The Native North Carolinian

Do you guys like ghost stories? Have you ever heard the tale of Joe Baldwin’s Light? You’ll note that wiki calls it the Maco light, but I live about 15 minutes from Maco, my best friend in high school live in Maco, and around here we call it Joe Baldwin’s light. I reackon just about everybody around here knows the story, except my children. Reckon I’ll fix that the next time we go camping. You reckon ol’ Joe woulda still lost his head if he’d had led tail lights instead of that lantern?

One of my sons went on a tour of the [tag]U.S.S. North Carolina[/tag] this weekend and had a great time. I’ve been meaning to post on it for quite awhile, and this has spurred me to do so. This great battleship served in the Pacific during WWII. She’s been docked in Wilmington since 1961, having been saved from the scrappers by a [tag]Save Our Ship[/tag] campaign by the citizens of North Carolina.

Check out the official site for more on this ship.

North Carolina:

I’m not talking about the flora, nor yet the fauna. I’m not even talking about the incredible beauty of our great state. I am instead talking about the stack of library books about North Carolina directly to my left. The embarrassment comes in because there is so much material I hardly know where to start.

I’ll give you just a few tidbits, and then I will have to do some reading. The first white man to step onto what would become North Carolina was Giovanni da Verrazano in March of 1524. He was an Italian sailing under the French Flag. The first white child born here was Virginia Dare, and three United States Presidents have been born here.

And also, only here in the Carolinas does the Venus Flytrap grow in the wild.

I think Native North Carolinian is pretty self-explanatory, so it’s this part I want to address today: Old North State.  You might think that name would more aptly descibe New England, so here’s why it doesn’t.

When Carolina (notice the singular) was founded, it was just that.  It was named for King Charles (whether French or English, and which one is fodder for another post).  In 1710 the colony was divided into northern and southern sections, and that’s how this southern state came to be called the Old North State.