Tag: North Carolina

An almost summer Deep Southern Gen X sampler, from “the lists”

Posted on by Foster Dickson in 1980s, 1990s, Arkansas, Georgia, Music, North Carolina, North Florida, Youth

The section in level:deepsouth called “the lists” is for collecting and sharing articles, sound files, videos, web links, and images from Generation X’s early years in the Deep South and from today. Below is a sampler.

Epitome Community Coffee Museum and Purple Circle in Tallahassee, Florida (Facebook group)

One of the stories on level:deepsouth that has been visited most often is William Nesbitt’s “At the Epitome,” which is his reminiscence of a popular coffee shop and hangout in Tallahassee, Florida. For those who might be interested, there’s also a Facebook group that shares memories from there.

The Jupiter Coyote Story (January 6, 2021)

The rock/blues/country/jam band Jupiter Coyote started in Macon, Georgia before moving to North Carolina, and put out several popular albums in the 1990s. This four-hour radio show shares some of their music and tells their story.

Toad Suck Daze

The events page is new to “the lists,” and it contains information on the festivals that GenXers grew up going to in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. From that new list, Arkansas’s Toad Suck Daze was founded in 1982 and continues today.

To find out how to contribute to “the lists,” check the submit page.

tidbits, fragments, and ephemera 2

Posted on by Foster Dickson in Deep South, Mississippi, North Carolina

tidbits, fragments, and ephemera is a usually weekly but not always, sometimes substantial but not making any promises glimpse at some information and news related to Generation X in the Deep South.

Mississippi’s Education Reform Act of 1982

Only the very oldest GenXers in Mississippi would have avoided the effects of this significant change in the way that public education were handled. According to this excerpt from the Mississippi Encyclopedia, after a history of education policy driven by segregation: “The Mississippi Education Reform Act of 1982 established compulsory school attendance, created state-funded kindergartens, increased teacher pay, authorized the hiring of teaching assistants and truant officers, and implemented a statewide testing program for performance-based accreditation of public schools. The reforms were funded by increases in the state’s sales tax and corporate and individual income taxes.”

Reader’s Digest shares the ten best cities for each generation.

According to this article from April 2021, seven of the ten best cities for GenXers to live in are in the South: Atlanta, Louisville, Charlotte, Raleigh, and three cities in south Florida. Sadly, you have scroll past the list for the Boomers to get to our list.

The Ole Miss podcast “Swerve South” features the host of “Waiting to X-hale” podcast.

excerpted: “‘Swerve South,’ a six-part weekly series that debuted Nov. 27, examines the Deep South through the lenses of gender, feminism, multiculturalism, pop culture and queer culture.” Guest have included “the producers of the popular podcast “Waiting to X-Hale,” which fleshes out influential cultural and social moments that define Generation X.”

Homecoming celebrations at HBCUs

This New York Times article “Welcome to Homecoming!” from October 2020 provides an array of perspectives on the traditions at historically black colleges and universities in the South. Several of the recollections are from the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s and include photographs.

The founding of the Savannah College of Art and Design, 1978

excerpted: “The school began its first academic year in the fall of 1979 with seventy-one students, eight faculty, four staff, five trustees, and eight majors. [ . . . ] In May 1981 the first commencement ceremony was held in Savannah’s Madison Square for one graduate.”

level:deepsouth is an online anthology about growing up Generation X in the Deep South during the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. The anthology is open to submissions of creative nonfiction (essays, memoirs, and reviews) and images (photos and flyers), as well as to contributions for the lists.

R.E.M. at the Mall

Posted on by peterjstavros in 1980s, Deep South, Music, North Florida

by Peter Stavros

It was 1984, and I was a college freshman in Durham, North Carolina, living away from home for the first time. Early in the fall semester, I was still trying to find my place among students who seemed to have all gotten perfect SAT scores and spent the summer taking prep courses at Harvard or learning life lessons in Outward Bound. I, on the other hand, had gone to visit my grandparents in Clearwater Beach, where a stingray stung me on the foot and the lifeguard peed on it. After my mid-week chem lab, where I had poured some chemicals down the sink that apparently weren’t supposed to be poured down the sink, I needed a break. So I walked a few blocks from campus to Northgate Mall.

The mall was everything to me in the ’80s, especially growing up in a small Eastern Kentucky town with not a whole lot going on, where a rite of passage was to drive to the mall once you got your driver’s license – no easy feat since the closest mall was in West Virginia, a good forty minutes on the “four-lane.” The mall was my world. It was where I got my haircuts, shopped for clothes, bought books and posters and fake plastic dog poop, listened to music, played video games and ate the most delicious pizza at a real authentic New York pizzeria called Sbarro. I fell in love at the mall. And on this day, I met R.E.M.

As I wandered about the wide, brightly lit corridors, I noticed two card tables set out in front of the Record Bar, on either side of the entrance, with a group of guys seated at each table — shaggy hair and wrinkled shirts and distressed jeans, so they were definitely somebody. But there was no signage or anything that said who they were. I nodded politely when I passed by and entered the store. I was searching for a song I had been hearing on the college radio station WXDU, something about being sorry, maybe, because the lyrics weren’t entirely clear. When I conveyed this to the clerk, he handed me a 45 titled “So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)” by this relatively new band R.E.M. (and you pronounced the letters individually and not like “rem”).

“You know they’re outside signing autographs,” he mentioned as he rang me up. “You oughtta have ’em sign this.”

I thanked him for that bit of intelligence and exited the store, and it occurred to me how that probably wasn’t such a bad idea. It would perhaps give me something to talk to my fellow freshmen about when I got to the dorm. The only problem, as I stood looking now at the backs of both of these groups, was that I had no idea which was R.E.M. I pondered this, seeing if I could discern any clue that might indicate who was who. I couldn’t retreat inside the Record Bar and ask the clerk, because then what kind of dork would I have been. I decided instead to leave it to chance. I approached the band seated at the card table to the right, and confidently requested, “Can you sign my record please?”

“We’re the dB’s,” the shaggy-haired guy replied, insouciant, and then motioned across with a flick of his hand, “That’s R.E.M., dude.”

In an inefficacious attempt to save face, I said, “Oh, damn, that’s right—what was I thinking . . . dude?” and tried to laugh it off as I grabbed the 45 and slinked over to the other table, hoping that no one else had witnessed my gaffe. Fortunately, the members of R.E.M. seemed even less interested in what was happening.

They were crammed behind this rickety card table, each staring off in a different direction. I warily held out the single, which depicted on its cover a silhouette of someone clutching a wooden model sailboat. They knew the drill, and each took turns signing it for me, passing the record on down the line. Bill Berry and Mike Mills just wrote their names, but Peter Buck wrote, “To Pete from Peter Buck.” And Michael Stipe, the last to sign, wrote, “To Pete from me” and added, “my boat dammit.” Then, as the enigmatic lead singer casually handed the 45 back to me, he did the coolest rock n’ roll thing I had ever witnessed (and to date it has remained as such): he blew his nose into the sleeve of his baggy flannel jacket!

Needless to say, I had much to discuss at the dining hall that evening. Everyone seemed quite impressed with my treasure, and I made some friends then who I still have today. The encounter also sparked my interest in music. I went on to become a DJ for WXDU, playing an array of musical groups and genres during the coveted 11:00 PM to 2:00 AM time slot (while honing my ability to tell bands apart). R.E.M. became my band, almost like I had discovered them. We forever had this bond. I saw them perform one year at the university auditorium and the next year at the civic center in Raleigh, then on to larger venues. Years later, I even scheduled a business trip so that I could see them headline the Bumbershoot music festival in Seattle.

That autographed 45 has survived numerous moves around the country, from one city and job (and life) to the next, and occupies a special spot on the bookshelf in my home office. I often gaze upon it as I sit at my computer, and reflect on that anxious freshman who was struggling to fit in, and who had a whole new world suddenly opened up to him by a chance meeting with R.E.M. at the mall.

——

Peter J. Stavros is a writer in Louisville, Kentucky, and the author of Three in the Morning and You Don’t Smoke Anymore (Etchings Press, 2020).