College football bowl game season is upon us

Welcome to college football bowl game season. Traditionally, the day after Christmas is the kickoff to a slate of football games that match teams with comparable records. “Bowl season” stretches over about a fortnight.

The landscape has continued to change in 2024, requiring that 11 rather minor bowl games be played prior to Christmas…in order to fit them all into the television schedule.  

The expanded College Football Playoffs (CFP) system has mucked things up even more in 2024, claiming four of the major bowl game sites for quarterfinals contests.

Let’s go there first. On New Year’s Eve (Tuesday, Dec. 31), Boise State and Penn State square off at the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Ariz.

On New Year’s Day (Wednesday, Jan. 1): Big Ten Conference foes Oregon and Ohio State tangle at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.; Texas and Arizona State do battle at the Peach Bowl in Atlanta; and Notre Dame and Georgia go head-to-head at the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.

 

(CFP semifinal sites are Jan. 9 at the Orange Bowl in Miami and Jan. 10 in the Cotton Bowl at Arlington, Texas. The championship game is set for Jan. 20 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, home field of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons.)

Adding to the confusion swirling around this year’s college football bowl picture is the “transfer portal” that allows athletes to move about like free agents. Marshall University notified officials that it had to back out of an Independence Bowl appearance, because it didn’t have enough qualified players left to field a competitive team.

So now, Louisiana Tech has replaced Marshall as the opponent for Army in the game that will be played Saturday, Dec. 28, in Shreveport, La.

It seems that more and more premier players are opting out of participating in bowl games, to avoid risk of an injury that could be damaging to their future careers as professional players.

The proverbial coaching carousel has sidelined a few head coaches who won’t be at the helm of their bowl-bound teams. One of note is Mack Brown, who was swept out as head coach of the University of North Carolina, effective at the end of the regular season.

Freddie Kitchens (shown below), who was North Carolina’s run game coordinator and tight ends coach, will be in charge when UNC plays the University of Connecticut on Saturday, Dec. 28, at the Wasabi Fenway Bowl, played at Boston’s historic Fenway Park.

 

(Incoming Tar Heel coach Bill Belichick has announced that he is retaining Kitchens on the coaching staff for the 2025 season.)

UConn compiled an impressive 8-4 record in 2024 as an independent, while Carolina was 6-6 as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). The game should be competitive with the Tar Heels picked as slight favorites.

 

Another important bowl game being played on Saturday, Dec. 28, is the Military Bowl at Navy-Marine Corps Military Stadium in Annapolis, Md., which pits North Carolina State v. East Carolina. It’s a curious pairing of in-state rivals being played about 310 miles north of Greenville, N.C. The stadium seats about 34,000 people, so it will be interesting to see what kind of crowd shows up.

 

N.C. State, also of the ACC, finished at 6-6, while East Carolina of the American Athletic Conference posted a 7-5 record. Oddsmakers give the Wolfpack of N.C. State a one-touchdown edge over the ECU Pirates.

 

Some fans think the Military Bowl committee should have looked ahead. The Pirates travel to Raleigh on Aug. 30 to play the Wolfpack in the 2025 season opener for both teams.

Duke University (9-3) of the ACC is set to play Ole Miss (9-3) of the Southeastern Conference at the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla., on Thursday, Jan. 2. Ole Miss is a double-digit favorite, because Duke’s star quarterback Maalik Murphy entered the transfer portal and has committed to Oregon State.

The Duke Blue Devils are expected to start backup quarterback Henry Belin IV.

We cherish memories of ‘Christmas Past’

Some Christmas collectibles bring back pleasant memories from years gone by. I especially treasure three holiday notes penned by a former colleague whose desk abutted mine in the busy newsroom at The State Journal in Lansing, Mich., during the early 1970s.

We were young, eager reporters who covered our respective beats like badgers.

I’d lost track of Stan Morgan many moons ago, but I Googled him recently and learned that he had died in 2020 at his home in Dover, Ohio. He was a good man who was full of boyish mischief.

After his newspaper career, Stan became a social worker and a published poet.

I’m always moved when I re-read three Christmas messages that he wrote and sent to me while we had remained in contact.

 

“Snow, drifting gently earthward, a cool, white blanket, enhancing…the serenity of this time. May peace, beauty and love be constant companions for us all, and not obscure, lofty ideals take from some shelf of mankind’s conscience and dusted off each Christmas Eve.”

 

 “This year, kindle not only a yule log in the hearth but strike, also, a spark of love in your heart. Vow to capture the pure, innocent joy of a child on Christmas morn and keep it thereafter a glowing ember of happiness and caring that will warm your being forever.”

 

“This Christmas, let joy touch your spirit with the gentle grace of the snowflake. Smile, be tender, and let your eyes laugh with love.”

 

 

Merry Christmas 2024 and let there be Peace on Earth.

PNC says ’12 Days of Christmas’ items will cost $49,263

For the past 40 years, The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc., based in Pittsburgh, Pa., has calculated the cost of the 12 gifts from the classic holiday song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

Developed on a lark in 1984, PNC’s annual Christmas Price Index has become a whimsical holiday tradition.

 

So, if one were so inclined to purchase all the “gifts” mentioned in the lyrics for one’s true love – ranging from a partridge in a pear tree to 12 drummers drumming – the price tag in 2024 is a hefty $49,263.

According to the PNC bankers, this represents a price hike of 5.4% over Christmas 2023, when the total bill was about $46,730.

“It’s fun to look back at the index over the years and see what has changed and how closely that has mirrored consumer behavior and the economy,” said Rebekah McCahan, PNC senior investment and portfolio strategist. “Clearly, we’ve seen a shift over time to an index that is more heavily tilted to the entertainment sector.”

The PNC index noted that the individual groups of 12 drummers and 11 pipers are each commanding fees that are 15.8% higher than a year ago, so the tab for a performance by the drummers is nearly $4,017, while the pipers are charging about $3,715.

 

Additionally, the 10 leaping lords upped their fees to roughly $15,580, a bump up of 7.2%. More modest is the 3.0% increase to a company of nine dancing ladies who will perform for $8,557.

The middle of the song always eats up a big chunk of money, with the cost to attain six geese a-laying ($900) and seven swans a-swimming ($13,125.)

A mother swan glides along with three of her cygnets aboard.

Maintaining seven swans is not the best idea, however. Chris Fritzen, owner of Grand Swan Farm in La Porte, Ind., told Mother Earth News that males pair up with females and mate for life. As a breeder, he always sells swans in pairs.

“A lone swan is a lonely swan,” he tells prospective customers.

“Their natural food in the wild is ‘subaquatic vegetation.’ In simple terms, that means the ‘weeds’ that grow in the pond,” Fritzen said. “The average mute or trumpeter swan ranges in weight from 20 to 40 pounds; it will eat five to eight pounds a day to get enough protein to sustain life.”

Most ponds don’t have enough subaquatic vegetation, however, so Fritzen recommends that swan owners add supplements year-round to make sure the swans are “kept happy, and they stay where they’re supposed to.”

PNC fails to mention that a pair of swans will eat between $300 and $400 a year in dietary supplements. Fritzen said there is also an additional cost to install an aerating system – “something that goes to the bottom of your pond and basically blows air out and it brings warm water up from the bottom of the pond to the top so that it doesn’t freeze.”

PNC is America’s seventh largest financial institution with assets of $559.7 billion and branches in 27 states. You would think some branch manager in a farming community would raise the question about the eight milkmaids in the “The 12 Days of Christmas.”

The PNC index ties the milkmaids’ compensation of $58 to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, which hasn’t changed since 2009.

 

In actuality, because dairy maids have a unique skills set, their competitive wage rate should be about $42 per hour, according to human resources experts. Then, there’s the matter of purchasing or leasing the dairy cows as well as their care and feeding.

‘Grandma Got Run Over…’ may be the people’s choice

What is the “worst Christmas song” of all time?

Many music historians give the nod to the 1979 novelty tune “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” performed by Dr. Elmo Earl Shropshire and released independently on the record label Elmo & Patsy, which was owned by Elmo Shopshire and his wife at the time, Patsy Trigg.

 

Dr. Elmo

Ray Glier, a freelance writer in Atlanta, commented: “How blasphemous that Grandma has hoof marks on her nightgown…and how uproarious!”

The lyrics tell the story of a family celebrating Christmas Eve, when Grandma got snockered on spiked eggnog. She leaves to retrieve her medications and gets trampled by Santa Claus’ reindeer.

Grandpa shows little concern over his wife’s apparent demise and spends the holiday watching football on television, drinking beer and playing cards with Cousin Mel, while the rest of the family wonders if Grandma’s gifts should be opened or returned?

In the music video, Grandma recovers from the attack and makes a triumphant slide down the chimney…before the family digs into a goose dinner.

Interestingly, the songwriter of “Grandma Got Run Over…” is Randy Brooks, a nephew of the late Foster Brooks, a famous comedian who was nicknamed “the loveable lush.”

Among Randy Brooks’ other noteworthy, tongue-in cheek novelty songs is “Will You Be Ready at the Plate (When Jesus Throws the Ball?).”

 

Dr. Elmo (right) and Randy Brooks

Dr. Elmo Shropshire, who’s now 88, may have been a “one-hit wonder” in the music industry, but he’s an American superstar, according to Glier.

While growing up in Ocala, Fla., Shopshire worked as an exercise rider at a thoroughbred horse farm, managed by his father who was also a trainer.

“One of the horses in the Ocala stable was Needles, a sickly colt that got his name because the vets were always trying to find a remedy for his ailments, which meant shots,” Glier said. “It was 18-year-old Elmo Shropshire who broke Needles as a yearling in 1954, getting the horse to settle down, ease into his powerful frame and learn from a firm hand on the reins.”

 

“In 1956, Needles stormed the grand stage of horse racing, winning the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes, two legs of the hallowed Triple Crown. He finished second to Fabius in the Preakness, which meant he was one position away from claiming the Triple Crown,” Glier said.

 

“Elmo Shopshire graduated from the University of Florida, then went to veterinary school at Auburn (Ala.) University. Dr. Elmo was the racetrack veterinarian at Aqueduct and Belmont Park in New York before moving to San Francisco to open his own hospital, Arguello Pet Hospital.”

His second wife, Pam Wendell, a distance runner, introduced Dr. Elmo to the sport of competitive racing when he was 55. Although he has completed marathons, Dr. Elmo specializes in shorter distances, ranging from 400M to 5K.

 A favorite training ground is Costa Rica, where the jungle humidity is taxing. He is accompanied by Pam, “to make sure I don’t get lost or eaten by a jaguar,” Dr. Elmo adds.

The Shropshires live on a secluded ranch in Novato, Calif., a community in Marin County that borders San Pablo Bay, north of San Francisco.

 

But, every year, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, members of the news media come clamoring for interviews and cameo performances. Dr. Elmo gladly obliges, wrote Clark Mason of The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, Calif. Dr. Elmo may schedule up to 20 interviews a day.

The song “Grandma Got Run Over…” made him “a millionaire five times over, something the ebullient Shropshire does not dispute,” Mason said.

Beaufort’s interest in historical preservation began in 1960

The semiquincentennial anniversary in the Town of Beaufort, N.C., came and went in 1959, with no fanfare.

(The community of Beaufort was settled in 1709 and claims to be the third oldest settlement in the North Carolina colony, after Bath and Edenton.)

 

It was duly noted that Ruth Barbour, who was the editor of the Carteret County News-Times, may have been the only one around who could spell the word “semiquincentennial” and knew that it was the proper term for a 250-year anniversary. (She is shown below.)

 

The oversight was finally brought to the attention of one of the pillars of the community – the town’s official historian as well as its former mayor and past local school board president – Grayden  M. Paul. (Below is a photo of Grayden Paul when he attended Wake Forest (N.C.) College in 1919.)

 

Barbour reported that Grayden Paul “was not one to let a mere thing like a year deter him.” He believed that the town should go ahead and celebrate the 251-year anniversary in 1960…and act like they planned it that way.

“To finance the celebration, Mr. Paul decided that a thousand dollars would be a good start,” Barbour wrote. “If only 10 people contributed $100, the amount would be in hand. He went before the town board and received its blessing.”

“I knew if we could get $100 from each business in town, we’d have enough money to put on the whole celebration,” Grayden Paul said.

“The money was raised, the celebration was a success, and this was the spark that ignited general interest in capitalizing on Beaufort’s past,” Barbour wrote.

Grayden Paul came up with the idea to reenact the 1747 pirate invasion of Beaufort. He told the newspaper: “The only way Beaufort knew for certain it had ever had any pirates ashore was because somebody had found an ancient bill” from merchant William Moore to cover the cost of beef to feed 10 pirates who were detained in the town jail.

Not much is known about the invasion, other than the leaders of the town militia were hailed as heroes – Col. Thomas Lovick and Maj. Enoch Ward.

We know a bit more about the 1960 reenactment, however. Historian Neal Willis participated as one of the pirates.

He said members of the Fire Department dressed as pirates, wearing bandannas and nautical outfits. They carried plastic cutlasses and guns. “The town defenders were mostly merchants dressed in overalls and straw hats and carrying guns,” Willis wrote.

 

The pirates planned to charge over the breakwater “with blood curdling screams, waving cutlasses and firing guns,” he said. “We had been practicing the landing for a week, mostly when the tide was high. When the real landing came, the tide was low. The boat ran aground about six feet from the shore.”

“The bow was on land, but the rest of the boat was over water about 10 feet deep. We didn’t know the water was that deep until we went over the side and were in over our heads,” Willis said. “Our pirate costumes were wet and coming apart. Our guns were wet, and some didn’t fire. Our plastic cutlasses were floating away.”

“But we still charged the defenders. We put up quite a fight. After the battle, the town defenders loaded us into horse drawn wooden carts and carried us to the jail....”

The Pirate Invasion has beome an annual event, drawing large crowds of spectators each year to Beaufort.

Barbour stated: “Grayden Paul’s small group that started things rolling for the town’s 251st anniversary in July 1960 was the nucleus of the Beaufort Historical Association.”

Welcome to Beaufort. Nautical flags spell out the name of the town.

A natural showman, promoter and storyteller, Grayden Paul dressed in outlandish costumes to conduct guided tours around town. Tourists were thoroughly entertained.

 

In 1968, the North Carolina Department of Transportation named the drawbridge that carried U.S. Route 70 over Gallants Channel into Beaufort as the Grayden Paul Bridge. It featured a “double-leaf bascule span” and had been built in 1957 to replace the original 1927.

 

The Grayden Paul Bridge was replaced in January 2018 with a new 65-foot, high rise, fixed-span bridge – known as the Gallants Channel Bridge.

 

In the 1960s, the Beaufort Woman’s Club, under the guidance of its president Emily Loftin, initiated the development of a Beaufort town crest.

Permission was sought from the College of Arms in London, England, to adopt the Duke of Beaufort’s crest for the design.

Authorities approved a design that preserved the original heraldry in the upper two quadrants of the crest, including the three fleurs-de-lis (also spelled fleurs-de-lys) in the shape of a lilies and the three three golden lions passant with their faces toward the viewer. 

In the lower two quadrants, replacing the three fleurs-de-list are three red roses of Lancaster – the ruling house at the time Beaufort was chartered in 1723 – as well as three fish that take the place the lions.

Primary graphic designers and artists on the project were Will Hon and Richard Thomas.

 

 

The United States observes its Semiquincentennial (250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence) on July 4, 2026. 

A product of the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, Pa., in July 1776 was the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson ws the primary author. 

Here are two versions of possible graphics under consideration:

 Major events are planned in Boston, Philadelphia, New York City and Charleston, S.C.

The federal government intends to issue commemorative coins and postage stamps.

During his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump pledged to throw a “spectacular birthday party” by assembling a White House task force named “Salute to America 250.”

Proposals include a “Great American State Fair” to be held in the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines, featuring pavilions from all 50 states.

In addition, Trump said he would create the “Patriot Games” for high school students across the nation to “allow young Americans from every state to show off the best of American skill, sportsmanship and competitive spirit.” 

Once again, Harkers Island, N.C., lights up for Christmas!

Hallelujah! Harkers Island is back on Our State magazine’s official list of “North Carolina Christmas towns.”

The 2024 Our State Christmas issue features an eight-page editorial spread about the revitalization of the Harkers Island holiday lights, written by freelance journalist Ryan Stancil and illustrated with 11 color photographs shot by Baxter Miller. (Several are shown here, compliments of Our State.)

Down East Carteret County locals are still beaming at the sight of full-page images of the “now ubiquitous” Harkers Island anchor and a 25-foot Christmas tree built from multi-colored crab pots that is decorated with an assortment of buoys. The sturdy “tree with personality” welcomes visitors and guests to the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum & Heritage Center on Harkers Island.

 

Sprinkled among the narrative are photos of America’s original crab pot Christmas trees, built from durable, weather-proof, PVC-coated crab trap wire. Created and patented in 2004 by Nicky Harvey, owner of Harvey and Sons in Davis, the unique crab pot trees are handcrafted at the Fisherman Creations Inc. workshop in nearby Smyrna.

 

In his article, Stancil explains that a renewed Christmas spirit on Harkers Island and throughout the Down East region has been sparked by folks like Emma Rose Guthrie (known as “Emmer”) and Della Brooks.

For generations, the Christmas season has been a festive time for families who have lived at the water’s edge. Emmer Guthrie said she remembered her family would go out in search of the “perfect Christmas tree” on Christmas Eve.

“We’d go along the shore to the cemetery and find a real pretty little cedar tree,” she told Stancil. “Daddy bought pancake syrup in gallon buckets, and we’d take one of them empty buckets, fill it full of heavy sand, wrap paper around it to hide the bucket, and stick the tree in it. We’d make paper chains and cut out Stanta faces at school. We’d hang oyster shells, clam shells, scallop shells – anything we could find – on the tree. Never had any lights.”

Electrification arrived on Harkers Island in 1939, when the utilities company ran an underwater cable over from Beaufort. Everybody’s first light bill was $2.50, Emmer Guthrie said. The whole place lit up for Christmas that year.

When the first bridge opened in 1941, connecting Harkers Island to the mainland at Straits, people would drive for miles just to see the Harkers Island holiday lights. Times changed, however, over the course of the next 60 or so years. The lights seemed to grow dimmer with each passing decade.

In 2015, a grassroots “Bring Back the Lights” committee came together to see what it could do to “get the spirit going again.” The group groped for a “hook” or a symbol to rally the homeowners. It was Emmer Guthrie who suggested an “anchor.” She said the anchor “represents our fishing heritage” and celebrates the birth of Jesus at Christmas, who is the anchor of Christianity. Everyone agreed.

Richard Gillikin, a local boat captain, set out to design the anchor, and Andy Scott, who is a commercial fisherman and marine fabricator, volunteered to produce them – made from a shiny marine-grade aluminum.

 

Sold exclusively through the Core Sound museum’s gift shops, the anchors are available in two sizes: large (34” x 30”) and small (21.5” x 20.5”).

Stancil said that in 2024, “undecorated homes on Harkers Island are now the exception at Christmastime.” The lights that glow from one end of the island to the other now “shine as a testament to what a small group of people – bound by tradition, determination and a little Christmas cheer can do together.”

“On Harkers Island…the anchor holds.”

 

 

Our State selects 7 more N.C. ‘towns that twinkle’ at Christmas

The “Photo Essay” in the December 2024 issue of Our State magazine turned the spotlight on seven communities across North Carolina that “celebrate the holiday season with sparkling lights, vibrant displays and festive events that bring joy to the world.

Working from west to east, these communities are:

Forest City in Rutherford County, McAdenville in Gaston County, Mocksville in Davie County; Pinehurst in Moore County, Cary in Wake County, New Bern in Craven County and Morehead City-Beaufort in Carteret County.

Staff writer Rebecca Woltz said the Holiday Flotilla held each year in early December, hosted by the Friends of the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort, navigates from the Morehead City waterfront to Beaufort, “leaving much entertainment in its wake.”

(Flotilla photos by Charles Harris are shown below, compliments of Our State.)