What would life be like without buttons?

Nov. 16 is National Button Day, and that evokes memories of the great American comedic actor Red Buttons, who lived from 1919-2006. 

He was born Aaron Chwatt in Manhattan, a borough of New York City. As a teenager, Aaron took a job as an “entertaining bellhop” at a tavern nearby in The Bronx. 

The combination of Aaron’s red hair and the large, shiny buttons on the bellhop uniform he wore inspired orchestra leader Charles “Dinty” Moore to call the lad “Red Buttons”…and the name stuck.

 

Red Buttons won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his supporting role in the 1957 film “Sayonara.” He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

Freelance journalist Jude Stewart reminds us that “children learn to button and unbutton early in life, and they keep doing it until they’re dead.” It’s an acquired skill, like tying one’s shoes in a pre-Velcro world.

 

“Proper buttoning” is a challenge, however, at any age. Perhaps Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), the German poet, playwright and novelist, said it best. He wrote: “Once you have missed the first buttonhole you’ll never manage to button up.” 

Buttons are part of our language, with assorted metaphors and similes. 

“Cute as a button” describes a small person who is charming, cuddly and attractive. 

“To take by the buttons” or to “buttonhole” someone means to detain another person in conversation against his or her will. Politicians have a knack. 

“Bless your buttons” can be found within the novel “Little Women,” written by American author Louisa May Alcott in 1868-69. Essentially, it’s a kind and sincere way of saying “bless your heart.”

 

Louisa May Alcott

“Bust your buttons” is a feeling of “extreme jubilation that presents a picture of one’s chest filling with such esteem and growing so big that it makes the buttons on your shirt pop off.” 

“Button your lip” means to “say nothing or stop talking.” 

“Buttoned-down” refers to one’s dress or attitude that can described as “conservative, conventional or staid.” 

The button-down collar was originally called a “polo collar” worn by English polo players in the late 19th century, invented to prevent their collars from flapping about their face while they rode. 

In 1896, John E. Brooks, the grandson of founder Henry Sands Brooks of Brooks Brothers, applied button-down collars to dress shirts, offering button-down shirts to the general public in the family stores.

 

The War of 1812 gave rise to Aaron Benedict’s factory in Waterbury, Conn., in order to supply brass buttons for the U.S. military. Importing buttons from England was no longer an option during the conflict. 

“Benedict bought up every brass kettle, pan and pot he could find and established a rolling mill to make buttons for the military. When Benedict ran out of brass, he turned to pewter,” said a spokesperson at the Waterbury Button Co.

Writing for Smithsonian Magazine, Danny Lewis said: “In the Victorian Era, women’s clothing was often much more complicated and elaborate than men’s – think petticoats, corsets and bustles. But while rich men often dressed themselves, their female family members most likely had servants to help them put on their clothes, both out of luxury and necessity.” 

Button collectors can connect through the National Button Society, established in 1938 and headquartered in Fairlawn, Ohio, near Akron. 

Today, the “button capital of the world” is Qiaotou in Yongjia County, China, producing around 60% of the world’s supply of clothing buttons.

Let the ‘good roads’ roll in North Carolina

North Carolina Gov. Thomas W. Bickett, who served from 1917-21, led the state through the World War I years.

 Educated at Wake Forest College, Bickett was an exceptional orator. As governor, he delivered inspirational and patriotic speeches to lift people’s spirits in support of the war effort. He also prodded citizens to purchase of Liberty Bonds and War Stamps.

 Bickett saluted the 2,338 North Carolinians who died in the war and bragged on the contributions from the 80,000 Tar Heels who had taken part in the conflict.”

Historians generally give Bickett high marks for his administration’s contributions toward education, agriculture, telecommunications, public health and improved race relations, He also helped to modernize the state’s prison system and to implement tax reforms. 

“While not committed to an extensive program of road building, Gov. Bickett laid the groundwork for his successors by enlarging the duties of the State Highway Commission,” according to the NCDCR spokesperson. Bickett appointed Frank Page as chair of the commission in 1919, “a post he held 10 years with distinction.”

Frank Page

 

Bickett, no doubt, passed along to Page, a letter that he received in 1919 from the president of North Carolina’s Good Roads Association, William Archibald McGirt, a Wilmington business owner. 

The association’s members had adopted a resolution at its annual convention: “Ten Reasons Why North Carolina Should Have State Highways.” Written more than a century ago, these words are worth repeating, relishing and remembering.

1: “The present inadequate system of public roads in North Carolina constitutes our greatest economic drain. Good roads are an asset, bad roads are a liability.”

 2: “The success of the agricultural, industrial, economic and social life of our state depends largely upon transportation – railroads and state highways.”

 3: “The introduction of the automobile and motor truck has rapidly changed the character of travel. State highways are absolutely necessary to meet these changes.”

 4: “State highways will mean improved school facilities, more churches, better farms, quicker communication, reduction in cost of transportation and generally improved conditions….”

 5: “A complete system of state highways will carry light into dark places, build up and improve the morals of our citizens and induce good people to settle in our midst.”

 6. “We must look beyond the county line. State construction and maintenance make for broad vision and high ideals. The West should be linked with the East, the North with the South; we should know each other better.”

 

7: “Highways constructed and maintained by the state mean ‘equal rights to all, special privileges to none.’”

 8: “Prosperity is headed our way, and it is absolutely necessary that the state provide a fund for road construction to be able to take advantage of the (U.S.) government’s offer of federal aid. Other states are making preparation; North Carolina must do likewise.”

 9: “More and better roads can be built and properly maintained by the state. Counties and townships will never provide a complete system. It is up to the state.”

 10: “Every individual in North Carolina will benefit directly or indirectly from a system of public roads and, therefore, should contribute toward their construction.”

 “PROVIDE THE FUND – LEVY THE TAX – BUILD THE ROADS.”

“Despite this clarion call for the state to build, build, build, the legislature in 1919 rejected the ‘good roads’ bill,” wrote Bryan Mims of Our State magazine.

Highway commissioner Frank Page and his team vowed to bring a new bill forward in 1921. They did and lawmakers approved a $50 million bond issue.

‘Good roads’ legislation observes centennial anniversary

North Carolina was once known far and wide as “the good roads state.” This is an appropriate time to call attention to this fact, because it all began to fall into place about 100 years ago. 

America actually had a “good roads movement,” and it may have originated in 1899 in Asheville, N.C., under the leadership of Dr. Chase P. Ambler, a local physician and conservationist. 

Dr. Ambler helped create “a sense of urgency to remedy the mostly wretched conditions of county roads,” according to Terry Ruscin of the Hendersonville Times-News. During this period, “North Carolina’s individual counties built and maintained their roads,” Rucsin reported. Most were clay, dirt or gravel. 

Walter Turner, historian at the North Carolina Transportation Museum Foundation in Spencer, said: “Counties had scant money for machinery, so making and maintaining roads was largely done with cheap manual labor. Prisoners on chain gangs performed most of the work.” 

He was interviewed by Bryan Mims for an article in Our State magazine. “The counties didn’t work together, so the state became a haphazard patchwork of roads to nowhere. Roads didn’t always connect from one county to another,” according to Turner. 

“After a drenching rain, the roads turned to mush,” Mims wrote. “Cars sank to their fenders in the ooze. Mules and horses often had to haul them out. North Carolina, for a time, was where cars went to die.”

 

Historian Dr. Jeffrey J. Crow wrote: “When the North Carolina General Assembly of 1921 agreed to issue $50 million in bonds to establish a paved state highway system, the Raleigh Times complimented the work of Harriet “Hattie” Morehead Berry of Hillsborough of the North Carolina Good Roads Association “for bringing North Carolina out of the mud.” 

Berry had begun working with Joseph Hyde Pratt, North Carolina’s state geologist, in 1901. Their duties were expanded to coordinate activities of the state good roads association in 1902. “The pair worked relentlessly for good roads during the next two decades,” Dr. Crow said. 

When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Pratt joined the army. Berry assumed leadership of good roads initiative.

 She was credited with delivering “one of the most stupendous pieces of legislation in the history of the state,” Dr. Crow said. Hence, Berry was dubbed as the “Mother of Good Roads.” Raleigh’s other newspaper, The News & Observer, said Berry was the “best woman politician in the state.” 

Although Gov. Cameron Morrison was labeled as the “good roads governor” in 1921, Berry called him down when he seemed to waffle on funding the transportation package, Dr. Crowe said. 

“Morrison sought to shield the wealthier counties from heavy expense by recommending that each county pay for half the cost of building and maintaining roads,” Dr. Crowe said. Berry and the good roads supporters were stunned. “Poorer counties could not possibly raise enough tax revenues for such a program.” 

Berry and her backers confronted Gov. Morrison and “pointedly reminded him” that his campaign promise was “for the state, not the counties, to build roads.”

 

“After the meeting, Morrison told a reporter: ‘If it hadn’t been for that waspish woman, I could have had my way.’” 

Dr. Crowe said when an urban contingent of “good roads” supporters once suggested that their campaign for good roads “might be too much for a woman, “Berry icily replied: 

“The weak shoulders of a woman have for the past 15 years carried this proposition, and I propose that the weak shoulders of a women should continue to carry it.”

This photo of Hattie Morehead Berry (above) bears a striking to resemblance to the picture (below) of Dr. Mandy Cohen, North Carolina’s current Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, wouldn’t you say? 

Keep opening those N.C. barbecue sauce jars

Carolina Treet Cooking Barbecue Sauce is a tasty brand that originated in 1953 in Wilmington, N.C., and has become a statewide favorite. 

The product was one of 68 “cool things made in North Carolina” that competed in the 2021 online competition sponsored by the N.C. Chamber of Commerce to find “the coolest.” 

(The winner was a big, heavy-duty West Star truck manufactured by Daimler Trucks North America at its plant in Cleveland, N.C.) 

Carolina Treet was created at Wilmington’s Patricia Ann grocery store by owners and managers Norman A. Merritt and Lenwood King Sr., as the “perfect sauce to baste their rotisserie chickens.”

 

Ashley Morris of the Wilmington Star-News tells us: “They’d slab it on to baste their birds every 30 minutes. The result was instant success as the chickens were perpetually sold out and customers were clamoring for the sauce.” 

Sunday was the biggest day. Customers would come to the store after church and buy a barbecued chicken for their Sunday main dish. One whole chicken was $1.39. 

In the 1960s, heirs of the Norman Merritt family got the small chain of grocery stores, and the Lenwood King family got the sauce, according to Morris. 

Today, Carolina Treet is bottled and sold through Legacy Family Foods of Louisburg, N.C., in Franklin County. 

Morris noted that Carolina Treet contains a mix of vinegar and spices, but no sugar, artificial sweeteners or tomato products, so it “doesn’t burn or blister onto meats. It marries with the juices of the meats to create something unique, rather than masking the flavor of the meats underneath.” 

“It’s definitely my favorite sauce on the commercial market,” said Larry Casey, owner and chef at the legendary Casey’s Buffet in Wilmington. “The other sauces just taste like a chemistry set to me.”

 Larry Casey

Carolina Treet has its own fan club, which was organized in 2008 by professional photographer Jamie Moncrief, a former resident of Wilmington who is now living in Jacksonville, N.C. 

“Maybe one day North Carolina will be known for three distinctive barbecue styles,” Moncrief told Morris. 

First, there’s Lexington-style North Carolina barbecue in the Piedmont, and there’s the vinegar-based, whole hog barbecue to the east, Morris wrote. 

Then, there’s Carolina Treet. “I consider it ‘beach barbecue,’” Moncrief said.

 

Another “cool products” contender in the N.C. chamber’s 2021 online contest was Texas Pete Hot Sauce, a product of TW Garner Food Company, founded in Winston-Salem in 1929. 

Thad W. Garner was 16 when he bought the Dixie Pig Barbecue Stand. It came with a handwritten recipe for barbecue sauce, which his mother, Jane Garner, began making in pots on her stove at home. 

“His father, Sam Garner, began traveling North Carolina’s backroads, touting the sauce and selling it to restaurants and grocery stores,” wrote journalist Lynn Seldon of Oak Island. “As the sauce’s popularity grew, Garner’s two younger brothers, Harold and Ralph, also pitched into the family business.”

 

“When it came to naming the ‘family’ hot sauce, the three brothers had agreed on ‘Mexican Joe,’ but Sam felt that it should have an American theme,” Seldon said. They went with Texas Pete. 

While you can put original Texas Pete Hot Sauce on lots of different foods, it’s technically not a barbecue sauce. 

The Garner Foods’ website is now showing the introduction of four “new” Texas Pete BBQ sauces – Carolina Mustard, Eastern Carolina, Sweet Flame and Traditional.

 

Texas Pete’s national distribution network will surely help spread the gospel of pork barbecue in 2022.

N.C. barbecue sauces are so hot, they’re ‘cool’

To emphasize the importance of manufacturing in North Carolina, the N.C. Chamber of Commerce likes to say: “What’s made in North Carolina makes North Carolina.” 

In 2021, the state chamber sponsored an online contest to select the “Coolest Thing Made in North Carolina.” The field of contenders included 68 businesses, both large and small. The competition featured a number of companies from the food and beverage category.

The event brought attention to North Carolina strength in the “barbecue sauce” business. 

Let’s look first at George’s BBQ Sauce.

George’s finished in the top four in both 2021 and 2020 and has a loyal following. The sauce was invented in 1975 by George Stallings of Rocky Mount. He was fond of saying George’s is “good on everything except banana pudding.” 

Nearly every week, it seemed, Tim and Beth Chappell would drive over from their farm near Nashville, N.C., in Nash County to buy a gallon of George’s. Finally, in 1992, Beth agreed to buy the whole business. 

Its primary assets, of course, were the secret recipes for three “styles,” but she also took home to Nashville two seven-gallon stockpots and a pair of gas burners. 

Daughter Ashley Chappell Hassell joined the company in 2006 as marketing director. She took over day-to-day operations in 2012 and became the owner of George’s in 2017. Shortly thereafter, her husband Brian Hassell resigned as Nashville’s town planning director and joined the “management team” at George’s.

 

George’s is made by hand, in small quantities by an eight-person team. “We still personally pour, package and ship every bottle of George’s by hand – just 4,500 bottles per day to be exact,” Beth said. 

“There’s no automation – there’s no line. It’s just people using their hands,” Ashley added. 

Celebrity chef and television personality Rachael Ray named George’s as her “personal favorite in the Carolinas.” Her assessment: “This eastern North Carolina sauce packs a vinegary punch at first, but George’s Original eases the kick with apples and sugar for a perfect balance of sweet, sour and spicy.” 

A WRAL reporter from Raleigh quoted Ashley as saying: “We like the fact that we’re small. We know what’s going into our product, and our work family is there to love on each other. I don’t really see us ever going the big production route or moving out of Nash County.” 

“In the South, a lot of our relationships usually revolve around food and fellowship,” Brian said. “Our customers are really why we do this because, with George’s, we get invited to somebody’s kitchen table every night.”

 

The leading cheerleader for George’s is Randy Stallings of Wake Forest, a nephew of the company founder, George Stallings. 

Uncle George “gave me a jar for Christmas when I was in high school – and told me it was the only one I’d ever get for free,” Randy Stallings told Jill Warren Lucas of Our State magazine. 

“I give George’s to people for Christmas,” Randy said. “I’m proud to tell them my uncle invented it.” 

“George’s appeal extends well beyond the borders of the Old North State,” Lucas wrote. “Teddy Gay first tasted barbecue cooked with George’s Original when he was living in Virginia Beach, Va.” 

You can count on finding George’s at Teddy’s Place in Westville, N.J. 

“It’s a big part of why I decided to open my own barbecue place,” Teddy Gay said. “We cook with it and serve it in a cup on the side as a dipping sauce. People love it so much, they suck it off their fingers.”

Here’s a holiday gift idea: ‘Nutty’ N.C. fruitcake

Already ’tis the season at the Southern Supreme Fruitcake & More factory and showroom near Bear Creek in rural Chatham County, N.C. 

October and November are crazy-busy preparing for the Christmas rush on fruitcakes. Don’t you dare laugh.

 

Belinda Morgan, daughter of the founder Berta Lou Scott, said: “I think if ours had been first, there would never have been any jokes about fruitcakes.”

Southern Supreme was created in 1984 on the hunch that Berta Lou’s homemade nutty fruitcake was the best money could buy.

 

“I didn’t particularly like my momma’s fruitcake because she put too much fruit in it,” Berta Lou said. “Mine has way more nuts and way less fruit.”

 

Southern Supreme is a family business that has not only survived but thrived.

 

Randy Scott, one of Berta Lou’s sons, said that “in 300 pounds of cake batter, we’ll have 95 pounds of chopped fresh pecans and rich English walnuts.”

 

Other ingredients are sugar, flour, eggs, dates, raisins, green glace pineapple wedges and candied cherries. But Scott is adamant about the nuts – “loaded with nuts is the way a fruitcake should be.”

When running on all cylinders, the Southern Supreme kitchen is capable of cranking out about 3,000 pounds of fruitcakes a day, according to Raleigh-area magazine feature writer Emily Uhland. 

The baking method is unique, too, Uhland said. A huge glob of batter is dumped into a tray and loaded into the oven. Several times during the process, bakers remove the pans and stir the mixture. 

The baked tray of cake is cut and molded while still hot and pliable. After the cakes have cooled, glaze and decorative fruits are applied, Uhland wrote. 

“The glaze is the hardest thing,” Berta Lou said. “You want it to sink in and give the cake a sheen.” 

Southern Supreme offers five sizes of its prized nutty fruitcakes – 8 ounces and 1, 2, 3 and 4.5 pounders. 

The “& More” part of the business includes about 150 other holiday sweets and specialty food items. “All the recipes come from something we used to bake at home for the holidays,” Berta Lou said. 

The product catalog begins with fruitcake cookies and includes a ton of chocolates and chocolate and nut combinations, flavored nuts, peanut brittle, toffee, jellies, jams, relishes, cheese florets, tea biscuits, hot chocolate and cider mix. Bear Creek turtles and critters are popular choices.

 

Gift boxes, samplers and baskets range from about $24 to $145. 

Berta Lou and her husband, Hoyt Smith, still come to work every day, though well into their 80s now. She likes to share samples and treats from the test-kitchen with shoppers in the showroom. 

Southern Supreme was one of North Carolina’s home-grown family manufacturers that were heralded in 2021 by the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce as part of its promotion: “What’s made in North Carolina makes North Carolina.”

N.C.’s ‘headache powders dynasty’ continues…sort of

Headache powders are a “Southern thing” – one that makes darn good common sense. If your head is pounding, the powdery compound brings speedy relief. 

Simply, powders dissolve faster and go to work quicker than tablets, pills or capsules. That was important to those hard-working folks who toiled on North Carolina farms and in the state’s textile and furniture mills. 

If you grew up in North Carolina and other southern states, knowing how to take BC, Goody’s and Stanback powders was second nature. 

Did you know there are specific instructions? Goody’s recommends a three-step process for adults and children 12 and older. Step 1 is to “tear open the stick pack where indicated. (Before tearing, shake the stick pack so the powder settles away from where you tear.)”

 

Step 2 is to “pour powder on your tongue. (It’s easier if you pour the powder on the back of your tongue. As you pour, tap the sides of the stick pack to get all the powder out of the sides and corners. Hold your breath so you don’t accidentally inhale the powder.)” 

Step 3 is to “chase with a beverage (water or soda).” Warnings are: Take only one powder every six hours while symptoms persist, and for children under 12, consult a physician before use. The main ingredients are aspirin and caffeine. 

The Piedmont region of North Carolina was the “cradle of headache powders.” BC was founded in Durham, Goody’s grew up in Winston-Salem and Stanback made its home in Salisbury. Scores of other companies fell by the wayside, lacking the marketing clout of the “big three.”

Times change. Block Drug Company was formed in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1907 by Alexander Block, a Russian immigrant. His small, neighborhood drug store blossomed into a powerhouse over time, developing the Polident and Nytol brands and aggressively acquiring competitors. 

Block Drug bought BC in 1967; it acquired Goody’s in 1995 and then Stanback in 1999. All three brands are now owned by Prestige Consumer Healthcare Inc. of Tarrytown, N.Y. The company reported revenues for fiscal 2021 of $943.4 million.

 

The “Snap back with Stanback” slogan retains its ageless marketing message. Meanwhile, BC and Goody’s have benefited from contemporary advertising targeted toward lovers of the NASCAR sport of hot cars…and hot country music stars. 

The first celebrity spokesperson to hawk Goody’s was racing legend Richard Petty of Randleman, N.C. BC latched onto country music recording artist Trace Adkins of Sarepta, La. They were “dueling idols” for a spell in 2011-12.

 

One of the funniest television commercials featured the 6-foot-6 Adkins trying to get into Petty’s No. 43 race car. Adkins was distraught when he discovered there was no door latch, only an open window. 

He had to slither his big body through the window opening in order to get in the driver’s seat. Yet, in the process, his knees dislodged the steering wheel. (Only a plumped up Lucy Ricardo could have upstaged Adkins’ performance.) 

It was a grand competition to “pick a powder” online, which was dubbed “Like, Share, Change the World.” Proceeds benefited charities that were near and dear to Adkins and Petty. 

Adkins selected the Wounded Warrior Project, while Petty channeled his share to Victory Junction, a racing-themed summer camp for terminally ill children in Randolph County. 

Goody’s recently signed driver Thad Moffitt, 21, a grandson of Richard Petty, to pitch the product to younger generations. Thad is the son of Brian and Rebecca Petty-Moffitt, youngest daughter of Richard and the late Lynda Petty.

Headache powders were ‘invented’ in North Carolina

North Carolina is the birthplace of “the big three” in the headache powders industry – BC, Stanback and Goody’s. 

Into the early 1900s, “local pharmacists concocted their own painkilling remedies, buying raw ingredients and creating dosages on demand,” wrote Dr. Kevin Cherry, a former deputy secretary with the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. 

“They often sold this medicine in powdered form because creating pills was more difficult and expensive,” he said. Also, the “power of powders” was that they were fast-acting, providing almost instant relief. 

In 1906, Commodore Thomas “Conny” Council formulated a headache powder while working in Germain Bernard’s Five Points Drug Co. in Durham. “According to legend, the mixture included crushed aspirin, caffeine and a secret ingredient from Bernard’s not-yet-perfected remedy for sore feet,” Dr. Cherry said.

 

“In 1910, the two druggists named their powder BC, a combination of their surname initials. They hired their first full-time salesman in 1917, just in time for local World War I doughboys to carry BC out of the South.” 

Thomas Melville Stanback earned a degree in pharmacy in Richmond, Va., in 1906. He was working at a pharmacy in Thomasville in 1910, when he concocted his own headache powder recipe.

Dr. Tom, as he was known, relocated to Spencer in 1911. His powder business remained a sideline to his drugstore until 1924, when he convinced his younger brother, Fred Stanback, to create a sales department. 

From that point forward, Stanback Medicine Co. steadily expanded, moving its headquarters to Salisbury in 1931. “Snap back with Stanback” became the marketing motto.

 

In the early 1930s, pharmacist Martin C. “Goody” Goodman managed the Milam Medicine Co. branch factory in Winston-Salem. Milam was based in Danville, Va. 

Its “classic patent medicine” claimed to “cure pretty much anything from ‘impure blood’ to rheumatism…and perhaps make sinners repent as well.” 

“In his spare time, Goodman came up with yet a third headache powder,” wrote a historian at the Forsyth County Public Library in Winston-Salem. “In 1934, Goodman opened a drugstore and began selling his new product. He called both the drugstore and the headache powder ‘Goody’s.’”

 

Goodman sold the business to Alva Thad Lewallen Sr., a Winston-Salem tobacco and candy wholesaler, in 1936. Lewallen delegated operational authority to Hege Hamilton, who had started as a soda fountain worker for Goodman. 

Hege’s full name was George Hege Hamilton III. He took the reins of the company in 1945 when Lewallen died. (His son was the noted pop and country singer George Hamilton IV.) 

Anna Manning, a former contributor to The John Locke Foundation, said there once were hundreds of local headache powder brands. “While most were content to sell their powders on drug store counters, three companies from North Carolina distinguished themselves by marketing directly to laborers and consumers.” 

“BC and Stanback distributed free samples to people that they believed would be repeat customers – the thousands of people who worked on farms, railroads, textile mills and other manufacturing and industrial enterprises,” Manning wrote. 

“Goody’s chose a different route, placing its products in local ‘mom and pop’ retailers, gas stations and grocery stores. These novel strategies played a crucial role in separating these brands from the competition.” 

Later, Goody’s and BC would attract national attention through sponsorship of NASCAR and minor league baseball as well as ties to country music. Today, all three brands of headache powders are alive and well. Soon, we’ll explore: “Where are they now?” 

‘Cackalacky’ is word that grows on Tar Heels

Where in the world is Cackalacky? Why, it’s right here, all around us. Cackalacky is a “humorous” variation of Carolina. 

You might say that Cackalacky is a “military term,” as it was apparently coined by Army soldiers and Marines from “Off” who were stationed at bases and camps in North Carolina after World War II. 

They wrote to their loved ones back home that they were stuck in “Cackalacky,” poking fun at the “rural nature, rusticity and remoteness” of the Old North State. 

Cackalacky has been a research interest of several university professors. Dr. Paul Jones, who retired from the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, liked to josh with his students, saying Cackalacky was “a Welsh word that has to do with the noise a dragon makes when it belches.”

 

Dr. Paul Jones

In actuality, Dr. Jones said Cackalacky “is a gentle insult from folks who didn’t necessarily want to be here.” 

Dr. Walt Wolfram, a professor at North Carolina State University, said Cackalacy “may have been intended as an insult, but over time the term was reappropriated by natives, and it is now embraced affectionately as a positive reference to state identity.”

Dr. Walt Wolfram

 

N.C. State’s university publicist said: “The positive use of Cackalacky is spreading, and the term has even been appropriated by commercial products that wish to reflect their downhome, regional heritage.” 

“The original Cackalacky Spice Sauce, a zesty, sweet potato-based barbecue sauce, was trademarked in 2001 and is now distributed throughout the state and well beyond.”

 

The sauce was created by Harry Page Skelton Sr., who was living in Chapel Hill at the time. He concocted his special barbecue sauce at home with more than a little help from his wife, Caroline Lee Skelton. She is now president of Cackalacky, Inc., based in Pittsboro in Chatham County. 

Page Skelton had a good job working with a telecommunications company in Research Triangle Park, but he told Ashley Peterson, a contributor to the Chapelboro.com website, that “climbing the corporate ladder felt more like running on a treadmill.”

 

“For Page Skelton, the self-titled ‘corporate guy’ turned barbeque cook, Cackalacky represents North Carolina’s spirit,” Peterson reported. 

“Carolina Curious” is a regular feature on WFDD, the National Public Radio affiliate based at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem. Its reporters asked Skelton about the origin of the Cackalacky brand. “I was at a cookout, and one person said, ‘Hey man, pass me some of that Cackalacky sauce,’ and I was like ‘what?’ It was like that ‘a-ha’ moment.” 

“It kind of has a folksiness to it. People giggle the first time they hear it,” Skelton said. “Cackalacky makes them laugh and smile.” 

“Cackalacky” is the title of a new bluegrass song that was released in 2020 by singer-songwriter Jim Lauderdale as part of his “When Carolina Comes Home Again” album.

Preston Lennon, a correspondent to the Chatham News + Record, noted that Cackalacky has formed some interesting partnerships. One is with Cheerwine, the soft drink company based in Salisbury, to produce a “sweet ‘n savory ‘tomato based’ dipping-grilling sauce and marinade, made with both the Cheerwine formula and the ‘secret Cackalacky spice blend,’ Lennon wrote.

 

Cackalacky also collaborates with Greensboro-based Biscuitville to offer the “Cackalacky Chop Samich,” now available on the luncheon menu at 22 Biscuitville locations, according to Lennon. 

Developed by celebrity chef Andrew Hunter, it’s a spicy Southern fried pork chop cutlet, topped with Carolina slaw and the Cackalacky/Cheerwine sauce on a buttery brioche bun.