Nixon’s 1960 campaign suffered setback in Greensboro

Presidential candidate Richard Nixon was feeling his oats when he made a campaign stop in Greensboro, N.C., on Aug. 17, 1960 – more than 60 years ago. 

The Rev. Billy Graham and Richard Nixon

Nixon was completing his second term of service as the nation’s vice president, during the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Nixon had easily secured the nomination as the Republican candidate for president in 1960. 

One of Nixon’s most trusted campaign advisors accompanied him on his visit to Greensboro. He was Lyman Brownfield, Nixon’s law school roommate in Durham where they attended Duke University Law School from 1934-37. 

One of Nixon’s campaign promises was to physically visit and speak to people in all 50 states. His appearance at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex attracted a huge crowd. He said:

 

“The main personal reason why I wanted to come back to North Carolina as the first of the states in this part of the country is because I owe my education to North Carolina and to Duke University. If the university had not been so generous with its scholarships, I could not have come here.” 

“I have many memories of Duke,” Nixon said. “I remember that I worked harder and learned more in those three years than in any three years of my life. And I always remember that whatever I have done in the past, or may do in the future, Duke University is responsible one way or the other.” 

Leaving the coliseum after the rally, Nixon banged his knee on the limousine door. 

Nixon’s injury was more than a bump and a bruise. The pain in Nixon’s knee persisted and after a test for infection, his doctor called him and said: “You better get to the hospital or you will be campaigning on one leg.” 

Nixon was treated for a staph infection and was hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., for two weeks. 

“From his hospital bed, Nixon watched as his opponent, Democrat John F. Kennedy, charmed the voters,” reported Tom Curry of NBC News. “The pain in Nixon’s knee was bad, but he wrote later ‘the mental suffering was infinitely worse.’” 

As soon as he was released from the hospital, “Nixon threw himself into frenetic campaigning” that took its toll, according to Curry. 

Nixon was weak, running a bit of a fever and about 10 pounds underweight when he arrived in the CBS studio in Chicago for the first ever nationally televised presidential debate on Sept. 26, 1960. On top of that, Nixon re-injured his bum knee as he entered the TV station.

 The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia said this single debate event “changed the modern political landscape, as the power of television took elections into American’s living rooms. The Nixon-Kennedy debate was watched live by 70 million Americans, and it made politics an electronic spectator sport.”

Kennedy, in a blue suit, was described as having “the deep tan of a ski instructor and the piercing eyes of a mountaineer.” Nixon, in his light gray suit, declined to wear stage makeup and “looked pale and tired with a five o’clock shadow beard.” 

Those listening to the debate on radio thought that Nixon and Kennedy had performed equally well; those watching on television deemed Kennedy the clear winner.

 Debate moderator Howard K. Smith wrote in his memoirs that Kennedy said that “was the night he won the election.”

Daniel Boone’s final resting place remains ‘debatable’

 Historians tend to agree with an assessment from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Daniel Boone “was one of the great characters of frontier America; his story a mix of folklore and robust deeds.” 

Boone’s sense of humor was a tad on the dry side. He once said: “I can’t say as ever I was lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.”

 

Much of the heavy-lifting research into the life and times of pioneer Daniel Boone was conducted by Missouri-based historians. 

Their findings add to the intrigue about the “final-answer” to the question: “Where is the resting place of Daniel Boone and his wife, Rebecca Ann Bryan Boone?” 

The Boones spent their final years in Missouri (a territory at the time). Rebecca died in 1813, at age 74. She was buried near Marthasville, Mo., in the David Bryan Family Cemetery, near Tuque and Charrette creeks. (David Bryan was Rebecca’s first cousin.) 

Daniel died in 1820, at age 85. He was laid to rest at Rebecca’s side. 

However, that apple cart was upset 25 years later, when on July 17, 1845, the Boones were disinterred, and their remains were transferred to a cemetery in Kentucky’s capital city of Frankfort. It was an enterprise fueled by wealthy and politically connected investors there.

 An unnamed nephew of the Boones was credited with handing over the bodies of Daniel and Rebecca to the “Kentucky body snatchers.” 

The cemetery publicist raved on, saying: “One of the most beautiful cemeteries to be found…is in Frankfort, on the crest of the hill that the Kentucky River winds by. There, in the bosom of the land his foot first trod upon, rests the remains of Daniel Boone, the sturdy pioneer….” 

Missourians were furious that a gaggle of grave robbers had masqueraded as Kentucky gentlemen. Questions were raised. Since the original Boone family graves had been unmarked, did they dig up the right people in the right places? 

Enter Ken Kamper of Hermann, Mo., the founder of the Daniel Boone and Frontier Families Research Association. He has invested a half century of his life trying to separate Boone family “facts from fiction.” He is convinced that the grave diggers got the right bodies. 

“When the Boones’ graves were dug up,” Kamper said, “the small bones turned to powder when touched, while the larger bones…remained intact.” The Kentucky delegation gathered up the big bones, put them in separate boxes and carted them off. 

Hence, Kamper calculates that 70% to 80% of all the remains of Daniel and Rebeca remained in Marthasville. 

Another historian who was deeply involved in the case was the late Ralph Gregory of Marthasville, who died two days shy of his 106th birthday in 2015.

 

Ralph Gregory

Karen Cernich, a freelance journalist, said Gregory enjoyed telling people: “While the Kentucky delegation may have taken Boone’s bones, his heart and brain remain in Missouri.” 

On Oct. 29, 1915, 70 years after the bodies were exhumed, the townspeople of Marthasville dedicated a new monument to memorialize the Boones. The Marthasville Record provided extensive news coverage. 

“A free chicken dinner was prepared by the enterprising citizens of Marthasville and vicinity who believe in doing things in the right spirit. It was said that fully 2,200 people were present,” the article reported. 

Judge Theodore Waldemar Hukriede “made the opening address. He bewailed the fact that (Daniel Boone’s) remains had been allowed to be removed.”

This resonated with the people. They elected Judge Hukriede to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Daniel Boone is dead and buried…but in which graveyard?

You can learn a lot about North Carolina pioneers, trailblazers and its “heroes and sheroes” by following the clues left by the state’s highway historical markers. 

Such is the case with the incomparable frontiersman Daniel Boone. North Carolina’s “history on a stick” writers describe Boone as “a hunter, fur-trader, farmer, explorer and archetype of the American wilderness.” 

Daniel was born in Pennsylvania in 1734 and died in 1820 in Missouri (before it was a state). Additionally, North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky also claim to be “home” to Daniel Boone. 

North Carolina historians say Daniel Boone lived in the Tar Heel state for more years than he lived anywhere else. So there!

 

Boone called North Carolina home for 21 years, from 1752 to 1773. He was in his teens when his parents – Squire and Sarah Boone – moved to North Carolina in 1751, eventually buying land along the Yadkin River in Davie County, near present-day Mocksville. The Boones had 11 children; Daniel was sixth in line. 

Daniel began courting Rebecca Ann Bryan of Virginia, who was being raised by her grandparents in the Yadkin Valley. The young lovers were married in 1756. He was 22, and she was 17. 

They immediately took in two of Daniel’s nephews who had been orphaned. Daniel and Rebecca would raise nine children of their own, and they adopted the six children of Rebecca’s widowed brother. 

One historian noted that “Rebecca was an experienced community midwife, the family doctor, leather tanner, linen-maker…and sharpshooter.” There were a lot of mouths to feed in the Boone family. Someone had to put food on the table when Daniel was off traipsing around in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Watauga County.

 

From North Carolina, the Boones gravitated toward open spaces, leading them west into Tennessee and Kentucky. After some land speculation deals in Kentucky went sour for Daniel, the family was in a bit of a “legal and financial” scrape. 

He decided it best to move on again, this time leaving the United States to settle west of the Mississippi River in a place called Missouri, which was part of Spanish Louisiana at the time. 

Missouri gained statehood in 1821, about a year after Daniel Boone’s death in 1820. He was buried in a small graveyard near Marthasville, Mo., next to Rebecca, who had died in 1813.

Their graves are in the David Bryan Family Cemetery. (David Bryan was Rebecca’s first cousin.) 

That was that. Until 1845…when investors of a new cemetery in Frankfort, Ky., allegedly obtained approval from Boone family descendants to have the remains of Daniel and Rebecca “reinterred in the Bluegrass State.” 

Kingpins in the “corpse relocation” operation were brothers Judge Mason Brown and Orlando Brown, a newspaper publisher and Kentucky’s secretary of state. They secured state funds to carry out their plan, which included the erection a grand monument memorializing the Boones at the new burial site. 

The 200-year-anniversary of Daniel Boone’s death was observed last year, causing a new wave of speculation about who is buried where? 

Perhaps the Kentucky crowd really didn’t have the family’s consent to dig up the original graves? Or the authority? Perhaps they dug up the wrong bodies? 

“It’s one of those great Kentucky-Missouri mysteries, and people are fascinated by it,” said Sara Elliott, executive director of Liberty Hall, a museum in Frankfort. “It sparked an interest in whether or not they had actually exhumed Daniel Boone.” 

Next: What the research reveals.

First flight photographer was in ‘right place at right time’

John T. Daniels Jr. was a “one-shot wonder” as a photographer. 

He miraculously captured the liftoff moment of the Wright brothers’ historic first flight on Dec. 17, 1903, at Kill Devil Hills, N.C.

 

John T. Daniels Jr.

At the time, Daniels was a surfman with the U.S. Life-Saving Service and stationed at Kill Devil Hills. Often, those surfmen who were off duty helped Wilbur and Orville Wright with their flying experiments. Daniels was among the most loyal volunteers who gladly would lend a hand. 

Historian Bryan Patterson of Wake Forest, N.C., commented that in preparation for the historic flight, John Daniels and four other surfmen moved the flying machine out of the shed and rolled it through the sand into proper position. 

The weather conditions that day were raw – chilly temperatures in the lower 40s with brisk north-northeast winds gusting in excess of 20 mph. But it was perfect weather for flying, Orville Wright insisted. 

“Once Daniels had built a fire in the outdoor stove nearby the site, the men who were present huddled around to warm their hands against the cold Outer Banks breeze. Daniels then had to chase a few razorback pigs off so that they would not interfere with the takeoff and flight path,” Patterson wrote. 

Daniels was given the additional assignment of operating the Wright brothers’ expensive camera to capture the first flight on film. As a photographer, Daniels was greener than green. He’d never even seen a camera before that day. Piece of cake, Orville indicated. 

Orville set the boxy camera on a tripod, positioned it and prepared the 7x5-inch glass-plate negative. He then instructed Daniels to squeeze the camera’s shutter release bulb once the craft was airborne. 

Orville climbed aboard the flyer and started the engine – a four-cylinder model that delivered more than 12 horsepower. The flyer set off along the launch track as Wilbur ran beside, steadying the right wing before takeoff. 

Daniels triggered the shutter as instructed, capturing Orville’s ascent at precisely the right moment…“forever immortalizing one of history’s most groundbreaking technological achievements,” Patterson asserted.

The flight of 120 feet lasted 12 seconds.

Daniels may also have provided the best narrative. Patterson reported that Daniels said: “I don’t think I ever saw a prettier sight in my life. Its wings were braced with new and shining copper piano wires. The sun was shining bright that morning and the wires just blazed in the sunlight like gold. The machine looked like some big, graceful golden bird sailing off into the wind…it made us feel kind o’ meek and prayerful like.” 

Before they were done for the day, Wilbur piloted a flight that measured 852 feet and consumed 59 seconds. The landing was a bit of a nose dive, however. The frame was slightly fractured, so the flying session ceased for the day…and the season. 

Sadly, to the Outer Bankers, the Wright brothers did not return to Kill Devil Hills in 1904. They said they had learned enough so that it would be possible for them to conduct their test flights in the flat, open fields around their hometown of Dayton, Ohio. 

A sister, Katharine Wright, thought her brothers wimped out because of the Outer Banks mosquitos. 

She cited a letter sent from Orville, in which he wrote of his mosquito bites: “Lumps began swelling up all over my body like hen’s eggs.”

Below are scenes from the Wright Brothers National Memorial, located in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, commemorates the first successful, sustained, powered flights in a heavier-than-air machine.

Wright brothers were ‘dit-dots’ of the highest order

Ohioans Wilbur and Orville Wright experienced the warmth of coastal North Carolina’s “hand of hospitality” in Kitty Hawk in 1900…where they carried out their “first in flight” experiments on the Outer Banks. 

Amanda Wright Lane, a great grandniece of the Wright brothers, said her uncles “made the Outer Banks sound like a slice of heaven. They described the fishing, beautiful beaches, hunting.” 

She possesses a letter that her Uncle Wilbur sent to the family back in Dayton, Ohio, dated Sept. 23, 1900. He wrote: “My trip would be no great disappointment if I accomplish practically nothing. I look upon it as a pleasure trip pure and simple, and I know of no trip from which I could expect greater pleasure at the same cost.” 

That may be the Outer Banks’ very first tourism testimonial. Aye, indeed, the Wright brothers were the consummate “dit-dots” – tourists who come, spend their money and then go home after their vacation. 

Carteret County historian Rodney Kemp said that term applies to those “from Off” who come and leave, making the dit-dots more popular than “dingbatters” who come and stay. 

Lane said the brothers agreed to return to Kitty Hawk in the fall season of 1901 “to the wind, sand and solitude of the Outer Banks,” and “it was the Outer Banks’ hospitality that clinched them coming back.”

 Kitty Hawk residents Capt. Bill and Addie Tate took the Wright brothers under their wing, paving the way for them to be successful in their scientific endeavors. 

Orville Wright said Capt. Tate was “postmaster, assistant weatherman, farmer, fisherman and political boss of Kitty Hawk – versatile, independent and self-sufficient.” 

(Some sources said Addie Tate was the postmaster; her husband was assistant postmaster.)

The Wright brothers started testing their glider at Lookout Hill overlooking Kitty Hawk Bay, but Capt. Tate helped them move about four miles farther south where the dunes were somewhat taller at Kill Devil Hills.

 

It was here in the 1902 fall season, that the brothers reportedly made more than 1,000 flights and broke all the existing records for gliding time and distance. 

In the autumn of 1903, the brothers began experiments with a motor-driven flying machine and honed their theories about pitch, roll and yaw. They were avid birdwatchers, too, studying which birds could go the longest without flapping their wings, soar the highest, dive, bank and turn. 

Their favorite was the turkey buzzard, and the Wright brothers took more than 200 measurements of the bird, from every possible angle. 

The brothers forged bonds with the surfmen who were assigned to the U.S. Life-Saving Service stations at Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills.

 

On days when the wind was strong and steady, the Wrights hoisted a red flag made from a bedsheet to signal the off-duty lifesavers that the brothers could use some help carrying their flying machine up the dunes, reported Todd Dulaney of Our State magazine. 

James Charlet, manager of the Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station Historic Site and Museum in Rodanthe, told Dulaney: “There is a gene in every lifesaver to want to help.” Hence, the surfmen provided an essential service to “solving the problem of flight.” 

“They were the world’s first ground crew,” Charlet said. 

One of the surfmen who deserves special mention was John T. Daniels, who snapped the photograph of the first flight on Dec. 17, 1903. The aircraft stayed aloft for 12 seconds and covered 120 feet.

Capt. Bill Tate ‘sold’ Wilbur Wright on Kitty Hawk

Our “First in Flight” guys – Wilbur and Orville Wright – did their homework in 1900. They knew the best wind conditions for their flying experiments existed on the East Coast shoreline. 

About the closest ocean beach to their bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio, was Kitty Hawk, N.C., albeit 529 miles away by air and 676 curvy miles by land. 

Wilbur Wright sent a general letter of inquiry addressed to the postmaster in Kitty Hawk. She was Addie Tate, and his note arrived on Aug. 7, 1900. 

Wilbur Wright stated that “he was looking for an ideal location that had a level plain, free from trees and shrubbery. If there was some prominent elevation such as a high hill without trees, it would add very much to the desirability.”

 

He said that he and his brother were “thinking of carrying out experiments in scientific kite flying during their vacation.” (They were very secretive about their flying project to avoid any information falling into the hands of competitors.)

Addie Tate shared the letter with her husband, Capt. Bill Tate, a Dare County commissioner, who had a knack for promoting North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

Bill Tate and Addie Tate are seated on the porch of the Kitty Hawk Post Office in 1900. He is holding daughter Lena, 2, while daughter Irene, 3, is standing next to her mother. The young woman who is standing may be Maxine Cogswell, Addie's sister. The hound dog is camera shy.

Capt. Tate answered the letter: “At Kitty Hawk there is a strip of bald sand beach, free from trees, with practically nothing growing on it except an occasional bunch of buffalo grass. This strip of beach is about 1,500 yards wide from ocean to bay, and extends many miles down the coast. At certain places, sand hills have been piled up by the wind until some of them have reached an elevation of 75 to 100 feet above the plain.” 

He continued: “The prevailing winds are from the northeast. If you decide to come, I will take pleasure in doing all I can for your convenience, success and pleasure.” 

On the morning of Sept. 12, 1900, a smartly dressed gentleman knocked on the door of the Tate family home. Wilbur Wright had arrived…unannounced. 

Orville Wright showed up some weeks later. The Tates took in the Wright brothers as boarders. 

Todd Dulaney of Our State magazine said: “Some of the locals weren’t too keen on what the fellas from Ohio – dressed in their business suits and derbies…and throwing their funny-looking kite off the dunes – were up to.” 

Marilyn Turk, a freelance writer based in Niceville, Fla., said the Wrights assembled their first experimental glider in the Tates’ yard, using Addie Tate’s sewing machine to complete the cotton sateen wing coverings. 

“In addition to helping the brothers with many experimental launches of the glider, the Tates provided encouragement, even at the risk of ridicule from others in the community,” Turk said.

The Wright brothers are shown here in the sand at Kitty Hawk with one of their early glider models.

 

Some local folks believed the Wrights were “wasting their time at a fool attempt to do something that was impossible,” Turk wrote. “The chief argument heard at local stores and the post office was that ‘God didn’t intend man to fly. If He did, He would have given him a set of wings on his shoulders.’” 

Marjorie Berry of the Museum of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City credits the Tates as being the first disciples “in the cause of manned flight.” 

In October 1900, the Wrights returned to Dayton, pleased with their experiments. Their glider was a bit battered, so it got left behind. 

Addie Tate used the wing cloth to make special dresses for their two daughters, Lena and Irene.

Women are knocking on the door of auto hall of fame

Several automotive industry journalists suggest “expanding the number of women in the Automotive Hall of Fame,” based in Dearborn, Mich. 

Four females who made exceptional contributions to the transportation industry are worthy of consideration – Mary Anderson, Charlotte Bridgwood, Florence Lawrence and Wilma Russey. All are deceased but their credentials continue to glow brightly. 

Mary Anderson visited New York City during the winter season in 1902. While riding on a trolley, she made a mental note about the number of times the motorman had to stop, get out and clear “wintry mix” off the front window in order to see out. Brrrr.

 

Back at home in balmy Birmingham, Ala., Anderson developed a “window cleaning device for electric cars and other vehicles to remove snow, ice or sleet from the window.” She received a patent in 1903. 

Anderson’s set of wiper arms, made of wood and rubber, were controlled by a lever located near the steering wheel. Pulling the lever, the driver activated a spring-loaded arm to sweep across the window and back again. (A counterweight was used to ensure constant contact between the wiper and the window.) 

This device effectively cleared away raindrops, snowflakes or other debris, but nobody bought in. 

Timing is everything. Manufacturers dismissed her invention “as having no commercial value.” 

Anderson’s 1903 invention came to be regarded as a “bright idea before its time.” (Henry Ford didn’t begin to produce his Model T Fords until 1908.) 

Anderson never profited a dime from her window cleaning device, but she moved on. She was a real estate developer in Birmingham and owned and managed a large apartment building there. She also spent some time in California operating a cattle ranch and vineyard. 

Charlotte Bridgwood was an industrialist in New York City when she introduced the “next generation” of the windshield wiper in 1917, building on Anderson’s original design.

Bridgwood’s electrically operated “automatic wipers” used rollers instead of blades, but her invention didn’t catch on, and the patent expired in 1920.

 But she had other entrepreneurial talents. Earlier in her career, Bridgwood was a vaudeville entertainer whose stage name was Lotta Lawrence. She was “manager and main actress” of a dramatic company. Her daughter, Florence Bridgwood began performing on stage at age 3, and was nicknamed “Baby Flo, the Child Wonder.” 

Baby Flo grew up and changed her name to Florence Lawrence. She was labeled as America’s “first movie star,” appearing as the leading lady in nearly 300 silent films, beginning in 1906.

Florence Lawrence

 Lawrence was an avid motorist who did all of her vehicle’s mechanical and maintenance work herself. In 1913, she invented an “auto signaling arm.” By pressing a button, the driver could elevate or lower an arm with an attached sign that indicated the direction of the turn. A braking signal used almost the same idea. A small “stop” sign popped up when the brake pedal was depressed. 

Lawrence declined to patent her safety inventions, leaving others to profit from them. 

In 1915, Wilma Russey became the first female taxi driver in New York City. The former circus performer had a penchant for theatrics and a flair for fashion. Russey was well-known for wearing a leopard-print hat and matching stole, long leather gloves and high tan boots.

 

Few knew that she was an experienced mechanic who learned the trade while working at an auto garage in Manhattan. This gave her a huge advantage when it came to making needed on-the-spot repairs to her motor coach.

Bertha Benz earns her spot in automotive history

Completing the roll call of women who are enshrined in the Automotive Hall of Fame in Dearborn, Mich., is Bertha Ringer Benz (1849-1944), who was inducted in 2016. 

She and her husband, Carl Benz (1844-1929), were German automotive pioneers who made their mark in the late 1880s. They were kingpins in the early development of the Mercedes-Benz brand that has endured for centuries. 

Carl was voted into the hall of fame in 1984. The Benzes are the only husband-and-wife team among the hall of fame’s nearly 300 honorees. 

Carl Benz is widely credited with inventing the internal-combustion engine in 1885 and is regarded as one of the greatest automotive engineers of all time. Bertha Benz provided the capital to get the company going, investing her entire dowry. 

According to information posted on the Mercedes-Benz website, when Bertha was born in 1849, very few German women were allowed access to higher education. Scientists in that day said “the lighter brain of a woman was logically unable to absorb and process as much information. Moreover, thinking too much was harmful to one’s child-bearing ability.” 

Bertha deemed that line of thinking as a load of codswallop. She was motivated “to show the world that the female sex is also capable of great things,” the essay continued. 

Benz’s first horseless carriage was a single-cylinder, 2.5-horsepower car with three wheels – one in front and two in the back – and could reach a maximum speed of 25 miles per hour. In addition to the driver, the Motorwagen could carry two passengers. There was one problem…a lack of buyers. 

Bertha appointed herself as chief marketing officer. Her task was to spark public interest in the Motorwagen as an innovative “means of personal transportation.” 

Early in the morning on an August day in 1888, Bertha and her two oldest sons, Eugen and Richard (both teenagers), slipped into Carl’s workshop while he was still sleeping and rolled one of the Motorwagens out the garage door. Bertha left a note on the kitchen table informing her husband that they were off on a little journey to see her mother who lived about 60 miles away. 

Bertha and the boys pushed the vehicle down the road for some distance, so that Carl would not be awakened when Bertha brought the engine to life. They embarked on what would be the first long-distance journey ever taken by automobile – traveling from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back – to show the world what the Benz Motorwagen could do.

 

The trip was dusty, rocky and bumpy. Bertha was the pilot and the mechanic. The trek required several “pit stops” for repairs and refueling. 

A pharmacy in Wiesloch, about 16 miles outside of Mannheim, unexpectedly became the world’s first “filling station.” The Motorwagen ran on ligroin, a petroleum product that was also sold as a cleaning fluid. 

An elderly pharmacist questioned Bertha’s request to purchase his entire stock of “10 litres” of ligroin. He said: “One litre will be plenty to remove the stains on your dress, madam.” 

She persevered. The traveling time to her mother’s place was 12 hours. The pace was 5 miles per hour. The trip received a great deal of attention, just as Bertha had intended. 

After visiting with her mother for several days, Bertha set out for her return trip, following a different route and introducing her husband’s automobile to even more people before arriving home safely. 

An avalanche of publicity resulted in an immediate flood of new orders for the Benz Motorwagen.

Carl Benz

‘Shoe’ makes news as a popular comic strip

One of America’s favorite comic strips has a strong North Carolina influence. It is “Shoe,” which was created in 1977 by the late Jeff MacNelly, a legendary cartoonist. 

MacNelly got his start at The Daily Tar Heel while attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the mid-1960s. 

During his junior year, MacNelly took a job at the Chapel Hill Weekly. His editor and mentor was Jim “Shu” Shumaker, who also taught journalism classes at the university. Shumaker was described by a former dean as being “cranky, crusty and gruff…yet adorable.”

 

By 1970, MacNelly was already an accomplished artist and was recruited by The Richmond (Va.) News Leader to be its chief illustrator and satirist. MacNelly won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1972. (He would repeat the feat in 1976 and 1985.) 

Shumaker’s impression on the cartoonist was so profound that when MacNelly ventured into the comic strip business in 1977, he named his strip “Shoe” as a tribute to Shu. 

All of the fictional cartoon characters live in Treetops, East Virginia, and appear as anthropomorphized birds. 

P. Martin “Shoe” Shoemaker, an over-sized purple martin, is the grouchy, cigar-chomping publisher and editor The Treetops Tattler-Tribune. The newspaper’s mission is to “never let the facts interfere with a good story.”

The ace columnist and star reporter is Cosmo Fishhawk, dubbed the “Perfessor.” He is an “overweightly fluffy” osprey with zippo computer expertise. He frequently summons the tech-support guy, Wiz, who is billed as the “Merlin of motherboards,” and is always shown carrying his magic wand.

 

In one comic strip Wiz advised Cosmo: “First, let’s get your fist out of the computer screen.” 

Cosmo is also a philosopher who once commented: “Writing is simple. First you have to make sure you have plenty of paper...sharp pencils...typewriter ribbon. Then put your belly up to the desk...roll a sheet of paper into the typewriter...and stare at it until beads of blood appear on your forehead.”

“When it comes to humor,” Jeff MacNelly always said, “there’s no substitution for reality and politicians.”

Hence, it is no surprise that character Roz Speckelhen, who runs the famous greasy spoon, Roz’s Roost, in Treetops resembles Susie MacNelly (Jeff MacNelly’s wife). Character Senator Batson D. Belfry looks a lot like former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neil.

 

Jeff McNelly was diagnosed with lymphoma in December 1999 and died about seven months later. He was 52. 

With contributions from associates Chris Cassatt, Gary Brookins and Ben Lansing, Susie MacNelly has taken “Shoe” to even greater success.

Comic strips can contribute to ‘healthy living’

Many physicians prescribe daily dosages of humor – the more the better – because “laughter is indeed good medicine.” 

Americans have always found some chuckles in their newspaper’s comics section. Some folks called it “the funnies,” remember? 

Several generations have grown up sharing the comics around the breakfast table, enjoying a few laughs before heading off to school and work. 

Some of the oldest popular comic strips have faded away and are no longer being published, such as “The Katzenjammer Kids,” “Little Orphan Annie,” “Popeye the Sailor” and “Brenda Starr, Reporter.” 

Other long-running strips now on the “endangered species” list are: “Gasoline Alley,” “Barney Google and Snuffy Smith,” “Dick Tracy,” “Prince Valiant” and “Dennis the Menace.” 

Critics say one comic strip that has endured since 1930, by adapting to contemporary times is “Blondie,” created by Chic Young of Chicago.

 

Readers were introduced to Dagwood Bumstead, who’s a bit on the klutzy and clumsy side, and his lovely wife, Blondie Boopadoop Bumstead, a former flapper from the Roaring Twenties. They have two teenage children, Alexander and Cookie.

 Other primary characters are: Daisy, the dog, and her brood of puppies that are often underfoot; Elmo, the neighborhood boy, whose purpose in life appears to be to annoy and agitate Dagwood; neighbors Fred and Tootsie Woodley; J. C. Dithers, who is Dagwood’s boss; and Cora Dithers, who bosses J. C. 

In 1936, Dagwood concocted his famous midnight snack, an impossibly tall sandwich, using assorted leftovers from the refrigerator. This event gave birth to the term of the “Dagwood sandwich.” 

The food theme took a new twist in 1991 when Blondie and Tootsie joined forces to form a catering business known as “Blondie’s.” 

After Chic Young died in 1973, creative control of the “Blondie” strip passed to his son, Dean Young, who continues as the lead writer into his 80s.

Cartoonist Mort Walker, who grew up in Kansas City, Mo., brought “Beetle Bailey” to life in 1950. This comic strip features Army Pvt. Carl James “Beetle” Bailey. He is a miserably pathetic soldier – slack, hapless, lazy and generally insubordinate. At Camp Swampy, he tangles regularly with Sarge, his comically inept platoon leader, Sgt. Orville P. Snorkel. 

Otto is Sarge’s anthropomorphic, look-alike bulldog whom Sarge dresses up in a miniature Army uniform. Rounding out the group of featured characters is Gen. Amos T. Halftrack. Retirement passed him by, so he is constantly frustrated by his senility and lack of stamina. 

One of the rare finds in comic strip legend and lore is that Mort Walker teamed with Dik Browne of South Orange, N.J., in 1954, to create “Hi and Lois.”

 

Lois is Beetle Bailey’s sister. She married Hiram Flagston. Hi and Lois have four children. Chip, a teenager, resembles Uncle Beetle, in attitude and floppy-hair appearance. Dot and Ditto are girl-boy twins. Trixie, the youngest daughter, loves “talking” (through thought balloons) to Sunbeam, her little ray of sunlight. 

When Dik Browne died in 1989, his elder son, Chance, took over “Hi and Lois,” while his younger son, Chris, assumed control of another comic strip that his father created in 1973. It is “Hägar the Horrible,” starring a bone-headed Norwegian Viking. 

After Mort Walker died in 2018, his sons Neal, Brian and Greg, took the reins of “Beetle Bailey.” 

The second generation of Walkers and Brownes continues to collaborate. While Chance Browne now draws the characters of “Hi and Lois,” he brought on Brian and Greg Walker as the primary writers for the strip. 

What’s in your “thought balloon?”