Chargers from 2013-16 and with the New Orleans Saints from 2017-19. Going into the 2020 season, he was classified as an unsigned free agent.) 

Let’s hope the ESPN piece leads to exoneration of the catfish. This fish won’t win a beauty contest, but catfish don’t masquerade around as rainbow trout either. 

Catfish deserve vindication.

‘Catfish farming’ is big business in eastern N.C.

Carolina Classics Original Catfish is a brand of farm-raised catfish. The aquaculture company, which originated in 1985, is based in Aden, N.C. It owns and manages 1,200 acres of fish farm ponds in eastern North Carolina, harvesting some 5 million of pounds of catfish a year. 

Joanie Stiers, an agricultural journalist, reports that Carolina Classics is North Carolina’s largest catfish producer, selling primarily fresh to retailers, restaurants and upscale grocers, including Whole Foods Market. 

Rob Mayo, owner of Carolina Classics, said: “We sell our fish to people who want a higher value, consistently good-tasting fish that has a clear traceability in terms of where it’s come from, what it’s been fed and how it’s been raised.” 

Catfish production and processing contribute more than $12 million per year to North Carolina’s aquaculture industry, representing about one-fourth of the total annual volume for all aquacultural products, according to the N.C. Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services (NCDACS). 

Gary Dillon, the fish farms manager at Carolina Classics, said catfish are a favorite meal of bald eagles that have nested near the fish farm ponds. He said that the catfish were first discovered by ospreys, but the eagles swooped in to steal the fish that the ospreys had snatched with their talons. 

“The ospreys moved on; they just got tired of doing all the work and having the eagles claim the spoils,” Dillon said. 

The eagles now are on their own to fish for their dinner. Dillon said: “A two-pound catfish each day is more than enough for a meal for an eagle, and what he doesn’t consume, the vultures and other birds and animals around here will finish,” Dillon said. 

Eagles and vultures are not the only birds that have been drawn to the “catfish cornucopia.” Blue and gray herons, snowy egrets, kingfishers, wood storks and several species of shore birds and ducks – some quite rare — also stake claims to the waters, Dillon said.

 

 

 Catfish, catfish…get ’em from the music man! 

Ranking the best catfish songs of all-time is a challenge, but readers of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette were up to the task recently. 

There are a whole mess of tunes to pick from, because fishing and rural humor are two of the favorite go-to subjects of bluegrass and country music songwriters. 

The very best catfish song may be one that’s been around since 1928, “Fishin’ Blues,” originally recorded by the late Henry Thomas. Taj Mahal’s version in 2004 seems to have set the standard. (Taj Mahal was born as Henry St. Claire Fredericks Jr. in the Harlem neighborhood in New York City’s borough of Manhattan.) Here’s a bit of how it goes:

 Betcha’ goin’ fishin’ all the time;

Baby goin’ fishin’ too.

Bet your life, your sweet wife

Catch more fish than you.

 

Caught a 9-pound catfish;

Now you know I brought him home for supper time.

Put him in the pot, baby, put him in the pan;

Mama, cook him till he nice an’ brown.

I’m a goin’ fishin’…

Yes, I’m goin’ fishin’

And my baby’s goin’ fishin’ too! 

It’s lilt that is familiar to listeners of The Talk Station – FM 107.1, based in Morehead City. “Fishin’ Blues” is the official theme song of the “Dr. Bogus Fishing Show,” which airs at 7:30 a.m. every Monday as part of the “Coastal Daybreak” program.

Another top vote-getter in the Post-Gazette poll was “Catfish Boogie,” written and performed in 1953 by the late Tennessee Ernie Ford (born as Ernest Jennings Ford) in Bristol, Tenn. 

Woke up this morning about half past four.

Who’d I see tiptoeing cross my floor?

My everlovin’ baby with a rod in her hand

Headin’ for the creek called Catfish Land.

 

She threaded a worm right on that hook,

And dropped it in the water in a shady nook.

The bobber jumped when mister whiskers hit;

My gal flipped and throwed a fit.

 

She pulled and tugged and yelled, what’s wrong?

I said, baby he’s a big’n, and that cat’s real gone.

 

We fished for a while, caught a great big mess…

A long string of blue cat happiness. 

The late Don Williams of Floydada, Texas, released “Catfish Bates” in 1992. Here are a few bars from that song, a classic sing-along: 

They call me Catfish Bates

’Cause I can catch a catfish anytime I want to;

Even when the moon man tells me they won’t bite.

Cause I know where that big ole flathead’s a hidin’ and

I’m a gonna take him home with me tonight.

 

Well I get me a…can o’ big ole redworms;

I go down to where the river’s runnin’ strong.

And I’ll have me a big ole flathead ’fore too long. 

Fishing is an international sport, and when you hear the late Slim Dusty (born David Gordon Kirkpatrick) of Nulla Nulla Creek, New South Wales, Australia, sing “A Bad Day’s Fishing,” you can’t help but smile. 

Well the fish ain’t bitin’ but the skeeters are.

Little buggers gone hidin’ – they don’t wanna get caught.

Too nice a day to dangle on the end of a line,

But a bad day’s fishin’ beats a good day’s work everytime.